Worst choice of words for a topic ever. How about we keep 20th century social commentary and values OUT of the past? Why must people dumb history down so much -_-

"I contend, that such practices flourished in the absence of awareness of divine moral code."

A divine moral code is a meaningless construct, designed to force people to restrict people's freedoms. As you know, plenty of God's trusted, sacred priests raped little boys on holy ground.

Steel first.. the choice of topic heading was not mine bro, it was the OLO Editors, mine was considerably MORE contoversial:)

BUGSY.. amazing.. you certainly got to grips with this issue, and if no one else contributed, I would feel that your posts alone had made this thread worthwhile.

Cultural anthropology is something I studied for some time, and I recommend this article for your consideration
"Steel Axes for Stone age Australians" by Lauriston Sharpe.
http://www.mrs.umn.edu/academic/anthropology/chollett/anth1111/CourseReadings/Steel%20Axes%20for%20Stone-Age%20Australians.pdf
Clearly I did not approach the 'CaveSex' issue from a CA perspective.

Rather than address each point you raised (and Steel also confirmed) I should just ask you, "don't you have some concerns about where this moral relativism which you identify might lead us as a society?"

As you know, I'm always woffling on about the 'make_it_up_as_u_go' approach, and I see awful dangers in this.

The moment we say all these terms (which I deliberately used "Degenerate" etc) are culturally relative, then we are also saying that any lobby group within our own society can legitimately gather followers and promote a morality which could lead us to National Socialism and all manner of horrific outcomes. In other words, we would not (on the basis of moral relatism) had any valid grounds for criticizing Hitler for his 'sub_human_Jews' approach other that its simply 'our opinion'.

That is what struck me about the story of the cave dwellers. Oh.. it was widespread too, Europe and Australian evidence I recall.

I fully agree that in the absence of divine revelation, ALL human practices are without inherrant moral quality.
2 families on an Island with limited resources. One male family head decides to 'discuss' with the other about equitable sharing, the other says "ah.. screw this, I'll just kill him and take the lot" right...or wrong? :)

PAEDOPHILIA.

Now..I'll tackle one specific point, and draw the philosophical ramifications of moral relativism from this.

If....we regard all our legal and moral restrictions as 'simply taboos' which are 'plastic'... then.. how is Nambla 'wrong' in their suggestion that "Sexual experiences between adult males and consenting male children can be positive things".

I've heard this suggested by one contributor to OLO.

Ask any Aussie today "What disgusts you more than anything else"? and I think most would say Paedophilia etc. So, are they all wrong and simply the victims of flexible social taboos? Perish the thought!

Imagine if people were having sex with their German Shepherds in the back yard ....eeeeuwwwww... I mean..where does it end?

I prefer to think that Leviticus 18 is a better foundation of how we should view such behavior even though we don't advocate the same punishments in a society based on the fullness of revelation being the New and Old Testaments. We can still derive our moral attitudes about particular behavior from there as a reference point.

We can choose not to of course, but then,...where does it leave us?
I'd say at the mercy of any highly motivated and politicaly organized lobby group.

The bit about having sex with goats and donkeys doesn't make much sense as those (and all other) animals were domesticated well after the onset of the domestication of certain plant species (when people weren't living in caves). Put simply, in the time of cave dwellers, goats and donkeys (or their ancestors) would have been wild. There's no way a human would have been able to get close to any live one (except if it were somehow trapped, but I think that's drawing a long bow).

Boazy: "Today, I heard a report on Radio National (it can probably be downloaded for those interested) about 'cave paintings' and the sex life of early man."

Fascinating stuff indeed.

Boazy, I've looked at the RN online Schedule and program notes for yesterday, but I can't find any mention of your "Cave Sex' article. Do you remember which RN program it was, or what time it was on?

Cheers.