'Pride Month'

^Exactly--I couldn't have said it better myself.^

 

How does that make it different? The mechanism, the way the brain works, is science. "Okay" is irrelevant, because its a social definition. It changes. In 100 years, what's "okay" and what isn't could be completely different, but Pedophilia would still work the same way. Pedophilia is, in all ways, the same as any other sexuality. The difference is that, in today's society, a pedophile acting upon their desire is not permissible. That doesn't change what pedophilia is, what it does, or how it works.

You're literally saying I'm right. If it's the same, then it's the same.

But it does exist. It exists the same way any other sexuality exists. And no, it's not acceptable to act upon it, but that doesn't mean that it's different.

 

I'm not saying that acting on pedophilia is wrong because "society says so;" I'm saying that acting on pedophilia is wrong because it harms a child. Regardless of whether or not society thinks pedophilia is okay to act upon, I will stand by the claim that harming a child for your personal sexual gratification is wrong.

Just because part of something is the same does not mean that the entire thing is the same. Your claim was not just that pedophilia works in the same way as other sexualites; your claim was that pedophilia is the same as other sexualities. While the mechanism is the same, the sexuality that controls and causes that mechanism to work is different in pedophilia since it causes the mechanism to be directed towards undeveloped children, creating a 'sexuality' that cannot be acted upon.

Sexuality exists to be acted upon. If it's impossible for someone to act on their sexuality without harming somebody, their sexuality should not be regarded as the same as other sexualities. Pedophilia does exist, but that doesn't mean that we should just act like it's fine because "it's the same as other sexualities;" instead, we need to be accepting of pedophiles as people who have a mental illnesses. We need to encourage pedophiles to accept that they have a problem and work to overcome that problem, not act like it's not a problem in the first place.

 

What is wrong is up to the society, that's why you believe what you believe, but I would agree with this. Never have denied it.

How is the function of Pedophilia different?

It actually can be acted upon, and is therefore the same. Our society, however, has determined that there should be repercussions.
The mechanism is the sexuality. It is the brain function that causes the attraction. The only difference is the target of the attraction, while the attraction itself is the same as every other sexuality.

If pedophilia is a mental illness, then being gay is a mental illness. Being straight is a mental illness. It isn't. It's something much deeper than that, and this is backed up by the success rates of 'treatment', which proves about as effective as 'treatment' for homosexuals. You're literally trying to get someone to deny their sexuality, and yet, nobody recognizes how hard it is for the pedophile. So many of them hate themselves, and society only reinforces that idea. If any groups needs support, it's pedophiles, so that they can feel comfortable seeking help.

Actually, sexuality exists to create a match between a man and a woman such that children may be created. That is the entire purpose of sex drive, and the reason that it exists.

Let's say you had two tumors. One was malignant, and one was benign. Let's say your doctor recommended you remove them both. How would you remove each of them? The same way. Why? Because they're the same illness. They're both tumors. The only difference is that one will kill you, and one may kill you. Other than that, they're both the same. A group of cells that's DNA was disrupted.

Is being gay a mental illness?

How do you propose we do this? By acting like this:

?

Or by accepting them as people, and helping them?

 

Like I said, the rest of society is entirely irrelevant, as my opinion wouldn't change even if everybody else though that acting on pedophilia was fine.

The brain function is different, considering that a person with a completely healthily functioning brain would not have a 'sexuality' that they cannot act upon in an okay way. The attraction and desire that the person feel work in the same way, but the brain function is not the same since it's directing these feelings to someone that it should not direct them towards.

You're pushing other people's opinions onto me. I've never said that pedophiles don't need support or that they should deny how they feel. Pedophilia is, however, a mental illness; if it weren't, it wouldn't be something that pedophiles need to work to overcome. The reason that pedophilia is a mental illness is because it is an uncontrollable mental and sexual desire to do something that is not okay to do for personal/sexual gratification. If somebody had an uncontrollable desire to shoot other people for personal/sexual gratification, they would be considered to have a mental disorder, if somebody had an uncontrollable desire to chop off their brother's legs for personal/sexual gratification, they would be considered to have a mental disorder, AND if someone has an uncontrollable desire to be sexually involved with an undeveloped child for personal/sexual gratification, they also are considered to have a mental disorder. You're right on saying that treatments might not work to help pedophiles; however, that does not mean that they shouldn't personally work to keep their thoughts and actions in check.

Yes, and it exists to be acted upon in that way. The reason that homosexuality isn't and shouldn't be regarded as any different than this is because acting on it is perfectly okay (on top of this, certain anatomical features such as the location of the male g-spot support the claim that humans evolved to act on being gay).

This is a somewhat odd analogy, comparing pedophilia and homosexuality to two tumors that both need to be removed? It doesn't really work because even though they're way better an malignant tumors, benign tumors are still not 'good' since they're caused by a cellular issue.

Being gay is not a mental illness because acting on it is perfectly fine.

