Feelings about homosexuality without religion

Homophobes don't seem to need no steenking religion.

Yes, but what makes them homophobes?

Whether or not they were raised in a religion, they received the message, that God does not approve of homosexuals.

Do you feel a person who's a homophobe may have the kernel of his/her beliefs in religion?

Or, why do you think someone would hate/fear gays otherwise?

That's the part I don't understand.

I think they fear an element of the homosexual lurks within themselves. They hate the thought so much, they have to try to stamp it out. I have a brother that absolutely becomes angry and upset when confronted by the notion. He has no religious belief or training whatever. What I said in my first sentence.

I think that maybe the urge to religion and the urge to homophobia could be linked by a general desire to have "us vs. them" boundaries clear and defined.

But I don't think that religion is a core reason for homophobia.

People hate/fear that which is other. Left-handed people were genuinely hated and feared for a while there. Redheads were. If religion said the same, I think it was more that humans shaped their religion to reflect their biases rather than the other way around.

The ancient Greeks were generally religious, but had no major issues with homosexual behavior. This case, as in many others, seems to be an issue of people incorporating their own prejudices into religion. If not religion, then it would be some other social institution.

Re: Feelings about homosexuality without religion
Are you asserting that homosexuality is a healthy lifestyle?

uh oh....

I tend to agree with Mills.

It's different enough (the majority of the population take opposite sex partners) to be an easy target for people who need someone to pick on.

Re: Feelings about homosexuality without religion



I am making no assertions. I am asking if you think people would have any problems with homosexuals if there were no religions.


anyway.
I was giving what Edgar said about his brother some thought. Edgar said his brother has had no religious training, and is still a homophobe.

Just thinking out loud, but I think it's possible that someone could have no belief in a diety, and have no religious training, but still have, or maybe a better word is "use" a belief of some religion unconsciously as some kind of support to their beliefs. Or maybe even hearing of that belief (no man is an island, we all hear things) buried a seed within that lost it's hull of religion, leaving the feelings towards a group of people there.

I wonder what would happen if a child were raised in an environment where let's say there were a 100 people, maybe 200. The important part would be that it be a small enough group that the child could (and would) know each member of the group. Knowing them to the extent that the child would have knowledge of each persons personality, and interacted with them.

Say the group gathered to raise this child was carefully chosen to include equal numbers of various groups, and in enough combinations that if some did not have a pleasant personality to the child, there would not be a common demoninator that the unpleasantness could be tagged to.

For instance various unpleasant people could be...

black, female, jewish & straight

hispanic, male, christian & gay

asian, female, jewish & gay

white, male, muslim & straight

other factors could be overweight, thin, has money, or not, blonde, bald, no religion and on and on.

and for the able unpleasant people, there would be other people with the identical traits that were very pleasant.

That way, the child would not be able to pick on any one traight that consistantly, in his/her mind, that would make them unpleasant.

The group would also not show to the child that they prefered any one person over another, based on any possible combinations. Those of one religion could express whatever beliefs, unless it in some way picked out another persons trait as wrong, inferior, not a dieties will, etc.

In other words, doing the best to ensure no one trait stood out.


Now, how to prejudices start? Obviously if some were suddenly allowed to say....Blonde women are dumb. Now that's not based on religion, I don't think hair color is discussed in any religious text. But is the child asked "why are blonde women dumb", he would be told stories of when blonde women did stupid things. The child would start to think that way regardless if the blonde woman had no religion, has money, was tall, etc.

Now, if the child were told gays are bad. The child asks why. I would think the automatic response from a believer in a diety would be "God says it's wrong" Even if the child is an un-believer, they are hearing the word "it's wrong" and that's absorbed over time.

There might be rich gays, fat gays, muslim gays, male, female etc, but now the child has heard "it's wrong" whether it's associated with God or not.

Maybe my imagination is off today, but I'm having a hard time thinking of another criteria in this situation, that would spark "it's wrong" if it wasn't people saying it was due to a supreme being.

It's wrong because homosexual men act like girls, homosexual woman act like boys....well, that's not a given, the child could see that's not true.

It's wrong because.....Please fill in the blank.

I'm listening.

It's wrong because it's different.

It isn't, of course, but that (it's different from me and the people I know, therefore it's wrong) is a basic human impulse.

Re: Feelings about homosexuality without religion


Here we go with Neo's favorite strawman. As i have pointed out to you time and again, Neo, the psychological problems which homosexuals have to deal with arise from an intolerant society. The threat of HIV/AIDS arises from the spread of the disease initially in the homosexual community in the industrial world, after which the public health systems immediately kicked in, fairly well isolating the problem to homosexual and intravenous drug users. In the "undeveloped" world, HIV/AIDS is a problem among heterosexuals to a far greater extent than among homosexuals.

Being homosexual does not make someone more prone to disease or depression. The same cannot be said of those living in religiously fanatical societies.

using my example though, how could it be "different" if it was ensured that each type of group was represented fairly?

also...homosexuality isn't all that different. No more different fancying women with large breasts as opposed to all the other body parts one could prefer, or small breasts, medium size, etc.

Very few would say someone is wrong for liking large breasts, as opposed to small medium, legs, arms....etc.

I prefer men with large noses...I know it's not ususally the first thing that comes to one's mind when looking at physical traits, butno one has ever told me that's wrong.

Chai,
you're gay.

Quit being different. It hurts people's heads.

Re: Feelings about homosexuality without religion


Uh - speaking of "strawman"???

Well, I try to maintain a positive attitude.



Does it say anywhere in the OT, NW, Koran, etc that large noses are wrong? Large breasts? Long Legs? Small penises?

I think that people knowing each other and living in close proximity is one of the best ways to eradicate prejudice, so I don't really think your example applies. (Perhaps that was the point.)

Assuming that for some reason their previous knowledge and experiences would be wiped clean and they'd start fresh in this community, I think that people would dislike each other, but they would dislike each other for more or less rational reasons. That Smith stole Benson's rake and then was snotty about it when Benson asked nicely for it back... whatever.

And that's good!

And small penises are always wrong.

Right. And being gay isn't a rational reason to dislike someone.

but, if over time, as the slate that was wiped clean gets cluttered, the prejudices will come up again....and the first person that says "being gay is wrong"....where would they be getting that idea from?

That's less different than people who steal each others rakes.

I'm saying that I think in a small community like that it WOULDN'T come up. That there has to be a basic us/ them mentality for it to happen, that isn't possible in a small community like that (assuming again that they're clean slates).