if I may ask, why are you abstaining, Eve?
Surely, you have suitors!
Eve, maybe you should just eat carbs, and leave the non-carbs for the breeders. (Aside: Headcoat is just showing off his accurate but limited knowledge of one theory of natural selection and is not interested in applying it to real-life situations.)
No, it is not; that just is not true. That is not what I feel. I know what I feel; you do not even know who I am.
I hate to see my step-child in pain; I suspect I would hate to see a child of my blood in pain. Why? Because pain is unpleasant, whether or not the person experiencing pain shares a blood ancestor with me.
Pain + loved one = bad.
Child - genes = child.
If the continuation of my genes were the purpose of my life I would have children.
I don’t have children of my blood; I never wanted children of my blood; I can not empathize with people who are heart-broken because they can not have children of their own blood.
But my heart breaks for them because I can understand that they are different from me.
Which is the whole point of this thread; people differ, and who are we to judge.
Thank you, Eve.
I am so angry I am shaking.
I’d be curious to know what verses of Paul’s letters (or of Scripture) indicate that sexual orientation will keep one out of heaven or that God has to suppress an urge to strike down homosexuals.
Well, so far a couple of posters have made it clear that they do not like being asked the same kinds of questions as they ask of others.
And have made it equally clear why.
I guess we now know what hate looks like, from both sides of The Conversation.
Regards,
Shodan
Not sure what your point is, Shodan. Even though your strawman is NOT the same kind of question, I answered it anyway. Please elaborate.
Shodan’s point is the same point Shodan always has: No matter what people do or say to you in the name of their religion, you are never allowed to criticize them.
I don’t plan on having children either, and I certainly don’t think individuals who abstain from child-rearing are any less valid than breeders - but we are essentially dead in the eyes of nature. By not reproducing, we are commiting evolutionary suicide. This doesn’t invalidate the fact that our root behavior stems from the need to have viable offpsring, even if we consciously decide not to.
j66, a person can have just as much love for an adopted child as his/her biological own. That’s because the mechanisms that nature created for human empathy and love are powerful; and they developed because it was a helpful tool in ensuring the propagation of genetic material. Just like humans have a natural emotional bond to friends and family, because we are a social species that can not survive on our own. Establishing strong emotional ties ensures a strong and unified tribe, and a healthy tribe is a good foundation to raise healthy children.
I watched “Trembling Before G-d” this weekend. Izzy, you realize that some extreme forms of Judeism (yours?) think that homosexuals should be put to death? Do you agree with that?
The people in this movie were so sad…so torn between their faith and their natural attraction to same sex relationships. I was brought to tears more than once because their lives are forever FUCKED because their religion thinks the most important thing is growing a family.
The hero of the movie (in my opinion, of course) was the guy that left the religion (and his family) so he could live his life true to himself. It’s sad that the cost is so high for some people. Shame on anyone who follows a religion that would do that to one of their own.
Well, I don’t think it was a criticism, and I think it’s equally valid. The OP is getting at what a Christian would do if their son came and said they were homosexuals. I think this is implying that somehow a Christian would love their child less. If you were a homosexual and your child came and said they were Christian, would you love them less? It actually seems to me to me to be a perfectly valid point, again in relationship to the OP. To say a Christian would love their child less would be equal to saying a homosexual would love someone close to them less because they didn’t agree with what they are doing. I don’t think it’s too far of a reach to see the similarities.
Now the OP, although passionate about the topic, doesn’t take into account many variables. To say I wouldn’t treat my son the same is not true, in that I would love him no matter what. Having gone through a situation when I was 18 and disowned from my family on religious grounds, I can say that the OP doesn’t really understand, and lessener did say it was based on how he felt, not on any facts. I wouldn’t do the same thing my parents did, and hope I have learned from their mistakes as well as my own.
Head, you’ve obviously done some reading, but you have some more to do yet. You do realize that the importance of the kind of literal automaton behavioral dictates you’re talking about have been widely de-emphasized in dogs, let alone humans?
In any case, you’re only talking about behavioral potentialities, but you’re talking about them as if they’re hardwired dictates. This is not the case.
Headcoat, those of us who do not reproduce are not contributing genetically to the future of the human race, but nonbreeders can still make substantial contribution to the human race. A great deal of our ability to survive and flourish as a race is through our collective knowledge – and that is something that anyone can contribute to regardless of whether they have children or not.
When we say that each generation stands on the shoulders of those that came before, we don’t mean in the sense of genetic evolution. The genetic change that has occured in the human race since the dawn of civlization as the result of evolution is, at best, minor.
The OP wasn’t implying anything, Svt, it was asking a question. Any inference you draw from it is projection and defensiveness, which of course is also interesting.
And if you have one child whom you believe is living a sinful life, and another who’s popping out mini christians every 9.5 months, you’re telling us that you’d be 100% equally proud of both?
