homosexual marriage

[stewstew03]

I agree with your comments. Also, I thought secularism was the purported enemy of religious liberty. Why then should that be the basis of an appeal against same-sex marriage for any person concerned with freedom of religion? Strange bedfellows (no pun intended) in presenting a secular argument to support a moral one only when it is convenient.

From the Jewish perspective, the primary reason for marriage is NOT procreation, although this is a close second, but rather, love and companionship: the unitive function.

One has to work within the system; thus, your comment about strange bedfellows is nonsensical.

 

[stewstew03]

There are two issues: did in fact homosexual sex occur alongside heterosexual sex?

The simple existence of descendants in my view does not preclude the regular or even universal practice of homosexual sex. In our most closely-related species, bonobos, this is the case.

The second issue raised by your question is: how could there possibly be an adaptive advantage to homosexual sex, especially if it led to fewer descendants, or a smaller gene pool? At this point we move past observation to hypothesis. My suggestion, which answers your question, is that homosexuals, without the need to care for children of their own, or with fewer children of their own, are available in human groups to provide support for childcare, and other services to the group, thereby strengthening the chances of survival of their close genetic relatives.

Homosexual sex in early human history, or our history before we were human, was clearly not a dead end, and could have led to our very existence. It was clearly not a dead end since the universal practice of homosexuality in human society suggests it has always happened, and our close relatives like it even more than we do. It may have led to our very existence by helping support a group of non-parenting individuals who helped strengthen the group, in much the same way that celibate clergy strengthen the Church.

Have homosexual couples ever served as the cornerstone of any civilization?? If not, then those types of unions deserve second-tier status. I’d be more willing to accept polygamous or polyamorous relationships.

 

[Hokomai]

Deviant acts are deviant acts. Animal homosexual acts are impulsive. Is the new human claim we are returning to the animal state?

I do not know of any such claim, but the commonalities between humans and animals are widely known and accepted; hence the effective, and sometimes inhumane, use of animal trials for new treatments for humans. These tests would not work without the same processes and substances being present. These are in fact present, and can be explained most obviously by common descent.

 

[Hokomai]

but even animals understand if they all have sex with the same gender than they go extinct, which is why it is not natural and is not exhibited by animals (other than ones who seem to use sex for pleasure) which as humans, and humans of faith, we view as sinful. This is why homosexual marriage/unions will never be justified. It’s not politics when it comes down to it, its science

Can we see some evidence please of non-human animals with an awareness of the possibility of extinction, and of animals that do not use sex for pleasure?

 

[Hokomai]

Seriously, I don’t buy into the theory that man descended from the apes or that bonobos and man share a common ancestor. It is reasonable to posit that there is a basic template that is common to living things, with add-ons with creatures on the higher rungs according to complexity and ability.

However, what animates the bonobo is not what animates man.

Further, animal homosexuality is a myth. As posed by Luiz Sergio Solimeo, because animals do it, it must be natural, right? Wrong.

The reasoning behind the animal homosexuality theory can be summed up as follows:

• Homosexual behavior is observable in animals.
  • Animal behavior is determined by their instincts.
  • Nature requires animals to follow their instincts.
  • Therefore, homosexuality is in accordance with animal nature.
  • Since man is also animal, homosexuality must also be in accordance with human nature.
    This line of reasoning is unsustainable. If seemingly “homosexual” acts among animals are in accordance with animal nature, then parental killing of offspring and intra-species devouring are also in accordance with animal nature. Bringing man into the equation complicates things further. Are we to conclude that filicide and cannibalism are according to human nature?

In opposition to this line of reasoning:
-There is no “homosexual instinct” in animals
-It is poor science to “read” human motivations and sentiments into animal behavior,
and
-Irrational animal behavior is not a yardstick to determine what is morally acceptable behavior for rational man.,

The reasoning I challenged in this thread was not that above but the argument that homosexual unions were not practiced at the earliest stage of human existence. The argument was that f theu had been, we would not be here. I pointed out that it is possible to have a ‘both and’ sexuality, and to the observable fact that our closest living relatives, the bonobos, practice both types of sex, a lot, and have survived millions of years as a species. I do favour gay marriage, but not for the reason of any analogy with the animal kingdom. I favour it because some gays want to do so, and it does not harm anyone else.

 

[Hokomai]

Ho,

You amuse me. On the one hand you offer conjecture as to the first man and first woman having sex with each other and that is without any evidence. When faced with something your mind cannot conjure you invoke lack of evidence. Do you not see the folly of your thinking?

No. I clearly distinguish between fact, hypothesis and theory. It helps discussion and leads to understanding. Treating one of the three as if it were any other of the three leads to misunderstanding.

 

[buffalo]

I do not know of any such claim, but the commonalities between humans and animals are widely known and accepted; hence the effective, and sometimes inhumane, use of animal trials for new treatments for humans. These tests would not work without the same processes and substances being present. These are in fact present, and can be explained most obviously by common descent.

Better explained by common design.

 

[buffalo]

I favour it because some gays want to do so, and it does not harm anyone else.

How do you know?

 

[Hokomai]

How do you know?

