h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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Exactly. And that should be allowed to happen as naturally and safely as possible without children and adolescents being misinterpreted or taken advantage of.

az

I agree with road kill I reckon it's in the eye of the beholder.

And since someone...Jez? demanded that we get back on topic, then I must point out that this whole thread is terribly Foucaultian. God becomes a construct of language, rather than an absolute, and that lingusitic turn becomes the point of argument.

Which also dovetails nicely into the whole "in the eye of the beholder" argument. There's a lot of stuff out there that I think of as "ugly art." It seems that a lot of artists want to create something visually unpleasant as a way of forcing the viewer beyond their comfort zone, making them "think" about art. This, too, is part of that linguistic turn. Art used to be judged on specific criteria such as symmetry. Now, it's subjective.

ADent,

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Fair enough. But what if the beholder is a paedophile who is looking at your daughter? Would that be okay?

I don't believe this is a subject that can ever be intellectualized. For many it is far too emotional.



Jez,

You mentioned earlier that people wanting to talk about paedophilia should start another thread. But this bit of the conversation is an extension, I think, of this thread. Though I think most of what has been said this time round has been said before.

Mind you, what hasn't?

az

"Fair enough. But what if the beholder is a paedophile who is looking at your daughter? Would that be okay?"

Who says beauty is necessarily a good thing? I'm not saying it's a bad thing either, mind.

az. Not at all. Please respond with a proper argument against what I say instead of just generally suggesting that I don't make a good point.

toxx

"IIRC?"

If I remember correctly.

Toxx - Thanks for saying that I've got a philosophical bent . Unfortunately this thread often falls slightly outside philosophy and into science, or egoistic ethics, ie the regular occurance of the paedophilia and homosexuality debates, so I don't always have anything to contribute.

Txx
A forced smile is in the moutharea only, a genuine smile has crinkled eye edges .Alji will confirm

Txx
A forced smile is in the mouth area only, a genuine smile has crinkled eye edges .Alji will confirm

"Philosophers are all too rare."

Heard on R4 today:
Philosophers are people who go into coal holes at dead of night without a light to seek a black cat who isn't there.

Theologians are people who find the cat.

Lawyers smuggle in the cat and then produce it as they exit, with a triumphant flourish.

I liked that

And according to Wittgenstein the purpose of philosophy is to *demonstrate* that the black cat isn't there.

Noggin

Toxx

"I've spoken to girls who are perfectly happy, if not proud, to have lost their virginity at the age of 12."

What other very important life events would you take on face value from anyone aged twelve?
would you listen to any advice they would have for you about your own life?
would you expect them to be able to fully explain Einsteins theory of relativity? would you believe them if they said that all they wanted to do at the age of twelve was to have sex and a baby?
My take on this would be to feel very sad.
What on earth is there to feel proud about in having sexual activity at twelve ?

So nice of him to say that, when he seems to spend half of all his books denying language as a totally effective communication tool. "We could say that Cat1 can be assumed to be a language-game blah blah blah..."

"Oh, toxx, there is no connection between photos of young naturalists and photos of young girls being taken for the explicit purpose of sexual arousal."

az, just to confuse matters - anything is arousing to most paedophiles. They find Littlewoods home shopping magazines arousing and cut out pictures of the children modelling childrens' clothes!

However, to address what you are saying - of course there is a difference between what is imposed by the photgrapher and what is not 9as distinct from posed v unposed photos - a lot of children enjoy posing for the camera, naked or clothed. But I got the impression toxx was talking about photos where the child wanted to pose.

I've just watched the Life Of Brian after a few years.
Excellent film. Brian really does have a sound theological argument.
I particularly liked the bit about 'rights' when one of the male philistines demanded the right to have a baby. The rest of the group so determined in the the function of freedom of speech and rights for all, at any cost, decided that they would protest his rights to give birth. Worth thinking about.

Moth
Seems to me that he was *privileged* to be born a male

toxx,

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I will if you will.

az

Again this is about exploitation
Will photographs of children in tubs be exploited by parents in general?
If the priest at the local church takes the same photos the intent will be different and inappropriate.
Paedophiles also get a kick out of taking photos of fully clad children in parks, so maybe there's something here about being covert and controlling and stealing something too.
I think we do keep coming back to this subject, because it is a complicated issue and difficult to get straight, but I'll say it again, if it exploits it's wrong and we don't need a bible to tell us so. If it smells like a rat it probably is a rat.
most paedophiles are'happier' in a relationship with someone (age not an issue totally) who has less control than they do. It is much easier to control, exploit, manipulate, and charm someone with a lower mental age and less experience of life than a fully grown woman/man partner.

Brian's theological argument in a nutshell
"You don't need anyone to lead you
you don't need anyone to tell you what to do
you are an individual
think for yourself."