That would explain how terrible your sneezes smell.
I find it incredibly appropriate that a linked Google ad appearing at the end of this thread was for the Maharishi University of Management (MUM) in Fairfield, Iowa.
If we could occupy Wall St. with MUM graduates, just think of the fun.
Thank you.
Okay, here I go with a slight variation:
- Trans Fat Og, the boner of salvation!
It’s true, as you and others have pointed out and as everybody already knows, that psychologists some time ago stopped classifying homosexuality as a mental illness. However, I know of no evidence that this decision was based merely on political convenience, and I don’t buy your claim that it was.
What? You didn’t see all those front-page articles by every prominent shrink admitting that they were a bunch of of biased shitheads deliberately fostering their narrow political agenda until it became too embarrassing for them to continue to maintain that anymore? Too bad–I guess you’ll never be convinced now.
:rolleyes: Ah, of course; it was perfectly reasonable of them to think that homosexuality was a mental illness.
If “irrationality=insanity”, we’d all be nuts.
How odd that you gave this response to the reason why simple religious belief does not equal insanity:
And yet depression and anxiety are occasionally comorbid with homosexuality and both symptoms impair emotional and psychological functioning. Per your criteria, homosexuality should remain a diagnosis in the DSM.
But it isn’t. Homosexuality was removed from the DSM in 1986 prior to the scant empirical evidence we are just now accumulating which demonstrates a genetic component to homosexuality. It was removed because no links could be proven between homosexuality and criminal/deviant behavior. If not for political pressure from the more rational members of the scientific community and human rights activists, the diagnosis might still remain because due to societal pressures, some gays struggle mightily with depression and anxiety. And so long as homosexuality was listed as a diagnosis, it was viewed as deviant, treatable, potentially curable behavior. Which, unless you are a right wing Christian fanatic or a monster: you know is wrong.
The DSM still reflects cultural values, and as such is subject to political pressures to revise as evidence is uncovered and values shift. It may be a handy tool for ferreting out mental instability and emotional illness, but it doesn’t paint an individual’s or society’s mental landscape an unbiased black and white.
(Shouldn’t have to say it after 5 pages, but the difference between homosexuality and religious adherence to invisible and probably imagined forces of the universe being that one requires a physical attraction to the same sex, and the other requires at least a partial rejection of scientific evidence and a total suspension of belief. That’s crazy, right? So why isn’t religious belief considered a diagnosis in the DSM? Political pressure.)
I agree with Czarcazm:
“This particular nutjob is broadcasting from so far past the edge that he couldn’t find his way back with Google Maps, a team of Sherpa guides and Pocahontas herself. Trying to avoid pushing him over the edge is like trying to avoid making water wet.”.
There is no fucking way a few negative comments will hurt this guy.
True story; I’m good friends with my friends parents. They sound KA-raaazy at times. They openly express similar beliefs. “Spirit” guides most events in their lives. If you read about it on this message board it would come off like Kainsters. But in person they seem quite sane. My guess is that he would too as long he wasn’t talking about religious stuff.
Well, to be fair, Pocahontas wasn’t really known as a guide. Sacagawea, on the other hand…
Der Trihs, if religion was utterly abnormal, only the insane would believe in it. But as you would be the first to allege in other circumstances, an irrational belief in religion will at present probably provide you with positive societal advantage in many aspects of modern (particular US) society. What’s insane about that?
Yeah, I screwed up the reference. 
You have to understand that classifying homosexuality as a mental illness was in fact an improvement in the societal view of the time (1948? I can’t remember exactly). Before then it was seen as a willful and criminally deviant behavior which could result in jail time if caught. Classifying it as a mental illness removed the “willful” part and forced the acceptance of the view that homosexual proclivities were not voluntary (not a “choice”, if you like) and therefore not criminally liable. That it took a few more decades to get past the “deviant” part is sad but reflects in part the movement in societal view which would not have happened had it not gone into the DSM in the first place.
So yes, within the context of the subject it was perfectly reasonable to think of homosexuality as a mental illness. It then became increasingly less so until the point was reached where it was reasonable to no longer consider it so. Yes, “politics” were involved - but when are they not?
For those interested in the debate I highly recommend the This American Life episode “81 Words”.
A witness post in the Pit, who would have though of such a thing, surely not I. It was unquestionably God working through us and has been helpful and revealing.
What was revealed was the very nature of evil and why it’s apparently so powerful in our world today all this through something that happened to me as a infant, long buried till the time was right to deal with it.
As a infant I was molested and endured that in a helpless state. It was so damaging to my inner self that it was blocked out, but it did form the basis of the nature for a sexual relationship in my mind. At sexual maturity the pattern was I was helpless and she was to do what she pleases. That pattern made it very difficult to get a date at all, since I was almost waiting for some girl out of the blue to take my hand lead me into the bedroom and have her way with me - at least at a subconscious level.
When I was ready to start looking into my self for issues, problems in my life, that long buried pattern and event surfaced. Worse yet the strength dynamic did not change, she was always more powerful then I was to the degree of a infant to a adult. I have grown these demons in proportion to my own growth, which always left me in the same helpless condition. Though it was not helpless.
For the weakest among us, our infants, God has equipped with a single mighty all powerful weapon for all troubles - to cry. The solution to defeat this pattern was the same back then as now, to cry. So that’s exactly what I did, to God directly and to those I knew, and in church groups. That cry was heard by God through these people and broke that destructive pattern in my life, allowing normal, and very wonderful relationships.
Going further in this, I believe this is the pattern of evil in our world. Trauma very early in life, not dealt with, grows undetected in that person to much greater levels when it manifests itself, then sometimes passed on to other children for this pattern to continue to grow.
So I do thank you all, especially Czarcasm for allowing this to go deeper to it’s very core and to conclusion, and since this is the pit, who I hope now feels used like a school girl who brought a college guy to prom night as she wakes up the next day, but in a good way 
In every branch of actual science.
Bullshit.
You funny.
Note that I didn’t say “politicians”. Every group has its politics and the APA moreso than many.
Hear that Czarcasm? kanicbird hopes you feel like you were date raped. But not the bad kind of date rape, the good kind. Obviously.
It denies reality and violates rationality, it causes irrationality. And it tends to hurt or kill people when taken seriously. Going though the motions of believing provides some advantages yes (although it harms other people), but actually believing is self destructive, as well as being harmful to others.
It’s always amusing to see Der Trihs talking about how other people are irrational and dysfunctional.
Regards,
Shodan