Aggresive Atheism and its Public Dimension

[Areopagite]

I understand the distinction, but that just splits into two forms of demonization. The overt action is one thing, but the orientation even if resisted, remains an immoral urge, like the temptation to lust or fantasize about another in an exploitive, selfish or covetous way.

Indeed the distinction makes a distinction between two kinds of evils. However, the act is actually sinful, whereas the desire is not. It is nonetheless evil, but not something that damns you unless you give into it. Even if you have an urge to do something immoral, even something lustful and exploitive, it doesn’t constitute actual sin unless you willfully consent.

Obviously, you would agree that if urges persist, despite having resisted them constantly, it doesn’t follow that the urge is good.

That’s a distinction from the overt act, but doesn’t remove the problem, which is Catholic irrationality on why that orientation or disposition should be so considered in the first place. It appears just to a vestige of ancient barbarisms that got “deified” long ago, and do not have a way to be reformed without serious disgrace for the Church and its traditions.

You should start a new thread for this to be addressed (unless there’s one going already).

The evidence contradicts what you say. The Kinsey study in the 1950s, Heston & Shields in the 1960s, and the more recent Bailey & Pillard study (these are the ‘landmark’ ones, other smaller ones fit in with these findings) found statistically dramatic CONCORDANCE between homosexuality orientations in monozygotic twins.

In the Bailey & Pillard study, more than HALF of the monozygotic twin sets had concordant homosexuality. In dizygotic twins (non-identical DNA) the concordance rate was found to be LESS THAN A QUARTER. So not only is it “hardly ever the case”, it’s the case MOST OF THE TIME, when the twins share the same DNA.

Whoever gave you that “info” was seriously confused about the relevant science.
The same studies that show a marked concordance in homosexuality for twins with identical DNA also show that genetics is not likely the only factor, and no one has been advancing the idea that it is the only factor. Rather, that the evidence is strong that it is a significant factor.

Well, I feel flustered. I have memories of reading from the APA website saying the complete opposite. But maybe it wasn’t the APA website. In any case, I can’t find it again. So unless there’s some kind of conspiracy, I stand corrected.

In any case, it is nonetheless true that, even if there are a lot of gay twins, there are many instances when just one of them are gay. It shows that it’s not genetic in an absolute sense. Indeed, there could be genetic dispositions especially when accompanied by certain environmental circumstances and whatnot, but it’s not ultimately genetic. Certainly, families can have genetic dispositions toward schizophrenia, but it doesn’t make being schizophrenic part of their “deepest identity” I would say, at least not so deep to think that it’s good for them to be schizophrenic. Maybe you would disagree.

 

[Areopagite]

Also, from APA regarding “recovery from homosexuality”:

There’s more on that page that discredits your claims here, but the character limits force me to redirect you there. Clearly, though, the APA has been infiltrated by Satanism.

Well, the recovered homosexuals that I’ve met have met would definitely say there’s something Satanic going on in the APA. They would also say that recovering from homosexuality is very possible since, well, they’re recovered. But maybe they’re lying.

Well, if we’re not using rationalism informed by empirical evidence as the arbiter of “understanding”, then there’s not much meaning in the term “misunderstanding”. If gnosticism is the thing, there’s no rhyme or reason to apply, knowledge just happens… gnostically.

You’re right about Calvinism there, but I was not concerned with soteriology, there, but epsitemology. The concept of revelation, or “special knowledge” through magical means is what I was pointing at. Matthew 16:17, an important verse for Christians (and especially Catholics in light of Matt 16:18) underscores the basis of revelation as opposed to reason and critical analysis for the Christian believer. That’s a major problem as a foundation for rational belief.

Well, if God exists and He’s omnipotent, can’t supernatural understanding be given to humans that bypasses ordinary natural means of acquiring knowledge? If so, then supernatural faith doesn’t contradict reason.

Also, what do you mean by “evidence.” (I’ve asked this before from many people and haven’t ever gotten an answer).

No more than I think we should seek to bat 1.000 batting average at baseball. We aim to learn and know as much as we are able, but getting only a humble fraction of the way there is as much as we may practical expect, even far into the future. It’s a point on the horizon to aim for, that only the fool will suppose we will reach.

