Under Pressure
January 14th, 2007 by 
drunkentune
While soulster detailed in Cooperative Problem Solving: Church Sex Scandals a Christian’s view of sex scandals within the church, I’d like to push the boundaries a bit and focus on something a bit more probing: homosexuality.
John Paulk, the once-leader ex-gay spokesman eventually turned up at a gay bar in Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C. Ted Haggard, the ex-leader of the anti-gay National Association of Evangelicals, was exposed as apparently paying for a male escort for sex and crystal meth. The chief Vatican polemicist for the ban on celibacy of gay seminarians has been sued by a male client from France for alleged sexual abuse. Charles Socarides, the guru of the reparative-therapy movement, claimed that fathers cultivate homosexuality in their children; his son is gay. Paul Barnes, the pastor of a mega-church, resigned over his homosexuality: ‘I have struggled with homosexuality since I was a five-year-old boy… I can’t tell you the number of nights I have cried myself to sleep, begging God to take this away.’
A good friend of mine is a lesbian, and as she tells me, knew when she was at least five years old. There’s a good chance that either someone you know or even someone in your very family (for me, a second-cousin) is gay or lesbian. The Bible states clearly that homosexuality is wrong, punishable by death, yet it is reality that homosexual orientation is a very deep and fixed part of the human psyche. It is not a choice. The medical, academic, and psychoanalytic communities have accepted this for years. No gay person would wish such a stigma on him or herself. But the Bible says it is wrong.
Discuss.
Posted in current issues, scripture | 
January 14th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
This is how I would respond:
What Causes Homosexual Desire and Can It Be Changed?, by Paul Cameron, Ph. D.
http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRI_EduPamphlet1.html
Is Homosexuality Caused by Son-Father Estrangement?,
by Dr. D. Michael Quinn, reviews a lot of the literature in this regard, while rejecting it as a cause [this is one well-known theory that was espoused before it became politically correct for everyone to agree that homosexuality is perfectly normal and perhaps genetic]
http://hem.passagen.se/nicb/quinn.htm
Dr. Irving Bieber was a leading proponent of this view. See:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE0DA1239F93AA2575AC0A967958260
See his influential book:
http://www.amazon.com/Homosexuality-Psychoanalytic-Study-Irving-Bieber/dp/0876689896
The Wikipedia article “Homosexuality” states:
Father-son Relationships and Male Sexual Development
“Investigation into parent-child relations of homosexual and heterosexual men is heavily documented in research literature, and a link between the absence of sufficient bonding with same-sex parent or role models and the development of adult male homosexuality has been proposed. Numerous studies have found that adult homosexual males tend to report having had less loving and more rejecting fathers than their heterosexual peers (Bell, Weinberg, & Parks, 1981; Bieber et al., 1962; Braatan & Darling, 1965; Brown, 1963; Evans, 1969; Jonas, 1944; Millic & Crowne, 1986; Nicolosi, 1991; Phelan, 1993; Saghir & Robins, 1973; Siegelman, 1974; Snortum, 1969; Socarides, 1978; West, 1959).”
“Bieber (1976) stated:
‘Since 1962 when our volume was published, I have interviewed about 1,000 male homosexuals and 50 pairs of parents of homosexuals. The classic pattern was present in more than 90% of cases. In my entire experience, I have never interviewed a single male homosexual who had a constructive, loving father. A son who has a loving father who respects him does not become a homosexual. I have concluded that there is a causal relationship between parental influence and sexual choice’
—p. 368
“Bieber (1976) later expanded and clarified his earlier findings by saying:
‘We have repeatedly stated and written that a boy whose father is warmly related and constructive will not become homosexual; however, one must not get trapped by the fallacy of the converse, that is, a hostile, destructive father always produces a homosexual son.’”
I myself engaged in a fairly cordial, lengthy dialogue, arguing largely from religiously neutral medical data that homosexuality was abnormal and unhealthy. My opponent was shaken by this and conceded that he had a lot more study to do, and would then like to get back with me later.
The dialogue ended in December 2005 and I am still awaiting his further reply:
Dialogue With a Bisexual Agnostic on Homosexuality
(Part II includes very extensive medical/scientific data)
Part I: http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2005/12/dialogue-with-bisexual-agnostic-on.html
Part II:
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2005/12/dialogue-with-bisexual-agnostic-on_21.html
Part III:
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2005/12/dialogue-with-bisexual-agnostic-on_27.html
Also, it’s interesting that you state: “The Bible states clearly that homosexuality is wrong.” This is correct. Why is it, then, that many homosexual activists, inclusing many professed Christians, argue just the opposite?
January 14th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Dave,
They want to reconcile their faith with their sexual orientation? Many moderate Christians do just the same. Perhaps, as they see it, a god that created their friends and families as evil cannot be all-good.
How is homosexuality unhealthy?
January 14th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
I do hope that regular poster Ed Lyman weighs in on this topic. I’d be interested to hear a psychiatrist’s point of view especially since child abuse and neglect are his specialty.
Dave–
I don’t know the family histories of Haggard, Paulk, Socarides, or Barnes that Drunkentune mentioned but do they fit the father/son estrangement pattern?
If I remember correctly didn’t Pope Benedict define homosexuals as ‘intrinsically disordered’ and resistant to attempts to change them?
Another study I read linked homosexuality and the number of older male siblings who had shared the same womb, the more older natural brothers the higher the probability of future male offspring’s chances of being gay.
And since homosexuality is present in other species another news story states that scientists have been able to turn off the ‘gay gene’ in rams who previously had no interest in ewes.
What about hermaphrodites? How does one undo their ‘intrinsical disorder’? These births aren’t are rare as you might think.
I think the Christians who argue against homosexuality being wrong are correct to do so if they believe (as I do) that sexual orientation is not a choice. They have chosen to hate the sin but love the sinner. And the Biblical sin is ANY sex outside of marriage, correct? I don’t believe there are any references to homosexuality in the New Testament at all.
And this discussion leads me to another question in another direction but related: If science proves beyond any doubt that sexual orientation is genetic by successfully identifying the gene involved, and had developed a test (like the one for Downs Syndrome) that could tell you whether your unborn baby carried this gene would you have the test done? If so, and the test was positive, would you consider aborting?
January 15th, 2007 at 12:40 am
Unless many animals in the animal kingdom also suffer from father/son problems, or from mother/daughter problems, I don’t see how that argument impacts upon anything.
Except, of course, that some religious faiths do not approve of homosexual behaviour and are out to “fix it.” The evidence suggests that homosexuality is natural as it occurs in the natural world.
While we are at it, perhaps we can offer psychological assessment for monkeys, bees, pandas, or any other animals which display homosexual behaviour as surely, we would want to “fix” them as well.
Personally, I think we should all be concerned about “rampant faith driven, non-negotiable heterosexuality, so we can “fix it.”
Homosexuality is Natural
http://beepbeepitsme.blogspot.com/2006/10/homosexuality-is-natural.html
Homosexuality Is Natural Part 2
http://beepbeepitsme.blogspot.com/2007/01/homosexuality-is-natural-part-2.html
January 15th, 2007 at 1:03 am
How is homosexuality unhealthy?
You asked for it:
The Health Risks of Gay Sex, John R. Diggs, Jr., M.D.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0075.html
Prior to the AIDS epidemic, a 1978 study found that 75 percent of white, gay males claimed to have had more than 100 lifetime male sex partners: 15 percent claimed 100-249 sex partners; 17 percent claimed 250-499; 15 percent claimed 500- 999; and 28 percent claimed more than 1,000 lifetime male sex partners.
[see: Alan P. Bell and Martin S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: A study of Diversity Among Men and Women, p. 308, Table 7, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978]
Levels of promiscuity subsequently declined, but some observers are concerned that promiscuity is again approaching the levels of the 1970s. The medical consequence of this promiscuity is that gays have a greatly increased likelihood of contracting HIV/AIDS, syphilis and other STDs.
Similar extremes of promiscuity have not been documented among lesbians. However, an Australian study found that 93 percent of lesbians reported having had sex with men, and lesbians were 4.5 times more likely than heterosexual women to have had more than 50 lifetime male sex partners.
[see: Katherine Fethers, Caron Marks, et al., “Sexually transmitted infections and risk behaviours in women who have sex with women,” Sexually Transmitted Infections, 76(5): 345- 349, p. 347 (October 2000). ]
Any degree of sexual promiscuity carries the risk of contracting STDs.
