Homosexuality and religious.

[Sheldon]

I think what’s really important is just to accept people the way they are and that the only one we really need to change is ourselves not others.

By describing them as immoral, evil sexual aberrations, that are against nature, or even that they should be purged? You're reading a very different thread to me it seems.

 

[KWED]

She is talking about laws like it is legal for gays to marry each other, I do believe.

No, she is talking about Bahai laws against homosexuality. She is saying that Bahais won't speak out against them.

I'm sure she is opposed to laws that allow gays to marry, because that is against god's law, and god's laws are perfect an objective and universal, so it would be hypocritical to support something that goes against them.

 

[Sheldon]

Bahaullah really thought quite highly of himself, don't he?

Did you ever hear a self proclaimed prophet who didn't have a massive ego, while sickeningly boasting about how piously humble they were? Or endlessly talking of love, while peppering their saccharine platitudes with vile hate speech and bigotry? I'd laugh out loud were if their guff didn't have real harmful consequences. Hell I am lucky I live in era and place where I can point and laugh, and the worst apologists can do to me is sulk and try and falsely play the victim.

To quote the late great Christopher Hitchens:

"Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse."

...and it behoves all decent people to never forget it.

 

[KWED]

I am not talking about temporal happiness, but spiritual happiness that lasts.

There is no evidence that such a thing even exists.

Yes, it is true that homosexuals are hurt by homophobes.

And by homophobic language.

 

[KWED]

It was critical thinking that was used in determining whether Baha'u'llah was Prophet of God or not.

It is not. The only argument presented is classic circular logic.

Wow, is all I can say! Baha'i says it is best to find unity in diversity.

Unless that diversity involves homosexuality, of course. In that instance, Bahaism teaches intolerance and prejudice, by definition.

 

[loverofhumanity]

By condemning the fact they are gay? That isn't kindness or dignified, it's cruel bigotry and prejudice.

Agree to disagree on this one. That’s just your opinion.

 

[loverofhumanity]

By describing them as immoral, evil sexual aberrations, that are against nature, or even that they should be purged? You're reading a very different thread to me it seems.

Instead of paraphrasing why don’t you put up the actual quotes?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

It is an opinion to you as you define moral and immoral. It is not a fact.

It is a fact that nobody has demonstrated that homosexuality is more spiritually destructive than heterosexuality, which justifies the assertion that homosexuality is not immoral, since immorality is about help and harm to others and nothing more or less. To say that homosexuality is in any way harmful to the homosexual or others is to hold an unjustified opinion contradicted by evidence.

You and I have been down this road before. Yes, everything anybody states is the truth is an opinion that that statement is true. If it is true, it is inappropriate to class such an opinion with opinions that cannot be demonstrated to be correct. Yes, they're all opinions, but not all opinions are on equal footing. Some are demonstrably correct, some are demonstrably incorrect, and some such as calling something beautiful are neither.

Fact: a thing that is known or proved to be true.

That applies to my claim that homosexuality compared to heterosexuality is not harmful spiritually or in any other way. Can you rebut it, that is, provide evidence and argument to the contrary? Correct statements can be disagreed with and are often just waved away, but they cannot be rebutted, that is, shown to be wrong.

God can condemn whatever He chooses to condemn, because He is God and has all power. You can ignore that condemnation if you choose to since you have free will. That is my belief, not a fact.

Yes, that first sentence reflects a faith-based belief. Being a metaphysical statement, that is, detached from evidence and therefore unfalsifiable, it fits in the category of neither demonstrably true nor false. That is different from my claim, which is demonstrably correct and irrefutable. I encourage you once again to make a distinction between not agreeing and showing a statement to be incorrect. By faith, you disagree. I understand. But that has no persuasive power with those unwilling to believe by faith.

Your second belief (opinion), but not the first one, is not just an opinion, but also a fact.

The opinions expressed that gay people are moral or not an aberration are just that, merely opinions, unsupported by any objective evidence, and relying solely on personal opinions.

They are not merely opinions. Unlike opinions based in faith, which are merely opinions, they are also empirically confirmed opinions, also called facts.

We do speak out against the condemnation of gays but we do not speak out against the Law.

Yes, you do - both of those, assuming that law in this context means what is being called homophobic scripture. Those two actions send conflicting messages, which the skeptic finds undesirable for the adherent as well as the homosexual community.

And I need to respond to the needs of both my body and my psyche -- as I presume you do, but if you disagree, please explain how you get by without paying heed to those needs.

I think you know. By denying one's nature. That seems to work fine when one's nature is anger and he successfully overcomes that nature, but it generally doesn't work out nearly as well when that nature is sexual.

