@vikorr,
vikorr wrote:True enough - through them one infers underlying meanings...which you are completely avoiding giving any thought to.
Not exactly. Patterns can support hypotheses if they don't contradict them, but even when they contradict them, there is a way to construct a revised hypothesis that accounts for the variation in a way that prevents the original hypothesis from being disproven by statistical patterns. That's why statistics are such a bad basis for science.
For example: let's say there is statistically significant IQ disparity between races, according to the Bell Curve. Now, let's say you want to explain that by genetic brain differences, but someone else wants to claim that the IQ test measures intelligence in a biased way, or that racist culture causes blacks to avoid performing well on tests, while whites are encouraged to do so, etc. etc. Then what you end up with is partisan bickering about whose reasons are more plausible, because there's no way to gather the correct data to prove or disprove these kinds of nuanced arguments, so the statistical patterns end up being essentially meaningless, not least because if you are an intelligent person who happens to be black, you have to deal with racism when people think of you as exceptional relative to other blacks, instead of just treating you as an intelligent person in your own right.
Quote:The Bell Curve is a step backward in any reasoned discussion you're trying to have here.
Perhaps that is your opinion because you realise that the Bell Curve can be applied to just about every spread of statistics in the human realm? No matter what study is done that looks into statistical spread among humans, the Bell Curve is able to be applied. There things that modify how it's applied (culture being one, countries being another), but after modification, it is still able to be matched to the any statistical spread.[/quote]
I don't know why you are defending statistics here. All you are really defending is a certain way of thinking that groups individuals into collectives and then makes generalizations about the collectives. When those collective generalizations are applied to individuals, they result in prejudice and discrimination. Sometimes that is necessary, such as when you have an deadly epidemic in a city and you know that a high proportion of individuals had the disease so you quarantine anyone who was in that city. Other times it's just bias/prejudice and discrimination gets abused to unfair political ends, such as boosting the economic wealth of citizens of a particular nation or corporation regardless of how much they are actually worth compared with other individuals who are not citizens/beneficiaries of that particular welfare state/population.
Quote:So too will the statistical spread of relevant chromosomes distribution (if you can find some such study), so too will the distribution of hetero / bi / homosexual peoples.
If so, what does that matter. You are relying on some false implications about the relationship between genetic biology and sexual behavior. As I said before, you might be genetically predisposed to be tempted/aroused more sexually by gay or straight porn, for example, but you also have the capacity to avoid watching it and to focus your attention on other, non-sexual things.
Quote:
You still cannot answer the basic injustice that exists when:
- one person (a homosexual) is a sinner for following their genetic sex drive, while
- another person (a heterosexual) is okay for following their genetic sex drive.
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Any conversation after that, where for example, you say both the homosexual (but a man married to a woman) and the heterosexual must resist the temptation of an affair...ignores that true homosexuals cannot marry the opposite sex, because there is no sexual attraction there whatsoever.
It doesn't matter, because as I told you, a gay couple who gets married and faces persecution for doing so is not any different from, say, a heterosexual polyamorous network who effectively 'marry' each of a number of partners. You could also say that they are practicing non-monogamy in a committed way, in order to contain lust within marital relationships and thus not stray, but they would also be denied marital rights, etc.
The bottom line is that ultimately all sexual relationships involve drama. Eventually, our will to avoid drama overpowers our will to satisfy our sexual urge and we choose abstinence/celibacy. If we don't, the emotional drama eventually kills us.
Quote:For example, your abstience / celibacy line...again employs a double standard. You want one group to all engage in it, and another group to pick and choose (unless you are suggesting the whole of humanity abstain.)
First, don't use the words, "you want . . ." I am telling you what St. Paul says in the Bible and what is true. He says that those who can be like him should, but if they marry there is no sin. His reasoning is that there is lust and it should be contained with a marital relationship. He then says that spouses shouldn't withhold sex from each other except temporarily for spiritual purposes. So he's saying that yes it is still good for married people to abstain for a time, but they have to be careful not to push their partners into temptation by denying them sex.
So if you look closely at what's going on within a properly-devoted heterosexual married couple, first they are supposed to try to be celibate. Then, if they can't stand it, they are supposed to get married. Then, within marriage they are supposed to try to abstain but not to withhold from their partner lest they cause them to fall into lust. However, they are supposed to accept pregnancy and have children, etc. so the burden of sexuality with the same partner and a growing number of children eventually pushes them into abstinence/celibacy. All the while, they are struggling to abstain and failing. You may call that a party if you are a hedonist, but from a non-hedonistic POV, it is suffering.
