Last night I visited a local gay bar where I intended to gather a few opinions about religious beliefs. If you read my other posts, you'll understand why I would do this. I am, after all, writing a book on gay people and why they should be atheists. After a few cocktails, the tongues started to flow quite naturally and that's when the bullshit started to pour out.

In almost every single case, people were hostile to the idea that science - biology, chemistry, and cosmology - might offer a tangible explanation to life on this planet. The gaps in science's understanding were exploited to suggest that I was being arrogant about rational inquiry as opposed to religious belief.

One case in particular was astounding. A trans-woman offered no argument but listened eagerly to what I had to say. I told her I was writing a book on the subject, and when I had finished, she explained her religious position. She said she was a Christian. I told her that she was adding fuel to the flames of religious biggotry by throwing in her lot with the irrational.

Enter the gay theists. I soon found myself outnumbered and in some pretty heated discussions with other gay men. The arguments put forward were "There IS NO EVIDENCE for evolution!" and "science is just another religion!"

Un-be-fucking-lievable!

Somewhere in the mix, after talking about Dr. Richard Dawkins, I was accused of holding a PhD (WHICH I DO NOT), anti-theistic arrogance (OK, I suppose so), and calling a transsexual worthless (I did...in not so many words). I admit, a bar probably wasn't the best place to look for a discussion on science, but it is AMAZING how these people reconcile their religious beliefs with their sexual identity. There is so much working and re-working, trying to make the scriptures good and suportive of we gay people. I suppose that's positive. But I continue to ask the question, how earnest can your beliefs be if you happen to cherry pick them out of your authority?

The night ended badly. On the ride home, my friend and I argued about the entire argument. He's a devout Christian and I wouldn't challenge him on that. But he told me I shouldn't raise the question in a bar. Why not? Why can't we talk about these things? It is, after all, just science and evidence we're talking about. I can't think of a BETTER place to judge common people's opinions than in a bar, with drunks like myself.

Glad to see you're on here! I think you're right. I just can't help myself. It astonishes me that gay people can be religious. I mean, it takes an awful lot of cherry-picking and twisting the Bible to make them OK in God's eyes. That should give them a hint, don't you think?

lewis.breland wrote:Glad to see you're on here! I think you're right. I just can't help myself. It astonishes me that gay people can be religious. I mean, it takes an awful lot of cherry-picking and twisting the Bible to make them OK in God's eyes. That should give them a hint, don't you think?

One of my best friends and his partner are religious. The partner in particular is the head of a religious education faculty in a religious school. I know he does not reconcile it at all. He thinks he is going to hell because he is gay. I think this is pretty sad. In fact come to think of it most of my gay friends are religious...

Er, I think if you struck up that conversation in my neck of the woods you'd probably get a different reaction.

I've spoken to a couple of gay guys about it in the past and they were both non-theists (raised religious but not religious any more and general apathetic about it all... and effectively they are atheists).

Religion and homosexuality do strike me as odd bedfellows (pardon the terminology), so you'd have to imagine that those homosexuals who retain their religious beliefs/affiliations are still getting something out of the religious experience. It's hard to imagine that what they're getting out of it is more valuable than the effort and sacrifice they have to make to maintain those beliefs.

But if people are telling you that there's no evidence for evolution, then they're speaking out of ignorance. And if that's their basis for rejecting non-theism, then they're on pretty shaky ground.

Hmm... thinking on it further, I do know one gay guy who's a Christian. We never really discussed religion so I don't know why he holds those beliefs. It's ironic because he's a complete man-whore too. How he reconciles his sexual behaviour with his religious beliefs I'm not sure. Perhaps he just ignores the part where he has to ride the express bus to Hell.