And therefore, while it might not satisfy someone else's desire for what the outcome of my sexual activity results in, it does -- both subjectively and objectively (since I have a partner involved) -- create a good that satisfies us both. And does so without even a hint of cost to any other living thing on this planet.

Thanks for including that now. Your life sounds as wholesome and satisfying as mine has been, and we seem to share the same values. This is what the theists are calling spiritual harm caused by homosexuality. Obviously, they are wrong. This is the power of empiricism - of coming to conclusions based in observation rather than received dogma. The Baha'i won't even look. By faith alone, they know by faith that their god must be correct.

 

[KWED]

There is no hate speech as has been demonstrated here.

Most people consider the language in question to be homophobic. A few Bahais have simply denied it, with no supporting argument.

I agree that conversion therapy is harmful. We don't engage in that. Why would our religion encourage converston therapy in non-Baha'is since non-Baha'is don't believe in our religion anyway?

What is this "we"? You seem to be attempting to impose your own personal opinion on Bahai belief.
Bahai texts explicitly encourage conversion therapy as a "cure" for homosexuality. Whether or not you agree with it is irrelevant.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Yes, they do. Meaning short of saying they don't believe such and such, they'll go beyond that and say why what others believe is not true. And more, such as claiming that God is not necessary, that we're all products of evolutionary principles.

You responded to, "atheists as atheists don't proselytize." That's not proselytizing. Proselytizing is when one exhorts you to come over to his way of thinking. I have written thousands of words about the superiority of humanism and empiricism (as I just did above), but never that the older theist should give up his safety net and come on over. There appears to be a window for making that transition that seems to close around 50-60 years of age. I did it at 35, when I was still able to assimilate such momentous changes in my worldview, and when the change could make a difference because of having decades yet to go to inform my life path. For example, I saved untold thousands of hours and dollars not tithing, reading scripture, or attending church services - resources channeled into more productive activities. It was shortly after my exodus from Christianity that I changed from reading the Bible to buying up books on history, quantum science, evolution, earth science, Big Bang science, and the works of authors such as Alan Watts, Terence McKenna, and Andrew Weil. This is when I read Cantor and Godel. It's when I began listening to the Grateful Dead in earnest. It's also when I began devoting thousands of hours to practicing electric guitar, and later, playing in bands with my wife. None of these were happening in my church days.

But make the transition now? What for? Disorientation and social upheaval for nothing in return? So, no, I don't, proselytize, as you see. Please stay away from humanism if you are a long-time theist. Not that I need to exhort any such person to reject my ideology. I couldn't convert them if I wanted to. But the point is that I don't want to even if I could.

I would suggest if one wants to be a Baha'i, they would find out about what God has made law in this age, then choose if they are able to implement them into their lifestyle. A key here is, that our willingness to make changes to practice that law, also reflects our spiritual acceptance.

I would suggest that one discover what he believes through experience and skip the holy books to see if they conform to his beliefs. I didn't know what a humanist was until I was one. I threw out religious teaching and examined my moral intuitions (Golden Rule, utilitarianism) and the evidence of the world around me, applied reason to both, and developed a godless, empirical worldview based in human well-being. Later, I encountered two sources that looked very familiar to my belief set - Buddhism and its eightfold path, and the Affirmations of secular humanism, and realized that I was a secular humanist with much more in common with Buddha than any of the Abrahamic traditions. This was powerful evidence that I was on the right track, later confirmed by the results of its application.

Why this perception on your part that we are not clear thinking

Because you contradict yourselves and make other mistakes.

It was critical thinking that was used in determining whether Baha'u'llah was Prophet of God or not. After that is determined how could I oppose what God says?

Here's a fine example. That is not critical thinking. You seem to think that if you are sincere and read a lot and try very hard to understand that you have done critical thinking. Critical thinking has a rigorous form with rules, the violation of which are called fallacies. If you read the words of messengers and concluded that they are compelling evidence for a deity as their source, you are not thinking critically. You are not evaluating evidence critically, and you are committing a non sequitur fallacy when you rule out the much likelier possibility that those words are 100% human in origin. Your conclusion isn't supported by the evidence.

Baha'i says it is best to find points of agreement, and find unity in diversity.

Humanism says it's best to identify differences in opinion and attempt to resolve them using dialectic. Points of agreement aren't as interesting. That's why the skeptics engage the theists more than one another. I can see the points of agreement I have with other critical thinkers. Their chief value is to confirm that we are all correct, since we all use the same method of deciding what is true.

