Game News Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Kickstarter Update #99: Dev Diary #5 - All About Demons

[Lacrymas]

Except they were and there isn't any innate disgust, that's a post hoc rationalisation if anything. We aren't born homophobes, we are born babies.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Except they were

That the Jews were what? Not homophobic? Do you have any evidence for that?

As for innate disgust, it's a known psychological fact.

 

[Lacrymas]

That only the people of the Abrahamic religions were homophobic. I have really tried to find evidence of widespread and enduring homophobia in other cultures (not-Jews), but I haven't been able to. That's why I think homophobia is a Jewish invention for political purposes. It makes a lot of sense, really. And about that study, yeah, if you don't see the obvious red flags with it, I don't know what to tell you.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

That only the people of the Abrahamic religions were homophobic.

Can't comment on European pagan religions since I don't know that much about them and there probably aren't too many written sources to either confirm or deny the presence of homophobic religious beliefs (although there clearly is homophobia present in European pagan societies directed towards homosexual bottoms in particular, such as in the case of the Scandinavian Germanic pagans where the term which designated such an individual in Old Norse was considered one of the worst insults for a man.)

But in the case of Zoroastrianism, homophobia was certainly a thing:

Ahura Mazda answered: 'The man that lies with mankind as man lies with womankind, or as woman lies with mankind, is the man that is a Daeva; this one is the man that is a worshipper of the Daevas, that is a male paramour of the Daevas, that is a female paramour of the Daevas, that is a wife to the Daeva; this is the man that is as bad as a Daeva, that is in his whole being a Daeva; this is the man that is a Daeva before he dies, and becomes one of the unseen Daevas after death: so is he, whether he has lain with mankind as mankind, or as womankind.'

 

[Lacrymas]

The Vendidad was transcribed in 1607. As for anal sex, I really have no idea what the obsession with it is, not all bi/gay men have anal sex (I don't), but sure, why not. It's funny because Jewish scholars say that it's ok to have gay sex as long as there's no anal involved. I bet the ancient Greeks would've had their minds blown if someone had told them there are other forms of sex.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

The Vendidad was transcribed in 1607.

Grasping at straws. It's proof of a non-Abrahamic faith that espouses homophobic beliefs. (And the text itself is much older by the way: "the text of the Vendīdād was redacted after Avestan ceased to be a live medium of communication, yet was still understood in its general contours. If, as is generally held, the Zoroastrianized verses of the Yašts were composed in decent Avestan approximately in the 5th century B.C.E., then the Vendīdād will have been composed in the Arsacid period, if not even under the early (?) Sasanians.")

But if you'd prefer to persist in espousing antisemitic drivel, be my guest. I find it quite amusing.

 

[Lacrymas]

You can find homophobic beliefs in a lot of places these days, the problem is finding and proving homophobia before the Abrahamic religions. Yes, the Vendidad was composed (orally) earlier, but what was added when is impossible to say. To make an educated guess, the homophobic part was probably added much later in order to be more in-line with the mainstream religions and overall opinion. Keeping in mind that it was transcribed in Yazd in 1607, that makes a lot of sense. Even if homophobia has been a pillar of Zoroastrianism from the very start (highly unlikely), we don't have any proof of that.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Yeah, it must've been those evil Jews and their neo-Abrahamic golems who corrupted the pure Zoroastrians with their subversive ideology. /s

 

[Lacrymas]

Not really. The Jews just invented homophobia in order to "prove" their chosen-people status and distance from pagans, which then spread like wildfire throughout the Christian-dominated (and later Islamic) world due to Saint Paul. This is not antisemitic. When the Vendidad was transcribed, Jews didn't have anything to do with that, homophobia was a widespread ideology and it was in their best interest as essentially a fringe cult to espouse some mainstream views in order to not be branded heretics or whatever and violently persecuted. Can you imagine a religion espousing "gay rights" in 1607 smack-dab in the middle of Iran? Madness.

 

[Dycedarg]

I have no idea how the conversation got to this point, but I'm gonna put this passage I found in an Wikipedia article:

"However, in another Hindu text, the Manusmriti, there are various punishments for homosexuality.[18] Girl who had sex with other girls were punished with two hundred coins and ten whiplashes. A mature woman having sex with a girl was punished by having her head shaved or two of her fingers cut off, and she was also made to ride on a donkey. In the case of homosexual males, the Manusmriti dictated that sexual union between two men brought the loss of caste."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_India#Hindu_scriptures

 

[Lacrymas]

The Manusmriti is a highly controversial text and its authenticity is questioned. Even Mahatma Gandhi says so. Even if it were 100% true, it was written somewhere between 200 BCE and 200 CE, perhaps even later, so it's not before the Jews.

