If you reread my original post you’ll see I cited several reasons as to why religion leads to society, at least in early times. My favorite (because I’m a microbiologist) is disease. What is needed for society? People. What is the up-and-coming killer in many 3rd-world nations today? AIDS. Without people you have no civilization, no society. What one thing could these people do to prevent the spread of HIV? Follow the teachings of religion - abstinance until marraige, no polygamy, and remain faithful to your spouse. Many other core beliefs of religion also promote a healthy society as I mentioned earlier - excessive gambling, drinking, etc.
People who followed religion survived, and their descendents roam the earth today. It will be very hard to erradicate such core beliefs like the topic of this thread anti-homosexuality, I am only trying to explain why this is so, not persuade anyone that religion is either good or bad. Whether you like it or not religion played a key role in the survival and shaping of early civilization, and in my opinion a beneficial one. Whether or not this is true today is another debate.
For starters, don’t link homosexuality to the spread of deadly diseases. If you must, link promiscuity to that, and acknowledge that they’re not the same thing. The idea of “homosexuality == promiscuity == disease” is so ingrained that many of those who are 100% supportive of homosexuals and gay rights still believe it on some level.
To hear a biologist of any stripe tout the old canard — “survival of the fittest” — is disconcerting, to say the least. The mechanism of evolution (natural selection) is not survival of the fittest, but of the most adaptive. Furthermore, it does not apply mutatis mutandis to phenomena outside biological evolution. Survival of the fittest is social Darwinism nonsense championed by supremacists who establish themselves, quite arbitrarily, as the most fit.
“They” probably will try to outlaw birth control. I know this is only anecdotal information, but when you do clinic defense you actually get to know your opposition fairly well. The many of the rabid-anti-abortionists I’ve spoken to are also against birth control. And they have a plan that goes something like this: Get rid of late term abortions. Get rid of all abortion. Get rid of any form of post-conception birth control. Get rid of all birth control except “natural family planning” and maybe condoms.
Oddly there are also many gently-anti-abortionists who are more dumb than malicious. Like the people at my mother’s church who were so happy when they managed to scare away a Planned Parenthood clinic in town. They just never seemed to consider that PP is the only gynecological care some poor women get. When I pointed this out it did seem to give them a moments pause, but I don’t think any long-term good came of it. <sigh>
All they need do as a first step is establish the right of municipalities, counties and states to prohibit the sale of birth control devices and pharmaceuticals if they so choose. Cast it as being all about local authority, not about being anti-birthcontrol on a federal level or anything, see?
Oh, and make condoms and any other OTC birth control stuff available on a prescription-basis only (because it’s “medical”) and ban its sale to minors w/o parental notification and consent, they could probably get some support for that.
I said “Christian Taliban” and I meant Christian Taliban. Saying it’s hyperbolic or exaggerated when the major material difference is that the Taliban was fully in control where they held sway while the Christian social-cons in America merely aspire to it, expect it, consider it their due after having elected GWB because of “values”, and are totally gearing up for it is ridiculous. Wouldn’t be much point in waiting until the SDMB is subject to FCC-sanctioned censorship before calling them the “Christian Taliban”, now would there?
No you propounded a certain theory based on certain unsupported assumptions.
Special pleading much?
More disease would be spread by a whole loada people breathing in church than by sex. Yes, AIDS. An isolated disease that has only existed for the last few years, but upon which you are attempting to build a stretched theory going back millenia. Not only that, but get out and have a look at who is currently propounding ridiculous and ineffectual theories of abstinence (we’re sexual beings, get over it) and who is actually doing stuff to prevent the spread of AIDS. I’ll give you a clue: it’s not secular people who are withdrawing funding from the free issue of condoms in Africa.
And my secular but ethical friends would believe in all these things very strongly also. The fact that you’d like to give religion credit for what people actually just decide is a good idea on secular grounds says more about your predilictions than anything.
Oh, and religion is against polygamy? You need to develop a less narrow minded Judeo-Christian worldview. Most people on this planet ain’t Christian, you know. And several major religions promote polygamy.
People who smoked suvived and their descendants roam the earth today. Therefore smoking is responsible for society. Do they teach basic logic as part of scientific degrees these days?
