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US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

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Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I hate overly touchy-feelies. They use their emotional sensitivity to throw analytic thinking out of the window and then persecute people who are not like them. Where do morals and common sense come from, eh? Culture. Common sense is literally a sense that is common to a certain group of people. Morals are also mutually accepted limitations to each other behavior. So yes, morals and common sense of your c…

Yes, if your morality is arbitrarily determined by what you can get away with, everything's moral that you can get away with. Does the father in a particular family get to set the culture of that family? If so, I think that many child molesters may have the basis for a "common sense" appeal through your argument.

Everything you said here is nonsensical and wrong. You completely missed the point and are rationalizing your own culture as the only right culture.

Treat culture the same way you treat religion. Just as there are many religions, but none of them is the right religion, so there are many cultures, and none of them is the right culture.

As for your attempt to label the father as child molester in this case, you are wrong. Child molesters are people who not only are showing behavior, that is unacceptable in the culture they are in, but also they are doing it, at least in some cases, against the will of the partner. What the father in this case did was nor against the culture in which he did it, neither against the will of the partner.

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"why not just marry them to save their lives and then not consummate the relationship?" That's what I meant - perhaps it often works out that way, and only the rape cases are being reported to the western world for emotional effect. "I just responded to the oft-repeated claim that we should try to be more understanding of pedophiles if and only if they are from a different culture." I've never heard that kind of stor…

> But it seems normal that 12 year olds have sex. Not to me.

Sure, but to nature it does. Otherwise, why make it possible for 12 year olds to get pregnant?

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it seems normal that 12 year olds have sex. Not to me.

Sure, but to nature it does. Otherwise, why make it possible for 12 year olds to get pregnant?

Nature allows a lot of things. But it is not because of this that it is the best thing to let it happen. The decision to disallow this kind of behavior through law was rational.

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but to nature it does. Otherwise, why make it possible for 12 year olds to get pregnant?

Nature allows a lot of things. But it is not because of this that it is the best thing to let it happen. The decision to disallow this kind of behavior through law was rational.

You misunderstand me. I am not arguing against the law. Just against cultural bias.

If you left 12 year olds to their own devices without educating them that they shouldn't have sex, many of them will probably have sex. That is what I mean by "it is normal". Is it even illegal for 12 year olds to have sex?

Also, out of curiosity, how would you explain to kids that they shouldn't have sex? I think some reasons don't apply across all cultures.

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the father seems to be clinically psychotic i dont think you know what this means

Actually, I meant psychopath. Psychotic has a different meaning - I stand corrected.

sorry, in that case I didnt mean to be pedantic

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't have said it any better, myself. Not all cultures are good. Quite a few of them are, in fact, terrible, and should no longer exist.

Should we really look back on the Roman Empire as just consisting of a bunch of child rapists?

Yes. Next question, please.

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#117
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah our culture is the best! Everyone else is wrong!

I don't think it's fair of you to imply what he did not imply. Despite all the 'cultural-sensitivity' and what not, there are some lines that have to be drawn and stated bluntly and unapologetically. In that respect, I could not have said it better than the parent comment, and 100% agree with below statement: " Any 36 year-old man, from any culture that has ever existed, that finds it acceptable to marry a 9-12 year…

> from any culture that has ever existed

Actually there are a lot of eras that had a very low life expectancy in early times [1]. Giving birth at an age earlier than what our society finds acceptable would have been normal, if not the responsible thing to do, for those eras. Otherwise the parents would be living an unprepared 5 year old alone in the world.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I meant psychopath. Psychotic has a different meaning - I stand corrected.

sorry, in that case I didnt mean to be pedantic

no, glad you brought it to my attention

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#119
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Old men marrying children is common in many parts of the world. There are quite a few shitty people in the world. As much as many of us hate to admit it, there are also quite a few shitty cultures. Any 36 year-old man, from any culture that has ever existed, that finds it acceptable to marry a 9-12 year old and then start raping her when she's 13 is a piece of shit. Any culture or individual that condones such behav…

> Any 36 year-old man ... that finds it acceptable to marry a 9-12 year old and then start raping her when she's 13 is a piece of shit I would assume she fully expected to have sex with her husband, 13 years old or not. To suggest this was rape, against her will, is a bit preposterous and an incorrect usage of the word. At the same time I find it reprehensible that a 36 year old American, whose culture says underage…

You don't know what rape is. The modern interpretation of rape isn't just when people force themselves on others, it also includes things like coercion, and abuse of power.

I'm not sure I can think of a more obvious example of taking advantage than a almost middle-aged affluent man who marries a child from a group of people almost completely isolated from the outside world while he's supposed to be studying them.

Why is it in every thread online involving statutory rape is there some guy trying to shift the definitions or morality of it around? What are you trying to accomplish?

Re: US man finds lost mother in an isolated Amazon tribe

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any 36 year-old man ... that finds it acceptable to marry a 9-12 year old and then start raping her when she's 13 is a piece of shit I would assume she fully expected to have sex with her husband, 13 years old or not. To suggest this was rape, against her will, is a bit preposterous and an incorrect usage of the word. At the same time I find it reprehensible that a 36 year old American, whose culture says underage…

You don't know what rape is. The modern interpretation of rape isn't just when people force themselves on others, it also includes things like coercion, and abuse of power. I'm not sure I can think of a more obvious example of taking advantage than a almost middle-aged affluent man who marries a child from a group of people almost completely isolated from the outside world while he's supposed to be studying them. Why…

I hope you see the irony in your complaint about "some guy trying to shift the definitions or morality" when we're discussing a primitive tribe in the Amazon that thinks marriage to 13 year olds is perfectly OK.

You're saying that the moral rules of your culture are the absolute correct ones that apply globally? What else might this apply to? There are cultures who lay out their dead for the vultures to eat; we don't do this, so do you have a problem with that too?

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