VG,
Whoosh! It's as if you haven't read a single word I've been saying.
Is it your playtime already?
Your attempt at 'either or' is wrong. The option you keep missing is that both standards could be right for the time and circumstances in which they were adopted. Currently UK society's preference is 16 so that is right for now. In 5 years time, depending on the situation, UK society might prefer the standard to be 14 yrs like Germany is currently or 18 years like Saudi is currently, so either of those would be the right standard for 5 years time.
In the time the story is set, we assume the standard was right for that society. What is morally right can change according to the situation and circumstances. I don't know why you are finding it hard to grasp this.
FFS. No I don’t. I don’t “keep missing” that at all. In fact I agree with it: the moral standards of 1st century Palestine felt right to them, and the moral standards of the 21st century West especially feel right to us.
Please tell me that you can see that I acknowledge this, and have done so throughout?
OK, good. Once again: THAT’S NOT THE BLOODY POINT THOUGH!!!
The
point isn’t about a comparison of two different time- and place-specific moral positions at all; it’s about a comparison between one time-and place-specific moral position (ours) AND THE ACTIONS OF A MORALLY PERFECT GOD CHARACTER.
Please though. Seriously. I can’t be expected to correct you on this again. This is a plainly as I can explain the point to you – if you fail to grasp it again, I just can’t help you.
No it's easy because language is ambiguous and the meaning changes depending on the context in which a word is used. Mary's response of saying 'let it happen' can be read as permission or consent.
No, that kind of linguistic relativism just make
any discussion of texts impossible. You’re special pleading “will” possibly to mean “might” or some such with no rationale to support you (eg other texts when “will” didn’t mean will) and if you want to go down that road nonetheless I could equally say the same of any other word whose implications I happened not to like. ““God knows everything” you say? Well maybe “everything” could really mean “nothing”, therefore…” etc.
Have you noticed there is a transgender debate going on, where there is lots of ambiguity about the word "woman" and that is a noun. The verb "will" is more ambiguous than a noun. Despite being repeatedly asked you have yet to show how using the verb "will" to indicate a future event, means the God character cannot change the course of the future if Mary does not want to become pregnant. Some women on becoming pregnant may decide to terminate the pregnancy, but the story does not give any indication that Mary considered doing this.
See above. Have you noticed that there are very few debates about the ambiguity between “banana” and “breeze block”? You can’t just select one example of terminological debate and retro-fit that phenomenon to any other term because it suits you to do so. If you want to claim that the “will” in the story doesn’t really mean “will” after all, then you need to make an argument for that on its own terms – perhaps with reference to later texts when the meaning changed. Your problem here though is that there aren’t any.
Your argument seems to be to assert that Mary did not have the capacity to consent to any action she thought would serve God because any decisions, actions, behaviour by theists based on their belief in the concept of an omnipresent, omnipotent etc supernatural entity is evidence of theists being either unduly influenced or are in a coercively controlling relationship with God. You can certainly assert that all theists are being unduly influenced or in coercively controlled relationships with God, but as yet that characterisation of theist belief has not been adopted as a current moral value by Western society. In any court case on consent, the CPS would have to present evidence or testimony to demonstrate lack of valid consent - without evidence of undue influence or coercion, people in authority do not automatically assume there is not valid consent. So when you keep referring to the current modern Western standard of morality, what is that you think you are referring to that you think would apply in the story of Mary and God?
It's not my argument – it’s what
the ethical guidelines say, and moreover it has nothing to do with “theists being unduly influenced”. The current standards is that consent can't be valid when the power difference between the actors is sufficiently great to invalidate it
necessarily. Examples given are teacher/pupil, employer/employee though the power differential between the actors in the Bible story are of course unfathomably greater than those.
Are there any statements by Mary in the story indicating she did not want to take part in the pregnancy but did so because she was not brave enough to say no to God?
Irrelevant - see above.
You have made an assumption about gods ruling theists through fear or undue influence, yet the reality is that there are so many theists that do not obey the rules of their gods. So is there anything actually attributed to the Mary character in the story to indicate she agreed to the pregnancy out of fear or was unduly influenced?
No I haven’t – I’ve just told you (with a link) what the current standard is concerning the impossibility of valid consent in some structural contexts. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. Please try to grasp this – I can’t keep saying it over and over in the hope it finally sinks in.
Only if it can be demonstrated that a person consented out of fear or from coercion.
AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!
You will be demonstrating evidence that modern Western society has adopted this as a moral belief I assume?
Yes. You can look it up for yourself too though.
I assume that you will be providing evidence that this is what British juries have decided about consent in court cases rather than just asserting it?
No, because the moral Zeitgeist has fuck all to do with what British juries have decided. How many times do I have to explain to you the difference between moral standards and forensics? Really though...
You have linked to an article that asserts that where a person has sex with an employee there would not be valid consent. You are also bringing up sexual relations between a headmaster and an over-age pupil. In the story about Mary, there is not a sexual relationship so do you have any evidence of any other act, other than sex, where consent is invalidated by the person being an employee or pupil , in the absence of any actual evidence of coercion or undue influence in the relationship?
I did wonder whether you’d make that mistake, and sure enough as night follows day you went straight down the rabbit hole. No, I don’t have examples of ethics guidelines that deal with supernatural impregnation. Why do you suppose that is? Could it be:
A. Because supernatural impregnation is fine no matter the context so there’s no need for guidelines that set out circumstances in which it’s not fine; or
B. Because supernatural impregnation isn’t a thing?
Gee whizz – its genuinely hard to tell when you post something like this whether you’re trolling or just not thinking. Are you seriously suggesting that, if ever supernatural impregnation did become a thing, the guideline wouldn’t be amended to include both types?
Even if we do look at sexual acts, and even if you want to assert that a theist's relationship with God is similar to an employer/ employee relationship, do you have any evidence that in the absence of a complaint by an employee or any evidence of coercion, that modern society considers that consent is automatically invalidated in any sexual activity with an employee?
Yes - read the guidelines I linked to. If you don’t like those ones, there are plenty of others online too. Try reading up on structural coercion too. Again,
it’s the fact of the context that nullifies the possibility of valid consent, not the decisions and actions of the individuals involved.