Don't blame me for what others have said.

We need to accept them as people and help them, yes, but that also means that we need to accept that they have a mental illness and encourage them to accept that as well. When someone learns that somebody is a pedophile that has managed to control their desires, their thought process shouldn't be, "That pedophile is just like a gay person, the fact that they're a pedophile is totally fine!" Instead, their thought process should be along the lines of, "That pedophile unfortunately has a mental illness (a problem) that they can't control; they need acceptance and help in overcoming and controlling the urges and thoughts that it causes."

 

...

 

Your opinion would be different though. That's how societal belief works.

I'm done.

 

If societal belief dictated the belief of everybody, then everyone would always agree with what the majority of society thought. After spending as much time in the debates section here as you have, it should be blatantly obvious that there are people that have opinions that differ from the majority of society. My opinion that acting on pedophilia is wrong is based on the logic that any action that harms other children for personal pleasure/gratification is wrong, which isn't going to change if society decides to say otherwise.

The ironic thing here is that for some reason you're claiming to know that societal belief would change my own opinion when you're strongly sticking to your opinion on pedophilia not being a mental illness even though that goes directly against what the majority of society believes.

 

Is eating another human being wrong?

 

Killing another human being in order to eat them or eating a human being that is already dead?

If it's the former, then yes, as a general opinion, though there can be exceptions. For instance, if you're with a group of people and you're stranded on an island or in the wilderness without food for so long that you're going to die if you don't eat very soon, it would be more logical to kill one person and eat them than it would be to let everyone die. So, in that scenario, since the pros (lives saved) outweigh the cons (lives lost) of killing a person in order to eat them, it's not wrong.

If it's the latter, it depends. As long as you're the one that's in control of the dead body and you aren't desecrating a dead body that somebody else is in control of and views as sacred or anything, then I don't necessarily think that it's wrong. Disrespectful and disgusting, sure, but I wouldn't say that it's wrong.

 

Well sure--the desire to eat another human being is wrong--no ifs and buts.

If you want to eat another human being but don't, that doesn't necessarily make you an inherently bad person though per se.

Why is this relevant though? You're constantly moving the goalposts, which makes it difficult to follow the discussion.

 

It depends, what are the circumstances you are in?

 

Normal, living circumstances.

 

Well if you were starving... and it was hitler... it depends...

but no not in normal living circumstances.

 

I'll explain.

So far, the debate has been going like this:
I maintain the position that, since pedophilia is a sexuality like any other, and since all of society hates pedophiles, it is hypocritical for Shains to keep the position that members of the LGBT+ community require a pride month, whereas pedophiles require no support in their lives whatsoever.

The position that Supreme_overlord seems to me to be maintaining (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong @Supreme_Overlord) is that:
Since pedophilia targets children, which is unacceptable, it is different from other sexualities.

With regards to this, I have argued that since the target of children has been determined to be unacceptable by our society, and therefore is subjective, and since the cause, effect, and everything else about pedophilia would exist whether or not we put a name to it (it is independent of societal definitions), then it is irrelevant that pedophilia targets a group that is off-limits, since that doesn't change the affliction at all.
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With regards to this Supreme_Overlord has made the claim that even if the societal definition were different, his opinion would remain the same.

In response, I am using cannibalistic societies as examples.

"However, there were several well-documented cultures that engaged in regular eating of the dead, such as New Zealand's Māori. In an 1809 incident known as the Boyd massacre, about 66 passengers and crew of the Boyd were killed and eaten by Māori on the Whangaroa peninsula, Northland. Cannibalism was already a regular practice in Māori wars.[70] In another instance, on July 11, 1821 warriors from the Ngapuhi tribe killed 2,000 enemies and remained on the battlefield "eating the vanquished until they were driven off by the smell of decaying bodies".[71] Māori warriors fighting the New Zealand government in Titokowaru's War in New Zealand's North Island in 1868–69 revived ancient rites of cannibalism as part of the radical Hauhau movement of the Pai Marire religion.[72]

Other islands in the Pacific were home to cultures that allowed cannibalism to some degree. In parts of Melanesia, cannibalism was still practiced in the early 20th century, for a variety of reasons—including retaliation, to insult an enemy people, or to absorb the dead person's qualities.[73] One tribal chief, Ratu Udre Udre in Rakiraki, Fiji, is said to have consumed 872 people and to have made a pile of stones to record his achievement.[74][75] Fiji was nicknamed the "Cannibal Isles" by European sailors, who avoided disembarking there. The dense population of Marquesas Islands, Polynesia, was concentrated in the narrow valleys, and consisted of warring tribes, who sometimes practiced cannibalism on their enemies. W. D. Rubinstein wrote:

It was considered a great triumph among the Marquesans to eat the body of a dead man. They treated their captives with great cruelty. They broke their legs to prevent them from attempting to escape before being eaten, but kept them alive so that they could brood over their impending fate. ... With this tribe, as with many others, the bodies of women were in great demand.[4]"

-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism

Even though people in our society would say that cannibalism is wrong and disgusting and we'd never (under normal circumstances) think it's an acceptable practice, if the societal attitudes were different (say, as in the Maori people of New Zealand) cannibalism would be an acceptable practice.

