It is a choice.

[Barter_Town]

Originally Posted by ninelegyak

Barter_Town, I appreciate your perseverance here even if you rub many folks on here the wrong way. I think dialogue on this topic is important, but I don't think you're the best one to do it. =p

Pay attention to content, not presentation.

The basis of religious thought is such that humans are finite and do not have all the answers.

And yet religion will gladly supply those answers.

In this way, scientific thought is also religious.

Science has never claimed to have all the answers. It is a process for discovering how things work in the natural world. It is dynamic, constantly evolving and building upon itself, unlike religion whose dogma is fixed and inert.

I agree that the "homosexual person," as defined as such, is an anomaly for many religious thinkers, but it is also an anomaly for scientific thinkers.

How so?

If I were you, I'd be careful in fully defining a person's being by their sexual orientation.

Tell that to your "Yes" voter friends.

This is part of the reason the anomaly exists as an anomaly: the lines of personhood are drawn differently by competing interests.

Well regardless of how these "competing interests" want to define me, I am 100% heterosexual. I've never felt attraction to anyone within my own gender and I am positive that I never will. If same-sex attraction were even remotely possible, I'm pretty sure I would have noticed it by now. It's the same with gay, bi and transgender people. Most of them knew their orientation at an early age, and nothing they did could change it.

I'd also be careful in maintaining such a strong line between "science" and "religion" when there are certainly religious scientists and scientific religious people out there.

Yep. It's called "compartmentalization".

Newton was one; so was Galileo.

???

Newton wasn't religious, in fact he refused the sacrament on his death bed. He was something akin to a deist, if anything.

Galileo was Roman-Catholic but that isn't saying much, since everyone in 17th-century Italy was Roman-Catholic. And let's not forget his being turned over to the Roman Inquisition and being placed under house arrest for his heliocentric model of the solar system -- somehow I'm inclined to think that didn't leave a very good taste in his mouth in regards to the church.

Many gay people do leave the Church for the reasons you have laid out here, but many of them also stay. Are their stories in your heart as much as the stories of those who leave?

Yes and no. I sort of view them as being like that Youtube kid getting his homosexuality exorcised as if it were some kind of demon, or those "ex-gay" people who are still gay. I feel bad for them for buying into this idea that there is something inherently wrong with them, but at the same time I have to wonder why they don't have the good sense or intellectual courage to really think about or question these things.

You cannot judge another's person happiness. That is for them to judge.

I can only imagine how I would feel if I were in their shoes. Obviously there are the few oddballs who stay in the church and struggle their entire lives in loneliness. But the vast majority of gay people I know of are basically forced to question the church from an early age. And that's all it takes, really, to think about things a little more critically, and begin to gain knowledge. Once they realize that a lot of things don't add up, leaving is a no-brainer.

I am not Mormon; I was raised Mormon, but I am now a Buddhist who is on this forum engaging with Mormon thought. My faith does allow me to hold simultaneous claims as true, not in the sense of "those other faiths have a piece of the truth," but in the sense of truth being a whole that is both divided and not divided into parts.

Kind of like the trinity, eh.

I make no claims to truth, whereas you do, by constantly putting this thing called "science" up against others' truths.

Well being the good Buddhist you are, I'm sure you'll gladly try to find harmony between science and religion. Good luck reconciling science with Genesis.

The beauty of religion is that it is open to all, since it is based on testimony. If various viewpoints are discarded, it is probably for a reason.

Eh.. no. That doesn't work. Conversion is open to all, but you can't really be a practicing Mormon while simultaneously being a practicing Muslim. You have to choose one or the other and make a commitment, since their doctrines are mutually exclusive. Otherwise you're not really a Mormon, or a Muslim, etc.

Science, on the other hand, is open to all. It is like math, or logic. A scientist is China is subject to the same rules of observation as a scientist in France. They can instantly communicate since they are each observing the same phenomena. They can both observe the splitting of an atom, and report the same thing.

A Mormon will never admit that his religious experience is identical to a Muslim's; no, the Mormon will consider his experience to be "true" and the Muslim's "false", and vice versa.

