Bert and Ernie: best buddies in an over-sexualized culture

Life Site News ^ | August 29, 2011 | CHUCK COLSON

[Lexinom]

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.

[Cronos]

huh? what did JK rowling do?

[Cronos]

heh heh

[COBOL2Java]

So I suppose now they’ll want to portray “The Fellowship of the Ring” as a gay romp in the woods?

[jmcenanly]

Who are they going to go after next?

[1010RD]

Excellent and true. It is a failing of the English language that you can ‘love’ a sandwich, ‘love’ your family, and make ‘love’ all using the same word.

In Greek you at least have eros, philia and agape.

[1010RD]

It has dumbed down generations of Americans. Now, Mr. Rogers was a real innovator. He introduced shows that are mirrored today - How Things Work, Dirty Jobs, etc. All the while acting and speaking like an adult.

[fightinJAG]

True, and an interesting observation on language.

It’s more of the practical destruction of the Left’s moral nihlism:

They destroy friendships by sexualizing them.

They destroy sex by disconnecting it from emotional intimacy.

They destroy emotional intimacy by devaluing sex and, by promiscuity of all sorts, stripping sex of its power to strengthen rather than weaken emotional bonds.

[fightinJAG]

True, and an interesting observation on language.

It’s more of the practical destruction of the Left’s moral nihlism:

They destroy friendships by sexualizing them.

They destroy sex by disconnecting it from emotional intimacy.

They destroy emotional intimacy by devaluing sex and, by promiscuity of all sorts, stripping sex of its power to strengthen rather than weaken emotional bonds.

[Antoninus]

I have often said that the ubiquity of homosexual chatter and speculation about "who might be gay" is deeply detrimental to good old fashioned friendships. Now, when someone has dinner with his best friend at a restaurant, people just assume they're a "couple". NO!

This is especially harmful to teens who are told that all manifestations of affection must necessarily lead to a sexual outcome. Such a mindset is absolute poison.

[Antoninus]

It was well accepted in Homer’s time and shortly after that the two were lovers. Alexander the Great, for example, took it as a given when he and his lover went to a shrine for the two of them.

Alexander lived some 4-700 years after Homer. Hardly a short time. What evidence do you have that that the butt-buddy connection was established in Homer's time? I have never seen any such.

[allmendream]

In the culture Homer wrote for, in the language he wrote in, it was almost universally accepted that the two were lovers - and it was not at all thought a strange thing - it being Greece and all.

In classic Greek culture it was even opined that “love” could only exist between two men - because women were so inferior.

Moreover Homer was not the only source - Achilles being a semi-historic mythological figure before during and after Homer wrote - other sources (a play for example) clearly showed the two were lovers.

[Antoninus]

In classic Greek culture it was even opined that “love” could only exist between two men - because women were so inferior. Moreover Homer was not the only source - Achilles being a semi-historic mythological figure before during and after Homer wrote - other sources (a play for example) clearly showed the two were lovers.

That's nice. But what are the actual primary sources? Can you post a link, please?

[allmendream]

The play is Myrmidons by Aeschylus. In it Achilles and Patroclus are clearly lovers and not just the very very very best of classic Greek male (where homosexuality was endemic) friends.

[allmendream]

No less an authority than Plato held up, in his “Symposium”, the example of Achilles and Patroclus as paragons of “romantic love”.

[Antoninus]

I am asking for evidence that this cultural trait existed during Homer's day. Plato and Aeschylus both lived approximately 3-500 years after Homer during the period of Greek history when pederasty was widely accepted. Can you provide evidence from the Homeric period that pederasty was similarly accepted?

Without further evidence, your claim is the equivalent of saying "because Americans in 1998 smoked crack, the Pilgrims must have as well." Or, "Scholars in 2007 said that George Washington was a homosexual, therefore, he must have been."

[allmendream]

Sources from that far back are hard to come by, being few and far between.

Do you have any sources that claim that pederasty was any less common in Greek culture during Homer’s time than 300 years after?

[Antoninus]

Do you have any sources that claim that pederasty was any less common in Greek culture during Homer’s time than 300 years after?

You can't prove a negative. Also, I hesitate to make any claim based on lack of evidence. What I do know is that, historically and culturally speaking, 300 years may as well be an eternity.

[allmendream]

What I do know is that those from the classic Greek period, even 300 years removed, had a better handle on the language and cultural references in Homer (and other sources that may not have survived) than people reading translations of translations in the modern era.

This is not a case of a modern reader imparting our cultural norms anachronistically to historic or semi-mythological persons - as was the case with Lincoln and the supposition that he was gay because he slept in the same bed as a man (very common) and wrote that he loved him (also very common).

As such I was, “with” the author up till his poorly chosen example.

People from the classic Greek period and after had an almost universal understanding that Achilles and Patroclus were lovers.

But maybe modern scholars can read and understand classic Greek writing and sources better than Plato.

I don't accept it, but maybe you do.

[Cowman]

Who are they going to go after next?

Well, They should do something about that twisted Donald Duck. He runs around in half a sailor suit with his "nephews?" There just has to be something weird going on there.