The Neurology of Belief....

[_Jersey Girl]

Loran,

What do you think about the idea (and I think I might have mentioned this previously) that people become sexually oriented in a certain way based on early sexual experiences, let's say early adolescence? That is to say that humans attach sexual responses to their early sexual experiences. That is to say, to certain stimuli.

Jersey Girl

[_Jersey Girl]

Okay, that could easily pass for the stupidest post I've ever made to date. Loran, let me give you an example. A young male whose early sexual experiences are with other males. He becomes oriented to male/male experiences.


Jersey Girl

[_rcrocket]

Just how much more plain does it have to be, P? A member of the FP and a very prominent member of the 12, both in their official capacity, say there is no link. That is not opinion. That is printed in the Ensign, and is about as official as it gets.

I read their comments as there being no proof, and I agree with that assessment. I am willing to be educated as to any proof that may exist, but I did follow the contest rather closely when the Atlantic Monthly published is article on the subject about 8 to 10 years ago.

P

[_Coggins7]

Okay, that could easily pass for the stupidest post I've ever made to date. Loran, let me give you an example. A young male whose early sexual experiences are with other males. He becomes oriented to male/male experiences.

I think that's a perfectly legitimate concept when looking at the possible orgins of homosexual orientation. In the bio/psycho/social matrix of dynamic interrelated and/or overlapping influences, this would fall under the psychological and perhaps social aspects.


Loran

[_guy sajer]

The morally confused here who insist on excusing and whitewashing homosexual behavior because it makes them feel morally and intellectually superior to those who dissent from prevailing trendy orthodoxies are spitting in the wind as they keep referencing scientific evidence that has never existed.

Loran

I think that they feel morally and intellectually superior because, well, they are compared to narrow-minded religious dogmatists who are obsessed with other people's sex lives and who attribute a grossly disproportionate importance to one's sexual orientation in the moral hierarchy.

Just what, in your opinion, is the underlying moral principle (without referencing scripture or appeal to authority) that makes homosexuality immoral?

[_Coggins7]

I think that they feel morally and intellectually superior because, well, they are compared to narrow-minded religious dogmatists who are obsessed with other people's sex lives and who attribute a grossly disproportionate importance to one's sexual orientation in the moral hierarchy.

Just what, in your opinion, is the underlying moral principle (without referencing scripture or appeal to authority) that makes homosexuality immoral?

Well guy, you make many of the more general points I've been making about the liberal mind and attitude here and on another post quite clear for me, for which I should thank you.

What you have written above is just standard early seventies leftist can't of the kind I grew up hearing throughout the pop culture and media of the day. Conservatives as a whole, have never been obsessed with other people's sex lives. It is the Left and secular social liberals, beginning in the late sixties, that became obsessed and has remained obsessed with sex per se during that period up to the present.

Now, the underlying moral principle that makes homosexuality immoral is simply the general gospel principle that marraige as a concept is only intelligable when uderstood as occuring between a man and a woman and that such a marriage has as one of its primary purposes the creation, nurturing, and raising of children. It is further a general principle that any sexual activity whatever, outside of that covenant is illegitimate, including heterosexual premarital activity, extramarital activity, and, therefore, by definition, homosexual activity which is not even compatable with natural human physiology and anatomy.

Homosexuality is also, however, a perversion of appropriate sexual relations as well as immoral, or outside the boundries of human integrity that form the moral and spiritual core of such relations.

[_harmony]

Now, the underlying moral principle that makes homosexuality immoral is simply the general gospel principle that marraige as a concept is only intelligable when uderstood as occuring between a man and a woman and that such a marriage has as one of its primary purposes the creation, nurturing, and raising of children. It is further a general principle that any sexual activity whatever, outside of that covenant is illegitimate, including heterosexual premarital activity, extramarital activity, and, therefore, by definition, homosexual activity which is not even compatable with natural human physiology and anatomy.

Your slip is showing again, Loran. Marriage as we know it is a recent phenomena, a product of the Industrial Revolution. Prior to then, marriage was only utilized by royalty and the aristocracy, to ensure inheritances and property passed from generation to generation. The general population made do with simply living together or jumping over a stick type of ceremonies. Marriage's main purpose never was to nurture children. Marriage was a legal action regarding property.

