[lojban] Re: Specific example of Sapir-Whorf in English OR How Lojbanmade me think more clearly

["And Rosta" <a.rosta@lycos.co.uk>]

Adam:
> >My point: The notion of "meant to be" is meaningless if the expresser does
> >not believe in the existence of what is commonly reffered to as 'God' 
> 
> I don't think that that's the case at all. "People are supposed to pay
> taxes", "People are supposed to help each other", "People are supposed
> to think rationally", etc., etc. All of these beliefs presuppose
> certain laws or rules, I guess, but I think that they're all held
> completely consistently by many atheists 

But with some sense either of moral imperatives or else some underlying
design to the world -- = 'god' in a very very broad sense.
 
> >The sentence "Homosexuals aren't supposed to
> >be" would be represented as <zo'e AMUR loi nanmu lenu na gletu loi nanmu>,
> >or in Hebrew, "GVARIM AMURIM LO LISHKAV IM GVARIM" 
> 
> Since that sentence doesn't suggest any animate being which prescribes
> the event to happen (the English is "Men are supposed to not sleep
> with men"), 

One encounters two sorts of religious arguments against homosexuality,
one is that "men are supposed to not sleep with men" -- i.e. it's
a contravention of a prohibition -- and the other is that "men are
not supposedto sleep with men", which is the idea that we should do
only what we are supposed to do, a variety of the "if god had meant
us to fly, he would have given us wings" argument. So on the one view,
homosexuality contravenes a moral imperative, while on the other view
it falls outside the divine design (and is therefore not sanctioned).

--And.