I am not so sure I ‘know’ homosexual marriage does not harm anyone else, but it is a conclusion I have reached on the balance of probabilities. If there were to be research done which showed there was harm done, I would have no trouble accepting it. whether the harm was sufficient to prohibit gay marriage by law would be a question of judgement. I think the same, by the way, about heterosexual marriage.

 

[CopticChristian]

No. I clearly distinguish between fact, hypothesis and theory. It helps discussion and leads to understanding. Treating one of the three as if it were any other of the three leads to misunderstanding.

Hok,

What understanding are you looking for as it concerns Homosexuality?

 

[CopticChristian]

I am not so sure I ‘know’ homosexual marriage does not harm anyone else, but it is a conclusion I have reached on the balance of probabilities. If there were to be research done which showed there was harm done, I would have no trouble accepting it. whether the harm was sufficient to prohibit gay marriage by law would be a question of judgement. I think the same, by the way, about heterosexual marriage.

Ho,

Help me understand you.

I am not sure that I know that homosexual marriage does not harm anyone else.

you think the same of heterosexual marriage therefore

I am not sure that I know that heterosexual marriage does not harm anyone else.

You are comparing normal and abnormal in your thinking.

 

[Hokomai]

Ho,

Help me understand you.

I am not sure that I know that homosexual marriage does not harm anyone else.

you think the same of heterosexual marriage therefore

I am not sure that I know that heterosexual marriage does not harm anyone else.

You are comparing normal and abnormal in your thinking.

I am indeed comparing heterosexual and homosexual marriage. I would not use ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal’ to describe either one.

 

[Hokomai]

Hok,

What understanding are you looking for as it concerns Homosexuality?

I would like those who support homosexual marriage to accept that others can genuinely believe it is not possible, and treat them with respect, and I would like those who oppose it to do so without preventing it by law.

 

[hglundahl]

Evolution is a fact. I can prove it to you in a few words: DNA and other genetic material is transferred by descent alone. You and I share DNA with every other living thing. Therefore we, and they, are related by descent.

Quaternio Terminorum: transfer (in nature as opposed to laboratories and in creatures with many cells as opposed to some bacteria) happens by descent alone, correct.

And we share DNA. Correct too. But NOT the same correct thing.

Now all you have to do is to prove that sharing DNA implies transfer of DNA.

To do that you must exclude sharing by means of a common creator - with some common artistic choices for all of his creatures within certain classes and a sense of artistic economy.

Saying men and bonobos must have a common ancestor because they share traits in their DNA and in the appearance is like saying that Thor and the Incredible Hulk must have a common ancestor. That can be done as soon as Marvel Comics are ruled out from having anything to do with similarities.

What has been proven is we share DNA…that suggests, baring any divine undemonstrable influence that we somehow are related…

What has been proven is that we share DNA…that suggests, barring any evolutionary undemonstrated transfer from one species to another that we somehow share a divine creator.

Thanks for the “barring because undemonstrable” part! That is a game that two parties can play.

…that we share a common ancestor with the ape…we did not decend from apes… …] …that is a HUGE difference than claiming we “evolved from apes”.

Crapola! If common ancestor counts as an ape, we are supposed to descend from that ape - or those apes. And yes, Ramapithecus (20 million years before present according to datings) counts as common ancestor and as an ape.

Point is: we are different from apes by what we can do with our minds and our hands guided by our minds. If we suppose common ancestor was like us in those respects, it would be more correct to say apes descend from men in that theory. I do however more often read speculations about how this or that human trait evolved way later than common ancestor: meaning the common ancestor - or supposed such - is supposed to have been more like apes than like us.

No one is claiming they do…just seeking to better understand our own evolutionary development by seeking to understand the evolutionary development those species we share common ancestry with. That is the task sociologists and scientists seek to understand with the evolutionary model we currently have.

That is also the reason why Evolutionism is not innocuous as a “merely theoretic” error, if there were such a thing as theoretic errors having no practical consequences, but this is precisely where the error in theory gets it practical consequence.

 

[hglundahl]

To believe that God in the case of humans but not other living things, intervenes in order not only to place a soul in each person but to re-create genetic material to look exactly like the genetic material found in every other living thing, and to **look like it was transferred by descent **is, literally, incredible.

We do believe God “intervened” once when making DNA for men and once earlier same day when making DNA for bonobos or possibly its common ancestor with other chimps.

We also believe he made DNA transferrable and that it is: from parent couple to child within same kind.

We also believe - and that is where we believe “intervention” going on right now - that God for each man choses to create an immortal soul and fits it to the best DNA combination for it (or best as within general framwork of original sin where things are often worse than they could be). Thus chosing between all the couples having sex (couples=obviously not man and man or woman and woman!) and chosing the one combination of the several billion each couple could produce each time he creates a new man.

We do not believe God has made DNA look as if it were transferred from one kind to another. It does not look so. That is only your twisted interpretation.