So, if you admit that you can’t know everything, is it foolish to pursue “a coherent, rational model of reality.” Perhaps not. But why? What do you mean by this?

Well, I, like you, support abstinence as the most effective means of protection from the sexual spread of HIV. A condom does NOT promote sexual promiscuity, any more than a gun kills another human being, though. The actions and decisions that are determinative are in the human mind, not properties of the condom. Sexual activity engaged responsibility WITH condoms is gonna save more people than without, and yet the Church… dogma is a two edged sword.

While I agree that humans are able to choose whether or not do act sexually moral even with the availability of condoms, I would say that the availability of condoms* incline *people to sexual promiscuity. With a condom, the idea of responsibility and consequences go out the window. It really doesn’t help. In fact, it makes things worse. Every time.

 

[kimmielittle]

The evidence contradicts what you say. The Kinsey study in the 1950s, g that it is a significant factor.-TS

Hiyas

IMHO I would not cite the Kinsey studies to make a point. They were practicing pedophiles according to many sources, including their own .

 

[Touchstone]

Indeed the distinction makes a distinction between two kinds of evils. However, the act is actually sinful, whereas the desire is not. It is nonetheless evil, but not something that damns you unless you give into it. Even if you have an urge to do something immoral, even something lustful and exploitive, it doesn’t constitute actual sin unless you willfully consent.

The morality of the act is no more or less problematic than heterosexual sex. Heterosexual rape, or heterosexual contact between an adult and a young child or heterosexual sex that betrays a marital trust are all wrongs, but not because it involves sex per se. The morality obtains from the goals and effects that are involved in the act. A man cheating on his wife doesn’t make heterosex wrong, it just becomes the means of betrayal of his wife, which is, at a minimum, a severe violation of the Golden Rule.

Same goes for homosex. In a loving, consensual, mutually supportive context, it’s a good thing. When one person betrays the trust of another, or uses homosex as a means of exploitation, it’s a bad thing.

So, I understand the distinction you (and the Church) have made between act and urge, but the basic moral judgment used on both concerning homosexuality is irrational, and irrational in a cruel, spiteful way. Homosexuality that pursues true love and trust and caring and sacrifice is condemned and the Church has boxed itself in to declaring what is good and true to be evil.

Obviously, you would agree that if urges persist, despite having resisted them constantly, it doesn’t follow that the urge is good.

Well, as above, I think that’s a problematic way to look at it. Priests have a continual urge for heterosex (and often, homosex, apparently), but the devout one resist it just as continually. That doesn’t make the urge good or bad. Good or bad obtain in the motives and effects of one’s thoughts and actions.

You should start a new thread for this to be addressed (unless there’s one going already).

OK, noted. I’m delinquent spending this much time here as I am, given my work load at the moment. That may have to wait a bit.

Well, I feel flustered. I have memories of reading from the APA website saying the complete opposite. But maybe it wasn’t the APA website. In any case, I can’t find it again. So unless there’s some kind of conspiracy, I stand corrected.

I know many Christians do think it’s a conspiracy, and a Satanic one at that. It’s been several decades now, but the DSM some time back was supportive of Catholic sensibilities concerning homosexuality as a disorder. They no longer are.

In any case, it is nonetheless true that, even if there are a lot of gay twins, there are many instances when just one of them are gay. It shows that it’s not genetic in an absolute sense.

Well, that’s not shown. It’s not disproved either, but we are dealing with statistics here. It’s statistically significant that monozygotic twins have such high (~50%) concordance of homosexuality. But these are descriptions of sets. If homosexuality is genetically determined in some individuals, that would fit the data we see. That would just mean that those “absolute genetic homosexuals” are just a part of the total, and the balance would be a mix of “genetic influence” and environmental factors, or just environmental factors. That isn’t demonstrated by the data we have, but neither is it ruled out.

What the data does indicate is that genetics likely play a significant role for some or all homosexual orientations.

Indeed, there could be genetic dispositions especially when accompanied by certain environmental circumstances and whatnot, but it’s not ultimately genetic. Certainly, families can have genetic dispositions toward schizophrenia, but it doesn’t make being schizophrenic part of their “deepest identity” I would say, at least not so deep to think that it’s good for them to be schizophrenic. Maybe you would disagree.

