xssve
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ORIGINAL: NihilusZero
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ORIGINAL: xssve
There is that presumption: in the broader social sphere it's called Cultural Risk Theory, and it's partly based on magical thinking - i.e., transgression of the "rules" norms, mores, moral strictures, etc., will result in some sort of divine punishment, whereas in fact the danger is that the greater the reliance on these external forms of control is, the greater the risk that once transgressed, one is simply at sea: if everything you've been taught to value is suddenly devoid of value, you have nothing to replace it with: hypothetically, with no "moral compass" at all.
This is actually quite compelling. Despite my philosophical views, I've actually always been more prone to consider the functional purpose of religiosity, for instance, for this very sort of reason.
Although, the catch is that the ability to push one's boundaries, to be the personal pioneer and still be able to steer the ship, is variable from person to person. I suppose there is no sure-fire way to see how proportional the presence of the fear is with the likelihood of losing that moral compass, but I suppose the presence of the fear (and its intensity) in the first place is an initial inner alarm for a reason.
Yes, religion does have social purpose, social utility - roughly, it's a mnemonic linguistic device for the memorization and transmission of oral history - behavioral algorithms stripped down to their symbolic value, and passed on as myths, moral fables passed as binary mythemes - Sodom and Gomorrah - don't worship false idols, or god will punish you. That particular mytheme, originally concerned largely with idolatry and anti-social behavior (mistreatment of strangers, in a hostile environment), has been modified through oral tradition to reflect sexual deviation, which was incidental in the original.
Sexual "deviation" is here linked to the more cogent question of anti-social behavior, Cultural Risk Theory, i.e., sexual deviation results in anti-social behavior, thus homosexuality must lead to other forms of anti social behavior, pedophilia, etc. and this is a "threat" to the family.
It's all basically a set of irrational symbolism, and there is an element of self fulfilling prophecy here: if being gay, which is a social behavior, makes you a social outcast, you do, in some sense, have less to lose by engaging in the predicted anti-social behavior, rape, etc.
The empirical evidence is, this doesn't really happen, it's more a factor of underlying individual traits, a sociopathic personality disorder, etc. that has nothing to do with being gay - clearly, these disorders are no respecters of sexual orientation, gay, straight, male, female, there is no correlation.
It must have served some other purpose of social utility, it seems to be linked to Calvinist theology, Calvin was locked in a power struggle with the Libertines, who retained a fairly sociopathic Roman philosophy of sexual sadism, essentially recognizing no boundaries - see De Sade.
It goes back and forth for a few centuries, doesn't really affect the "mainstream" values system per se, which lean towards less Roman, more Italian family values, Martin Luther, etc. but there is plenty of good old healthy pagan lechery to go around, it was likely the syphilis pandemic that caused the pendulum to swing towards the more erotophobic end of the curve.
Curiously, as a philosophy, Calvinist theology is pretty much the ultimate in Libertine philosophy, it provides an excuse, a theological rationalization, for the worst sort of excesses, sex, violence, economic opportunism, etc., which even the Libertines (atheists) never really defended as a good thing, other than the fact that they liked it.
Augustine was actually a little more concerned with violence than sex, I believe he mainly includes sex mostly as another example of "excessive passion", and among the Seven deadly, lust is merely a venial sin, whereas pride, I believe, is a mortal one.
A bit off track, but yes, the reaction formation can be quite visceral and intense.
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ORIGINAL: NihilusZero
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ORIGINAL: xssve
Fortunately, many of these very "values" are actually the result of natural selection, they are written not in stone, but in our DNA, and the likelihood of abrogation effect occurring increases, ironically, to the extent deeply internalized external values systems have replaced basic mammalian behavioral instincts.
I'm not sure that the values themselves are so finely tuned, biologically, but rather the propensity to place value in a way that leads humans to the most common ends. A nurture vs. nature debate on this topic, though, wouldn't necessarily discount the fact that such value systems do get ingrained rather deeply over the course of a person's life...but that, more importantly, the ability to separate from the pack in order to make the individual desires prioritized may not be one that is entirely in our control
Well said, "values" are again, a linguistic social construct, but by and large, they do tend to reflect basic objective values that can be predicted by the application of evolutionary psychology - presumably, one might predict that fertility would be a fairly well established value as it is of great biological importance, and pre-Zoroastrian religions are about pretty much nothing but.
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ORIGINAL: NihilusZero
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ORIGINAL: xssve
And, all things being equal, even going off the deep end is just another variation on a theme - the big difference is that we also have economic values to consider that are just as critical to facilitate and optimize reproductive fitness, and if the behavior facilitates those, as it does to some extent under conditions of strict divisions of labor, then it's "good" and will optimize reproductive fitness - if it reduces reproductive fitness, then the behavior will not tend to be propagated, socially or genetically.
Dealing with the human species as a whole become so difficult biologically because self-reflective psychology mucks up the simpler cause-effect systems. Value, now, can be added at whim instead of just via the evolutionary preference to traits that facilitated what once were our base instincts and still are, to be fair). And, while I do yield to certain biological boundaries that make one person more likely than the next to capably be a social rebel, our ability to assign value I think puts us at greater responsibility for being able to direct our paths (otherwise, any kind of psychological therapy would be fruitless).
Again, you are correct, and to some extent, this reflects the transition from an oral tradition to a literary one: Judaism is notable in that it established a legalistic, literary basis for religion, the Rabbis become increasingly less like Shamans and more like Lawyers.
Of course, in this process, it means that the people who write these things down can interject their own arbitrary opinions - eat a bad oyster at a party, shellfish is out - at least until the Pope decides he isn't about to give up his Clam linguine - thus, Jesus pronounces all foods "clean" - it's all a matter of interpretation.
It allows all sort of arbitrary things to creep in that might have been streamlined or modified in an oral tradition - any good seafood chef know which ones to discard, and chances are, they were told about it by another chef, rather than reading it in a book - the really fascinating thing here is that bit of cooking lore may be there result of an oral tradition extending back to the neolithic era - if it's shell is open before you cook it, or stays closed after cooked, discard it.
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ORIGINAL: NihilusZero
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ORIGINAL: xssve
I hate to go all sciencey on it again, but that is the empirical breakdown.
No worries! It brought up an angle I hadn't yet considered. 
One can never assume that because one lives in the age of reason, that everyone is rational.
< Message edited by xssve -- 1/15/2010 8:46:17 AM >
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