REPOSTED FROM MY WEBSITE TO MAKE POINT
The Bible is either sufficient or it is not. Its claims about homosexuals being sinful, immoral abominations to the Lord are either fact or they are fiction. This is the premise that gay people of faith must ask themselves and if they understand its implications to their lives, then atheism - or at least apostasy - is the reasonable conclusion they will reach. I've seen so many homosexuals try to live celibate, married straight, or otherwise 'reparative' lives because they understood this premise very well, but would not accept its conclusion. There are those gays who simply ignore the strict biblical repercussions for their inborn deviation in sexual development and retain their faith regardless; working hard to ameliorate the attitudes of their religious counterparts.

Most distressingly, there are the Bobby Griffiths of the world who, understanding the Bible to be the literal word of God, agonizingly self-destruct because their faith teaches them that they are sick, sinful, and corrupt. Bobby Griffith killed himself because his God created him, he believed, with a deficiency which predestined his poor soul to eternal damnation.

When Hitler invaded France, Germany allowed a southern fascist government run from Vichy to be a Nazi puppet state and regulate their own affairs so long as they remained under German control. Those homosexuals who want to 'work with religion' and 'change their attitudes' do so at our expense. Do they really think there will be a day when gay couples, transgendered men and women, and rainbow flags will be accepted by Biblical literalists of the sort that dominate America's religious scene? What we are doing by conceding so much to religion and giving any solid support to its ridiculous claims is nothing short of selling out, becoming traitors to ourselves, setting up a puppet state whereby we give the enemy a powerful upper hand. We will always be despised by the religious majority in this country which is precisely why we shouldn't ignore the premise and cooperate with faith and wish thinkers.

But none of this suggests why we shouldn't just set up our own churches, our own faiths, our own religious beliefs and customs. If the mainstream can pick and choose verses from the Bible, well, so can we! My point is that if you are not a Biblical literalist, if you don't accept every word of the Bible as God's work, then your belief system is a sham. Why should you believe any of it? That is what follows logically because if the Bible says homosexuality is a sin, that means being gay is a choice. For the majority of gay people, orientation doesn't change with beliefs, but is a characteristic of themselves developed spontaneously without decision during sexual maturation which coincides with heterosexual development.

So, if our sexuality is not our choice, we can not accept that it is sinful. Our existence negates every single biblical statement about homosexuality. What else, then, has God been incorrect about? If we can find so much fault with our religious foundations, perhaps we ought to look elsewhere for evidence of a supreme being. But there are so many to choose from! Which one is true? Is Buddhism the correct interpretation of the meaning of life? Is there any more evidence to suggest that Islam is really the most realistic answer to life's greatest questions? Or is it Paganism? Or Judaism? Perhaps aliens from an unknown galaxy dropped us here for the express purpose of turning us into a rich food source for later harvest when times get tough back home. The truth of the matter is that each of these proposals have the same chances of being accurate because each one makes its claims based on exactly no evidence whatsoever. In fact, all of the evidence we have to look at strongly suggests that no such gods, reincarnations, or harvesting aliens are the reason for our existence. Darwinian evolution by natural selection does a fine job at explaining all life on Earth and the immense complexity in which we find it. And for Charles Darwin's theory, there is much evidence in its favor. The geological record, the fossil record, our dating techniques, and everything we discover about life supports it. Modern medicine relies on evolution by way of vaccinations and new biological breakthroughs.

Science is making huge progress towards understanding our sexuality. Biology and psychology offer a picture of LGBTQ people which is not only devoid of disease and error, but one which is normal, healthy, and can be embraced without self-loathing, hatred, or fear.

With this in mind, history is filled with cultures and civilizations which accepted, tolerated, embraced, and even welcomed those who were attracted to members of their own sex. That is until Judaism, Christianity, and Islam got hold of them. Claiming moral superiority, the three great monotheisms made sex sinful, regulated bedroom practices, and made celibacy a virtue. Sexual repression became the name of the game in Medieval Europe and religious wing-nuts today would love nothing more than to impose their sick brand of 'morality' on the rest of us. In fact, they claim to have a monopoly on morality because of their faith that God is the one source for all of human behavior. It turns out that Darwin has an answer to that claim as well. As a matter of reflection we should be rather glad that our morality is not derived from religion because we would certainly not be the generous and altruistic beings we are today. A slight stroll through the Bible or the Torah will quickly alert the reader to God's own 'morality' which consists of genocide, megalomania, rape, torture, and slavery to note just a few of Jehovah's attributes (delinquencies?).