Homosexuality is also, however, a perversion of appropriate sexual relations as well as immoral, or outside the boundries of human integrity that form the moral and spiritual core of such relations.

Homosexuality is as much a perversion as heterosexuality. Morally acceptable sexuality is determined by society, not by some external spiritual source. Until we stop marginalizing members of our society, we will continue in the exclusionary exclusive pattern in which we're now caught.

[_guy sajer]

I think that they feel morally and intellectually superior because, well, they are compared to narrow-minded religious dogmatists who are obsessed with other people's sex lives and who attribute a grossly disproportionate importance to one's sexual orientation in the moral hierarchy.

Just what, in your opinion, is the underlying moral principle (without referencing scripture or appeal to authority) that makes homosexuality immoral?

Well guy, you make many of the more general points I've been making about the liberal mind and attitude here and on another post quite clear for me, for which I should thank you.

What you have written above is just standard early seventies leftist can't of the kind I grew up hearing throughout the pop culture and media of the day. Conservatives as a whole have never been obsessed with other people's sex lives. It is the Left and secular social liberals, beginning in the late sixties, that became obsessed and has remained obsessed with sex per se during that period up to the present.

Then we must, I suppose, find some other way to explain the religious conservatives' constant harping on sex and sexuality as the bellwether of human and social morality, as well as what appears to be their fixation on homosexuality.

The left may be obsessed with sex, sure, no problem. But this is irrelevant. If Bobby does something bad, it is irrelevant that Jimmy is doing bad things too.

Now, the underlying moral principle that makes homosexuality immoral is simply the general gospel principle that marriage as a concept is only intelligible when understood as occurring between a man and a woman and that such a marriage has as one of its primary purposes the creation, nurturing, and raising of children.

Intelligible to whom? You? Perhaps, but it is intelligible to me in different contexts as well. Raising children is a purpose of marriage, but I hardly see that it is the ONLY purpose.

I used to believe this, in fact, if one investigated my old posts on the Foyer, you'd find me making a similar argument. I am now, however, persuaded otherwise.

It is further a general principle that any sexual activity whatever, outside of that covenant is illegitimate, including heterosexual premarital activity, extramarital activity, and, therefore, by definition, homosexual activity which is not even compatible with natural human physiology and anatomy.

You are stating a very narrow, religiously based principle. I can see why you believe it, but how do you convince someone who does not share your religious beliefs that it is a worthy generalizeable principle?

Homosexuality is also, however, a perversion of appropriate sexual relations as well as immoral, or outside the boundaries of human integrity that form the moral and spiritual core of such relations.

Again, you are attempting to generalize a narrow religious principle to the whole of society. Outside of the particular religious framework this reflects, how would you argue to a secular audience that this is a worthy generalizeable principle?

All you’ve done is spout religious dogma. Your arguments are unlikely to persuade anyone who does not share your narrow dogmatic beliefs.

[_Coggins7]

Quote:
Now, the underlying moral principle that makes homosexuality immoral is simply the general gospel principle that marraige as a concept is only intelligable when uderstood as occuring between a man and a woman and that such a marriage has as one of its primary purposes the creation, nurturing, and raising of children. It is further a general principle that any sexual activity whatever, outside of that covenant is illegitimate, including heterosexual premarital activity, extramarital activity, and, therefore, by definition, homosexual activity which is not even compatable with natural human physiology and anatomy.

Your slip is showing again, Loran. Marriage as we know it is a recent phenomena, a product of the Industrial Revolution. Prior to then, marriage was only utilized by royalty and the aristocracy, to ensure inheritances and property passed from generation to generation. The general population made do with simply living together or jumping over a stick type of ceremonies. Marriage's main purpose never was to nurture children. Marriage was a legal action regarding property.

The above is as devoid of serious intelletcual content as was your pityfully uneducated posing over the DDT issue. Marriage "as we know it" is a product of the last century and a half? Bluster on Harmony, your leftwing intellectual retardation is becoming a real drag.


Quote:
Homosexuality is also, however, a perversion of appropriate sexual relations as well as immoral, or outside the boundries of human integrity that form the moral and spiritual core of such relations.

