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  Topic: Young Cosmos, A Salvador Cordova project< Next Oldest | Next Newest >  
stevestory



Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 26 2008,10:26   

Quote (Reciprocating Bill @ Jan. 26 2008,10:50)
Nothing says "check the original" like Sal's use of ellipses:
       
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By the way, Ed, before you accuse me making an illogical argument about Darwinism and bestiality, consider the writings of one of your own Darwinist prophets, Peter Singer. I hope you enjoy the essay, HEAVY PETTING, where Singer makes exactly the argument that Darwinism implies bestiality:
     
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Heard anyone chatting at parties lately about how good it is having sex with their dog?
…..
At a conference on great apes a few years ago, I spoke to a woman who had visited Camp Leakey, a rehabilitation center for captured orangutans in Borneo run by Birute Galdikas, sometimes referred to as “the Jane Goodall of orangutans” and the world’s foremost authority on these great apes.
….
Galdikas understands very well that we are animals, indeed more specifically, we are great apes. This does not make sex across the species barrier normal, or natural, whatever those much-misused words may mean, but it does imply that it ceases to be an offence to our status and dignity as human beings.

From the original:
     
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But not every taboo has crumbled. Heard anyone chatting at parties lately about how good it is having sex with their dog? Probably not. Sex with animals is still definitely taboo. If Midas Dekkers, author of Dearest Pet, has got it right, this is not because of its rarity. Dekkers, a Dutch biologist and popular naturalist, has assembled a substantial body of evidence to show that humans have often thought of "love for animals" in ways that go beyond a pat and a hug, or a proper concern for the welfare of members of other species. His book has a wide range of illustrations, going back to a Swedish rock drawing from the Bronze Age of a man fucking a large quadruped of indeterminate species. There is a Greek vase from 520 BC showing a male figure having sex with a stag; a seventeenth-century Indian miniature of a deer mounting a woman; an eighteenth-century European engraving of an ecstatic nun coupling with a donkey, while other nuns look on, smiling; a nineteenth-century Persian painting of a soldier, also with a donkey; and, from the same period, a Japanese drawing of a woman enveloped by a giant octopus who appears to be sucking her cunt, as well as caressing her body with its many limbs.

Howzabout those nuns, Sal? And you'll notice that the majority of these depictions predate Darwin. Later:
     
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At a conference on great apes a few years ago, I spoke to a woman who had visited Camp Leakey, a rehabilitation center for captured orangutans in Borneo run by Birute Galdikas, sometimes referred to as "the Jane Goodall of orangutans" and the world's foremost authority on these great apes. At Camp Leakey, the orangutans are gradually acclimatised to the jungle, and as they get closer to complete independence, they are able to come and go as they please. While walking through the camp with Galdikas, my informant was suddenly seized by a large male orangutan, his intentions made obvious by his erect penis. Fighting off so powerful an animal was not an option, but Galdikas called to her companion not to be concerned, because the orangutan would not harm her, and adding, as further reassurance, that "they have a very small penis." As it happened, the orangutan lost interest before penetration took place, but the aspect of the story that struck me most forcefully was that in the eyes of someone who has lived much of her life with orangutans, to be seen by one of them as an object of sexual interest is not a cause for shock or horror. The potential violence of the orangutan's come-on may have been disturbing, but the fact that it was an orangutan making the advances was not. That may be because Galdikas understands very well that we are animals, indeed more specifically, we are great apes. This does not make sex across the species barrier normal, or natural, whatever those much-misused words may mean, but it does imply that it ceases to be an offence to our status and dignity as human beings.

So Sal has deleted the minor detail that, in this instance, it was the orangutan that was interested in and aroused by the human being, not the reverse. And, not surprisingly, a perusal of Singer's article discloses 1) Singer doesn't condone interspecies intercourse ("This does not make sex across the species barrier normal, or natural"), and 2) Sal, by means of his usual ham-handed distortions, has attempted to depict a passage that states one thing as stating another.

Ed Brayton suggests alternative theories of Sal Cordova:
     
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There's really only two choices here. Either Sal really believes this, in which case he is a first class, grade-A fucking moron, or he doesn't believe it and he's just using it to smear people he disagrees with. Take your pick. Either way, it's repulsive.

Sal prefers that we regard him as a grade-A fucking moron. But the above is more consistent with manipulation in an attempt to smear people with whom he disagrees (wouldn't want to end a sentence with a preposition). I say we needn't choose: both are the case.

That's the essential thing you wonder about any particular creationist. Are they stupid enough to believe these things they say, or are they just trying to take advantage of other creationists, buy accumulating honoraria and book sales and such.

   
  948 replies since July 31 2007,08:19 < Next Oldest | Next Newest >  

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