Peak Guardian

[hackmum]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/09/polyamory-trans-documentary-love-unlimited

'The film says my son and his partner regard themselves as non-binary “in that they identify as neither exclusively masculine nor feminine”. Wrong, says my son, when I discuss it with him: they see themselves as neither exclusively male nor female, but his partner strongly identifies as femme.'

And another one! This is properly full on. Read it and weep:

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/feb/10/raising-a-non-binary-child-as-long-as-one-of-the-side-effects-wasnt-death-it-was-the-right-way

I read that earlier Definitely. Ticks all the boxes, doesn't it? Poor girl.

Lang Cleg was just about to post the same after reading missy moos posts. Magical thinking is certainly on the rise and it terrifies me. I believe in a secular life and in working out ethics, principles and values for yourself and as a community. It’s not difficult and it doesn’t have to involved God. It’s also clear that religious belief and practice is no protection from individuals developing the most awful decadence and bestiality. Look at the weird public murders by clerics in Renaissance Italy. Using someone’s head as a doorstop ffs. Look at the bizarre, cruel practices today around the world based on religious texts and beliefs. Look at the number of peadophiles uncovered in the Catholic Church (and other churches). Obviously a lack of religious belief doesn’t mean a person is a good person either, but certainly the evidence points to religion being no help at all in forming people who will do less harm in the world.

I extend this to all the contemporary beliefs in genderism, conspiracy theories, magical healing practices (Reiki, anyone?) etc. etc.

That article really does tick all the boxes - Mermaids, no investigation of other possibilities (autism) or dealing with mental health problems, not listening to Tavistock, seeing Webberley. That poor parent. And the poor child. They really had no choice.

I think The Guardian is working at dialling the trans agenda up to 11 at the moment. Both articles are shockingly pandering yet completely ignorant.

Thank you for your considered responses. I realise I have irritated some so il make this my last post on the subject.

I think we are not so far removed from religion and it's influence yet. So people have values influenced by religion even if they are not religious. As the break away continues the influence will get less. For instance a moral norm was monogamy, many I speak to think this won't change, but to our detriment, as this thread indicates, I'm sure it will and then will be followed by something else.

Yes I do believe people have a need to believe in something, a feeling of purpose and standing for something. In my opinion people will always try to find a cause to fight for and this is being directed in the wrong places. As the saying goes- if you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything.

There have been some horrendous things done in the name of religion, absolutely. However it has nothing to do with scripture, more to do with abuse of power.

The difference between humanism and religion is this;
Christianity states that humans are basically bad.
Humanism states that humans are basically good.

Atheistic ideology has killed millions- Stalin and Mao communism, Hitler's Germany are examples. Yet I'm sure many of the people involved with these thought they were not bad people and we're doing the right thing. People thought it was acceptable to keep slaves not so long ago, and probably thought that was ok because society as a whole said it was.
I think the moral compass of humans is broken, too easily lead down the wrong paths because there are holds like selfishness we all have that are heard to break. There are people that would think it ok to kill people, they sometimes get into power- what is there to defend the value of your life?
When civilisations reach a stage of abundance, they then turn to decadence, that usually becomes before the fall of that civilization. Mostly because when a civilization is built it requires cohesion between its members, cooperation and community is important. In the age of decadence people tend to be selfish and complacent. So yes things are good at the moment but it probably won't last because humans tend to push the self destruct button.
The main teaching of the gospel is to love one another as you love yourself.
I don't see much of this anymore outside of virtue signalling, as everyone clamours for "their rights" in the oppression wars whilst trampling over others. Overall I fear this behaviour to is destructive and I really think fits into the bibles prediction of what will happen.
Anyhow il cling to my faith because it gives me hope, and will just have to see what happens (feels like watching a slow motion car crash at times).

The article is perfect Guardian: it is the intersection between transideology and navel-gazing. Guardian journalists' favourite topic of discussion is themselves. Very poor journalism.

As I've said before, The Guardian cannot die a horrible flaming financial death soon enough.

There was nothing in that article that suggested the child was anything other than a child. How confusing it must be for girls and boys to think that wanting or not wanting to wear make up and high heels determines how you have to live the rest of your life.

The Guardian is a comic written to wank off TRAs. Even when covering sport, makeup and cookery they can't help using super special unique non binary folks. They think this will make them look cool in front of their blue haired friends.

You know, the ones who spent all their pocket money on cider, and who won't pay for newspapers far less online content. Who the fuck is this actually for?