No, but this trades in disorder, which is not just a clinical bit of caprice, but a standard derived from the disposition’s effects on the person’s ability to carry on everyday functions and responsibilities and relationships. Drinking alcohol isn’t a problem so long as it is not a barrier to maintaining healthy functions, but when you’d rather drink than keep your job or your family, it’s a problem. Schizophrenia, whatever its provenance, is problematic for a healthy, productive life and set of relationships.

Homosexuality is not like that, any more than heterosexuality is (both, like anything else, can be problematic if abused or pursued as obsessions to the detriment to the rest of a productive life). There are many, many homosexuals who have loving, stable, mutually supportive and healthy relationships, a life that is by all accounts not compatible with homosexuality as a “disorder”. That’s the empirical basis for the APA correcting past prejudices and mistakes where the Church has failed to do the same.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Well, the recovered homosexuals that I’ve met have met would definitely say there’s something Satanic going on in the APA. They would also say that recovering from homosexuality is very possible since, well, they’re recovered. But maybe they’re lying.

I suspect ‘lying’ is too strong a word in those cases. There’s a whole lot of religious pressure brought to bear on this, and the incentives to fool oneself are very strong. I think you may be seeing some heavy duty confirmation bias and wishful thinking at work here rather than overt dishonesty. The easiest person to fool is yourself, after all.

Well, if God exists and He’s omnipotent, can’t supernatural understanding be given to humans that bypasses ordinary natural means of acquiring knowledge?

I say no. Not because such a god is not able to ideas in one’s head supernaturally, but because that doesn’t constitute knowledge. It’s not “warranted true belief”, to invoke the terminology commonly applied in philosophy. Knowledge isn’t just “an answer in the head”, it’s the answer as the result of an process of reasoning and evidential analysis.

If you shuffled a deck of cards, and randomly picked on out and had me guess which card you picked, I could well be correct in saying “ace of spades”. But I have no knowledge in that case, even if I am utlimately correct, and the card you picked is the ace of spades. Divine revelation, even on its own terms, doesn’t qualify, there, even as we understand than omnipotent god can make whatever brain patterns flare in your (or my) head it likes.

If so, then supernatural faith doesn’t contradict reason.

Reason knows no way to apprehend, qualify or judge divine revelation or gnosis. At best, we can subject claims to tests – see if the card you picked was the ace of spades, for example. If these dubious claims check out empirically, over and over in such a way as to justify a pattern (if I can tell you over the phone, from across the country, consistently what card you are picking from a deck), we reasonably understand something to be going on that enables such accurate predictions, but as a matter of reasoned inquiry, revelation is utterly opaque, irrational, unjustified.

And with the cards in the deck, we have a real world test we can apply to the claims. Divine revelation in the Christian model is conveniently immune to such testing, so we can’t even get so far as to reasonable something is going on that’s remarkable at all with Christianity, whereas we could for someone who could consistently sense what card was picked from a deck which he could not observe with his normal physiological senses.

In Christianity, you have to wait until your dead – which is too late for everyone else back here on earth to be helped by – to adjudicate the claims proceeding from divine revelation.

Also, what do you mean by “evidence.” (I’ve asked this before from many people and haven’t ever gotten an answer).

Stimuli and sense experience from outside the brain.

So, if you admit that you can’t know everything, is it foolish to pursue “a coherent, rational model of reality.” Perhaps not. But why? What do you mean by this?

The limits are practical. Our brains are limited in size and capacity, and even if we coalesce our mental powers into a common knowledge base, that will necessarily have finite limits that leave it short of “knowing everything”. Further, as soon as one supposes one knows everything, enough time has passed in supposing that that a whole new universe has devloped from the old one just a second or two ago. Knowledge is always somewhat stale, and thus, unless we omniscient in some metaphysical sense, it’s an impossible goal to reach.

But such abstract perfections are just points on the horizon to aim at, like batting 1.000 in baseball. We are innately curious and knowledge hungry beings – it’s a feature of our physiology that has been a crucial asset in our survival and “thrival” to the present day. We live by knowing and acquiring knowledge, and many of us have a strong urge, and deep sense of gratification to gain from knowing more, and knowing what we know in a deeper, fuller sense.