. . . In more recent years, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has reported an upswing in promiscuity, at least among young homosexual men in San Francisco. From 1994 to 1997, the percentage of homosexual men reporting multiple partners and unprotected anal sex rose from 23.6 percent to 33.3 percent, with the largest increase among men under 25.
[”Increases in Unsafe Sex and Rectal Gonorrhea among Men Who Have Sex with Men  San Francisco, California, 1994-1997,” Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report, CDC, 48(03): 45-48, p. 45 (January 29, 1999). ]
Despite its continuing incurability, AIDS no longer seems to deter individuals from engaging in promiscuous gay sex.
[This was evident by the late 80’s and early 90’s. Jeffrey A. Kelly, PhD, et al., “Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome/ Human Immunodeficiency Virus Risk Behavior Among Gay Men in Small Cities,” Archives of Internal Medicine, 152: 2293-2297, pp. 2295-2296 (November 1992); Donald R. Hoover, et al., “Estimating the 1978-1990 and Future Spread of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 in Subgroups of Homosexual Men,” American Journal of Epidemiology, 134(10): 1190-1205, p. 1203 (1991). ]
. . . The HIV/AIDS epidemic has remained a predominantly gay issue in the U.S. primarily because of the greater degree of promiscuity among gays.
[Gabriel Rotello {a homosexual}, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, New York: Penguin Group, 1998, 165-172]
. . . As of June 2001, nearly 64 percent of men with AIDS were men who have had sex with men.
[”Basic Statistics,” CDC  Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, June 2001. Nearly 8% (50,066) of men with AIDS had sex with men and used intravenous drugs. These men are included in the 64% figure (411,933) of 649,186 men who have been diagnosed with AIDS. ]
Syphilis is also more common among gay men . . . A study done in Baltimore and reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that gay men contracted syphilis at three to four times the rate of heterosexuals.
[Catherine Hutchinson, et al., “Characteristics of Patients with Syphilis Attending Baltimore STD Clinics,” Archives of Internal Medicine, 151: 511-516, p. 513 (1991). ]
Promiscuity is the factor most responsible for the extreme rates of these and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases cited below, many of which result in a shortened life span for men who have sex with men.
. . . Men having sex with other men leads to greater health risks than men having sex with women19 not only because of promiscuity but also because of the nature of sex among men. A British researcher summarizes the danger as follows:
Male homosexual behaviour is not simply either ‘active’ or ‘passive,’ since penile-anal, mouth-penile, and hand-anal sexual contact is usual for both partners, and mouth-anal contact is not infrequent. . . . Mouth-anal contact is the reason for the relatively high incidence of diseases caused by bowel pathogens in male homosexuals. Trauma may encourage the entry of micro-organisms and thus lead to primary syphilitic lesions occurring in the anogenital area. . . . In addition to sodomy, trauma may be caused by foreign bodies, including stimulators of various kinds, penile adornments, and prostheses.
[R. R. Wilcox, “Sexual Behaviour and Sexually Transmitted Disease Patterns in Male Homosexuals,” British Journal of Venereal Diseases, 57(3): 167-169, 167 (1981). ]
. . . a. Anal-genital
Anal intercourse is the sine qua non of sex for many gay men.
[Rotello, ibid., 92]
Yet human physiology makes it clear that the body was not designed to accommodate this activity. The rectum is significantly different from the vagina with regard to suitability for penetration by a penis. The vagina has natural lubricants and is supported by a network of muscles. It is composed of a mucus membrane with a multi-layer stratified squamous epithelium that allows it to endure friction without damage and to resist the immunological actions caused by semen and sperm. In comparison, the anus is a delicate mechanism of small muscles that comprise an “exit-only” passage. With repeated trauma, friction and stretching, the sphincter loses its tone and its ability to maintain a tight seal. Consequently, anal intercourse leads to leakage of fecal material that can easily become chronic.
The potential for injury is exacerbated by the fact that the intestine has only a single layer of cells separating it from highly vascular tissue, that is, blood. Therefore, any organisms that are introduced into the rectum have a much easier time establishing a foothold for infection than they would in a vagina. The single layer tissue cannot withstand the friction associated with penile penetration, resulting in traumas that expose both participants to blood, organisms in feces, and a mixing of bodily fluids.
Furthermore, ejaculate has components that are immunosuppressive. In the course of ordinary reproductive physiology, this allows the sperm to evade the immune defenses of the female. Rectal insemination of rabbits has shown that sperm impaired the immune defenses of the recipient.
[Jon M. Richards, J. Michael Bedford, and Steven S. Witkin, “Rectal Insemination Modifies Immune Responses in Rabbits,” Science, 27(224): 390-392 (1984). ]
Semen may have a similar impact on humans.
[S. S. Witkin and J. Sonnabend, “Immune Responses to Spermatozoa in Homosexual Men,” Fertility and Sterility, 39(3): 337-342, pp. 340-341 (1983). ]
The end result is that the fragility of the anus and rectum, along with the immunosuppressive effect of ejaculate, make anal-genital intercourse a most efficient manner of transmitting HIV and other infections. The list of diseases found with extraordinary frequency among male homosexual practitioners as a result of anal intercourse is alarming:
Anal Cancer
Chlamydia trachomatis
Cryptosporidium
Giardia lamblia
Herpes simplex virus
Human immunodeficiency virus
Human papilloma virus
Isospora belli
Microsporidia
Gonorrhea
Viral hepatitis types B & C
Syphilis
[Anne Rompalo, “Sexually Transmitted Causes of Gastrointestinal Symptoms in Homosexual Men,” Medical Clinics of North America, 74(6): 1633-1645 (November 1990); “Anal Health for Men and Women,” LGBT Health Channel; “Safer Sex (MSM) for Men who Have Sex with Men”.]
Sexual transmission of some of these diseases is so rare in the exclusively heterosexual population as to be virtually unknown. Others, while found among heterosexual and homosexual practitioners, are clearly predominated by those involved in homosexual activity. Syphilis, for example is found among heterosexual and homosexual practitioners. But in 1999, King County, Washington (Seattle), reported that 85 percent of syphilis cases were among self-identified homosexual practitioners.
[”Resurgent Bacterial Sexually Transmitted Disease Among Men Who Have Sex With Men  King County, Washington, 1997-1999,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC, 48(35): 773-777 (September 10, 1999). ]
And as noted above, syphilis among homosexual men is now at epidemic levels in San Francisco.
A 1988 CDC survey identified 21 percent of all Hepatitis B cases as being homosexually transmitted while 18 percent were heterosexually transmitted.
[”Changing Patterns of Groups at High Risk for Hepatitis B in the United States,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC, 37(28): 429-432, p. 437 (July 22, 1988). Hepatitis B and C are viral diseases of the liver. ]
Since homosexuals comprise such a small percent of the population (only 1-3 percent), they have a significantly higher rate of infection than heterosexuals.
[Mads Melbye, Charles Rabkin, et al., “Changing patterns of anal cancer incidence in the United States, 1940-1989,” American Journal of Epidemiology, 139: 772-780, p. 779, Table 2 (1994). ]
Anal intercourse also puts men at significant risk for anal cancer. Anal cancer is the result of infection with some subtypes of human papilloma virus (HPV), which are known viral carcinogens. Data as of 1989 showed the rates of anal cancer in male homosexual practitioners to be 10 times that of heterosexual males, and growing.
[Ibid.]
Thus, the prevalence of anal cancer among gay men is of great concern. For those with AIDS, the rates are doubled.
[James Goedert, et al., for the AIDS-Cancer Match Study Group, “Spectrum of AIDS-associated malignant disorders,” The Lancet, 351: 1833-1839, p. 1836 (June 20, 1998). ]
Other physical problems associated with anal intercourse are:
hemorrhoids
anal fissures
anorectal trauma
retained foreign bodies.
[ “Anal Health for Men and Women,” LGBTHealthChannel; J. E. Barone, et al., “Management of Foreign Bodies and Trauma of the Rectum,” Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics, 156(4): 453-457 (April 1983). ]
I couldn’t bring myself to recount and cite the subsequent sections of this article. Here are the titles:
b. Oral-anal
c. Human Waste
d. Fisting
e. Sadism
Anyone interested in further details and similar medical-scientific documentation of the host of diseases caused by such practices, please consult the article itself.
The author then discusses lesbianism in particular:
Bacterial vaginosis, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, heavy cigarette smoking, alcohol abuse, intravenous drug use, and prostitution were present in much higher proportions among female homosexual practitioners.
