[Update Jun 16th 2016: This post I will completely redo in the future. The Basic point I still stand by, but it remains one of my most poorly articulated arguments. For now don't use this as a source for anything.]
I'm rare among modern Pro-Gay Christians in also being a Fundamentalist/Bible Literalist, and visa-versa. What I find saddest
about that is I've had trouble on Facebook finding fellow Pro-Gay
Christians who are also enemies of the Theory of Evolution.
See,
the arguments the Republican Party Christians use when they're trying
to add secular non Biblical reasons for supporting their position on
Homosexuality, all in fact sound very Darwinian and Materialist to me.
Insisting that only the sex that can continue the reproduction of the
species is valid. To Evolutionists the only reason sex is so
pleasurable is to motivate us to engage in it and make sure the species continues.
And
I have encountered Atheists online who are Homophobic for all these
reasons. It's not just radical Christians who propagate modern
Homophobia. These encounters were on IMDB a long time ago so I can no
longer document them. But these were Atheist individuals who had no
problem questioning my masculinity (the usual overlap of Sexism and
Homophobia) for not liking Sports, and liking TV shows stereotypically
meant for women. They pretty blatantly accused all Bisexuals of just
lying for attention. They claimed they weren't homophobic but clearly were.
It's because I believe in Intelligent Design
and Six-Day Young Earth Creationism, and that God gave us a Spirit and a
Soul, not just flesh, that I believe sex has a spiritual purpose too,
not just biological. And because I don't hand wave away the Song of
Solomon and it's details I know that God is okay with sexual expressions
that are non reproductive. Sex is also an expression of Love, the love
between a Man and a Woman is not the only love The Bible considers
valid.
To some of the most Anti-Christian people out there right
now, it's pretty obvious that Homophobia wouldn't exist at all if it
wasn't for The Bible verses that get misused on that subject. But I think that assumption is wrong.
The
Homophobia of the last two centuries is a uniquely vile monster
unprecedented in earlier eras of Secular or Church history. However the
basic fallen human sensibilities that lead to it can be documented to
have existed in the BC era (Plato). Just look at how Julius Caesar was denigrated by
being called "Every woman's man and every man's woman". The roots of
the Church's homophobia seemed to enter the Church very early on, but no
earlier then it's Anti-Semitic tendencies which popped up in the
Second Century. The seeds of Evolutionary thinking also existed among the Greek Philosophers, like Anaximander, Empedocles, Epicurus and Lucretius (Epicurus is known to have condemned Homosexuality). And it was Augustine of Hippo (the same Church Father most responsible for codifying Traditional Christianity's prudishness) who was among the first Christians to reject a literal interpretation of Genesis.
The Stoics who were the adversaries of the Epicureans and argued for Intelligent Design were all for Same-Sex love. Their Monotheism was by no means Biblical but still monotheistic. The original Stoics that is, Roman Stoics like Cicero did tend to disapprove of Same-Sex relations because of the prudish nature of Roman society.
But our modern notions of Sexual Orientation were purely the invention of Enlightenment and Victorian scientists and psychologists. And indeed it was not
originally conservative Christians who (from the Evolutionists' POV)
"Rejected Science", who first sought to proclaim Homosexuality a
"Pathology", to label it a mental disorder the same as Pedophilia, or an
addiction the same as Alcoholism, and Lesbianism in particular an
example of how scary and threatening untamed female sexuality is, and
thus labeled it another symptom of "hysteria". No, it was Secular Scientists
who first did this, Scientists who whether professing "Christians" or
not, embraced the ideas of Darwin and Galton and their fore-bearers.
Creationists
have a long history of pointing out how the Evolutionary theory has
contributed to the history of the evils of Racism and Eugenics.
Darwin's book was racist in it's very name, and filled with Racist and
Sexist comments. I would not however fall into the trap of saying that Evolution created Racism, I would say it's the other way around.
It's now a proven scientific fact that
Homosexuality and Bisexuality are perfectly natural and normal
variations of human and animal sexuality. And to me that is a problem for the
Theory of Evolution, whether Evolutionists want to admit that or not. I
know all the usual arguments about how homosexuality can be genetic
even when homosexuals don't usually reproduce, but those are
rationalizations. If the Evolutionary model were true, any genes that
do not further propagate the species should have been gotten rid of by "Natural Selection" ages ago.
Now the key objection an Atheist Evolutionist would make here is that they would not, today at least, campaign for making it illegal, or calling anything immoral. But my point is at it's core, seeing Gay Sex as worthless because they can't reproduce, is inherently Materialist.
So I think Creationists should
embrace LGBT people, as proving what Jesus said about being "Born
Eunuchs", and disproving the logic of Darwinian Natural Selection.
"If the Evolutionary model were true, any genes that do not further propagate the species should have been gotten rid of by 'Natural Selection' ages ago."
ReplyDeleteNope. I mean, you would be right if genetic inheritance was childishly simple, but it isn't. It SOOO isn't.
Even if we stayed within the scope of Mendelian genetics there's nothing preventing "detrimental" mutations from hanging around and popping up from time to time. For example, I'm colorblind. This isn't a huge detriment to my survival right now (aside from the odd disagreement with a traffic light), but hundreds of thousands of years ago, it would have been. I might have been less able to tell a ripened fruit from an unripened one or, more unlikely, I might have been less able to see a tiger hiding in the grass ready to pounce. But even if we assume the worst and the tiger kills me before I have a chance to reproduce, my colorblindness gene will live on through my sister.
