This also doesnât take into account the civilizations that have accepted homosexuality that have not yet failed.
The ridiculous hypothesis should read: The civilizations that have failed may or may not have accepted homosexuality to differing degrees, and so what?
It seems to me that the greatest factor in calculating whether a civilization will fail is time. The more time that passes, the greater chance that the civilization will break down.
It seems like a better rebuttal would be: EVERY civilization failed, except the ones still going. Of the ones still going, some accept homosexuality.
Hereâs another argument: thereâs no evidence that homosexuality has never been a cause, or even a contributing factor, to the decline or fall of any civilization.
I wish the Redditor good luck. Hopefully his wife is one of those people who wonât let her hatred cause her to ignore the facts.
Iâm honestly surprised people would think that, and Iâm fairly sardonic in general.
divorce her I say
If my wife was so ignorant & callous as to accept & repeat such utter garbage I know exactly what I would reply with:
âEvery civilization that accepted homosexuality failed.â
âYou think so? According to new information, marriages between bigots & non-bigots became statistically more likely to fail, just now.â
Thankfully she isnât ignorant, callous or a bigot.
But to be fair, maybe the redditor in question married quickly, without learning this about his wife, or maybe she is generally not ignorant & callous, but was raised wrong & just need her eyes opened, in a library.
I play a lot of Civ V, and from my experience every civilization fails because they were not the first one to achieve their victory conditions.
The fact that this type of argument is used demonstrates the need for including logic in high school curriculum.
Itâs funny how games are pretty good simulations of life.
Look at the Greeks and the Romans- Failed miserably.
And all they have to show for it is democracy, representative government, medicine, schools, roads, sanitation, public utilities, aqueducts, widespread literacy, trade routes, multiculturalism, literature, theatre, art, architecture, advanced masonry, personal hygiene, philosophy, and a few military victories.
The thesis being advanced would be more accurately described: âEvery civilization that embraces pluralism eventually assimilates enough diversity to change beyond recognition.â Rejecting pluralism means drawing hard lines between âusâ and âthemâ - and the proponent has chosen âhomosexualityâ as one of those lines.
Rejection of pluralism is usually just a manifestation of authoritarianism in general, but is often supported by religious belief: âif a civilization tolerates members who worship in the wrong way, or who cross the line between âusâ and âthemâ, then God will withdraw His favour from 'them and âusâ alike.â Many see this as the foundation of all civil law: "if we tolerate pluralism, weâll come to tolerate murder, rape, kidnapping and theft as merely âdifferentâ and not âevil.â "
But the fundamental misconception is, âabsolute authority is necessary to a civil order, and such an authority mandates intolerance.â âHomosexualityâ is merely one of many variations on the theme.
I donât know thatâs actually an argument as far as these sorts of people are concerned - because arenât they really implying that God made the civilization fall, because he disliked their stance on gay rights? Causal factors would be irrelevant because of mysterious ways and all that.
Iâm especially amused by the claims that the Roman empire (and Greek civilization) failed because of their acceptance of homosexuality. The problem is, before they fell, they turned Christian. If weâre talking about Classical Antiquity in Greece, itâs a period that lasted over a thousand years, which not exactly a lot of civilizations have managed. If God is supposed to be punishing civilizations for improper behavior, then by bringing up Greece and Rome, one is actually making more of an argument that God hates Christians⌠(put that on a poster, Westboro Baptist church).
democracy = actually fairly widespread through various cultures, but the Greeks had enough influence that one of their words has become the word for it.
representative government = I thought you were talking about the Greeks and Romans?
medicine = again fairly widespread.
schools = Byzantine palace guards?
roads = Roman yes, Greek no, they often had terrible dirt tracks that were impassible half the year, because they often could go by sea which was cheaper.
sanitation = again fairly widespread.
public utilities = like private fire departments? or like bans on fire departments?
aquaducts = not unique, the Assyrians had them too.
widespread literacy = true, but it is not always clear how widespread this was among other cultures, too much depends on accidents of preservation due to writing materials, climate, etc.
trade routes = widespread through many cultures since the mesolithic. some, such as the monsoon routes across the Indian Ocean, were new discoveries, but not originally Greek or Roman discoveries.
multiculturalism = nope.
literature = neolithic.
theater = older.
art = older.
architecture = pretty old.
advanced masonry = Okay, the Romans discovered concrete.
personal hygiene = pretty old.
philosophy = older, the pre-Socratics werenât the first.
and a few military victories = and the spread of the black rat through the Roman Empire, and the legal rationales for chattel slavery, and the erosion of the soils of much of the Roman Empire, and well, Athanasianism which the Mormons are also against.
I donât think anyone is 1sting these on behalf of the Greco-Roman world, but their adoption of anything combined with the size & longevities of empire & influence underscore by analogy the failings of the argument against homosexuality presented, especially where that influence is still recognizable in todayâs civilizations.
I donât understand.
Yes, Hellenic, Hellenistic, and Roman civilization had an immense influence on the west. But no, often they are credited with things they did not introduce and did not spread, and credited for the good influences and not blamed for the bad ones.
Civilizations that accepted homosexuality didnât fail because of this, they failed for other reason. Usually through war and conquest.
What is funny about the list is that I know in Afghanistan and Iraq, homosexual sex between young men and older boys is pretty common. They donât consider it being gay. Of course once you get married that stuff is supposed to stop. Being 30, married, and caught with another man is what will get you killed.
Clearly you havenât played Rhyeâs and Fall.
One could as easily say that every homosexual (or white person or whatever) is dead. Well except for the ones that are still alive.
Itâs part of the forced perspective of timeâŚ100 years ago seem much further away from each other in time than events that happened 500 years apart 1,000s of years ago. Of course fundies are especially prone to this because of their belief that the world is only about 6,000 years oldâŚ