[Fethers et al, ibid., p. 347, Table 1; Susan D. Cochran, et al., “Cancer- Related Risk Indicators and Preventive Screening Behaviors Among Lesbians and Bisexual Women,” American Journal of Public Health, 91(4): 591-597 (April 2001); Juliet Richters, Sara Lubowitz, et al., “HIV risks among women in contact with Sydney’s gay and lesbian community,” Venereology, 11(3): 35-38 (1998); Juliet Richters, Sarah Bergin, et al., “Women in Contact with the Gay and Lesbian Community: Sydney Women and Sexual Health Survey 1996 and 1998,” National Centre in HIV Social Research, University of New South Wales, 1999. ]
Intravenous drug abuse was nearly six times as common in this group.
[Fethers, et al., ibid., p. 347 and Table 1.]
In one study of women who had sex only with women in the prior 12 months, 30 percent had bacterial vaginosis.
[Barbara Berger, Shelley Kolton, et al., “Bacterial vaginosis in lesbians: a sexually transmitted disease,” Clinical Infectious Diseases, 21: 1402-1405 (1995).]
Bacterial vaginosis is associated with higher risk for pelvic inflammatory disease and other sexually transmitted infections.
[E. H. Koumans, et al., “Preventing adverse sequelae of Bacterial Vaginosis: a Public Health Program and Research Agenda,” Sexually Transmitted Diseases, 28(5): 292-297 (May 2001); R. L. Sweet, “Gynecologic Conditions and Bacterial Vaginosis: Implications for the Non-Pregnant Patient,” Infectious Diseases in Obstetrics and Gynecology, 8(3): 184-190 (2000). ]
In view of the record of lesbians having sex with many men, including gay men, and the increased incidence of intravenous drug use among lesbians, lesbians are not low risk for disease. Although researchers have only recently begun studying the transmission of STDs among lesbians, diseases such as “crabs,” genital warts, chlamydia and herpes have been reported.
[Kathleen M. Morrow, Ph.D., et al., “Sexual Risk in Lesbians and Bisexual Women,” Journal of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, 4(4): 159-165, p. 161 (2000). ]
Even women who have never had sex with men have been found to have HPV, trichomoniasis and anogenital warts.
[Ibid., p. 159. ]
. . . D. Shortened Life Span
An epidemiological study from Vancouver, Canada of data tabulated between 1987 and 1992 for AIDS-related deaths reveals that male homosexual or bisexual practitioners lost up to 20 years of life expectancy. The study concluded that if 3 percent of the population studied were gay or bisexual, the probability of a 20-year-old gay or bisexual man living to 65 years was only 32 percent, compared to 78 percent for men in general.
[R. S. Hogg, S. A. Strathdee, et al., “Modeling the Impact of HIV Disease on Mortality in Gay and Bisexual Men,” International Journal of Epidemiology, 26(3): 657-661, p. 659 (1997). ]
The damaging effects of cigarette smoking pale in comparison -cigarette smokers lose on average about 13.5 years of life expectancy.
[Press Release, Smoking costs nation $150 billion each year in health costs, lost productivity, CDC, Office of Communication, April 12, 2002]
January 15th, 2007 at 1:32 am
Hi II,
I don’t know the family histories of Haggard, Paulk, Socarides, or Barnes that Drunkentune mentioned but do they fit the father/son estrangement pattern?
I have no idea. I’d never even heard of any of these people. On a related note, it has also been proposed by former atheist psychiatrist Paul Vitz, that remote or absent fathers were in the background of many prominent atheists. The idea is that God is a sort of father figure, so if one has a lousy father as a model, one’s view of God tends to follow suit:
The Defective Father Psychological Theory of Atheism / Christian Emotionalism and Fideism
http://web.archive.org/web/20030604151016/http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ526.HTM
If I remember correctly didn’t Pope Benedict define homosexuals as ‘intrinsically disordered’ and resistant to attempts to change them?
Catholics typically hold that homosexual acts are that, and that the condition is abnormal, while acknowledging that one may have a homosexual orientation. I can’t imagine how any Christian who believes that homosexuality is wrong (including the pope) could think that it is impossible to change. But it is certainly possible (though it is exceedingly difficult, as with all addictive behaviors) to stop engaging in the sexual practices, just as a heterosexual womanizer can possibly (we say, with God’s help and grace) stop doing what he does. Desire and action are two different things. And of course no Christian worth his salt ought to hate anyone. That’s not what opposition to homosexuality is about.
I think the Christians who argue against homosexuality being wrong are correct to do so if they believe (as I do) that sexual orientation is not a choice.
How could something be morally wrong if the person doing it has no choice? That makes mincemeat of morality. But maybe you mean “abnormal” in the sense I note below.
They have chosen to hate the sin but love the sinner.
As all Christians should do, yes.
And the Biblical sin is ANY sex outside of marriage, correct?
Yes.
I don’t believe there are any references to homosexuality in the New Testament at all.
That’s incorrect. See my paper:
St. Paul’s Argument From Nature Against Homosexuality (Romans 1)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/06/st-pauls-argument-from-nature-against.html
And this discussion leads me to another question in another direction but related: If science proves beyond any doubt that sexual orientation is genetic by successfully identifying the gene involved, and had developed a test (like the one for Downs Syndrome) that could tell you whether your unborn baby carried this gene would you have the test done? If so, and the test was positive, would you consider aborting?
Absolutely not. Why should I consider murdering a child simply because it has a genetic defect, or a genetic set-up that may not be considered “ideal”? I despise the mentality that holds that a child has worth only based on parents’ desires or who the child’s parents happen to be. Every child is of infinite worth, and life is sacred. Every child has a right to life, and no one has a right to deprive him or her of it.
But why should anyone accept the fact that every genetically-caused phenomenon makes something “normal” anyway? So what if a gene is identified (the great hope of homosexual activists)? That no more makes homosexuality “normal” than it makes someone born with no arms or legs (or no eyes) normal.
Something can still be a bad thing and undesirable, even though it is genetically caused. By that I don’t mean morally bad (as that would be irrelevant in this scenario), but “bad” in the sense that it is deficient and not the way things ought to be.
Even if homosexuality is considered fine and dandy and perfectly normal and no different morally from heterosexuality, one still has to deal with the horrendous health consequences.
Generally, when something causes that many terrible diseases and problems, society deems it as “bad” (again, in the scientific sense of undesirable or detrimental to health and well-being). We do that with cigarette smoking and drunk driving. But we don’t with homosexuality. Why?
Ignorance on this matter is so widespread that even someone as intelligent as drunkentune seems to have never considered it, and had to ask me “How is homosexuality unhealthy?” — as if there were any doubt about it.
January 15th, 2007 at 1:54 am
Here is an extensive Catholic treatment of the topic:
Homosexuality: The Untold Story, Susan Brinkmann
Part 1: The Phantom Gene
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0086.html
Part 2: Known causes of same-sex attraction
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0087.html
Part 3: Health risks of the homosexual lifestyle
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0088.html
Part 4: Treatment and prevention
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0089.html
Part 5: Gay Marriage: Who’s minding the children
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0090.html
Part 6: In the Image of God: Church Teaching on Human Sexuality
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0091.html
January 15th, 2007 at 2:05 am
Dave,
I hate to break it to you, but sex with the same gender does not mean homosexuality. Homosexuality is the attraction to others of the same gender; it is not sex with the same gender. You note this (’Desire and action are two different things.’), but you seem to confuse the two. In fact, homosexuality is the expression of love (eros and philia) for a gender, just like heterosexuality. Love cannot, by definition, be unhealthy. A heterosexual can have sex with the same gender; a homosexual can have sex with the opposite gender. Sex itself has little to do with love (as in, closeted homosexuals in a heterosexual relationship; a prison inmate raping another inmate to assert dominance).
If we’re going to talk about AIDS, then are 25.8 million Africans unhealthy because they are African? Are the numerous Black men and women in America - currently the fastest-growing population with AIDS in America - unhealthy? What of Asia? What of AIDS on a global scale? Are Africans and Asians ‘unhealthy’ or ‘abnormal’, or is it the African culture (continuing civil war, many sexual partners and poor sex-education) or predicament (the epidemic itself) that is ‘unhealthy’ or ‘abnormal’? Are homosexuals ‘unhealthy’ or ‘abnormal’, or is it the homosexual subculture that is ‘unhealthy’ or ‘abnormal’?