Likewise, if you're gay or whatever and you are trying to abstain but falling into situations where you give in to lust and have a sexual affair/relationship, then a hedonist may call that a party, but for a Christian it's the same thing as when you're in a heterosexual relationship and you can't get your lust under control. The fact that you're married really doesn't matter. All that does is provide a deterrent to committing adultery, but people fall for that temptation too, so what does it matter whether you're married by law or just committed? The only difference is if you feel envy for the pride you imagine comes with being a socially-legitimated couple, i.e. because you're heterosexual. But ultimately even that is temptation to sin, because pride in all forms is a sin, as is envy. So when gay/lesbian people envy heterosexual pride, that is just another form of sin, as is heterosexual pride, which misses the point of St. Paul, which is that marriage is basically just an institution for people who can't overcome lust to achieve abstinence.
Quote:Basically, any other conversation in the realm of sexual drive because flawed because of the double standard that precedes your examples.
You have to start looking at people at the individual level, what they go through and why/how. There are gay people who are privileged in ways that some other person isn't, and they are heterosexual. You are trying to elevate sexual identity to the status of top-victim, but victimhood just isn't a competition. It is a feature of the hellish reality we live in that there are a nearly unlimited variety of crosses to bear and when you start getting into a competition to prove that your cross is worse than other people's crosses, that is just another way of burning with envy.
Quote:Quote:What 'damage,' and 'self-loathing?'
Never had any talk with gay people about this, have you. Particularly ones that grew up in a church, but also others.
I've watched some documentaries. Usually the documentary proceeds to point where it's just anger against religion for not allowing people to indulge in pride of sexuality and sexual identity. These are fundamentally Satanic attitudes, because the story of Lucifer is an angel who falls to temptation of pride because of his own beauty, for which he wants worship. So basically these documentaries and the people they are depicting are promoting an ideology where they should be worshiped for their beauty and they are complaining that religion causes them emotional damage and 'self-loathing,' because they want to feel entitled to be proud of their beauty.
Quote:Half the reason your morality does so much damage. It assumes there is something to forgive in the first place. It assumes there is something wrong with homosexuality in the first place. It tells everyone prepared to listen, that this is the truth.It insists that people with those genetic drives steer away from it.
But not just those 'genetic drives.' It is about resisting all forms of temptation, and then humbling oneself to the realization that we're human, imperfect, and thus unable to always resist all forms of temptation. It is about giving up pride and serving our conscience and higher purpose.
Denying sin and the necessity of forgiveness is ultimately the damaging ideology. People who are talked into pride, envy, lust, gluttony, greed, and other sins burn with anger and frustration inside because of innate shortcomings that constantly occur within an imperfect reality. Buddhists explain this the best, imo, in terms of temporality and perishability of everything worldly and material. In other words, the more you base your happiness on material entitlements, entitlement to equality, etc. the more you rage and suffer. You have to find detachment in the realization that all these sins are traps that pull you deeper into suffering.
Quote:How you cannot see how that inspires self loathing:
- in gay people born into the church
- told over and over again that their attraction is sinful,
- that their genetic attraction is wrong,
- that they, fundamentally, are wrong (this is the implied message from above, because that genetic attraction is a fundamental part of their makeup)
The same self-loathing occurs with heterosexuals who experience attraction and lust beyond their relationships. We are supposed to be monogamous but we're not by nature. We are primates capable of expressing ourselves sexually toward any number of sexual objects and in different ways. Why would you think you have to be gay or bi to feel that shame and self-loathing?
Quote:It certainly appears you need to actually talk to some of them, because you seem to have little clue regarding the end effect of your beliefs on them.
What do you think about all the heterosexuals who feel shame and guilt about heteronormativity favoring them? People who buy into that discourse are just submitting to more shaming, and many LGTBQ rights people will relish in them experiencing shame as retaliation for shame that they felt and blame on the heteronormative culture.
Whenever a victim is bullied, the victim develops a retaliatory sadism that gets relief by bullying some other victim. When the victim is the perpetrator or can be identified with the culture that caused them to be victimized, there is satisfaction in what could be termed, 'legitimate bullying.' Still, if you think about it, there's no end to that.
E.g. let's say a heterosexual woman feels really guilty about heteronormativity and she becomes really subservient to her gay/lesbian friends because of that guilt, and then one day she realizes that her subjugation to them was based on heteronormative guilt that she suddenly realizes isn't any different from, say, white guilt, which she decides her white gay friends shirk, so she gets with some black heterosexual friends and complains about her gay friends being insufficiently sensitive to racism. Now she has a basis for rising up against these people who she bowed to out of heterosexual guilt before.
Don't you see? Creating a system of subjugation and retaliation against normatively privileged people only results in a competition for who gets to be a victim and thus rise above others who are supposed to feel shame/guilt for privilege. The solution is to rise above it all by committing to a future that is sustainable for all.