Do you prefer warfare and disunity?

Here's more unclear thinking. You've somehow conflated debate with warfare.

There is no hate speech as has been demonstrated here.

And yet more. The opposite has been demonstrated in your scriptures and in some of the comments of the adherents posting here, and you've been told on what basis that judgment has been made. Baha'i doctrine regarding the moral status of homosexuality harms people:

"Systemic violence refers to the harm people suffer from the social structure and the institutions sustaining and reproducing it. This type of violence prevents its victims from satisfying their basic needs, and is an avoidable impairment of the fundamental means necessary for human existence."

Your unwillingness or inability to see or admit to the damage homophobic doctrine causes simply isn't a factor in the judgment of others who have no need to sanitize the religion with rationalization or selective blindness. That's what a faith-based confirmation bias does - selects what one can see according to its ability to support the faith-based belief, contradictory evidence simply being ignored or wrongly interpreted.

If I took your advice, I'd be skipping pretty much everything I wrote to you, all of which I consider constructive. You mentioned that, "There is a wide chasm in our thinking, like the Grand Canyon." I agree.

 

[KWED]

Our beliefs harm no one.

Way to avoid the question. Again.

Homophobic language is known to cause harm.
Your beliefs contain homophobic language.
Therefore your beliefs are potentially harmful.
QED

(That, BTW, is how rational thinking works )

 

[KWED]

Whoops! I thought you were referring to American like the lawfulness of gay marriage. We don't lobby against that.

But do you agree with it? Do you support it?
In the world under the coming Bahai Would Government, would gay marriage be allowed?

 

[KWED]

No, it means that God created us all because he loves us,

Circular logic platitude.
God can't have loved us before we existed.

and God is merciful, and homosexual acts are just one aspect of our behavior.

If god created people as homosexuals, why is he so against homosexuality? Why did he create it in the first place? There was no need for it.

 

[KWED]

That still doesn't answer my question.

Homosexuals who experience homophobia are more likely to take their own lives.
Your beliefs contain homophobic language.
Therefore your beliefs could be responsible for people taking their own lives.
QED.

 

[Sheldon]

Not at all. I’ll try and explain it another way. God, the Judge of all mankind has condemned certain behaviours among them homosexuality but told His followers to treat them with kindness and dignity as they are equal fellow human beings and that that.

Homosexuality is not a behaviour anymore than heterosexuality is, and there is no objective evidence for any deity, let alone that it has condemned anything. Though the irony this perfect deity people keep imaging, shares the obviously human failings of ignorance, prejudices and bigotries like homophobia, is pretty hard to miss.

Telling people who they are is immoral, unless they deny who they are, isn't respectful, and singling out gay people for this is hardly treating them equally, it's pretty absurd to claim it is. As KWED pointed out, you are contradicting yourself.

 

[Sheldon]

Circular logic platitude.
God can't have loved us before we existed.

If god created people as homosexuals, why is he so against homosexuality? Why did he create it in the first place? There was no need for it.

Being gay would be part of god's nature clearly, if he created gay people and they're created in his image, since that'd be an obvious logical conclusion of the claim.

 

[KWED]

Baha’u’llah clearly condemns the actsand the Baha’i Writings specifically stress to look at the good qualities in all and not to fault find. So we are forbidden to condemn others and look at our own faults and failings.

I know Baha’is who are homosexual and that does not come into our friendship. That is a personal matter between them and God. I only try to apply the laws to my life not others.
If you read this below, we stand to be cursed by God if we go around finding fault with homosexuals. Baha’u’llah has condemned the act as a Manifestation of God but we have no right to do the same as we are not Prophets. We must treat all with kindness and compassion.

Bahai writings are judgemental and intolerant of homosexuality, whichever way you look at it. Claiming that it is only sodomy that he is talking about (which clearly isn't the case) doesn't make it any less homophobic.

“Breathe not the sins of others so long as thou art thyself a sinner.

So if a Bahai is jealous of their neighbour's new car, they cannot report them for child abuse?
Jeez!

Shouldst thou transgress this command, accursed wouldst thou be, and to this I bear witness.”

Seemst a bitst harshst.

 

[KWED]

Being gay would be part of god's nature clearly, if he created gay people and they're created in his image, since that'd be an obvious logical conclusion of the claim.

And it is a well known fact that many outspoken homophobes have been closet homosexuals.

It all makes perfect sense now!

 

[Sheldon]

Sheldon said: ↑
By condemning the fact they are gay? That isn't kindness or dignified, it's cruel bigotry and prejudice.

Agree to disagree on this one. That’s just your opinion.