What if I said that the American culture itself is unhealthy? Good swaths of America (such as Illinois) are greedy, violent, and stupid, while other parts of America (like Minnesota) are cultured, intelligent, and peaceful.
Homosexual sex can be unhealthy; no one is disputing that, just as unprotected sex in Africa can be unhealthy. I don’t see how homosexuality, the love one person has for another of the same gender, is unhealthy (besides the biblical abolishment).
How are homosexuals ‘abnormal’? I’m left-handed; that’s not normal: only ~10% of the population is left-handed. Am I ‘abnormal’, or is there a difference between left-handedness being ‘abnormal’ and homosexuality being ‘abnormal’?
January 15th, 2007 at 5:47 am
“Abnormal” just means that a characteristic, habit or attribute doesn’t fall within the “norm.”
Or, as the dictionary puts it:-
1. not normal, average, typical, or usual; deviating from a standard
Examples: abnormal powers of concentration; an abnormal amount of snow; abnormal behavior.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abnormal
The descriptor, “Abnormal”- (without the emotional judgemental activity that some people like to bring to the word), is just that which doesn’t comply with the standard. Another word that describes a standard which can be shown mathematical, is the norm.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/norm
Something that doesn’t comply with the standard isn’t necessarily wrong or bad, it just isn’t standard, or the average. Or, it doesn’t fit the norm. Think of something like a bell curve, which visually depicts the norm.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bell%20curve
Unfortunately, there is a human tendency to equate a characteristic, attribute, habit, or behaviour which falls outside the norm, with some sort of a moral judgement.
Also, unfortunately, this tendency is not consistent. Einstein’s abilities certainly fell outside “the norm” - Einstein was abnormal when it came to human intelligence. But I doubt that people would have called him, or his abilities abnormal as a result.
So what usually happens is that when a behaviour, attribute, characteristic or habit is outside the norm and it is one which the individual or group don’t like or approve of, the behaviour is called abnormal.
This is hardly consistent. The crieria for calling something abnormal, isn’t whether it meets with human approval. It is abnormal according to its rarity, or its prevelance not according to whether it complies with someone’s idea of right and wrong.
Now there is a another standard by which human behaviours, characteristics, habits and attributes are judged, and that is the moral standard associated with various religions.
Consequently, homosexuality is judged by religious institutions not only according to its rarity or prevalence, but according to whether it fits their moral standard. This is where the moral judgement comes in.
Christians and muslims have a decidedly hardline policy concerning homosexuality. Therefore, I would suggest that anyone who wants to belong to those religions, (including priests, pastors, nuns and preachers), should reassess whether or not these particular religions are for them.
Don’t join these religions if you are homosexual and if you are one of the numerous homosexual priests or pastors, leave now.
Oh, I forgot, that isn’t enough is it. These religions don’t just want the right to tell their members what to do, they want the right to dictate to EVERYONE what to do.
It is kind of like the golf club down the road, of which I am not a member, telling me that I cannot mow my lawn on fridays, because that is their special day of “veneration of the fairway.”
I am decidedly “abnormal.” Surprise, surprise I hear you say. I delight in my “abnormalness.” And I couldn’t give a rat’s posterior if someone wanted to call me abnormal.
How am I abnormal? Aparts from the obvious, which is that I am a female atheist, I have university qualifications, I have extremely long hair for a woman of my ancientness, I am not in debt, I don’t have children and I don’t use a credit card. All attributes, characteristics, behaviours and habits which are outside the norm, or abnormal. (I will have to wait to be homosexual in my next life. Oooops, I forgot, no next life for atheists.)
Homosexuality is abnormal too. It falls outside the norm of human behaviours and animal behaviours for that matter too. It is abnormal because it is not the most prevalent or the most common human sexual behaviour.
So, what have we established? Homosexuality is abnormal, not because it doesn’t meet with our approval, but because it isn’t common.
Homosexuality is abnormal AND natural. I am sure that the animal kingdom will rejoice at this proclamation.
January 15th, 2007 at 5:49 am
Darn it, I gotta learn to use spell check.
January 15th, 2007 at 5:55 am
Oh well, just pretend that the spelling errors are incorporeal.
January 15th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Dave,
On Paul Vitz and atheism:
I became an atheist (in the long and short of it) after reading the Bible, praying, seeing that it was a load of crock, looking at the similarities of religions, then reading a good deal on evolutionary biology. Vitz is just being silly; If we even accepted the hypothesis, the converse must be true, that Christians run towards God because they were attached to their fathers and cannot deal with separation?
1. Do some heterosexual men and women have anal sex, oral-anal sex, fist each other, participate in s&m, and deficate on each other?
2. Do some homosexual men and women not have anal sex, oral-anal sex, fist each other, participate in s&m, and deficate on each other?
3. Are these activities part of the gay subculture, or are they part of being gay?
4. Are these activities part of the heterosexual s&m subculture, or are they part of being heterosexual?
5. Do people lose their fathers and become theists?
6. Do people do not lose their fathers and become atheists?
7. Do people have separation issues with their fathers and become atheists?
8. Do people not have separation issues with their fathers and become theists?
9. Why didn’t God take away Paul Barnes’ homosexuality, even after Barnes prayed to God? (‘I have struggled with homosexuality since I was a five-year-old boy… I can’t tell you the number of nights I have cried myself to sleep, begging God to take this away.’)
How do you get around the is/ought problem in this case? How do you know what ought to be, besides what the Bible says? How is homosexuality (not homosexual sex) ‘deficient’?
January 15th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
“I hate to break it to you, but sex with the same gender does not mean homosexuality.”
Homosexuality is about homosexual sex. As a heterosexual male, I can love my male friends, some of them very much, but I don’t want to have sex with them. I do want to have sex with the woman I love, but I also want to have sex with many women I see, though I might not love them. Hetrosexuality is about sex.
Our sexuality is about sex.
January 15th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
ben,
Then, is a ‘closeted homosexuals in a heterosexual relationship’ a heterosexual? Is ‘a prison inmate [that rapes] another inmate to assert dominance’ a homosexual? Is the raped inmate a homosexual?
Is it sex itself, or is it the desire to have sex? You say so yourself: ‘I don’t want to have sex with [men.] I do want to have sex with the woman I love.’
January 15th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
How is homosexuality (not homosexual sex) ‘deficient’?
It’s an arbitrary distinction that you make. Mere love between the same gender is fine; nothing wrong with that. But eros (of the four loves: the others being storge [affection], phileo [friendship], and agape [unconditional love] in Greek) towards the same gender is not.
The erotic desire towards the same gender obviously is ultimately directed towards the sexual acts, just as erotic desire between a man and a woman involves that: intrinsically, by its very nature.
Everyone believes certain things are unnatural. Do you go around sticking your big toe in people’s noses or in their ears? Would you think it was strange and unnatural if someone did? Why is that? Where does that reaction you have that this is “weird” come from?
How about bestiality? Is that unnatural? Is it wrong? Is there anything wrong with it? If so, why? If not, why?
Things that are unnatural and unhealthy lead to (surprise!) bad health and physical maladies and disorders. If you eat a poisonous mushroom, you get poisoned. If you drink gasoline, something bad happens. If you crack your skull repeatedly with a two-by-four, you’ll reap the consequences of that. Poison, gasoline and stomachs do not go together. Hard objects banged against skulls do not, either. If you drink sewer water, you’ll get very sick. If you collect ear wax or snot for your mid-day snack, people will think you are extremely odd, and will probably avoid you, and you will probably become ill too, as a bonus.
Likewise, following the reasoning I have set forth, a penis has nothing to do with a rectum, which was strictly designed for elimination of waste, not all this “friction”-type activity. Therefore, there are dire consequences to be paid if someone insists on doing the unnatural; all the more so as promiscuity is greater (and many homosexuals are quite promiscuous, as we know).
One can, therefore, conclude (completely apart from any biblical morality or cultural stigmas) that this is a “bad” and “unnatural” and “abnormal” thing, based on nature itself and what things were designed for (either by God or evolution or both).
Not to be crass or crude, but a penis obviously is designed for a vagina, and vice versa. Why must this even be argued? Since the semen is designed to fertilize an egg, and we all know how that comes about, there is your natural act. Two reproductive organs . . . an anus has nothing to do with reproduction.
