Please tell me I'm not crazy.

[princess_tutu]

So there's this guy that I've been arguing with. He is extremely anti-gay. Not to the point of violence, but to the point where he wants the entire LGBT community and their supporters to stop or leave the country so that he can raise his traditional Christian family. Oh, and homosexuality is a psychological disorder (on par with pedophilia) that

Comments

[mattymorgs]

Technically being homosexual can be considered an unnatural condition (physical or psychological) as it goes against the one of the very foundations of life: to reproduce. Thus, you have people who are unwilling to do so naturally. I'm not saying it is the most heart-moving reason behind it, but it is a true fact

[new_wave_witch]

See, I disagree a little bit on your reproduction argument. Sure, our bits and pieces were created to make babies but I think that, in many ways, humans have evolved beyond instincual reproduction. With world population crowding everyone everywhere you go, there's no need to keep the species thriving. With advances in birth control, the purpose of sex has gone beyond reproduction. And also, you can't say that a person who has become sterile no longer has a purpose or is no longer natural. Plus, of course, I'll throw out the evidence of homosexuality in animal species in the wild, as many do. Perhaps homosexuality isn't so unnatural...

[lonelyheart267]

good points

[princess_tutu]

Defintely interesting points, Kaitlin. I hadn't thought about it that way. Thanks for the comments, everyone!

[mattymorgs]

Yes but those are only modern conveniences of the last fifty years. What about the billions that led up to this point? Things that are alive are meant to do two things: reproduce and die. Each purpose is being actively campaigned against by our modern society. Now I'm not saying that advances in medicine are a bad thing, just that as a species we sure seem to want to control things that are just meant to be. Being sterile for one does make you (in a way) unnatural. Or at least not viable. This is purely on a biological level mind you. You have bits. If the bits don't work, or you choose to employ your bits in ways they were not designed, you are not using what was given to you for the purpose they are there. Do you see what I am saying

[froborr]

Actually, many social species have reproducing and non-reproducing members of the population. For example, most male chimps don't get to reproduce. They contribute to the survival of the group by helping defend their territory from rival chimp groups, hunting, etc., but they are prevented from reproducing by the dominant male.

In addition, every mammal with hands, and a few without (dolphins are very creative), practices masturbation.

Finally, you assume that things are "meant to be" a certain way, but that requires someone to mean; in other words, the world had to have been intentionally set up with specific purposes in mind. While this is certainly a possibility, even if we accept it as true, how can we know what that intent was? If everything else was designed to accomplish specific purposes, why not us? Finally, even if we accept that everything, ourselves included, was designed with a specific intent in mind, why does that necessarily mean we have to agree with that intent?

[mattymorgs]

Haha well I don't agree with a plane in which I am flying come crashing to the ground because it isn't flying any more but my disagreement doesn't change the natural order of gravity and the fact that I as a human wasn't meant to fly, anyway. So thus, when I take that risk, I am putting myself (and therefore my entire future - reproductive or otherwise) in jeopardy

[froborr]

I don't agree with a plane in which I am flying come crashing to the ground because it isn't flying any more but my disagreement doesn't change the natural order of gravity

Thank you for this example. If I might make an analogy, your argument is akin to saying that the law of gravity proves that the ultimate purpose of matter is to stay on the ground, and airplanes -- and birds! -- are therefore unnatural and wrong.

it is all life form's ultimate purpose to reproduce
Worker ants are sterile, but without them, the queens would starve. A species can only exist as long as some members reproduce in every generation, but that doesn't make it "unnatural" for some members not to.

those with superior, desireable genes survive and reproduce.First of all, evolution is away from, not towards. It is not that some genes are "desirable" (again, you anthropomorphize by assuming the existance of some being able to desire) and the creatures which possess them survive. Rather, some features are maladaptive (to add an extra layer of complexity,

Stupid comment length limit...

[froborr]

Once our artificial supports are gone
Why are you certain they will be? Rather, since all things end, why are you certain that we won't be gone before they are?

An example of that, let's say, would be a woman living in a Katrina flood zone who no longer has access to birth control pills. Since that convenience has been taken away by nature, she will either have to refrain from sex so she won't become pregnant or let nature take its course and risk pregnancy should she still have sex.
Certainly, the definition of adaptive behavior changes as the environment does, so the disappearance of birth control pills would necessitate a change in behavior for many people, just as the invention of birth control pills allowed a change in behavior in the 1960s. But what matters is the environment in which we live now, because there are an infinite number of hypothetical future environments and we cannot simultaneously prepare for all of them.

No harsh tones, just mere observation. I'm simply a thinker, nothing else. =)
Likewise.

[new_wave_witch]

But see, what I'm saying is that we've evolved beyond that form of "natural." Human beings have gotten to a point well beyond how we first appeared on this earth. We learned to make fire and cook food and our jaws evolved into a different shape. We learned to control reproduction and our sexual behaviors evolved to better suit our lifestyles and preferences

[mattymorgs]

Evolution is a natural process, however, and there is nothing natural about man-made products and concepts. We are the same human beings we were since the 1800s, the 800s, and several thousand years into the B.C. era. All of this "evolution" can be whisked away in the blink of a disasterous eye. Then what? All that we came to depend upon, all the emotions we have been spoiled to accept and crave are vanished like a fart in the wind. Then who survives? You can build a wall to shield a city from a jungle but eventually the jungle's gonna win. Are we ready to survive when it does? We certainly weren't when the inevitable (and quite repeatable) happened down south last hurricane season.

[new_wave_witch]

I'm not saying the products themselves are natural. Yes they're man-made. But I'm saying that are state as a humanity of being advanced is natural. Just like making fire, this is another skill we've learned.

[froborr]

Even before birth control, the purpose of sex went beyond reproduction. We use sex as an expression of affection, to establish dominance (sexual harrassment, rape), to relieve stress, for entertainment -- any of a thousand purposes. MOST human sex acts throughout history did not lead to offspring, so if that's the only thing sex is for, it's pretty badly designed.