The second issue raised by your question is: how could there possibly be an adaptive advantage to homosexual sex, especially if it led to fewer descendants, or a smaller gene pool? At this point we move past observation to hypothesis. My suggestion, which answers your question, is that homosexuals, without the need to care for children of their own, or with fewer children of their own, are available in human groups to provide support for childcare, and other services to the group, thereby strengthening the chances of survival of their close genetic relatives. … It may have led to our very existence by helping support a group of non-parenting individuals who helped strengthen the group, in much the same way that celibate clergy strengthen the Church.

Who are the most attacked of the clergy? Bingo: pedophiles.

Your theory is gefundenes fressen for people who want to molest boys.

If there were only one of each sex, the of course, this would be right. … And if there were no others, we have the problem of incest in the next generation.

Sibling marriage in exactly one generation - that after Adam and Eve - did not constitute incest, since they were furtherst off relative available.

But there were not, and could not have been. What was to stop both the ‘first male’ and the ‘first female’ each having sex with another of the same gender, before having sex with each other?

Or with opposite gender? Well, that would be interkind and that is worse than incest.

 

[Hokomai]

Quaternio Terminorum: transfer (in nature as opposed to laboratories and in creatures with many cells as opposed to some bacteria) happens by descent alone, correct.

And we share DNA. Correct too. But NOT the same correct thing.

Now all you have to do is to prove that sharing DNA implies transfer of DNA.

To do that you must exclude sharing by means of a common creator - with some common artistic choices for all of his creatures within certain classes and a sense of artistic economy.

Saying men and bonobos must have a common ancestor because they share traits in their DNA and in the appearance is like saying that Thor and the Incredible Hulk must have a common ancestor. That can be done as soon as Marvel Comics are ruled out from having anything to do with similarities…

Well, it is possible to explain transmission of DNA by postulating the existence of a God who made things look that way to fool us. Or a God that made everything 5 minutes ago, and made it look like it does. Or a God that has made a frog dream, and what you are experiencing is being that frog. When you step outside science there is no end to things you can make up. But, no, I do not have to exclude any of them. Otherwise I would spend all day thinking them up, and excluding them.

 

[Hokomai]

We do not believe God has made DNA look as if it were transferred from one kind to another. It does not look so. That is only your twisted interpretation.

Umm - yes it does look like it was transferred in exactly that way. And what is more, DNA is twisted!

 

[hglundahl]

Well, it is possible to explain transmission of DNA by postulating the existence of a God who made things look that way to fool us. … When you step outside science there is no end to things you can make up. But, no, I do not have to exclude any of them. Otherwise I would spend all day thinking them up, and excluding them.

Not a question of fooling us. The fact that it is a riddle to you does not mean it is fooling the rest of us.

And you are treating “science” as a system of orthodoxy. You are also denying the proper method of science which is exactly to think of all possible explanations before excluding any one because of nature of evidence.

Or a God that made everything 5 minutes ago, and made it look like it does. Or a God that has made a frog dream, and what you are experiencing is being that frog.

First hypothesis is clearly excluded by my memories, unless these were really produced by someone intending to fool us or something automatically doing so.

Second of them is excluded by my experience. I experience being a man, not a frog.

And even if I were a frog experiencing being a man, I would be a very odd frog experiencing things that men do experience, such a s reasoning and frogs do not experience.

Both very much more excluded than what you would want them to be parallel to.

By the way, thinking them up and excluding them is called philosophy. It is a science.

Umm - yes it does look like it was transferred in exactly that way.

It does look the opposite way if we look at mammals. NOT from one kind to another and here is why:

creavsevolu.blogspot.fr/2011/11/letter-to-nature-on-karyotype-evolution.html

I favour it because some gays want to do so, and it does not harm anyone else.

It harms either of them as soon as he wants to repent, make a real marriage: since it involves divorce from gay-marriage in the preparations for the real one.

It harms any offspring involved with either as a father or with both as stepfathers.

There is a boy living some weeks with “two fathers” and other weeks with “two mothers” - he would be better off raised by the man who is his father and the woman who is his mother.

If there were to be research done which showed there was harm done, I would have no trouble accepting it. whether the harm was sufficient to prohibit gay marriage by law would be a question of judgement. I think the same, by the way, about heterosexual marriage.

Oh, there must be “research” - common sense is not enough?

Neither for prohibiting still what has always been prohibited nor for permitting still what has always been permitted?

That is putting “research” and “science” in a very aberrant position.

It used to claim to give the ordinary goals of ordinary men (like producing necessities or keeping alive during crises or getting well from curable diseases) better means: now you claim for it a decision making power over ordinary men. Over the divine and human traditions in them.

That is rank idolatry.

hglundahl.blogspot.fr/2006/08/resist-meta-man-evolutionary.html

 

[stewstew03]

I would like those who support homosexual marriage to accept that others can genuinely believe it is not possible, and treat them with respect, and I would like those who oppose it to do so without preventing it by law.

Hokomai,
Re-posting my question that I posed to you earlier, have homosexual couples ever served as the cornerstone of any civilization??

If not, then don’t those types of unions deserve second-tier status?

 

[sw85]

Just to remind everyone, there’s a ban on discussing evolution. And it’s moreover irrelevant since it has precisely nothing to do with homosexual “marriage,” which would be just as much an ontological non sequitur even if tomorrow a fully genetic basis for homosexuality were discovered.