But if you’re looking for a “hole” to do your thing and no woman is available, and you only desire men anyway, then you choose what will do the trick, on another man. That doesn’t make it “normal” or “natural” simply because someone has a desire to do it, anymore than having sex with a rhinoceros or a baboon becomes “normal” simply because a certain percentage of people want to do that. It’s against nature itself.
The secular, pro-homosexual argument seems to be: “if a certain portion of the population does something, no matter what it is, it must be right, and no one else can say it isn’t.”
But this doesn’t follow. A certain portion of the population are child molesters, too, but we don’t say that is right. So you say that is forcing a child against his or her will, and this is why (as with rape) it is wrong. Very well, then. I’ll grant that (it makes sense), and simply discuss cases where the child is perfectly willing to have sex with an adult.
Now, why is that wrong (if you think it is)? On what basis is it wrong, other than an instinctive knowledge that we have, that it is: that young children shouldn’t be sexually active, let alone with an adult?
So you think homosexual acts are fine; nothing wrong with them or unnatural at all, and they are exactly the moral and “natural” equivalent of heterosexual acts? Okay, fine. So you think it is perfectly natural for someone to ingest urine: the very thing that the body is eliminating as waste product: as if that is normal, healthy, and a wonderful thing?
So now deliberate acts of destruction of our health are perfectly normal? How about ingestion of feces? That goes on, too. You want to defend that? Again, the body is trying to eliminate worthless waste product, and someone else wants to eat that? Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?
Would anyone naturally desire to grab the poop out of the toilet and eat it? Why restrict it to humans, if that is the desire? Why not eat a dog turd you find on the sidewalk? Is that normal, natural behavior too?
If we are in the realm of complete unconcern for health, complete abandonment to desires, no matter what they are, no matter how obviously, unarguably unhealthy something is, who cares? Why care if there are any germs or bacteria or other harmful things involved? It’s the same with homosexual sex (many refuse to even use a condom, despite repeated warnings, even from the more responsible and health-minded in their own sub-communities), so why not embark on similar behavior elsewhere?
Lest anyone think I am being completely crude; how can one talk about homosexual acts and not be? This is what it is. But no one wants to talk about it. It’s either “improper” or the one doing it is automatically labelled as a “homophobe” (fear of sameness? hmmm, that’s an odd description).
If you think I am being crude, then you merely prove my point: your very disgust at what I describe proves that you know it to be unnatural and unhealthy. Yet this stuff is done by homosexuals all the time. I merely did one of my notorious reductio ad absurdum arguments. I say that the logic is impeccable.
If you say nothing is unnatural or abnormal at all (in the natural law sense, as I have been arguing), then you have to deal with the consequences. Make some argument as to how to draw the line: sex with animals; sex with children, etc. If nothing is wrong in matters sexual, and everything just is, then other things follow from that, and they are not pretty.
You want to talk about homosexual sex: the s-word (sodomy)? Very well, I have done so. I am talking about what active homosexuals do. It should (by your reasoning) cause no more discomfort than talking about sexual intercourse between a man and a woman.
But did you react differently? Just answer the question in your own mind, and then ponder as to why you reacted the way you did.
January 15th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
1. Do some heterosexual men and women have anal sex, oral-anal sex, fist each other, participate in s&m, and deficate on each other?
Yes, of course, and it is no more natural when they do it. My argument is from what is natural and unnatural, and how we instinctively determine those things.
2. Do some homosexual men and women not have anal sex, oral-anal sex, fist each other, participate in s&m, and deficate on each other?
Of course. But anyone who is active, will do many or most of these things.
3. Are these activities part of the gay subculture, or are they part of being gay?
Both. If you see or hear about others doing certain things, then that backs you up in your desires. People are sheep. They love it when others agree with them. Safety in numbers, etc. We all want to be in our little sub-groups where folks agree with us, pretty much.
4. Are these activities part of the heterosexual s&m subculture, or are they part of being heterosexual?
Why would I deny that heterosexuals can develop unnatural (and we say, immoral) habits, just as homosexuals can? Of course they can? I deny from the outset that homosexuality is simply genetic and that homosexuals have no choice at all in the matter. So if it is a choice, then anyone can choose it.
5. Do people lose their fathers and become theists?
Of course.
6. Do people do not lose their fathers and become atheists?
Of course.
7. Do people have separation issues with their fathers and become atheists?
Some; sure. The thing to find out is if it is disproportionate.
8. Do people not have separation issues with their fathers and become theists?
Obviously. But you’re not proving anything, because none of this is relevant to what I argued. I already know it, and it doesn’t affect my argument. Here we go down the path of non sequitur again . . .
9. Why didn’t God take away Paul Barnes’ homosexuality, even after Barnes prayed to God? (‘I have struggled with homosexuality since I was a five-year-old boy… I can’t tell you the number of nights I have cried myself to sleep, begging God to take this away.’)
Now this is an excellent question. Thank you. I don’t know why that is. I don’t know all the particulars, so could hardly comment intelligently, anyway.
But I do know from my own experience, that we all cultivate various sins, and embrace and coddle them to such an extent that it no longer, at some point, makes sense to blame God for them. We have made them our own. How can God take away what we have cultivated for so long that it becomes second-nature? God gives us a free will to do what we like and what we should do.
Addictive behaviors are extremely difficult to get rid of. Look at alcoholics or heroin addicts, or child molesters (who are considered virtually unredeemable by law enforcement). It goes very deep.
I think there are a lot of factors involved (as I almost always do, with my sociologically- and psychologicaly-trained mind)
I do know that God holds us responsible to do the right thing, and He can give grace to do it. I prayed many hundreds of times when I was single for God to take away my heterosexual lustfulness and sex drive. Do you think that is easy? It’s not, and almost all men know this firsthand.
When I thought premarital sex was fine; perfectly moral and permissibel, then it was easy. But when I came to agree with the Christian view that it was wrong (and understood the rationale behind it), then it was extremely difficult to abide by. It didn’t make sense to me that God would give such a strong drive but not allow a moral way to satisfy it till marriage.
But it’s really not rocket science. For most of history, puberty came late and people married young. So most sexual desire was able to be fulfilled within marriage. but in modern times we have puberty a lot younger and marry later, so there is a long period of limbo.
It’s very difficult, but it can be done. People can live without sex, and live up to the Christian view. I did it; my wife did it, and believe me, I was no goody-two-shoes in adolescence or some kind of prude. I was a thoroughly secularized liberal. God’s grace made it possible to live by the command. Millions of kids today who have taken a pledge of abstinence, have been able to live by it. It’s a growing movement.
So I say that it is possible (not EASY) to abstain, for both heterosexual and homosexual. But if you are fed lies day in and day out that it is absolutely impossible, then it’ll be harder to carry out, by the same principle of peer pressure and the sheep mentality that afflicts most human beings.
January 15th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Oddly enough, big gray blocks of what are ostensibly quotes from what are ostensibly scholarly articles fail to convince me that AIDS and S&M have anything to do with whether committed homoerotic relationships are good or bad.
The Bible also “says”, at various points, that eating crustaceans is abominable, that sacrificing a child in order to please a deity is admirable, and that genocide is an acceptable path to peace. How one goes about interpreting the Bible - particularly the parts that sound normative - is key here. Do Christians claim that the entirety of the Bible is entirely true in every way that it is possible to be true? Or may Christians be allowed to claim something a little more modest?
January 15th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Gah. I must not have closed my blockquotes. Since I can’t delete, would someone fix that for me, please?
January 15th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
“Is it sex itself, or is it the desire to have sex?”
Well, the desire is of course part of that.
But it is still, ultimately, about sex.
I think I am confused about your point in comment #8. You seem to be arguing both sides. It’s really tangential and strange.
But it seems that your basic point is this: “I don’t see how homosexuality, the love one person has for another of the same gender, is unhealthy (besides the biblical abolishment).“, and what I am saying is that in its essence homosexuality is not about who you love but is about who you want to have sex with–and what Christianity is saying is that the desire to have sex with someone of one’s own gender is disordered.
January 15th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Well, Matthew, that’s exactly why I have made my argument against homosexuality from natural law (or arguments about “nature” and “natural”) and environment, not from the Bible. I think it is futile to try to use the Bible to prove anything if the other person thinks it is a ridiculous fairy-tale in the first place.
So I haven’t used it. And I think I have offered some pretty substantive arguments that y’all should consider and try to refute.
January 15th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Dave, I don’t understand how this comment attaches to my previous comment. Maybe my screwed-up blockquotes are confusing the issue?