 

[Dycedarg]

The Manusmriti is a highly controversial text and its authenticity is questioned. Even Mahatma Gandhi says so. Even if it were 100% true, it was written somewhere between 200 BCE and 200 CE, perhaps even later, so it's not before the Jews.

Going back to the wikipedia article:

Nelson in 1887, in a legal brief before the Madras High Court of British India, had stated, "there are various contradictions and inconsistencies in the Manu Smriti itself, and that these contradictions would lead one to conclude that such a commentary did not lay down legal principles to be followed but were merely recommendatory in nature."[6] Mahatma Gandhi remarked on the observed inconsistencies within Manusmriti as follows:


I hold Manusmriti as part of Shastras. But that does not mean that I swear by every verse that is printed in the book described as Manusmriti. There are so many contradictions in the printed volume that, if you accept one part, you are bound to reject those parts that are wholly inconsistent with it. ... Nobody is in possession of the original text.

If I understood correctly, many verses might have been added to the original document. But here's the thing: you stated that all homophobia was first introduced Abrahamic religions. But even if the verses dealing with homossexuality were not in the original text, do you really think they were a product of christian or jewish influence? That seems very unlikely.

 

[Dycedarg]

I'd also like to add that the ancient Romans had a rather peculiar view of homossexual acts. For them, it's fine as long as you're the top, but bottoms go to the bottom of society.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Not really. The Jews just invented homophobia in order to "prove" their chosen-people status and distance from pagans, which then spread like wildfire throughout the Christian-dominated (and later Islamic) world due to Saint Paul. This is not antisemitic. When the Vendidad was transcribed, Jews didn't have anything to do with that, homophobia was a widespread ideology and it was in their best interest as essentially a fringe cult to espouse some mainstream views in order to not be branded heretics or whatever and violently persecuted. Can you imagine a religion espousing "gay rights" in 1607 smack-dab in the middle of Iran? Madness.

The Zoroastrians *were* being violently persecuted for not being of the dominant religion in the Islamic world. It didn't matter whether they were homophobic or not (and the threat of 'gay rights' from a Muslim perspective would imply Zoroastrian secular authority which did not exist). And you have a very distorted view of religion in which the evolution of a particular theological tradition is solely a matter of pragmatism on the part of their adherents. Might be mindboggling to you, but premodern people actually took their faith seriously. People do not adopt new dogmas that they view as heretical (which is what you are implying with that sort of theological opportunism), but rather their general outlook changes over time and that which is dogmatically sound naturally develops to mirror their contemporary beliefs. And unlike dominant faiths, the Zoroastrians had no ruling secular counterparts to impose upon them from above a heretical Zoroastrian dogma. If a Zoroastrian cleric found himself preaching heresy, he would've simply been condemned by the community of which he was a part of and replaced by an orthodox cleric.

So all you have are just a bunch of unfounded assumptions about the Zoroastrians adopting a homophobic view due to the influence of Abrahamic faiths (on opportunistic rather than ideological grounds no less) rather than it being a homespun development (which you likewise unfoundedly assume to occur after the fall of Zoroastrian secular authority and the consolidation of the new Islamic one).

Really, as far as I'm concerned, your line of reasoning is no different from that of an antisemite who yapps on about 'Judeo-Bolshevism' as if the prevalence (real or imagined) of a particular group among those that share a certain belief (whether homophobia or 'Judeo-Bolshevism' and the nowadays popular blanket term of 'Cultural Marxism') somehow essentializes that belief onto them. And if individuals of another group share that belief, then it certainly must be a product of foreign influence from those 'evil Jews' rather than something that they've arrived at by themselves independently. Only noticeable difference being that you take a more moderate stance in your antisemitism, of it being a reaction to the quintessentially Jewish belief of homophobia rather than the more staunchly antisemitic yapping of modern antisemites about Jewish subversion when it comes to various ideological stances. But then again, plenty of conventional antisemites also share the stance that Jewish beliefs are a product of their 'degenerate' nature rather than a matter of perfidiousness.

