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



And Rosta wrote:
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).


I think "supposed to" or "meant to" are simply weaker - or perhaps more explicit - versions of "should". "Should" imples that if a person performs some action, it will significantly contribute to the realisation of some desired aim. Thus, "men are not supposed to sleep with men" implies that the event of men sleeping with men makes it less likely that some desired event will occur. The main difference between "supposed to" and "should" is that it places the desired event outside the person initiating the action which should or should not take place.

robin.tr


--
"Do unto others what you would like others to do unto you. And have fun doing it."
- Linus Torvalds

Robin Turner
IDMYO,
Bilkent University
Ankara 06533
Turkey

www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin