One person's "common decency" is another person's... oh never mind. The students in question were university students taking such classes as Contemporary Moral Issues. I hope that it's ok to talk about moral issues with them?
Peter you have no idea what I can express sexually. I just know when it is common decency to do so. I choose not to do so on the internet where the world would read it. I hope your students are of legal age. <snip>
Considering that pornography means "the works of prostitution" and that eroticism is one of the expressions of love, for me is simple:
pornography is pure commercial, made just to make money. Erotic art is an expression of our humanity, if money is involved, its not a priority.
Its not really a matter of your personal beliefs or opinion on aesthetics, its a matter of the goal of the creator: if (s)he just wants to make money, (s)he is a whore.
Even today fundamentalist religious types love to spout things like Sodom and Gomorrah stories and myths like the reason Rome fell was because of sexual decadence. So, deeply ingrained in any Judeo/Christian society or its descendents is the notion that sex is bad, demeaning, and evil.
Michael
The purely commercial does not exclude it from being art, nor do I agree with your definition of what is pornographic. I'm pretty sure being a 'whore' does not preclude you from being an artist or your work from being art. I am really sure that 'expression(s) of our humanity' are not always beautiful to observe.
All of this is especially funny because Augustine was quite the Lothario.
*Warning* Do not read if you are easily upset.
This is a very important subject for visual artists let me start by acknowledging some obvious and universal facts (things that are ignored by much of those contributing to this thread)...
...Stop being an animal, and be human...
Rev. Timothy Gordish
Peter,
Are you deliberately slighting polytheists, deists, and others? Also, it is by no means clear that accepting scientific evidence requires suspension of belief in some form of deity, only that it requires a less interventionist view of that or those deities.
Bruce
To start with the second point, I never said that, say, a belief in God and a belief in evolution are incompatible. In fact if there is a God, evolution is the way he/she got things done, as it were. But in that case God would be ultimately responsible for what happens. As such, this case wouldn't differ from my A) position offered in my example.
To move to the first point, science could ultimately provide answers to any question but the following: Why is there something rather than nothing? Two answers come to mind. First, there just is, and there's no reason. The second is that something has necessary existence. It exists because it has to exist. The only reasonable candidate for the later is an omniscient, omnipotent and omni-benevolent God. Polytheism posits more than one God, but if none of them are omni-competent (which combines the three omni's outlined earlier), then it fails to have the necessary explanatory power, and if one of the gods is omni-competent, then all of the other gods are explanatorily superfluous, and need to be cut out with Occam's Razor.
Deism is the view that God created the universe and then left. Since God is non-physical, God can't leave, since place is a physical property, and God doesn't have any of those, if he or she exists. A deist might reply that God simply isn't paying attention, but that would violate his/her omniscience. There doesn't seem to be another option. Hence, neither is a rationally tenable position.
I'm not sure what you have in mind by "other", and so I can't comment directly.
A deist might reply that God simply isn't paying attention, but that would violate his/her omniscience. There doesn't seem to be another option. Hence, neither is a rationally tenable position.
I am going to suppose that the preceding post was meant is humor.Not really. I'm kind of serious about that believe.
Another key issue, and entirely germane to this discussion, is: what constitutes ethical behavior, why would be people be moral without the threat of a deity's punishing hand? Across the world, among many religions and cultures, why are people, overall,... nice?
Is "Artistic Pornography" the same as "Pornographic Art"? (Are they both simply absurdities?)
Mike, Getting eaten by a chicken is just another type of pecker.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?