 

[Lacrymas]

Yeah, I'm specifically not talking about anal sex, that's just weird tbh. There's more to being in a relationship (or just having sex) than anal sex, lol.

If I understood correctly, many verses might have been added to the original document. But here's the thing: you stated that all homophobia was first introduced Abrahamic religions. But even if the verses dealing with homossexuality were not in the original text, do you really think they were a product of christian or jewish influence? That seems very unlikely.

It depends on when these were added. If they were in the original text and that text was written in 200 BCE (unlikely), then I don't think it had much to do with the Jews, but I'm not an expert in Jewish-Hindu relations in 200 BCE so I wouldn't know. However, given how there's really no evidence to suggest any malicious hatred towards the gays before the Jews, I'm ready to believe the homophobia was added much later, especially since everyone uses the same source for it and that source was a later commentary by a third party.

The Zoroastrians *were* being violently persecuted for not being of the dominant religion in the Islamic world. It didn't matter whether they were homophobic or not (and the threat of 'gay rights' from a Muslim perspective would imply Zoroastrian secular authority which did not exist). And you have a very distorted view of religion in which the evolution of a particular theological tradition is solely a matter of pragmatism on the part of their adherents. Might be mindboggling to you, but premodern people actually took their faith seriously. People do not adopt new dogmas that they view as heretical (which is what you are implying with that sort of theological opportunism), but rather their general outlook changes over time and that which is dogmatically sound naturally develops to mirror their contemporary beliefs. And unlike dominant faiths, the Zoroastrians had no ruling secular counterparts to impose upon them from above a heretical Zoroastrian dogma. If a Zoroastrian cleric found himself preaching heresy, he would've simply been condemned by the community of which he was a part of and replaced by an orthodox cleric.

So all you have are just a bunch of unfounded assumptions about the Zoroastrians adopting a homophobic view due to the influence of Abrahamic faiths (on opportunistic rather than ideological grounds no less) rather than it being a homespun development (which you likewise unfoundedly assume to occur after the fall of Zoroastrian secular authority and the consolidation of the new Islamic one).

Really, as far as I'm concerned, your line of reasoning is no different from that of an antisemite who yapps on about 'Judeo-Bolshevism' as if the prevalence (real or imagined) of a particular group among those that share a certain belief (whether homophobia or 'Judeo-Bolshevism' and the nowadays popular blanket term of 'Cultural Marxism') somehow essentializes that belief onto them. And if individuals of another group share that belief, then it certainly must be a product of foreign influence from those 'evil Jews' rather than something that they've arrived at by themselves independently. Only noticeable difference being that you take a more moderate stance in your antisemitism, of it being a reaction to the quintessentially Jewish belief of homophobia rather than the more staunchly antisemitic yapping of modern antisemites about Jewish subversion when it comes to various ideological stances. But then again, plenty of conventional antisemites also share the stance that Jewish beliefs are a product of their 'degenerate' nature rather than a matter of perfidiousness.

You misunderstand my point. I am arguing that the original intent of the Jews was to distance themselves from the pagans due to their beliefs of being the chosen people, and one consequence of that is the denouncement of gay sex because it's an easy political tool. What I'm also arguing is that early Jews and early Christians were very politically savvy and knew how to present their cases. Saint Paul is particularly shrewd and clever, but I don't think he gave much thought to this particular issue because it doesn't concern the vast majority of people, so he defaulted to Mosaic law. Given how only he comments on this in the entire New Testament, and it's only very brief mentions, I'm inclined to believe this is true. It is very well known Saint Paul made up the canon as he went along in order to fit the situation he currently found himself in. You don't become a dominant religion by not having political goals. When homophobia started to spread, other religions and secular communities started to dabble in it as well because that's how cultural osmosis works. I'm not arguing this wasn't a genuine belief of the Zoroastrians by the time the Vendidad was transcribed. Even if it wasn't a genuine belief, they had every political reason to write it in. Now that homophobia is widely seen as unacceptable and political suicide in the West, you can clearly notice how the political landscape shapes this notion. I don't see a reason to believe this wasn't the case throughout history as well.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

You misunderstand my point. I am arguing that the original intent of the Jews was to distance themselves from the pagans due to their beliefs of being the chosen people, and one consequence of that is the denouncement of gay sex because it's an easy political tool.