But what really gives the religious game away is its locality. Why would God choose an illiterate desert tribe in the Bronze Age to reveal himself to? Why not the Chinese who would read and write? And why Earth out of all the planets and galaxies in the whole wide universe? What's more is that people believe in different local gods and they believe them absolutely, without question, without evidence, and in the face of compelling contradictory evidence.

But if God doesn't exist, what's the meaning of life? That is to say, what's the purpose for living? Scientifically speaking, humans are alive for the same purpose that ants, elephants, squids, and termites are alive. We are here because we are the transporters of DNA. But I find plenty of meaning in my life when I wake up and see my partner sleeping next to me in our bed. Someone cares so much about me that they would stick by my side through thick or thin. That's real meaning. And when I take a brisk walk through a garden and observe with amazement the multitudes of plants, birds, and insects and imagine how their coevolution has seemingly cultivate each of them for everyone's benefit. That is humbling. And what about awe? I'm certainly not immune to a sense of majesty when I gaze at the night sky and contemplate the sheer vastness of the universe and how some of the stars we see are so far away that the light from their dead past is still shining bright to our observing eyes; or the power of a black hole to bend light and even time into itself. That is truly amazing and wonderful.

We can not afford to be cooperative with the enemy any longer. It's a disgrace to ourselves, chiefly. But we're allowing superstition and dogma the opportunity it needs to succeed. If it does succeed, you can kiss all ideas of private consensual sex with your partner goodbye. Don't even think about marriage, or military service, or hospital visits. Crawl back into your closet and nail the door shut for good because if the religious right have their way in this country, there will be no more freedom to be an open homosexual, much less one who demands equal treatment under the law. It is logical and reasonable to disown any remnants of religion in our own lives, but to create dissonance requires coming out - in force. Only then can we assert ourselves, can reason and science be safe to progress, and can be, the LGBT people of the world, live our lives without interference by those who would have us sentenced to prison or death by their Bronze Age beliefs.

Did you really expect gay people to be more logical than everyone else?

If it makes you happier I did convert a gay friend of mine using the arguments that all the holy books are against him although I'm sure religion had a tenuous grip on him anyway.
His boy friend on the other hand....

Considering the discriminatory ethos bible has it is a wonder that there are Christian homosexuals. But then again I don’t understand why women follow Christianity considering how Christianity discriminates against women.

Animavore wrote:Did you really expect gay people to be more logical than everyone else?

If it makes you happier I did convert a gay friend of mine using the arguments that all the holy books are against him although I'm sure religion had a tenuous grip on him anyway.
His boy friend on the other hand....

Haha. Glad to see you're on here, too! Well, that was good news. It seems that gay people aren't really thinking or making conclusions on their own. I want to create as much dissonance between people's beliefs and rational inquiry as possible. But no...I don't think gays are any more logical. I think, perhaps, that gays have more reason to be skeptical about religious beliefs because the dissonance is so great. I mean, do we really think we're going to Hell? That's what the Bible says. If we dont believe it, why? It raises so many logical questions that religion can't answer without much warping of the Holy texts. So, in a sense,our very existence makes us almost have to question our deepst-held religious beliefs.

And good work! I've never de-Christianised anyone. At least not that I know about. You get 100 points. I've got nought. Merde.

I see no difference between homosexuals disregarding certain parts of the bible to coincide with their worldview and heterosexuals doing the same with different parts. Fear of death and desire to have a personal relationship with a god is not only limited to heterosexuals.

Well, I may be talking nothing of substance, but I think that these things take time, and I'm glad you brought it up in the bar. I'm sure some people will have that conversation nagging in their head, and along with many other things that may happen in the future, it may help them overcoming religion.