Tulips: "That article is bonkers. It doesn't make any sense. What on earth is 'femme'? (I know it's French for woman)."

It used to be very frequently the case among lesbians that they would identify as either "butch" or "femme" - in other words, they would deliberately dress in a way that looked either very masculine or very feminine. So that's the context here - but of course it still doesn't really make any sense. If they're "neither exclusively male nor female" how can they "strongly identify" as "femme"? Does it mean that the partner is a man who feels himself to be a bit feminine? Or that his partner thinks of himself as a lesbian? Or is the partner a woman (I wasn't sure) who thinks of herself as a bit male but more female?

That poor little girl. She wasn't 'feminine' enough and she was being bullied at school and this is how it was dealt with

MissyMoo please expand further.

Cassandra-
I think the biggest lesson I have learnt from faith is that the assumption that people, including myself is are good is a huge lie. People say "my morals are fine, I'm a good person"- it is delusional. For instance when I was reading the bible and it talked about materialism- I realised over my life I have spent loads of money on needless things, just "treating myself" and that I would struggle to give that up, meanwhile people are suffering all over the world whilst I indulge.
I came to the realisation that not only are people bad, but I am bad- I'm selfish, I'm materialistic, even though I thought of myself as good, I was lying. Then I found how liberating it was to be truthful to myself.
Humans have a habit of believing lies when it suits. It says in the bible people will turn from sound doctrine, with itching ears to people who will tell them what they want to hear. Even Jesus rightly said that in days to come people will find him offensive because he tells the truth. It's true, people are turning from truth- "because they chose to believe the lie" It's all there is scripture and is indication of how we come to self ruin.
There is a psalm and it's says there are two things to ask from god, -one is to keep falsity away- how true!
Once humans realise that they have tendency to be bad, they can see with fresh eyes and then we can all make true progress.

As for setting our own moral standards-
What by your own standard will you use to set the bar? By what measure will you measure? How will you remove the split in another's eye if you can't see the log in your own.

Have just read that article about the "non binary" child. Incredibly sad. If she had just been allowed to grow up and be a lesbian, she'd have eventually found her tribe. Now she's in this kind of nowhere land as "non-binary" where she doesn't know what she is or who her people are.

sad thin is, 'her tribe' is very much under attack- apparently it's common for both boys and girls, once they desist (I would say grow out of) identifying as trans, settle into a gay/lesbian identity. But being roped into this madness will delay this, and put them in danger of irretrievable harm (eg mastectomy) on the way. This is one of my main concerns about trans activism, the damage to young gay people, but it's not such an obvious or appealing arguement to the mainstream as the dangers of women's safe spaces being invaded.

Maybe off topic but people kept slaves not because society in general said it was ok but because religious leaders said it was ok. In the 15th century the Pope said it was ok for Portugal to enslave Africans. He thought it would save them by converting them to Christianity.

As for religion and morality: it seems to me that most religious moral codes were written centuries ago by people who lived in very different circumstances, so it makes little sense to me to assume that these moral codes should be eternal and unchanging - especially where they focus on the nature and behaviour of women.

And MissyMoo, there is also Psalms which praises the smashing of infant's head against rocks. Calls the ones who do it happy. The Bible can easily be used to support the moral superiority of polyamory - Solomon, the wisest man of all time, had 700 wives and 300 concubines, King David punishment for Bathsheba includes God saying he would have given him more wives if he's asked rather than taking another man's wife. Of course, it only supports it for men owning many women, but that's Bible morality.

Having grown up in the Bible Belt and seen what very devout followers and growing up in a community of said followers does, I gotta say I find the idea that if we just followed the Bible, we will find a moral society rather difficult to believe. I think that if you think people are by nature bad, they have and will use any book they based their morality on to excuse it. Some use old books, others use new age philosophies, but cognitive biases are there either way which will always be a roadblock to progress. I think developing more thinking skillsets is better than giving thinking over to any particular groupthink - far less like to fall into BITE model groups that way. The Guardian articles certainly seem like they need more skills involved...

That article is so sad. Poor child doesn't even want to transition, just not be themselves.

Missy moo. It’s perfectly possible to be honest with yourself and set your own moral standards without religion. You can use similar measures but the crucial difference is that you do this not in the name of your god or religion or text but in the name of trying to do the right thing and live the best life you can, one act at a time, one day at a time,understanding that you are not perfect but doing your best.

It’s true that certain humanist or secular values share some aspects with religious practice but it’s also true that many of those values preceded our abrahamic religions and emerged as a result of living together in communities and working out how to negotiate with one another and best survive the trials of life. Social rules have obviously changed over time as they should.

My main objection to religious belief and other magical belief systems is that they are at least partly dishonest, in that they offer a way of salving ones conscience without necessarily acting differently. I have two religious family members who behave very badly towards others and I think this is because they believe they are already good, because religion, and have a sense of superiority. Now, this could apply equally to atheists, who can be very sanctimonious, but the point I’m making is that religion makes no difference to the essential goodness of a person. There is a very good book for beginners about ethics called Being Good. I can recommend it for anyone who is interested. My feeling is that when an individual has to make a decision on its merits alone, no excuses, no get out, no fairies at the bottom of the garden, just a random world, they make better decisions. I do think it’s harder to live in the world as a place with no spirits just hard cold reality, but it can be more honest.

I read some research a while ago and can’t find a link. Researchers invited people with religious belief and people with no religion to take part in an experiement. They were asked to sit in a waiting room and fill out a form while waiting to be seen for the experiment. On the table in the room was a small amount of change, not so much that it would feel a big transgression to take it. Guess which group turned out to be more likely to steal the money. The conclusion was that people who feel they are already good think it matters less if they act out small transgressions. It’s a big leap from that to the abuse scandal in the Catholic Church but I’m going to make it anyway, because those priests must have justified their behaviour to themselves somehow.

Interesting article about moral behaviour and religion here.

www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2015/11/05/religion-morality/#2c6faf07aea9

Agree with missy our particular culture and legal system is underpinned by Christian morality. In a way it doesn’t matter what the actual values are, as long as everyone subscribes to them. The problem is that the Christian values are being dispensed with and not replaced with an alternative system that everyone subscribes to. It is being replaced with hedonism/individualism. This undermines any sense of social cohesion and could very well cause a crumbling of our civilisation. It is hard to say how the crumbling will pan out, but I’m sure it will happen.

YY to the latest article. Very sad.

If the bullies had been tackled effectively it could have been so different.

DN4 the psalm you speak of- dashing infants heads- is written from perspective of a persecuted Jew to his oppressors- the message is when you do evil to others, don't be surprised when you are repaid with evil- when people come to do you and your family harm and they will delight in it. It's one of those passages atheists like to use out of context of its meaning.
NT quite clear on being against polyamory.

Wrapped up- before finding faith I wasn't honest with myself- and most people aren't. I thought of myself good but I'm now more aware that I am infact not- I'm selfish, materialistic and very unforgiving.
Someone i know who is a pickpocket once said to me-"I'm one of the good ones because I always replace the purse after taking the money and the cards!"
There you have it, human reasoning seeks to justify itself, this is quite a blatant example.
Also if you remove god from the equation of morality then what is good or bad? If there is no absolute morality you have shady moral relativism that can be manipulated by various insidious agendas.
People sometimes think that christians think they're better than others- but if you read and understand the gospel the opposite is true, it's about realising that you are bad and seeking redemption. The very opposite of thinking you are good.

Fifi5000
Yes I don't see how a civilization divided on itself can stand. Individualism and hedonism are not contributing anything positive but are destructive forces.

Sadly I think looking inward for happiness will just make a person miserable- you can buy various things, change your appearance, even change your gender supposedly.... but it won't make you happy, it's just empty experience.
Real happiness is finding the beauty in life, your relationships with others and giving yourself purpose, in helping others.
There is an increase in mental health and it wouldn't suprise me if this was the reason- people are looking inward, changing themselves, instead of having a sense of community and higher purpose.
I certainly feel much happier since finding faith, all my life I've swapped between hobbies, bought things, been places but felt something was missing, a sense of something not at ease- for me it was faith.
Morals did evolve over the course of the bible- ending with jesus and his greatest teaching of- love each other as you love yourself. Timeless.

The second article is tragic. I'm assuming that getting admission to a mental health unit for teens means that the medical profession agreed that there was a serious problem, given how in demand and short supply such units are. I suspect that this is at the heart of the issue here, not help by a dose of homophobic bullying.

Trying to unpick the first article...

The journo has a child who is a TIF who is in a relationship with someone who describes themselves as "femme", which is a common term for a feminine presenting lesbian.

So basically they are a heterosexual couple who are relaxed about their partners sleeping with other people. OK, that's cool with me if it's cool with them. But please don't try to dress it up in language to make it seem more special and complicated than it really is!