And would you rather your son undertake a commitment with a man who’s head of neurosurgery at Harvard, or marry a crackwhore with 4 kids in foster care?
The point on which I beg to differ with both you and Ryle Dup concerns exactly what constitutes a purpose.
If someone were to tell me that the Ford Motor Company’s purpose is to make cars, he would be wrong. Ford’s purpose is to make a profit. If producing cars were not profitable, the company would either start making something else, or it would go out of business.
Likewise, if humans one day stopped reproducing, the species would soon die out. You are absolutely right, Headcoat, when say that we are at the mercy of our genes. We are, in that sense, mere means to ends. Some reproduce, some don’t. Everyone dies.
But the universe does not care whether or not we reproduce. Ford’s Board of Directors does care whether or not the company makes a profit, and just might fire the CEO if he fails in that regard. By contrast, no one will really care if an individual human, or humans in general, do not reproduce. Oh, maybe our mothers will start wondering when their grandchildren will arrive:), but the universe will still continue. My “evolutionary suicide,” as you put it, makes little or no difference to the world at large.
I believe that your argument is ultimately circular. Humans reproduce, in order for the species to survive, so that other humans can reproduce. I do not see that as any kind of a purpose.
lissener
I thought the point of this discussion was what I would do if my child turned out to be gay, so I answered accordingly. I did not think it was to figure out what I would do in all sorts of hypothetical far-out scenarios that you can come up with. I would deal with those as they came up. I also have no idea if I’d rather have my child hit by lightning or attacked at the zoo by an escaping gorilla. I’ll deal with that too, if it ever comes up. Feel free to read my past posts as you wish.
If you consider a person’s beliefs about right and wrong to be “discomfort” you’d be right. I don’t.
I already said I would not kick my child out over this issue. In my first post on the subject, IIRC. Don’t see what your question is.
Kalhoun
Studies have shown that there is a strong environmental component to sexual orientation. So one cannot extrapolate from the percentage of gays that exist in one society to the number that might exist in another. In the particular case of ultra-orthodox Jews, they are far more insulated from the larger secular/Christian society than are other subgroups. So the possibility is far stronger that in this particular society the environment is not conducive to producing gays than it would be in others subgroups of society that are more culturally integrated with society at large.
IMO, it is those who know nothing whatsoever about this society and who insist that their experiences in their own culture must reflect universal conditions who are close-minded and foolish. But, to each his own.
Astro
Possible. What is certainly true is that what with little or no attention to sexual orientation issues there’s a lot that can be freed of hang-ups about these issues. I’ll bet I’ve kissed a lot more men than many of these gay guys, what do you know. 
panache45
I’ve addressed this earlier. You can’t keep everything a secret. I’m not saying you can prove anything from the fact that there is no ultra-orthodox contingent marching in the Gay Pride parade. But you would expect that every couple of years you would hear that so-and-so’s cousin’s friend’s brother’s marriage broke up over some gay-related problem. Or maybe someone wavering in their identity would confess to someone in a moment of regret and implicate other people. Or someone would be caught in some sort of police sting. Or something. Nothing exists on a widespread basis with no manifestation at all.
No, of course not.
I’m not convinced that anyone suppressing an attraction for men is doomed to wind up a lonely frustrated bitter old man etc. Some people actually derive satisfaction and fulfillment from having conquered their urges. I don’t see why this particular urge is unique. But in any event it’s best to do the right thing in this world and hope for better things in the world to come than the reverse.
Apples and oranges. One is a choice; one is not.
Situation One: The child of a religious couple grows up gay, fights it, cannot change, and confesses to his parents that—despite all his efforts and wishes—he is gay.
Situation Two: The child of a gay and/or non-religious couple decides to begin following a religion that proscribes homosexuality.
Izzy said, "Studies have shown that there is a strong environmental component to sexual orientation. "
Cite?
I think you’re grossly misinformed. There may be an environmental component to being OUT, but not to being GAY.
Kalhoun, I’m sure there are studies that say that. I’m also reasonably certain that those studies are flawed in some way.
Is that all that’s left to choose from? The dating scene must be worse than I thought.
The real reason I de-lurked in this thread is to say I’d also like to hear an answer to tomndeb’s question. Gadfly wrote
and I’d like to know where Paul says that, and where (in the Bible) God is described as having the urge to strike gays down.
Are you saying you aren’t asking if I’d love my child less? And this is projection and defensiveness? Granted it may not have been in the original thread, my mistake, but it is still by the original poster, so lets take a look:
Nope, not asking if I’d love them less, now it’s if I’d be proud of them less…
Nope, again not asking if I’d love them less, only if they would be more disappointing…
Well actually now you are implying that I’d love him less.
Now it’s back to being proud of them. So no, I don’t think I projected anything, I don’t believe I was being defensive, but I do believe you need to get over your martyr mentality.