It is certainly my opinion, though it is not just my opinion. It is absurd to claim calling someone a sexual aberration, evil or immoral, or suggesting they be purged as TB did, is remotely respectful, just as it is equally absurd to single out the minority of gay people for condemnation and persecution in this way, then falsely claim to be treating them with equality or dignity. these contradictions are manifest in the meaning of the words you are using, they are not derived from my subjective opinion. Rather my opinion is based on the objective meaning of what you have said.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

My thesis is that it is unlikely that consciousness would have evolved as a reliably guide to morality. Because Natural Selection is not even trying to evolve a reliable consciousness.

1 Things evolve based on their selective benefit

2 Something are wrong, independently if has a selective advantage or disadvantage

So off all the possible paths that evolution could take, and of all the ways on how consciousness could have evolved, it´s unlikely that Natrual Selection would select the one path that also happens to be morally ok.

Or to put it this way

1 Rape is wrong independently if it has a selective benefit or not. (for example if a woman doesn’t want to have sex with you, you are not justified in rapping her, even if that would prevent the extinction of our specie)

2 there is a possible path in which rape would have been positive for the survival and flourishing of our specie, in such case consciousness would have evolved such that “rape” would *feel* “morally correct”

To me 1 and 2 are uncontroversial true points. And would be true with numerous other examples (not just rape)

But if you accept 1 and 2 then it follows that consciousness could have evolved…such that morally bad things would feel “morally good”

The authors of the bible (unlike natural selection) where at least trying to write a reliable guide for morality so under that basis it follows that the bible is a better oral guide than a consciousness that was caused by natural selection

We're stuck in a rut. I've already addressed this. What biological evolution generates is fecund populations. Morality is an aspect of human culture and evolves as culture does. Evolution gifted us with certain imperatives that inform behavior, such as parenting instincts, which are neither moral nor immoral - just beneficial or not. Enter humanity with its extra evolutionary gifts - language and reason. The process changes from a purely blind one to one involving goals and decision making regarding best human practices to facilitate communal well-being. Sometimes, these conflicts, as when adolescents want to respond to nature's imperative to separate from parents (teenagers! ugh) and make (lust) and raise (nesting) babies. That's when the human part comes into play. Man has created a technological civilization. Now, what nature wants isn't always what is best, and some natural instincts that could not be called immoral in a wolf, for example, such as killing and stealing a chicken, are now judged by human societies according to its priorities, which may not be nature's.

Now look at your first 1 and 2 above. You're conflating the blind biological process with the intentional, goal-oriented human one. Biological evolution has nothing to do with morality except to be the source of the human moral intuition. It is not selecting "the one path that also happens to be morally ok." Man decides that once he is able.

Your final comment is difficult to parse. I don't know why you are still calling conscience consciousness. They are very different things. I explained that. A sparrow is conscious but has no conscience. These are the kinds of things that concern me in my discussions with you - repeating mistakes even after clarification. Everything I just wrote you has recently been written to you. You didn't acknowledge seeing it, so of course you neither agreed, disagreed and said why, or asked questions. Yet here we are again, and I feel confident that the words were written in vain again and that you will be asking the same kind of questions containing the same error this answer was written to resolve.

I have nothing more to add to that. I am confident that any question you now might have on what morality is and how it came to be a human concern is answered there. Yet I fully expect you to be asking me about the morality of rape again and its relationship to communal well-being. In the beasts, taking sex without consent is not a moral issue. If it promotes fecundity, it will be selected for, and has been. Human society is different. We inherited those impulses from the beasts, but have different goals than to simply multiply.

And no, we could not have evolved such that morally bad things feel morally good. They were amoral prior to the evolution of conscience. Thereafter, things were either experienced as moral or immoral according to their ability to facilitate societal well-being. Some things were considered moral when they facilitated human well-being, such as impregnating girls as soon as they were fertile, and later immoral when circumstances changed, and their well-being depended on family planning.

We do not judge evolution using moral intuitions, and we don't evaluate human morality in terms of it serving the outcome of natural selection applied to genetic variation. I hope that's clear. I would appreciate you paraphrasing it if you think you understand what it says, and I would appreciate you explicitly identifying any parts of it with which you disagree and explain why they can't be correct in your estimation. What I'm hoping to avoid is you asking these same questions again that imply that you didn't understand the answer this time, either. If you do, I will refer you to this post once or twice. After that, I will throw up my hands in despair, tell you that we have reached an insurmountable impasse, and the discussion will end. Please let's not go there. Please either make the effort to understand this or agree that you can't and that we are done.