The genes that made my broken color receptors live on my X chromosome, which I got from my mother. Because I only have one, those are the receptor genes I'm stuck with and, as a result, my eyes don't see reds and greens quite right. My sister, on the other hand, sees them just fine because she has two X chromosomes: one from our mother and one from our normal-sighted father. His receptor genes override the broken ones even though my sister still carries and can pass on both. This is called a dominate-recessive relationship. The color genes are dominant while the broken genes are recessive. After my untimely death, she will live on and eventually have children of her own, with a 50% chance of passing that recessive gene on. Any boys who inherit that recessive gene will be like me and might suffer the same fate, but her daughters have a 50% chance of carrying the gene the same way she does (and this assumes that her mate isn't also colorblind). Her carrier daughters will eventually pass the gene to their daughters, who will pass it on to their daughters, and so on and so on, up an ever-branching tree. Even though the gene will never become common, it will never completely go away (assuming there isn't some bottlenecking event that lowers genetic diversity, but that's a whole other subject).
This is a very simple example, but as I said earlier, genetics is not simple and Mendel is just the beginning. Gene regulation can get frustratingly complex and counter-intuitive. Not all traits are governed by a single gene, many are governed by multiple genes spread across multiple chromosoms. Some genes need to be activated by a Rube Goldberg-like sequence of activations. Sometimes these activations are dependent on environmental stresses like the caloric intake of the mother during gestation, or the caloric intake of the infant, or the caloric intake of the adolescent, or any number of different stimuli. There are countless understood genetic processes that allow otherwise detrimental or benign mutations to slip through the cracks of natural selection. This isn't a rationalization, it is a well known, demonstrable, fact of genetics. The fact that you don't personally understand it isn't a mark against evolutionary theory.
Doesn't change my grander point, the the architects of modern Homophobia were Evolutionists. And Christians sound awfully Materialist in their anti-Gay Rehtoric.
DeleteThey also sound awfully Christian, with all their talk about the sanctity of marriage and how "it's Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve". But of course, you dismiss all that as the product of an incorrect interpretation of the Bible. It's almost as if these people reached their conclusions about homosexuality beforehand, then grabbed at any and every straw that would seem to justify it without taking the time to think it through.
ReplyDeleteSo even if I accepted your ridiculous assertion that it was Victorian-era darwinism and not 20th century social conservatism that gave rise to modern anti-homosexual sentiments, that doesn't matter one bit. As I explained above, anyone who tries to use evolution to justify their homophobia is demonstrably wrong and betrays a childish understanding of how evolution works. But what's more is that they're also committing a naturalistic fallacy. Just because you think you understand how the world is, it does not then follow that this is the way things ought to be. It's called the "Is-ought" problem and its a logically fallacious form of argument that is mostly used by pseudoscientists and other ideologically-motivated charlatans.
Another logically fallacious form of argument regularly used by ideologically-motivated charlatans is called the genetic fallacy. It's when you try to argue against a position by appealing to that position's origins and not its actual merits. I don't know why I was reminded of that just now.
I'm anaylizing where their logic comes from and pointing out hypocrisy.
DeleteNo you aren't. What you did was vaguely and sloppily recall other people's logically fallacious arguments, assume that these arguments have a causal relationship to evolutionary theory, then tried to use that assumption as the basis for some moralistic judgement against people who understand and teach evolution.
DeleteYou might as well say that the people who discovered that the Earth was round were pedophiles. Your argument is so laughably insane that I'm having trouble believing you're real.
My objective is to convince Christians to rethink what they think about Homosexuality. Not to condemn anyone.
Delete"I have more faith in creationists then people who believe in evolution, a lie created to justify racism and eugenics."
DeleteThat is an implicit moral condemnation of anyone who accepts evolutionary theory.
That was me making a glib comment to show where I stand in a comment section on TheMarySue, a website I wouldn't be following at all if I hated liberals.
DeleteSo glib that you defended it, even linking to this article in defense of it. Sorry, I don't buy that excuse. The condemnation is strong in you.
DeleteYes, you follow me to my Blog that is entirely dedicated to opposing condemnation and accusing me of condemning people.
DeleteA blog where you say racism created Evolution (it didn't). A blog where you say homophobia is a consequence of evolution (it isn't). All in defence of statements about how you don't trust people who don't agree with your narrow interpretation of the Bible. What conclusion am I supposed to draw from that?
DeleteAnd you're the one who linked to this article. I didn't "follow" you so much as accepted an open invitation.
I was joking around when I made that statement, but it does relate to my real views which why I linked to here.
DeleteThe objective of this blog is Tolerance.
Well considering that no one there got the joke and instead took it as an intolerant insult, I'd say your failing that objective.
DeleteCan traits that are beneficial for reproduction of females, like desiring men, also appear in males?
ReplyDeleteHomosexuality has been around forever. The problem is not homosexuality itself but how it's used as some kind of social engineering tool by bad people for bad ends. When governments start publicly discussing what people can do in their own bedrooms, and furthermore...where people can go pee pee and poo poo...you know something rotten is afoot.
ReplyDelete