Religion is not something that is discarded in one night at the bar, so I think your expectations were somehow too high.

You make a good point, but like I said in my previous post the objecive was just that...to create dissonance. To get people thinking about their beliefs. Hopefully, I did that.

BTW: They really were going to kill me when I said that in Darwinian terms homosexuality was PROBABLY nothing more than a genetic malfunctioning of the sex drive. They fucking flipped! I thought I as going to be lynched!

lewis.breland wrote:BTW: They really were going to kill me when I said that in Darwinian terms homosexuality was PROBABLY nothing more than a genetic malfunctioning of the sex drive. They fucking flipped! I thought I as going to be lynched!

As a matter of fact, you are somewhat wrong, you're still thinking in teleological terms. There is nothing wrong in homosexuality, since there is no design or intent involved, therefore there is no "genetic malfunctioning" for that implies intent in the design. Shit just happens, and it just happens that some people have their sexual drive in a different way than most of the other human beings. In order words, me as a heterosexual being, am as "malfunctioning" as you are. Then again I do not regard human beings as machines.

Luis Dias wrote:

lewis.breland wrote:BTW: They really were going to kill me when I said that in Darwinian terms homosexuality was PROBABLY nothing more than a genetic malfunctioning of the sex drive. They fucking flipped! I thought I as going to be lynched!

As a matter of fact, you are somewhat wrong, you're still thinking in teleological terms. There is nothing wrong in homosexuality, since there is no design or intent involved, therefore there is no "genetic malfunctioning" for that implies intent in the design. Shit just happens, and it just happens that some people have their sexual drive in a different way than most of the other human beings. In order words, me as a heterosexual being, am as "malfunctioning" as you are. Then again I do not regard human beings as machines.

Not at all. The Darwinian purpose of sex is to reproduce. That's the point. Homosexuality doesn't make any evolutionary sense outside the theories of group selection or some other less likely ones. In the human embryo and later foetus, testosterone begins to develope in males. This allows for physical growth - testes, penis, etc - and for 'masculinizing' the body and brain. What scientists are increasingly finding is that though gay men may have had enough testosterone to masculinize our bodies, there isn't enough to have masculinized our brains in early development.

So, by Darwinian terms, yes, we are malfunctioning as gay people. That does not, however, need to have negative connotations. A woman born with a penis or a man born with ovaries are other examples of this testosterone principle. This doesn't mean that LGBTQ people are any less capable of being successful. We just happen to be predisposed in our sexual attraction to the same sex. It makes perfect sense.

Again, this 'malfunction' should not imply anything negative. But calling it a birth-defect may not be the best way to phrase it - though it is undoubtedly one. If you choose to say, well, shit happens, that's fine too because yes it does and that's central to the argument. But WHY does shit happen? Or HOW does shit happen? That's my endeavor to discover. I would very much like to understand human sexuality, and I think science is getting closer and closer to painting an accurate picture of it.

Here's a REALLY interesting video about epigenetics and the science behind homosexuality.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7aUlWjPZVw[/youtube]

Tbickle wrote:I see no difference between homosexuals disregarding certain parts of the bible to coincide with their worldview and heterosexuals doing the same with different parts. Fear of death and desire to have a personal relationship with a god is not only limited to heterosexuals.

You're close here, I think. But gay people (I could argue women as well) have almost got to approach the religion vs homosexuality question if they're faithful. They've got to ask themselves why it would be that God would create them and then call them an abominatio if, as its undoubtedly the case, we have no choice in who we find attractive. That's all I'm saying. And when a gay theist asks themselves that question, their answers tend to vary. Some remain religious and feel that their sexuality is something to overcome (ex-gays, celibate gays). Some see no other way out than through death. Other gays can make religion 'work for them' like a really good agent by picking and choosing their scriptures. I argue that this completely negates the authority from which they are doing their picking and choosing. In other words, if you can disregard a blatant law from heaven (which most people do), why obey any of the others or why believe that your scriptures have any truth to them if it's got something this important so terribly wrong?

