On May 5, 2005, at 7:44 PM, Erik Reuter wrote:
One more time: it is foolish religious people that are the concern, not the existence or non-existence of some god. Do you accuse psychiatrists who want their patients to stop talking to invisible pink unicorns of being worried about the existence of said unicorns? If so, you are in worse shape than I thought...
For years I have struggled with the idea of sexual orientation. I'm currently of the inclination that it doesn't exist objectively. Gay, straight or in-between are, to me, ideas, nothing more.
All human behavior can become very complex when the factor of consciousness comes into play. When we're hungry we eat -- that's biology -- but *what* we eat is a product, to a significant extent, of culture. A Chinese person might find jellyfish a delicacy. I don't.
And within a given culture, there are subcultures; vegetarianism very probably is no more healthy than an omnivorous or carnivorous diet (there's essentially no objective evidence to show that one diet preference, within reason, is meaningfully healthy as opposed to another.
(That is, an all-Twinkie diet is not healthy, but a diet that includes no meat at all is not necessarily any healthier than one that is virtually Atkinsesque).
I've found through my own experience that my orientation is malleable. I used to identify as gay but for the last decade or so that's really been more a label of political convenience I use from time to time. In truth I'm comfortable with intimacy with any gender. I think I more or less "talked" myself to that point.
This is pertinent because I sense here an impression that religious people just "don't get it" -- but then, why should they?
If I'm right that sexual orientation is psychological rather than physiological -- no gay gene, mindset rather than hard-wired body response -- some might latch onto that and say, well, why don't gay people stop being gay?
Probably for the same reasons religious people don't stop being religious. It's a comfort issue, a personal issue, and to the extent that it doesn't harm others, it's no one's business.
If Person A has an outlook and set of behaviors that cause no harm to others, what right has Person B to suggest that Person A should change? Even if it's true that Person A could change any time he wants to, it's not really Person B's business to be demanding that change, at least to my mind.
A few years back I was amused at the response I got from a colleague who was shocked to learn I was an atheist. She said she'd never met anyone who "admitted to" it before, as though it was something shameful; well, how is that idea any different from someone "confessing" to being gay? Minorities can get defensive, particularly when they feel embattled. Surely part of many atheists' frustration comes from that.
But when atheists start behaving as though they're eminently right while everyone else is too restricted to see what's so obviously clear, I start wondering what the difference is between their views and that of gays and bisexuals who think avowed heterosexuals are afraid of themselves, or lack the insight necessary to appreciate sex outside their "conformist" views.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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