But you'd never see the Chinese scientist accusing the French scientist's observation as "false", and if he did, then he would be expected to produce his reasons for thinking so. He may very well be right, and if he is, the French scientist will be the first to admit it, since it is quantifiable and subject to observation.

There is no such possibility between the Mormon and Muslim; each is convinced that he alone is right, and there is no way to prove otherwise.

Now do you see the difference?

What you are saying is "essentially meaningless" if the position in which you are in opposition can say the exact same thing.

Well the sentence you produced to illustrate your point didn't even make sense.

Do you not think it empowering for a gay person to have choice over their own destiny?

Choice meaning, a) do as the church says and be miserable and lonely your whole life, or b) go with your very human needs and be told you are a "sinner" and risk being shunned by the church and possibly even friends and family? Not the best of options if you ask me. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The problem with what you're saying is that it is circular: "sexual orientation" is a concept given over to non-choice.

If you had bothered to read the literature, you'd quickly find out that sexual orientation is about as much a choice as height, skin color and eye color.

Did you actually choose to be heterosexual? Did you find yourself attracted to both men and women, and then sit back and think to yourself, "hmm.. I think I'll choose to like women.. I'll just go ahead and be a heterosexual for the rest of my life." ? Of course you didn't. Your sexual orientation was part of your identity from the get-go, you didn't even have a say in the matter.

Why not use the term "sexual preference" instead?

Because it isn't a "preference". Preference implies that both genders are an option to you, and you consciously choose one over the other. Which is just silly. I've never considered my own gender as an option.

What is your problem with using the term "orientation"? The entire professional community uses it. Why are you so loathe to use it? Why do you prefer a term as silly as "sexual preference"?

There is no such thing as "objective professional consensus" in the human sciences.

There isn't?? Somebody needs to alert the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, as well as their counterparts in every other country that has them. Apparently they don't know how to do their job.

A consensus is reached for political reasons.

Funny how they all reached the same conclusion. "Politically", of course (whatever that means).

So who was the mastermind behind all this, anyway? I mean, it couldn't have been the gays, they're too small in number and historically unpopular. Who is responsible for this broad professional consensus that people have little or no choice in their sexual orientation?

And why do you prefer to believe that this consensus was reached "politically", instead of taking them at their word, or reading the research on which their opinions are based?

In fact, some of the medical professionals who were in agreement over taking homosexuality off the list of mental disorders in the 1970s were not in agreement as to whether homosexuality is a choice.

There was some dispute over whether homosexuality was a pathology, but we've come a long way since then. There was also a time when masturbation was considered a malady. Science progresses, attitudes change.

One can assert homosexuality to be a choice and not be driven by religious dogma.

I've yet to see it.

The objectivity of science has been questioned by philosophers like Foucault, Derrida, Nietzsche -- people who also question the objectivity of religion.

They were philosophers, not scientists. And as such, of course they would have questioned these things. That was their job.

Again, I ask what makes your viewpoints any less inherited or biased or "subjective?"

My views aren't inherited because I researched it myself and came to the most sensible conclusions. A year ago, I hadn't even considered the question of gay marriage, or gay parenting. I had no idea what to think about it. I did the research, and here I am.

One thing I noticed in the course of my research and in my conversations with people is that the most uneducated and misinformed people (in regards to the subject of human sexuality) are pretty much always conservative church-goers. Coincidence?

Just because a viewpoint is "deviant" to the mainstream does not make it any more true or any less inherited.

In the case of the sciences, there are probably sound reasons for any given consensus.

I'm not attacking your viewpoint, but only ask that you be more introspective about it.

I would encourage you to do the same.

[pam]

some of us will follow the dictates of our own conscience (which some would say God gave us) and do the right thing.

Which is what I am going to do at this point and close this thread. I think Chet said it very eloquently what the purpose of this site is. To share our LDS beliefs with the world. While we allow dissenting viewpoints (as long as they fall within the rules) you reach a point where you just have to say "Enough is enough."