Whether you like it or not, your assumptions are just that. They appear to me as I’ve said and as you’ve utterly failed to refute, to be a gigantic Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc. Nothing you’ve posted since I’ve made that accusation leads me to know you even understand what I mean by that. You’ve got a whole lotta evidence providing to do before your theory is anything other than your particular prejudices masquerading as a home truth.
I’m not going to smother this debate with intellectualism - I’ve made many points and supported them with specific examples, but still you take it apart word by word without offering counterpoints. We obviously won’t make any headway with each other, and as I already said I only wanted to provide the reason for religious core beliefs and why they still exist today. You can pick it apart all you want but you’d only be running from the facts that I’ve presented, and I’m not going to go do a second thesis just to prove my point. Call it Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc if you must, but it sounds like you’re only trying to bombard my theories and ideas - many based in facts - with overly-complicated responses for ‘damage control’ because you don’t like what I have to say. You are obviously very intelligent but sometimes overanalysis can result in ignoring the facts and the loss of practicality. Liberal, in response to “survival of the fittest”, I fail to see the difference between it and adaptiveness. Adaptiveness is more than just survival, it can definitely be successfully applied to politics, religion, and life.
SolGrundy, you are more likely to contract a disease from homosexual intercouse compared to heterosexual sex, due to less protection offered by the cells in the anus. I do grant that promiscuity is required, but homosexuals have been shown to be more promiscuous. But I’m not debating the specifics of homosexuality, I was presenting background and my theories as to why certain core religious beliefs exist. As I stated earlier the choice should be yours and individuals of a government or church has no right telling others what they can and can’t do with their bodies.
But here’s the thing: Primo Levi tells a beautiful little story like this: When he was a young chemist his first job at a paint factory was to figure out why a particular orange anti-corrosion paint was turning to jelly. He traced the problem to an off-spec batch of one particular ingredient. So that they could use up their stock of that off-spec ingredient, he added a particular additive to the formula for that paint, to be used only while this off-spec ingredient was being used. The additive was in every other way useless, and if anything detracted from the anti-corrosion qualities of the paint.
He then left the paint factory, went to Auschwitz, was lucky to survive etc.
Literally decades later, he was at a dinner for chemists and overheard two young chemists talking about how one of them who was working at the very same paint factory had been asked to review the formula for the very same paint. He had found this particular additive still in the formula but couldn’t figure out why the formula for an anti-corrosive paint contained this particular additive.
But, and this is the punchline, he’d decided to leave the additive in because someone must have had a reason for putting it in.
Primo Levi said nothing and just chuckled to himself at the somewhat ridiculous way in which outdated, useless and if anything harmful practices carried on through dogma.
You talk of religion and how it *must * be useful to society. Well, I’ll leave it to the reader to see my point.
Would I be correct in thinking that this amounts to: you’ve torn my argument to tattered shreds but this is because you are thinking about it and it would be much better if we just accepted that your simplistic narrow bigoted point of view and stopped worrying?
Of course, AIDS is mostly a heterosexual disease, but don’t worry about that, that’s just one of those annoying fact thingies that we shouldn’t allow to get in the way of your baseless theory.
Cite? I’m not going to deny that there is a lot of promiscuity and “risky” (read: mind-bogglingly stupid and irresponsible) behavior among homosexuals, gay men in particular. But I’ll remind everyone that promiscuity is not inherent to homosexuality. And pointing out that sexually active homosexual men not in a monogamous relationship are at higher risk of contracting STD’s is different than perpetuating the idea that disease is inherent to homosexuality.
The only thing that is inherent to male homosexual intercourse is the first point you mentioned, which is that anal sex is more prone to spread some STD’s than vaginal sex. I shouldn’t need to point out that many heterosexuals also engage in anal sex, and that many lesbians avoid it entirely.
That’s fine, and of course I agree with you on the last part; I referred to that one statement of yours just because it furthers a stereotype that is particularly pervasive. Even those who are supportive of gays and understanding of homosexuality, still have an image of the “gay lifestyle” as one of promiscuity and irresponsible and unsafe sex. That’s troublesome.
As for the rest of it: the problem as I see it is that pointing out a “survival of the fittest” rationale for religious condemnation of homosexuality, gives it a bit too much credit. As I see it, most categories of religious law have expanded from the idea of survival of the fittest for the individual to that of the entire society. But the attitudes towards homosexuality haven’t caught up. There’s no denying that homosexuality is an evolutionary dead-end in terms of pure biology. But it’s got all kinds of advantages for society as a whole – people living happier lives instead of being alone, more couples available to raise children, etc.