January 15th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Drunkentune–
Oh my! If beepbeep is left- handed I think I see a pattern here since I’m a southpaw as well.
Is there a study out there that correlates lefties and atheists?
January 15th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
I should, at this point, confess that I am left-handed. Although I am only left-handed in detail work like writing, painting, etc., but right-handed in strength activities like batting, throwing, hammering, etc. Perhaps that explains my positions on this blog as well. Hmmm….
January 15th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Homosexuality is abnormal and natural. So what? Abnormal doesn’t automatically mean “good or bad” and natural doesn’t automatically mean “good or bad.”
The only standard by which homosexuality is deemed to be “bad” is the religious moral standard. And I couldn’t take that one seriously.
Afterall, what do they do with a homosexual who also eats shellfish and wears clothes of mixed fibre? Stone them 3 times instead of once?
Then we get to Rom. 1:26-28: -
“For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. 28And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.”
See, the bible doesn’t know what “natural” is, that is the problem.
January 15th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
RE infidel:
No, I am not left handed. But I sometimes paint, or sweep, or vacuum using either hand.
Painting especially. I cannot write with my left hand. Well, I can, but it would take me ages and would be unintellible.
My mother, however was left-handed which developed into “total ambidexterity”.
She orignally had a preference for using her left hand, but years of having it smacked with a ruler by non-too polite nuns in the education system, convinced her quite early that she may need to be able to write, (at least while the nuns were around), with her right hand.
She was the only person I know who could write simultaneously with both hands, either forwards or backwards, or mirror writing.
Obviously she was possessed of demons and should have been stoned to death, but the nuns settled for smacking the crapolla out of her lefthand for the duration of her education.
No doubt she got off lightly, our modern fundie friends perhaps would have been happier with a public burning where they could sell tickets.
January 15th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Dave, I don’t understand how this comment attaches to my previous comment. Maybe my screwed-up blockquotes are confusing the issue?
Well, you were disbelieving the Bible at several points (in ways that I would protest). I momentarily confused you for an atheist, forgetting that you were a liberal Christian.
In any event, I ain’t arguing my case on this from the Bible.
January 15th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Is there a study out there that correlates lefties and atheists?
I hope not, then my 5 yo daughter will be one, but my mother ain’t, so that’s heartening. Big correlation, tho, of political lefties and atheism or theological liberalism or non-Christian religiosity.
January 15th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
I fail to see why people who are left-handed would move away from religious authoritarian regimes. Afterall, that they were considered to be evil, wicked or demon possessed because of a natural preference for their left hand, couldn’t possibily had anything to do with it.
January 15th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
In the Northern Hemisphere,the early thinkers and teachers noted that their own shadows moved from left to right, as does the shadow of a stick or a sundial move from left to right during the course of the sun across the heavens.
In that same northern hemisphere, however, if you want to check the path of the sun across the heavens, you have to face south, and the sun moves from your left to your right.
Therefore, our preference for the right over the left may be based in ancient mythology, ancient astrology, ancient sun worship, where the sun was moving AWAY from the left towards the right.
Ancient sun worshippers in the northern hemisphere, (modern religions were probably influenced by these thoughts too), would have seen their god, the sun, moving steadily away from the left and towards the right.
The same pattern can be seen when travelling southwards from the northern hemisphere in a ship.
When the ship is travelling from the northern hemisphere southwards towards the equator, the sun appears to rise to the left (east), reaches its highest point almost straight overhead, and sets to the right (west). When the ship is far to the south of the equator, then the sun continues to appear to rise to the left (east), reaches its highest point due behind (north), and sets to the right (west).
That this was the path that the ancients believed their god took, as it moved across the sky, was probably enough reason for them to be suspicious of the left. Don’t ya love superstition?
January 15th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Consequently, when our “little beams of light” (our souls), which belong to god, fly up to heaven after we cark it, the preferred position for the “godly” is on the righthand of the father, as the right side is the closest side to “the father” as it taverses the “heaven.”
“He ascended into heaven and sitteth at the righthand of god the father almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” - Oh dear, sounds like the righthand of the sun is definitely the place to be.
January 15th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Re: Dave–
“Big correlation, tho, of political lefties and atheism”
At one time I would have identified myself as a Goldwater Conservative (he probably died before you were born and I’m older than dirt) but since Bush has redefined the meaning of ‘conservative’ by spending like a democrat and expanding the size of government I have joined the ranks of the “less-government-involvement-in-my-life-fair-tax-advocate” Libertarians. Must be my ambidexterity gene:)
Re: Soulster–
Finding agreement (or likeness) in small things are stepping stones to mutual understanding and respect in our diverse beliefs. Who would have guessed lefthandness would be one of those stones:) BTW, when you observe another lefthanded person when they are eating or writing does it look foreign (or wrong) to you like it does me?
January 15th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Left handed golfers are the only ones who look strange to me. But that is because when you are standing behind them, it looks like they are going to drive that ball right at you.
January 15th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Dave,
So, to make this clear, ‘unnatural’ is something that causes you pain and suffering (I’m removing the reference to ‘unhealthy’, because that’s just a tautology. Of course unhealthy things lead to bad health by definition) because we didn’t evolve for it to be beneficial?
Let me get this straight: If ‘unnatural’ is essentially pain and suffering due to incompatible things in the world with our biology, then, since having sex in Africa can lead to bad health and physical maladies, is having sex in Africa unnatural, but natural between two disease-free teenagers? Not using a condom can lead to bad health and physical maladies. Therefore, is using a condom natural? Not wearing a seatbelt can kill or maim you. Therefore, is using a seatbelt natural? We’ve been ‘designed’ in our distant past to walk on four feet. Is walking upright (which leads to back pain for millions) unnatural? Several thousand left-handed people die each year using right-handed appliances. Is left-handedness unnatural?
How do you know what is natural and unnatural? I think Christianity is not natural, but a cultural tradition of the West. I think Christianity causes some bad things. If Christianity is not natural and happens to kill a couple thousand Jews here and there, is Christianity unnatural? Are cars unnatural, since they can lead to pain and suffering (car accidents. We sure didn’t evolve for cars!), but not blood transfusions?
The secular, pro-civil liberties argument goes: ‘if people are doing something you personally don’t like, but aren’t hurting anyone else, why should we care about it? It makes you uncomfortable, but so what?’ Why should I care if someone eats feces? Of course it’s stupid, but why is it my business what you do on your time? There are stupid people all over the place! I’d start with everyone who disagrees with me: they’re all unnatural; I’m the natural one.
Not to repeat what you said to make you look silly or anything, but we are obviously not ‘designed’ to have wisdom teeth, tailbones, and appendixes. We’re not ‘designed’ for democracy, rational thought, mathematics, standing upright, or reading.
This ‘unnatural’/’natural’ thing is silly. I think what’s really behind your thinking is a sliver of fascism. In your heart, you just want to regulate not just the actions of others, but their very thoughts. You argue for this with a ‘natural law’, that actions by a certain group (in this case sodomy) make us uncomfortable. I’ve got to ask, but is ‘natural law’ you personally feeling uncomfortable, or is it the culture at large feeling uncomfortable? Why should you be the judge? Why should I be the judge? Why should the prevailing culture be the judge?
Plenty of things make me uncomfortable, one of them being Christians that knock on my door in the morning before I get some coffee in me. They waste my time and make my head hurt. Are these Christians bad?
1. What is the natural law? Everybody’s got their own idea what it is, but no one has come to an agreement.
2. Is this ‘instinctive knowledge’ you talk about cultural, or genetic? How can we tell cultural instinct apart from genetic instinct? I’m sure in many Islamic countries it is ‘instinctive knowledge’ that women are subservient to men, or that female circumcision is instinctively good.
In a certain Amazonian tribe, when it is time for a boy to become a man, he performs fellatio on a large group of men. Is that ‘instinctive knowledge’, so in the Amazon, man-on-man fellatio is natural?
January 15th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Dave,
Pretty much it’s just a naturalistic fallacy.
January 15th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Are left-handers quicker thinkers than righties?
No, not really.
January 15th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Let me get this straight: If ‘unnatural’ is essentially pain and suffering due to incompatible things in the world with our biology,
What if we used the evolutionary term “maladaptive” instead? Would you better relate to that?
since having sex in Africa can lead to bad health and physical maladies, is having sex in Africa unnatural, but natural between two disease-free teenagers?