Homosexuality is as much a perversion as heterosexuality. Morally acceptable sexuality is determined by society, not by some external spiritual source. Until we stop marginalizing members of our society, we will continue in the exclusionary exclusive pattern in which we're now caught.

Thanks for again confirming the naval gazing, nihilistic moral relativism that forms the core of liberal social and moral philosophy. It has always impressed my how liberals really don't believe in the existence of an external universe to which they must conform as rational beings but that they are themselves, in their adolescent fantasies of radical personal autonomy and polymorphous "liberation", the very universe around which all other things revolve.

Your entire philosophy of life, Harmony, is an adolescent separation fantasy. Still rebelling against curfew at your age. Tsk, tsk.


Loran

[_Coggins7]

What you have written above is just standard early seventies leftist can't of the kind I grew up hearing throughout the pop culture and media of the day. Conservatives as a whole have never been obsessed with other people's sex lives. It is the Left and secular social liberals, beginning in the late sixties, that became obsessed and has remained obsessed with sex per se during that period up to the present.

Then we must, I suppose, find some other way to explain the religious conservatives' constant harping on sex and sexuality as the bellwether of human and social morality, as well as what appears to be their fixation on homosexuality.

The left may be obsessed with sex, sure, no problem. But this is irrelevant. If Bobby does something bad, it is irrelevant that Jimmy is doing bad things too.

The "constant harping" on sex and sexuality as the "bellwether of human and social morality" has come as a consequence of the constant harping, beginning in the late sixties, of the social and political Left on sex and sexuality as the be all and end all of human relationships. Another reason is that conservatives realize that sex and sexuality is one of the most powerful binding or bonding agents that men and woman can experience and that this bonding is inextricably linked to the committments and civilizing disciplines of marriage and family. And family is the core unit, the superstructural unit, upon which civil society is based, and the bastardization or destruction of the proper role and intent of human sexuality is, therefore, de facto, an attack at the very heart of free and civil society itself.





Coggins7 wrote:
Now, the underlying moral principle that makes homosexuality immoral is simply the general gospel principle that marriage as a concept is only intelligible when understood as occurring between a man and a woman and that such a marriage has as one of its primary purposes the creation, nurturing, and raising of children.

Intelligible to whom? You? Perhaps, but it is intelligible to me in different contexts as well. Raising children is a purpose of marriage, but I hardly see that it is the ONLY purpose.

I didn't say it was, and I don't believe anybody else is either. Nonetheless, the Left has made it very clear over the last forty or so years that the only real purpose of sex is sexual pleasure and orgasm per se and marriage and the raising of family is really a big distraction from that (and all the other single mindedly self referential pursuits the Baby Boomer New Class made into a religion of the self which I have come to call homotheism).


Coggins7 wrote:
It is further a general principle that any sexual activity whatever, outside of that covenant is illegitimate, including heterosexual premarital activity, extramarital activity, and, therefore, by definition, homosexual activity which is not even compatible with natural human physiology and anatomy.

You are stating a very narrow, religiously based principle. I can see why you believe it, but how do you convince someone who does not share your religious beliefs that it is a worthy generalizeable principle?

I think, at face value, that your statement "You are stating a very narrow, religiously based principle" can itself be understood as a very narrow, secular presumption about the nature of religious principles.


Coggins7 wrote:
Homosexuality is also, however, a perversion of appropriate sexual relations as well as immoral, or outside the boundaries of human integrity that form the moral and spiritual core of such relations.

Again, you are attempting to generalize a narrow religious principle to the whole of society. Outside of the particular religious framework this reflects, how would you argue to a secular audience that this is a worthy generalizeable principle?

All you’ve done is spout religious dogma. Your arguments are unlikely to persuade anyone who does not share your narrow dogmatic beliefs.

Again, how do you differentiate a narrow secularist dogma from a narrow religious one?

As to how I would persuade anyone who does not share my beliefs (which you, begging the question again, assume are "narrow"), that would involve extended, rigorous, careful, and civil argument, a form of discussion I find quite to my liking but, for all intents and purposes, almost impossible to engage in here and for which, in any case, most liberals are not willing to sustain or tolerate in the culture at large (and never, for the most part, have been).