It is therefore unreasonable of Supreme_Overlord to think that he would maintain the same positions regardless of his society's positions.



The reason I said I was finished with this debate is that, despite several posts, we have not been able to progress past the indicated (-----------) point.

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 8, 2016, Original Post Date: Jul 8, 2016 ---

What if you lived in a cannibalistic society where eating people was considered acceptable? Using that frame of reference, wouldn't it be O.K.?

 

You're contradicting yourself.

You've said in this post that, "all of society hates pedophiles;" so if your claims about societal beliefs were true, both of us would hate pedophiles as well. Though we've disagreed about it being the same thing as other 'sexualities,' we've both agreed that pedophilia is uncontrollable and that pedophiles should not be hated or disliked for what they cannot control (their feelings, not actions). Society, on the other hand, seems to largely believe that pedophiles are inherently evil people for what is outside of their control. If either of our personal opinions were dictated by societal beliefs, we would feel this way as well. Since neither of us do feel this way, I think it's safe to say that we are both capable of holding our opinions even when society tends to disagree. Furthermore, the members of society that don't hate pedophiles seem to generally agree that it is because pedophilia is a mental illness, something that you disagree with, which makes your opinion an extreme minority compared to the rest of society. You can't claim to know that societal beliefs would dictate my beliefs in a situation when they don't dictate either of our beliefs in most other situations..

Onto the topic of cannibalism, you can't whip out a single example of something that I agree with our society on and say, "See, you agree with that because of societal beliefs." Furthermore, I don't just think that cannibalism is wrong "because society tells me so;" I think that killing another human being to eat them is wrong because I believe that harming another human being in any way for personal pleasure (whether it be sexual or just in order to have a pleasurable meal) is wrong.

Even outside of pedophiles deserving to be hated, there are plenty of things that I disagree with society on; if societal beliefs dictating my personal opinions, this would not be the case.

 

Yes we would, except our society's beliefs are currently in the process of changing. 50 years ago, there was only one acceptable sexuality, now there are, like, twenty.

Again, society's beliefs are currently in the process of changing.

We are (everybody is) especially as societal dispositions are changing, but in the case of whether it's morally right or wrong to have sex with children (note I would still say it's wrong, as I'm not above the beliefs of my society) practically nobody believes that it's O.K.

Do you see how this works? If there has been some sort of catalyst to cause a society to change it's opinions (the gay rights movement evolved into rights movements for a whole bunch of sexualities), then it's reasonable to assume you could hold a position counter to what most of society believes.

However, do you believe that raping children is acceptable behavior? Of course not; this is a firmly entrenched societal belief. Not even most pedophiles believe what they want to do is okay.
So it's unreasonable of you to assume that you would, by nature, have an opinion counter to an already firmly entrenched societal belief for absolutely no reason, other than your current societal beliefs.

Because...?

I think you misunderstand what societal beliefs are.
There's a difference between a belief that a "Majority" of a society shares (say, 55%), and a belief that a majority of society believes (say, 99%). The former is a belief that many people share, the latter is a societal belief.

The idea that gays do not have the right to marry has just moved (fairly recently, probably in the last 20-30 years) from a societal belief, into a belief shared by many people. The idea that there are only 2 genders has begun to move from a societal belief to a belief shared by many people only recently.

However, the idea that it's wrong to rape children is still a societal belief, so it's erroneous for you to say that you would still believe what you do now if you were part of a society that had a different belief on the matter.

 

So your reasoning for acceptably disagreeing with a societal belief on pedophilia being evil or a mental illness is because society's beliefs on a similar topic (sexuality in general) are currently changing? That's valid for this particular situation; HOWEVER, it's absurd to say that neither of us would ever disagree with a societal belief.

Society's beliefs would never, ever change if it weren't for the few people who developed opinions that were different from everybody else's and convinced others of those. There have always been gay people and select individuals who believed that homosexuality was fine; if those individuals had never existed, everyone would still believe that homosexuality wasn't an acceptable sexuality. If everyone who thinks that homosexuality is fine in our modern day was thrown back in time as an infant and grew up when it wasn't accepted, the majority of them would think that it's wrong; however, you cannot claim that each and every one of them undoubtedly would think that it's wrong, because it's very possible that some of them still wouldn't. The fact that my personal belief coincides with the societal belief on the topic of acting on pedophilia does not mean that my personal belief would coincide with the societal belief in a society that thinks that it's okay, as I have explained my reasoning for having my opinion.

 

Pedophilia is in no way related to a person's sexuality. Whoever brought up this totally sick.

 

No, pedophilia is a mental disorder.