Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
Well, I suppose it depends on what you believe is pedophilia, since many of our own ancestors practiced marrying much younger than we do today. For example, the ancient Greeks had 30 year old men marrying teenage girls. And they didn't consider that wrong at all. We obviously do. Who's right, us or them?

I think we blur these such issues with technically terms. When we say somebody was raped, it could very well be some 17 year old girl choosing to sleep with a 27 year old guy. Same thing with pedophilia, I think it is very important the line does not get blurred here. You have 30 year old guys raping 7 year old boys or girls. This should not be likened to modern or ancient cultures who marry their daughters off at the age of 13. While a thirteen year old bride is a bit shocking to our western culture, it has been acceptable in a great variety of other cultures. This I do not believe to be such a horrible awful thing, I definitely wouldn't dream to call this pedophilia. But there is no context in which a little kid, be it male or female, being used by someone for sexual pleasure should be acceptable or even justified. There have been cultures in the past that practiced this, where it has been culturally acceptable, it is very sick.

You can't quite say one thing is right for one person and wrong for another. People try to either say the world is black and white, or that the world is gray. Those terms are too simplistic in defining something as complex as morality.

When you ask why we can't all get along Sean, are you referring to wars? Wars and an inevitable truth to the world and will never be avoidable, no matter how well we can get along. Have you ever read the book All Quiet on the Western Front? Fantastic book. There is a part in the book where the main character (a German) is stuck in a crater all night with a dying Frenchmen whose mortal wounds the young German soldier had just inflicted. It is a wonderful chapter. The German has a breakdown and cries over the dying Frenchmen telling him how sorry he was he killed him, how had they met under different circumstances they might have been best friends.

Wars have very little to do with not getting along (though from time to time they do, but rarely) and everything to do with greed. Sometimes you have cases like the current terrorism issue which has a lot to do with misguided religious extremism (even Christianity has been guilty of this plenty in the past). Some people would be amazed with how much Muslim eschatology plays into the current world issue. And some people would also be amazed at how much misguided Christian eschatology (and poor scholarship) played in certain events following WWII.