LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

You mean making it so we can call teh gayness a mental illness? ;)

Either way, I can't take that guy's arguments seriously.

edited 2nd Feb '13 12:28:52 PM by kay4today

@ Starship. No problem, and I have to agree. It's become an incredibly loaded term. Two people can have the exact same condition on paper, yet there can be a huge difference in their ability to function in day-to-day society, which what matters. It's a discussion for a different thread, however. Also, our country, due to our emphasis on individual responsibility, has a extremely backwards way of looking at mental health issues.

Indeed. This is hitting Poe's Law territory. Also, I have an innate suspicion on Red-texted, no profile picture or signatured people in the On-Topic Forums.

edited 2nd Feb '13 12:31:24 PM by DrTentacles

It's a shame people concentrate on taking the piss out of conservatives, when it's the shit that needs to be taken care of.

After those guys, I meant .

So at what point did God decide to stop sending messages to humanity?

About the same time we started seriously documenting stuff.

Dude's shy, obviously.

I think it depends on who you ask. I believe there's something in Revelations about it.

edited 2nd Feb '13 12:37:05 PM by Lascoden

Probably when America abandoned the God-given gold backed currency, created the evil Federal Reserve, and started using demonic fiat money. You can read all about it on infowars.com, where they also explain why some far-right wing paranoid schizophrenics know much more than scientists when it comes to homosexuality. And everything else for that matter.

edited 2nd Feb '13 12:45:28 PM by HilarityEnsues

@Elfive: That explains why there aren't any pictures of him.

Dr Tentacles = "If a scientist screws up, other people will jump on them, to advance their own career."

Unless, of course, you end up vindicating the common enemy of all science: religion.

The gay rights issue is a great way to make religion look like the big scary boogeyman.

It seems to me that many scientists are rather indignant about the fact that they still have to share the 21st century with religion. I remember hearing Richard Dawkins saying something along the lines of: "The 21st century should time of reason, instead religion is on the march and stronger than ever."

The attitude seems to be "this is our world now, what are you still doing here?"

Someone once said to me something to the effect of: "Scientists who believe in something very strongly, especially if it gives them a sense of intellectual superiority over other people, will never stumble upon a fact that challenges or shatters said beliefs and say "oh look, here's a fact that changes everything I believe in, best let the world know.""

I apologize for my cynicism, but I'm fed up with how "what science says" is being used to try and quickly end debates on which the jury is still very much out. History shows us that "what science says" is highly dependent on the general worldview of the majority of scientists in any given time period.

Did you not see the rest of my posts? You're really not debating in good faith. Or paying attention to anything other than your preconceptions. And there are many religious scientists. Science's only enemy is ignorance. Very few scientists set out with the goal of destroying religion. You're really not putting yourself in a good, or even sane light. Step back, and think logically about this for a while.

There's not "Grand War" against religion. Religion isn't some oppressed minority. If your beliefs can't stand up to questioning, perhaps you need to re-consider them. Science doesn't have a "goal" other than knowledge.

edited 2nd Feb '13 1:16:10 PM by DrTentacles

Scientists do that all the time. It's how you get a Nobel prize.

And I doubt Richard Dawkins would describe religion as "stronger than ever" when it's a dying shadow of it's former glory.

edited 2nd Feb '13 1:15:28 PM by Elfive

Dawkins is a jackass. He has decent ideas, but he's too busy polishing his intellectual penis to communicate them in a way that they'll get across. And faith is still pretty much as strong as every. It's organized religion that's waning. I tend to see this as a good thing, because organized religion tends to pervert religion into a tool of control.

Anyhow, please don't bring up Dawkins. He's a smart man, but he's an asshole, and instead of bringing people to his point of view, he'd rather wallow in smug intellectual superiority. It annoys me to no end that he's become the face of modern atheism.

edited 2nd Feb '13 1:21:10 PM by DrTentacles

All the more reason to find the quote dubious.

I think Dawkin's problem is that if he thinks your beliefs are stupid, he will tell you so in as many words.

edited 2nd Feb '13 1:25:46 PM by Elfive

And I'm tired of religion getting a free pass all the time because "oh, it's not right to question someone's deep, personal beliefs. Why can't you just leave them alone"? Even worse, we live in a society where baseless claims like "but homosexuality just feels WRONG to me" are treated with respect in the national discourse, because anti-intellectualism is so ingrained within our culture.

And I always found Dawkins to be... just a mild-mannered Brit, I guess, but YMMV. I definitely prefer someone like, say, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, if we're going to talk about advocates for science/reason,

edited 2nd Feb '13 1:41:38 PM by HilarityEnsues

Did I miss the meeting where we elected Richard Dawkins as the global representative of science? Because unless I did, any quote from Dawkins applies only to Dawkins and those who chose to agree with him.

In fact did I miss the one where we declared a war on religion?

Seriously, who the hell keeps forgetting to tell me about these meetings? I'm obviously missing out on some really important decisions by the global scientific community.

Ah, there's your problem. You need to look for the Strawman Atheist Convention, not the science meetings.

edited 2nd Feb '13 1:44:48 PM by HilarityEnsues

But I'm a Christian...

Oh, I see. So maybe this issue is, in fact, more complicated than this made-up narrative where science and religion are bitter enemies.

What a surprise.

edited 2nd Feb '13 1:57:50 PM by HilarityEnsues

Well I'm shocked. Anyone else?

"Did you not see the rest of my posts? You're really not debating in good faith. Or paying attention to anything other than your preconceptions. And there are many religious scientists. Science's only enemy is ignorance. Very few scientists set out with the goal of destroying religion. You're really not putting yourself in a good, or even sane light. Step back, and think logically about this for a while.

There's not "Grand War" against religion. Religion isn't some oppressed minority. If your beliefs can't stand up to questioning, perhaps you need to re-consider them. Science doesn't have a "goal" other than knowledge."

Alright then; the argument you made to me an Maxima was that if there was genuine scientific evidence that ran contrary to the APA's currant stance on homosexuality, some egotistical scientist would have found it and published it to make a name for himself.

I would agree with this. But with an issue like homosexuality things would be a lot more complicated. As we already discussed the APA faced relentlessly aggressive mob tactics before it removed homosexuality from it's list of mental disorders. If a scientist were to come out with evidence that said homosexuality was curable, he would have the full wrath of an increasingly-powerful, nationwide, activist movement levied against him.

Again, I agree with you, a scientist would be more than happy to advance his career by correcting a long-held misconception of the larger scientific community. In the case of homosexuality, however, said scientist would face significant consequences if he came forward with anything contradicting the currently accepted view.

edited 2nd Feb '13 1:58:44 PM by Albor

You appear to be vastly overestimating the power of the Gay Rights movement, now I'm all for a universe where we can squash contradictory opinion and rule by fiat. But unless I'm missing something that is not the world in which we live.

You do realize wordpress is not an article. It's a blog. Anyone and their dog can start one.

Give me something credible and we can talk.

Otherwise, this is pointless drivel.

Most scientists wouldn't care, as far I know. For example, the climate change deniers haven't shut up the climate change advocates yet, even though, a couple years ago, they were in the majority. As far as I (as we don't have universal gay marriage yet), the anti-gay marriage crowd can exert far more pressure than the pro-crowd.