Other gay people revert to spirituality or some other harmless belief in a 'higher power' or 'higher being'. I have problems with I don't think we 'need' to believe in anything outside of the natural world. But I have less of a problem with these gays, living happily and healthily, not infecting my life with dogma.

I find that the acceptance of reality and the pursuit of science is the best way to approach the biggest questions in life. This is only an opinion, of course. But religion does require gay people to think critically about it, and I argue that if that is done, if free and honest inquiry is allowed to have its way, no LGBTQ person on Earth could accept religious principles. It's because gay people are at such odds with their religion that makes the initial criticism of their faith necessary for them. That's why I find it hard to accept that there are so few gays I've met who are atheists.

Have you considered that confronting people, particularly when in a bar, is going to make them get defensive and hyperbolic, staking out positions that may be extreme even for them?

Loren Michael wrote:Have you considered that confronting people, particularly when in a bar, is going to make them get defensive and hyperbolic, staking out positions that may be extreme even for them?

It wasn't a confrontation, but a discussion. It started as a discussion with one other person and many others joined. I will admit to my mischeif in entertaining the conversation and people's views. It was fun.

lewis.breland wrote:Not at all. The Darwinian purpose of sex is to reproduce. That's the point.

Yes, but that's merely a model for our ease of understanding. We can't leave the causation land in our brains and we make sure every explanation has the word "purpose" written there. In reality, there is no "purpose" in sex. Unless you are to make teleological claims about the universe, at which point one starts to question your own atheism...

Homosexuality doesn't make any evolutionary sense outside the theories of group selection or some other less likely ones. In the human embryo and later foetus, testosterone begins to develope in males. This allows for physical growth - testes, penis, etc - and for 'masculinizing' the body and brain. What scientists are increasingly finding is that though gay men may have had enough testosterone to masculinize our bodies, there isn't enough to have masculinized our brains in early development.

So, by Darwinian terms, yes, we are malfunctioning as gay people. That does not, however, need to have negative connotations. A woman born with a penis or a man born with ovaries are other examples of this testosterone principle. This doesn't mean that LGBTQ people are any less capable of being successful. We just happen to be predisposed in our sexual attraction to the same sex. It makes perfect sense.

Well, then I still do not agree with the term "malfunctioning". This is a mechanical way of looking at human beings, and while it may be very helpful in medicine to adopt this metaphor, it's one that fails when we come from a humanistic point of view. Again, "function" doesn't "exist" but in the biologist's mind. We are nothing but accidents happening in this valley of tears.

Again, this 'malfunction' should not imply anything negative.

Are you commanding language to behave itself? You should expect something "negative" to be implied in a word that starts with "mal" .

But calling it a birth-defect may not be the best way to phrase it - though it is undoubtedly one.

Well, we decided to call it that way, since we have specific demands for our sexual organs, and homosexuals fail at providing the drive required for them to have a "functional" wedding to someone with a different orientation. There is nothing on those demands that are "objective", or "true", in an absolute sense, since one could well conceive a society where homosexuals could still conceive (as they are capable of doing), while procreation and pleasure could be very distinct parts of their life. In such imagined society, there would be nothing to identify as a "defect".

If you choose to say, well, shit happens, that's fine too because yes it does and that's central to the argument. But WHY does shit happen?

See how teleological thinking is still polluting your brain? You still can't get around the why... or at least you're letting freudian slips all the way.

Or HOW does shit happen?

Given the enormous variables at stake, and the chaotic nature of organisms' relations, I'd venture that we are still far away from giving a satisfactory answer to how homosexuality came to be, and how it is a stable deviation from the most common genetic definition.

That's my endeavor to discover. I would very much like to understand human sexuality, and I think science is getting closer and closer to painting an accurate picture of it.