Well, I'll only restate my main issue with this line of reasoning, namely that you seem to put too much of an emphasis on the pragmatic element in dogma. Were there particular religious beliefs that had developed out of the cynicism of a faith's clerics? Sure, but that tends to be the exception rather than the norm. And it usually occurs when the clergy stand to benefit from it (either by increasing their privileges within the community or by doing the whims of the secular leaders which stand above them).

At most you can make an argument that that exceptionalist desire had developed subconsciously and was then theologically justified as well, but then there'd be nothing inherently Jewish about it. Jews weren't the only ethnic faith and a faith doesn't even have to be ethnic-oriented in order for the faithful to perceive themselves as the 'chosen ones'. Being outside of the Christian oikomena or the Islamic Ummah is just as bad as being a gentile from the perspective of each faith. What differs is only that the requirements to join the derivative Abrahamic faiths are much more lax given their universalistic outlook. And anyhow, if differentiating oneself from the Other(s) is all that it's about, there are plenty of other arbitrary dogmas that one can implement (and which wouldn't come at the expense of preexisting members of the religious community).

 

[Lacrymas]

I'm not saying it's inherently Jewish, I'm saying they invented it, and give plausible reasons why that could be. Sure, they could've used other arbitrary dogmas (and they did), but they used this one too. It's also worth asking what was more important to the Jews back then, whether to differentiate themselves from the others or something else. I do have a hard time thinking about this without the pragmatic angle because I find it implausible that an institution with explicit political goals wouldn't think about a pragmatic approach as well. Sure, faith more than likely played a huge role as well, but I don't see how you would come to a homophobic conclusion based on faith alone, especially since no other religion or culture at the time had such burning hatred towards the gays. I also think this has been blown way out of proportion during the centuries, to the point that sociological studies have found that the first thing the majority of people think of to describe the Church is "homophobic". I think the Church can be a force of positive change for other things, but focusing on basically trivialities instead of championing a spiritual dimension in our capitalistic landscape and taking a stand against the most cruel and unacceptable capitalistic practices is a shame and a disgrace.

 

[Delterius]

homophobia is a victorian invention

no i will not explain

 

[Heroic Liberator]

especially since no other religion or culture at the time had such burning hatred towards the gays.

As far as we know. And faith isn't meant to be rational. We can understand why some beliefs came to be as rationalizations for scientifically unexplainable natural phenomena (spooky sounds in the sky -> thunder god with his heavenly anvil) or for preexisting social stances (animal looks [insert negative adjective like ugly or unclean] -> that species is affiliated with some evil supernatural being). I've already told you that there is a scientifically measurable disgust reaction that heterosexuals tend to have when witnessing homosexual acts (including kissing or what have you), so homophobia is a theological rationalization of that as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Lacrymas]

We have evidence that it was accepted and even encouraged (pederasty), so it's not a case of it all being a mystery. I'm more inclined to believe the ancient peoples saw it as a thing that happens and incorporated that in their myths. The gays are no less numerous than ginger people for example, so they had to acknowledge it in some way. That study is obviously biased (all the researchers are Chinese) and even if it wasn't there isn't any way to prove this is inherent as opposed to a product of society. And even if it's inherent, that's no reason for discrimination. We are inherently repulsed by real scenes of blood and gore, but we have surgeons and medical staff. Sociological studies also point out that familiarity breeds tolerance, so the negative attitudes go away at one point. We also have homophobic parents who got over their homophobia once they found out one of their children is gay.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

And even if it's inherent, that's no reason for discrimination.

There's no reason, but religion doesn't function on reason. Something is icky, so you might very well turn it into a metaphysical negative. Just like menstruation might be innately disgusting to men and thus Orthodoxy finds some lofty theological justification in order to disallow women from going to church when it's that time of the month. Homosexuality is icky, so clearly those people must be 'unclean'. And from there to ascribe evil to that which is unclean is but a step in a system of beliefs that thrives on dichotomies.

And by the way, there are several studies that deal with innate disgust responses pertaining to such stimuli (on that site included).

 

[Zero Credibility]

Hey guys, it's 8 days till the game is out, I'm looking forward to it very much. Now what's going on in this thr...

 

[Heroic Liberator]

I blame Roguey.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

But, but ...

What would Jesus do?

 

[Lagole Gon]

Hey, it wasn't a bad discussion.