Polycarp, if you’re referring to the inactive member that reminds me of, the analogy is a bit less analogous than that. Remember too that (assuming this is the fellow who used the ski analogy) this particular person also suffered from at least one or two of the symptoms of schizophrenia (one in particular I remember is that he believed God was telling him something when people honked their horns). I’m not sure if that muddies the waters/is unnecessary information for the purposes of your analogy, but I felt it important enough to add.
Not at all, my friend:) I considered posting it at a forum I used to frequent (but stopped going for reasons you can probably figure out), but considering I haven’t been back in several months (maybe a year), it would probably be more of a driveby-post than anything else, and I know how annoying driveby-witnessing is to people on here, so I figured doing the same there wouldn’t be terribly kind.
Let me know if anyone gets curious about who the various people are in the parable (man in linens, shrill woman, etc). Even the gravestone with no last name was symbolic of an actual person (though I doubt any of them would recognize him even if I told them who it was).
I have no clue why some people hate homosexuals so much. All the homosexuals I have ever met have been nothing if not charming, funny and intelligent, moreso than the general population. It boggles my mind. The same thing goes with Jews. I have never been treated with anything but the utmost respect and courtesy by them. Yet some people instinctively hate them. Don’t have a clue why that is. Okay, enough with my incoherent rambling. Just was on my mind and thought I’d share.
Some people, Creative_Munster, hate without actually bothing to get to know homosexuals. Or at least they make concerted efforts to keep away from them. Didn’t you know they were evil?:rolleyes: (at those who hate, not you)
Also, some people look at the gay people they know, and see that either a) they’re screwed up in some way, or b) think they are, and go on to extrapolate that to the entire gay population, assuming somehow that these people are both representative of all gay people, and/or that they are more screwed up than most straight people. You can replace “screwed up” with whatever negative trait you like.
IOW, they actively seek out justifications for their hatred and stereotypes, and are never disappointed when they find them.
Which includes quite a bit of stuff on pioneer researcher Evelyn Hooker, who was heterosexual (I only mention this to avert accusations of bias). It was her research more than anything that laid the groundwork for taking homosexuality out of the DSM.
Truth be told, that article goes far beyond my own views toward fundamentalist religion, but I thought it might make a few of you feel better to view the people who harbor this particular brand of prejudice against your own practices as a form of mental disorder.
Let me try that again. “I thought it might make a few of you feel better to view the people who harbor this particular brand of prejudice against your own practices as sufferers of their own form of mental disorder.”
Another thing to remember about the Kinsey report was, although it was ground-breaking and used great interviewing techniques, it was not a statistical sample of the US. Groups such as pre-med students (Kinsey recruited a lot of students for interviews) and those living in Indiana (where Kinsey was located) were over-represented.
The NHSLS (National Health and Social Life Survey), conducted in 1992 used much better sampling techniques. I don’t have my human sexuality text with me right now, but IIRC, they pegged the percentage of people who self-identified as exclusively homosexual was around 2-5%.
And of course, given the fundie cultural environment, and the pervasive (and idiotic) belief that homosexuality can be “cured through prayer,” how much more likely are the gays in their social circle to be screwed up? Sort of a vicious circle, don’t you think?
Fundie: “Conform! Conform! The power of Jesus compels you!”
Ashamed gay: “I’m trying, really I am, but it’s so hard…” <–weeps–>
Fundie: <–points triumphantly–> “See, I told you they were unstable and unhappy.”
I did not know that such a simple definition of a problem existed, but on that basis, it seems intuitively obvious that, say, a man who is attracted to other men does not have a realistic assessment of himself. He does not recognize his role in the natural male/female dichotomy; he can’t relate to women in the way most men can, nor can he relate to other men in the way most men can. As for (b), it is well known that many, if not most, homosexuals are distressed by their same-sex attraction, at least at first. Witness the common retort to those who claim that sexual orientation is a choice: “Why would I choose to have feelings that would cause so many social problems for me, and make life so difficult for me? I wished I could be straight, and for many years I prayed to God to ‘straighten’ me out, but it just wasn’t happening.” Etc., etc.
On that basis, I honestly cannot see why homosexuality is not considered a mental problem. Of course, Psych 101 is the extent of my experience with the behavioral sciences, so take what I say with a grain of salt (which I’m sure you’re already doing.)
iampunha
I could swear I read somewhere that the success rate was not very high, but much Googling is turning up nothing. But I’m surprised you’re asking me for a cite–it would seem that, given your views, you’d expect any attempt to treat homosexuality to be a total failure, correct?