While I agree that humans are able to choose whether or not do act sexually moral even with the availability of condoms, I would say that the availability of condoms* incline *people to sexual promiscuity. With a condom, the idea of responsibility and consequences go out the window. It really doesn’t help. In fact, it makes things worse. Every time.

Again, the data are set against you, here. If saving lives and reducing suffering are the goal rather than saving dogmata, the policy pursued by the Church in that theater is part of the problem rather than the solution. That’s a pity in its own right, but for a Church which has so often been a force for good (where good doesn’t have to compete against Church dogma), it’s extra sad to see.

-TS

 

[punkforchrist]

Homosexuality may very well be something people are born with, or not. I’m not opposed to either view, but even if people are born with a specific sexual orientation, that doesn’t mean it’s good or healthy. People are, after all, born with all kinds of dispositions toward behaviors we normally think of as unhealthy. There are enough medical and anatomical reasons that doctors have given for us to conclude that homosexual activity is dangerous. I won’t go into any great detail, but we might consider the fact that the anal walls and sphincter have a high risk of tearing during anal sex. This is just one of many reasons to regard homosexual behavior as unhealthy.

This doesn’t mean we have a license to hate anybody, though. Stating one’s disagreement with a lifestyle is entirely different than that, however.

 

[punkforchrist]

TheAtheist, to answer your question, the youtube presentation is not how I view most atheists. I have a number of friends who, even if not all atheists/agnostics, have a wide variety of beliefs: Buddhism and other Eastern philosophies come to mind.

As for your second question, I’m not easily offended. I also strongly believe in freedom of speech. However, I think his assessment of religious people in general is mistaken. Asking for evidence, or (more generally) reasons for belief, is one thing, but stating that no religious person has offered any reason to believe ignores the many capable apologists of religion. If he doesn’t think those reasons are legitimate, then he should explain why, rather than making a bald-faced assertion that all of our reasons are unsound.

In any case, I hope you stick around. There have been some good discussions here.

 

[Areopagite]

No, but this trades in disorder, which is not just a clinical bit of caprice, but a standard derived from the disposition’s effects on the person’s ability to carry on everyday functions and responsibilities and relationships.

And perhaps the understanding of “everyday functions,” “responsibilities”, and “relationships” is what is disagreed upon in this debate.

There are many, many homosexuals who have loving, stable, mutually supportive and healthy relationships, a life that is by all accounts not compatible with homosexuality as a “disorder”. That’s the empirical basis for the APA correcting past prejudices and mistakes where the Church has failed to do the same.

And it seems like pedophilia is the next thing to be canonized among psychologists. They will probably use much of the same language, and simply redefine the terms here and there (making “healthy” mean something quite different as before, as they did with homosexuality). I don’t know what you think of pedophilia, but I’m against it. It seems less and less people are not though. It’s pretty sick. But, heck, a lot of pagans did it, and what right has the Church to condemn it?

Anyway, I trust the word of former homosexuals I know on this matter more than the “experts.” All too often scientific institutions can back falsehoods with complicated pseudo-science … and the realm of psychology is especially prone to such shifty rhetoric (not that psychology is invalid of course … it’s a very valid science).

I suspect ‘lying’ is too strong a word in those cases. There’s a whole lot of religious pressure brought to bear on this, and the incentives to fool oneself are very strong. I think you may be seeing some heavy duty confirmation bias and wishful thinking at work here rather than overt dishonesty. The easiest person to fool is yourself, after all.

Maybe, maybe not. But accusing people of wishing thinking just because their apparent mental state contradicts a trend in modern science is pretty dumb. I think that’s wishful thinking.

(P.S. I’m going to address your comments regarding knowledge and evidence on the “Evidence” thread)

Homosexuality may very well be something people are born with, or not. I’m not opposed to either view, but even if people are born with a specific sexual orientation, that doesn’t mean it’s good or healthy. People are, after all, born with all kinds of dispositions toward behaviors we normally think of as unhealthy.

That’s true, actually. Good point.

 

[AlbertBall]

How is free speech sacred? Yelling fire in a crowded theatre, spreading malicious rumors, lying in court, denying the holocaust…these are all freespeech.

How is free speech sacred!! Wow.