Re: CHAT: closet conlanging >> definitions?

I totally respect your right (and even need) to discuss religion and
politics, and I expect to see some of it on practically any mailing list.
This is a long thread, and is really becoming tangential to conlang. Please
consider taking it off-line?
It is getting more and more difficult to find diamonds in the rough on this
mailing list. Sorting through this many emails every day to find maybe one
or two that are deep, creative, or thoughtful discussion of conlanging has
become a major chore.
The diamonds make it all worth while, please keep sharing your language
treasures.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Wier [mailto:artabanos@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU]
Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 1999 10:14 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG
Subject: Re: CHAT: Re: closet conlanging >> definitions?


vardi wrote:

> Steg was right to give the origins, in the Biblical story of Sodom.  But
> it should be noted that homosexuality / homosexual abuse was not, I
> believe, originally seen as the main or only sin of the Sodomites.  As I
> recall, their main fault was total regard for others, so that someone
> could die on the street without being helped
Yes, that is perhaps true.  Those living in Sodom were "steeped in sin",
and perhaps more importantly than just a vicious act as homosexual
gang rape was their more underlying weltanschauung and reliance on
material goods for worldly comfort.  It was a society filled with violence
and "lusts"; were that one incident the only case, I doubt very much that
anyone, up to and including God (if I may be so bold), would have seen
a need to destroy the place outright.

In that sense, how ironic that many of those loudest to

> condemn sodomy (especially among the American Right) are the same who
> promote just such a society, on the pretext of encouraging enterprise or
> protecting the basic human right to own a gun and kill people with it.
You're not seriously saying that the people who condemn sodomy
are also, for the most part, people who advocate a society based on
materialism, greed and violence, are you? Such a claim is IMO a wild
overgeneralization, and I don't think belongs in any discussion which
purports to analyse facts in a rigorous or scientific way.

These issues are far more complex than most people are willing to grant,
and IME debates about American political persuasions (when discussed
by non-Americans) tend to jump right into stereotypes, so we had all better
be wary where we tread in these matters.

(BTW, I mean nothing personal by this;  it's only that I think people
really ought to know what they're talking about in depth before making
claims about whole societies.  In any event, this has little to do with
conlanging,
so we should perhaps take such discussions offlist if we are to continue
them.)


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Tom Wier <twier@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

"Only the educated are free." - Epictetus
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