Compary the treatment of homosexuality to “treatment of heterosexuality” is a case of apples and oranges. Heterosexuality is the way things are, the natural order of things. Men go with women and women go with men. The sight of a hunky boy dolphin makes girl dolphins’ little hearts skip a beat. Tab A goes in slot B. Homosexuality is a deviation from that norm.
As to the idea of profit potential for treatment: you can take that point if you want it. It was more of an afterthought in my post. The main reason the APA desclassified homosexuality was the spirit of the age: it’s considered offensive to call something a disorder when that something is the way some people want to live, or feel is an essential part of their very identity. This article describes how the 1973 decision ignored a great deal of research on the subject.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Polycarp *
Wow, so you don’t think St. Paul was a Christian?!?! :eek: (See I Corinthians 15 if you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.)
[quote]
Okay, I reread that chapter, and I don’t see how it can be used to conclude that Paul didn’t believe Jesus was physically resurrected. Are you referring to the passage starting at verse 35, on the resurrection body? That passage certainly indicates that the resurrection body will be radically different from our present bodies, but it in no way states that the resurrection body will be incorporeal, nor that Jesus was incorporeal after his resurrection.
Because the first chapters of Genesis don’t make sense when read literally. For example, God created the sun on the 4th “day”, yet there had been three “evenings and mornings” by then. How can what we know as an earthly evening or morning occur without the sun? But this quickly gets off-topic.
I don’t follow Machen, I follow Jesus. Machen followed Jesus too; therefore, I agree with him.
I completely agree. We have every reason to believe that Jesus wants everyone, including those who experience same-sex attraction, to follow him, and not target one group as specially immoral.
(I’m not married.) At first I had no idea what you were talking about, since you were responding to my disagreement with Christian neoconservatives, who acknowledge and recognize homosexual identity, but claim that engaging in same-sex sexual acts is immoral. But gobear’s post cleared it up. Yes, I acknowledge that some people’s sense of romantic love, just as their erotic longings, is misdirected at members of their own sex. In the future, I will use the phrase “romantic/sexual leanings” instead of “sexual desires.”
People who want to live in a world where homosexuality is considered sick and evil will fight to convince other people that homosexuality is sick and evil.
People who want to live in a world where it’s a person’s own business who he or she loves will fight to convince other people that homosexuality is morally neutral.
If the former win the debate, a group of people gets arbitrarily marginlized and confined to a lower social status for utterly no reason. If the latter win the debate, nobody at all is harmed, but lots of people get to live better lives.
You’ve almost, in a strange way and unintentionally, agreed with my point: that “sexual orientation” is not an immutable fact of human nature, but a modern innovation. According to homosexual apologists, some people just are gay, period, and they KNOW they’re gay; it’s part of who they are. They can’t help identifying themselves as gay. If that’s true, then we should find that people have been identifying themselves as gay since the beginning of recorded history. But the concept of sexual orientation doesn’t emerge until modern times. We know that in ancient Greece, same-sex sexual acts were commonplace. But we have no evidence that the men who engaged in them viewed themselves as fundamentally different from most other men, capable of having no feelings for women, and exclusively interested in men only. They still went home to their wives at the end of the day. Now, I’m sure someone will be along to argue that some of them were gay and just didn’t know it. But according to homosexual activists, those who are gay always know it. Why didn’t they create a phrase like “sexual orientation” to describe what they were experiencing?
[quote]
Wow, so you don’t think St. Paul was a Christian?!?! (See I Corinthians 15 if you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.)
[quote]
Okay, I reread that chapter, and I don’t see how it can be used to conclude that Paul didn’t believe Jesus was physically resurrected. Are you referring to the passage starting at verse 35, on the resurrection body? That passage certainly indicates that the resurrection body will be radically different from our present bodies, but it in no way states that the resurrection body will be incorporeal, nor that Jesus was incorporeal after his resurrection.
Oops. Obviously, I screwed up my coding. My response to Polycarp’s point about St. Paul is contained inside that quote block.
Um, no. Heterosexuality and homosexuality are the norm. Some men go with women. Some men go with men. Some women go with women. And many variations thereof.
It’s funny that you mention dolphins, since that is a species in which homosexual behavior has been observed.
I only hope that websites like the one linked to in the OP are archived somewhere so that in the future, when more of us are rational about homosexuality, we can look back on these displays of ignorance, intolerance, and bigotry so that they can be studied and those that perpetuate the ideas ridiculed.
Arcite, your ignorance is truly astounding. The way you spout off without a clue as to what you’re talking about is breathtaking. I’d include my signature in this post with a link to the four “Ask the Gay Guy” threads, but I doubt you’d read them, let alone get anything out of them.