And I’m highly skeptical that the revulsion towards homosexuals that we see the most of is really along the lines of “Ewww – they can’t produce children! That’s disgusting!” It’s “Ewww – they’re different from the rest of us! They’re girly men and overly masculine women! And they do it up the butt! That’s disgusting!” That’s not Darwinist sociology; that’s just your typical run-of-the-mill exclusion.
With my 2nd and 3rd last posts, I debated. I offered counterpoint. You on the other hand seem to be of the opinion that offering up facts and logic is only likely to muddy your nice little theory. That ain’t debate.
You say I’m not offering counterpoint: that is blatantly false. Your theory is that religion allows society
As evidence you offer up the fact that religion advocates things that are good for society. Whether religion does on balance advocate more good things than bad things for society is a debatable proposition in itself, (see my paint story).
But even if what you say is true, you offer no evidence that religion is necessary for society. I point out that it is not only religion that advocates or causes people to believe in societal or ethical values. You have not denied that. You haven’t debated that. You’ve just said that I’m thinking too much.
I point out that religion is not co-incident with society (in the sense that stable rich and healthy societies are not co-extensive with intense religion: quite the opposite). You have not denied that. You haven’t debated that. You’ve just said that I’m thinking too much.
Like I said, I’m not going to go do a second thesis to prove a point to you. And as a general rule of thumb, if you want to truly discredit another’s arguments you have to present facts of your own, even if you think I’ve presented none (which is false). The truth is you’ve presented zero facts to support your counterpoints, but only attacked while I’ve had to defend everything I say to an internet intellectual who can’t see the forest for the trees.
Meanwhile, I will cite our own George Washington and let you feel high and mighty attacking a founder of our country whom which you are no doubt millions of times smarter than:
SolGrundy, there are multiple cites on homosexuality and promiscuity, but here’s one particular one that supports several facts I stated with cites.
Yo, Bob55, if gay people were allowed to set up housekeepting as married couples, or even as committed couples in a civil union, how do you think that would affect the statistics you cite?
I’ll try to keep my chortling to a manageable level.
Last week there were two car crashes involving pink cars. That pretty much proves it: you have to drive a non-pink car if you want to be able to go for a drive without crashing.
Right, Bob? No? Why not? You seemed to like that form of “reasoning” a moment ago.
Try my first post, read the cites, realise you are mistaken or lying when you say I’ve presented no facts, attempt to come up with some sort of refutation that doesn’t offend Basic Logic 101. You think I can’t see the wood for the trees? I would say you are deep deep in a southern US wood, and you have no clue whatsoever what a narrow world view that gives you.
Nice cut-and-paste, but not only did you include general medical and psychological conditions like depression and suicide when I was talking about promiscuity and STD’s, you have conveniently missed my point entirely.
Based on this, can I conclude that there is something inherent to being black that causes a higher tendency towards criminal activity? Numbers don’t lie, after all. Can I go on to say that racism is a natural “survival of the fittest” mechanism intended to weed out the crime-causing black element of society?
No, I can’t, because that conclusion is patently absurd. The first point quoted above mentions “family structure and socioeconomic factors” to make the point clear – it’s a case of sociological conditions failing African-Americans in society, not anything inherent to being black.
If you’d actually bothered to try and understand my post, you would’ve seen that I was making the same analogy to homosexuality. I acknowledged that there is statistically a higher incidence of STD’s and even promiscuity among homosexual men. I’m neither naive nor an idiot, thanks.
So I’ll state it once again: the problem arises when you take traits statistically common among a group, for whatever reason (for instance, isn’t it fairly obvious that depression and suicide would be more common among people who are taught by society to be ashamed of themselves?), and make generalizations that act as if those traits are inherent to that group. “Blacks are criminals” is a completely invalid and damaging generalization that needs to be stamped out. So is “Homosexuals are disease-carrying and promiscuous.”
Nor do the Aztecs or the Byzantine Empire, both intensely religious civilizations. Does this mean I get to say religion destroyed them? Well, maybe in the case of the Aztecs. But in reality their falls were due to many more complex issues than just religion or lack thereof.