This is poor reasoning because it is one-dimensional and simplistic. The situation in Africa with AIDS is due to many factors. See, e.g., the article:
“AIDS RISK IN AFRICA
VASTLY DIFFERENT FROM WESTERN COUNTRIES OR THE U.S.”
http://www.libchrist.com/std/africa.html
Not using a condom can lead to bad health and physical maladies. Therefore, is using a condom natural?
That’s piss-poor reasoning too, because you create false associations and parallelisms when again, other factors are involved. It’s not simply not using a conmdom that leads to bad health, but not using it when there are already unhealthy conditions such as STD’s, etc. The opposite of sex with a diseased person is sex with a disease-free person, in which case a condom for the purpose of remaining disease-free would be irrelevant.
Not wearing a seatbelt can kill or maim you. Therefore, is using a seatbelt natural?
This is equally silly. “Natural” in the context I used it referred strictly to how human beings use their own bodies and those of others. Certain things are meant to fulfill certain purposes.
How do you know what is natural and unnatural?
Basically, by looking at the functions of various parts of the body and by using our intelligence to figure out if doing certain things lead to deleterious consequences. How do you know if bestiality or sex between adults and children are natural? Do you think they are? if not, why? I don’t see anyone answering my hard questions, as usual. People want to skate all around them and pretend that they don’t pose any problem for their positions. But I suppose that’s good (from where I sit). If nobody is willing to deal with my questions directly, then they must be hitting home, so perhaps I am getting somewhere.
The secular, pro-civil liberties argument goes: ‘if people are doing something you personally don’t like, but aren’t hurting anyone else, why should we care about it? It makes you uncomfortable, but so what?’
Well there is the fallacy right there: assuming that homosexuality doesn’t hurt people. It certainly does, as I showed in my extensive medical data posted above. Therefore, it is both in the public interest and an act of love and concern for personal well-being of individuals to point this out.
Why should I care if someone eats feces?
Because they will likely become very sick by doing so. Why should I care if someone is destroying their life and health by heroin or anorexia or by sodomy? Because they are fellow human beings, and I don’t want to see anyone suffer or be unhealthy or at risk of death, insofar as it is in my power to prevent those things. And I believe proper government should have laws that align with those goals” public health and happiness and harmony as much as possible.
Of course it’s stupid,
Then why do people routinely pretend that it is not stupoid at all, or avoid talking about it? Because they’re scared to offend or be put in a box as a hateful homophobe? At least you have the guts to come right out and call a spade a spade, but in your glorious libertarianism you are content to sit back and let people wreck their lives and health and that of others.
. . . but why is it my business what you do on your time?
My point exactly. If one is concerned about others (which is what Christianity and most religions are supposed to be about), then one feels that one should speak out and do or say something about it, lest many more people die or become sick when it could easily be prevented insofar as homosexual acts are concerned, by more education.
I think what’s really behind your thinking is a sliver of fascism.
Yes, of course. What else could it possibly be? Here we go again, down the drunken road of intelligent discourse and persistent mind-reading.
In your heart, you just want to regulate not just the actions of others, but their very thoughts.
Absolutely! Bingo! I want to be God so BAD . . .
January 15th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Um… Dave?
Yes, it was supposed to be silly, but you failed to address the real point: ‘Not to repeat what you said to make you look silly or anything, but we are obviously not ‘designed’ to have wisdom teeth, tailbones, and appendixes. We’re not ‘designed’ for democracy, rational thought, mathematics, standing upright, or reading.’
You use a naturalistic fallacy, confusing is and ought.
‘[I]f people are doing something you personally don’t like, but aren’t hurting anyone else, why should we care about it? It makes you uncomfortable, but so what?’
If you want to nail your hand to your wall, I can explain to you that you are crazy. If you want to have sex with multiple partners, I can explain to you the inherent dangers (STDs). If you want to have anal sex, I can explain to you the inherent dangers (STDs, HIV). If you want to have sex with someone in Africa, I can tell you that it would be unwise (60% of those infected with HIV are in Africa). But would you, Dave Armstrong, enter someone’s private life and forcibly stop them from nailing their hand to the wall, getting a tattoo, eating shit, having sex with multiple partners, eating bad food, popping pimples, fisting, having homosexual sex, masturbating, watching too much TV, getting too much sun, reading bad books, or getting fat?
Public health, happiness and harmony at the expense of liberty - the right to do wrong? How would the government enforce such laws? If it walks like a duck…
If people want to destroy their lives by eating fatty food, not exercising, having sex before marriage, or having homosexual sex - but do not harm anyone else - who am I to tell them they cannot?
And you haven’t answered my two questions (1 & 2) at the end.
January 15th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
“Natural” doesn’t mean that which leads to happiness and no suffering. And “unnatural” doesn’t mean that which leads to unhappiness and suffering.
UNNATURAL means -
1.contrary to the laws or course of nature.
2. at variance with the character or nature of a person, animal, or plant.
The nature of many animals is to have homosexual desires. That is not a confliction of “the laws of nature” if it occurs within the natural world. That IS the law of nature.
Of course if you consider that sexual desire should ONLY result in procreation, that is unnatural, as many animals and humans have sexual desire which does NOT result in procreation.
But, you know, these religions, need to keep men “spilling their seed where it can produce fruit” - religions know that big groups are powerful groups.
January 15th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
Sorry, I mesant to say religions know that big groups are powerful cults.
January 16th, 2007 at 12:05 am
First of all, my arguments are not about coercion, but about rational persuasion.
Nevertheless, you talk a good (libertarian) game of nobody being coerced to do anything, but then I ask you: what the hell is law itself? Is that not coercion? The Supreme Court until very recently even had laws against sodomy.
So obviously someone in this country felt that it was the purview of government to have laws about sexuality. We have many such: against rape, child molestation, etc. We have laws against drugs and drunk driving and against suicide.
Every person who has any social conscience at all tries to pass laws that reflect this (by voting for folks who will do that). If you want to characterize that as fascism, go ahead. I call it simply intelligent democratic republican government.
I personally don’t care about passing laws about homosexuality because it doesn’t do any good anyway. It’s not enforced. There were laws and there continue to be now, but it doesn’t matter. So I approach this from the perspective of persuasion by reason, as I do all topics.
And you haven’t answered my two questions (1 &2) at the end.
And I don’t intend to, since:
1. There is no hope for this dialogue going anywhere.
2. You are either ignoring my arguments wholesale or distorting them and recasting them in your own image. Fundamental to any good dialogue is understanding of the opponent’s position before setting out to demolish them.
It’s the same as last time. I don’t think there is any hope for us two ever having a constructive dialogue on any “controversial” topic.
To top it off, you speak all about fallacies and then commit a blatant one yourself:
I think what’s really behind your thinking is a sliver of fascism. In your heart, you just want to regulate not just the actions of others, but their very thoughts.
This is, of course, the good old ad hominem fallacy. You cited Wikipedia in logical matters. Let me do so too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
==============
An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: “argument to the person”, “argument against the man”) is a logical fallacy consisting of replying to an argument by attacking or appealing to the person making the argument, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument. It is most commonly used to refer specifically to the ad hominem abusive, or argumentum ad personam, which consists of criticizing or personally attacking an argument’s proponent in an attempt to discredit that argument.
[ . . . ]
Ad hominem as logical fallacy
A (fallacious) ad hominem argument has the basic form:
Person A makes claim X
There is something objectionable about Person A
Therefore claim X is false
Ad hominem is one of the best-known of the logical fallacies usually enumerated in introductory logic and critical thinking textbooks. Both the fallacy itself, and accusations of having committed it, are often brandished in actual discourse (see also Argument from fallacy). As a technique of rhetoric, it is powerful and used often, despite its inherent incorrectness, because of the natural inclination of the human brain to recognize patterns.
=================
Applied to you and your “argumnt” against me, this runs as follows:
1. Dave says homosexuality is unnatural.
2. But Dave is motivated by fascism. In his heart, he wants to regulate not just the actions of others, but their very thoughts.
3. Therefore we can safely reject Dave’s opinion on homosexuality.
It’s a fallacy in and of itself, even if I were a fascist and desired to control people in this manner. But I have no such desire; I don’t even want to pass laws about homosexuality, as stated above. So it is a fallacy coupled with a bald-faced lie about my supposed motivations.
And you wonder why I am continually frustrated trying to dialogue with you and have determined not to do so again, twice now? No one can get anywhere with all this personal baggage. I tried to do it again. I didn’t attack you. But here you are again introducing personal insults (and untrue ones at that). What good do you think is accomplished by that? Dialogue is impossible when one takes such a rock-bottom view of the other participant.
January 16th, 2007 at 12:11 am
In my libertarianism, I allow people to live their lives as they see fit - as long as they do not harm others, defined by Thomas Paine as ‘the power of doing whatever does not injure another.’ You want to shoot yourself in the foot? Go ahead! But you might not want to because… You want to participate in risky situations? Go ahead! But you might not want to… etc.
Liberty is indivisible. Unjust action to curtail one person’s freedom is an insult to all.
January 16th, 2007 at 12:14 am
Dave,
High horse: you called me a libertarian as an insult to my character.
‘But would you, Dave Armstrong, enter someone’s private life and forcibly stop them from nailing their hand to the wall, getting a tattoo, eating shit, having sex with multiple partners, eating bad food, popping pimples, fisting, having homosexual sex, masturbating, watching too much TV, getting too much sun, reading bad books, or getting fat?’
You say ‘no’, so you’re not a fascist. Ok? Fine with me. You’re not a fascist.
January 16th, 2007 at 12:16 am
Dave,
The questions matter: What is the natural law? Is it genetic or cultural? How can we tell if they’re genetic or cultural?
January 16th, 2007 at 12:38 am
I called you a libertarian because you ARE one, by your own open admission. Are you saying it is an insult to simply call you what you are?
Obviously I care very little for libertarianism. But it is not the ad hominem fallacy to describe one as what he is (anymore than it is for you to call me a Catholic or apologist or pro-lifer or Beatles freak or health food advocate or Detroiter. What I think of libertarianism is irrelevant vis-a-vis the fallacy.
You, on the other hand, called me a fascist and advocate of coercive thought-control: rank insults and lies and completely unnecessary to the discussion we were having. And you did so to discount my argument, which you were already largely ignoring or butchering anyway (what else is new?).
The two questions matter: What is the natural law? Is it genetic or cultural? How can we tell them apart?
It’s too late!!!! Why do we always go through this nonsense? The discussion has already been ruined by your poisoning the well. If that’s what you think my motivation is (fascism, etc.), I’d have to be a damned fool, a literal idiot to sit here and continue to attempt to do a serious discussion with you, as if it is possible with all that loaded baggage sitting there, wrecking everything having to do with good will and rational discussion about the issues, not folks’ supposed nefarious motivations.
Now, for some reason, apparently you don’t accuse soulster of such things, so you two get along (or maybe you do and he just sits there and takes it, turning the other cheek).
But you do it with me. And everyone just witnessed it again. I took the initiative and apologized, and was willing to give it another go, for the third time. It took less than a day for me to be labelled a fascist . . .
In my libertarianism, I allow people to live their lives as they see fit - as long as they do not harm others,
But this is precisely what is so absurd and implausible about your libertarianism when you apply it to homosexuality. You admit that aspects of common behavior of homosexuality are unhealthy.
Yet you won’t go the next logical step and admit that, therefore, given the high promiscuity rate among homosexuals, and continued inexcusable rate of non-condomn use, that to engage in such behavior will harm many others as well, since these diseases are highly contagious and spread by sexual contact.
So your premise doesn’t hold. Every atomistic individual in your libertarian schema isn’t just harming himself, but potentially many others, with implications for larger public health issues.
January 16th, 2007 at 12:50 am
You say ‘no’, so you’re not a fascist. Ok? Fine with me. You’re not a fascist.
Great. Progress.
So tell me: what do you think does motivate me when I give my views about homosexuality if it isn’t fascism and mandatory chastity belts and castrations or what not?
January 16th, 2007 at 12:57 am
Dave,
I said, ‘I think what’s really behind your thinking is a sliver of fascism,’ and I still think so. If you do not like an activity, you can label it as unnatural and unhealthy, so ‘proper government should have laws that align with those goals†public health and happiness and harmony as much as possible.’
That is the problem with natural law: you know what’s natural and unnatural. If you cannot tell me what the natural law is, if it’s genetic or cultural, and how to tell them apart, then it sounds like you just say it’s so, and it’s so.
We’ve gone over this plenty of times: you have yet to demonstrate a way to gain knowledge outside of naturalism, you have yet to demonstrate the existence of the supernatural, or even define it, you have yet to tackle the is/ought problem I pointed out above, and you have yet to answer simple questions on natural law: what it is, and what it isn’t. You’ve ducked out when it suits you, and I think you’re ducking again.
January 16th, 2007 at 12:58 am
I think you don’t like homosexuality for biblical (or possibly non-biblical) reasons, and you don’t want them practicing homosexual acts. That much is clear. What motivates me to give my views? My friends, family, and even people I would consider opposed to, are gay. Some of them don’t want to be. Some are fine with who they are. But all of them should (biblically) be stoned to death. That doesn’t sit right with me.
January 16th, 2007 at 1:16 am
You don’t like homosexuality for biblical (or possibly non-biblical) reasons, and you don’t want them practicing homosexual acts.
And why is that? Because I hate and despise them as individual people? What is it that makes me not “like” homosexuality?
I said, ‘I think what’s really behind your thinking is a sliver of fascism,’ and I still think so.
Fascinating. Above you agreed that I was not a fascist, but now you still think so (within a span of 43 minutes). Which is it? Does one have to be an anarchist to satisfy your absurd demands for governmental non-coercion and so-called “liberty”?
There is such a thing as a law, and every law I am aware of is coercive: one has to obey it on penalty of fines or imprisonment. Government presently coerces many private behaviors.
I said that it was not MY personal interest to coerce and pass laws about homosexuality, but at the same time I recognize that all laws coerce and restrain behavior, so that in the end, it’s simply a matter of what laws for what and some means of selecting when law is appropriate and when not (assuming a non-anarchist position).
My other maion argument contra libertarianiism is that it is a fallacy that most homosexuals are simply atomistic individuals harming no one except possibly themselves. Masturbators may be that, but active homosexuals (many of whom are quite promiscuous) are not, and quite obviously so.
you have yet to answer simple questions on natural law: what it is, and what it isn’t. You’ve ducked out when it suits you, and I think you’re ducking again.
Do you never tire of double standards in dialogue? You have ignored a host of my questions (just like our last two go-arounds). I refuse to deal with your usual one or two “extremely important” questions given that fact.
I will NOT do a one-sided farce where I am required to answer all your questions while you ignore most of mine, distort my positions and call me names and engage in mind- and heart-reading as a bonus.
It’s unbelievable that this is all happening again. Maybe this is just how you like to argue — this is your standard and favorite method — and no one before me has called you on it and exposed what you are doing under the guise of supposed “dialogue”. Three times in a row: that’s when certain patterns start to be detected.
January 16th, 2007 at 1:39 am
But all of them should (biblically) be stoned to death. That doesn’t sit right with me.
Have you never read this passage?:
John 8:1-11 (RSV)
1: but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2: Early in the morning he came again to the temple; all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.
3: The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst
4: they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.
5: Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?”
6: This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
7: And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
8: And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
9: But when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
10: Jesus looked up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11: She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.”
The only stoning recorded in the NT was of St. Stephen (Acts 7:51-8:1, with St. Paul’s approval, before he became a Christian). This was done by the Jews, not the Christians. The Jews who didn’t accept the gospel wanted to stone Jesus (e.g., Jn 10:31-33,39). Paul actually was stoned by Jews and unbelieving Gentiles and left for dead (Acts 14:19).
But as we saw above, Jesus did not teach the continuance of the practice, on grounds that all people were sinners.
So your point is irrelevant to any Christian teaching on the subject. The only folks getting stoned these days are found in bars or in places like Saudi Arabia or Iran (not Christian - or Jewish - the last time I checked).
January 16th, 2007 at 1:41 am
Dave,
You began by using an argument from natural law (comment#15), saying ‘[e]veryone believes certain things are unnatural,’ but failed to realize that while everyone believes things are unnatural, nobody agrees on what is unnatural. You also failed to explain away the is/ought problem. I pointed this out to you.
I then asked you several questions, and you had no trouble answering them.
In comment#33, I pointed out that you seem to argue that there is natural morality, but we cannot tell what is natural morality or cultural morality. I gave several examples, such as the Amazonian tribe that practices fellatio, then explained that it was a naturalistic fallacy. I then explained that there are plenty of ‘designed’ things we have that are bad, while we have many things that are not ‘desig