Posts Tagged ‘homosexulaity’
Do not judge a book by it’s cover
Which may be easier said then done if we are hard wired to make distinctions between those that will cooperate (for our betterment) and those that would cheat (to our detriment) in a social contract. Some behavioural scientists looking in this area suggest that:
The results of these experiments suggest that cheaters might look different from
cooperators, possibly due to beliefs and personality traits that make them less ideal exchange partners, and the human mind might be capable of picking up on subtle visual cues that cheaters’ faces give off. [source]
Examples have been mock courts, with the same evidence and script, where the only variable has been the demeanour of the defendant. While we may want an impassioned jury to base the innocent or guilt on the evidence, but the dress or physical characteristics of the defendant did impact on how a mock jury made it’s decision. [source]
However, that module that helps us to rationalise trustworthiness in people can be hijacked by cultural traits. These can lend itself to making observations about people which may not be rational in nature, but use the same system of working out who to trust. Using that instinct, often when not all facts are in, may often serve us well on the whole in a fight or flight situation. Now and again though it would fly in the face of logic.
The ancient word online
Take for example my blog being used on a christian forum board, where a poster is concerned about the Codex Sinaiticus, and how to respond. The person that responded to him decided that I was not a trustworthy person because on the cover they assume:
I am gay
I am anti-christian
Claiming that my blog supports the two propositions. Which is odd given that I am straight (as many gay friends will more than happily verify) and that I am against religion being enforced on infidels and none believers by the political and judicial system. If I could get hold of the “Atheists for Jesus” T shirt I would – nothing like trying to emphasises the humanity of Jesus rather than the divinity and hellfire afterlife awaiting non conformists.
Mind you if you just went by:
Homoeconomicusnet
and
Perhaps the person may decide, based on their module for trustworthiness (where religion as a cultural fact is a high indicator that is against homosexuality) consider that:
As to the website you linked to it is typical leftist tripe. The owner is (as his other articles show) a practicing homosexual and an anti-Christian. [source]
The fact that I am for free markets, read economics (hence pseudo name), hetrosexual (practise makes perfect), and someone that thinks that the secular state defends the freedom of the religious and the none believer may counter that. It seems though that we are both inclined to use the same source (this blog) to appeal to our difference of opinion. Perhaps I can claim to have insider knowledge on these things denied to the casual reader. As some do to rendering holy sacred text.
Mind you at least no one on the basis of these words on the blog are going to start a religious creed, or make life and death decisions enshrined in law. These words are recognised as being the product of man – where evidence, logic and rationality can be tested and argued over. Just because I type these things it may not be true.
It helps when you can do this with all literature. Rather than just judging by the cover that the book was written by god. Or that you do not like the cover so disregard it- without examining it. As my comment at the christian cafe ended trying to answer the original post as the devil’s advocate:
As the owner of the blog in question, the pseudo name Homo economicus is an economic concept – and not a reference to my sexuality http://homoeconomicusnet…./01/being-born-a-lesbian/
Even if I was gay, that has nothing to do with the original poster’s question. It actually shows an intolerance that is disturbing.
My concern with religion is where it is forced upon people who do not acquiescence to that belief. Jesus as a human being I have a lot of time for
http://homoeconomicusnet….hristian-not-a-christian/
The point is that various editions of the bible, how scriptures were included to be in certain editions, and the many hands that wrote them is an indication of the works of man. The idea that the bible to every word and punctuation mark is ordained by a higher power seems rather unlikely given the history of how the bible we have today originated.
The strongest argument against that charge is that the gospel is something to be lived, and not a text to be burned into your heart in a fundamentalist way. The bible may have been written by men, but the life lived as a follower of Christ is one that gives grace and would make the world a better place.
I may not agree, but the argument is a stronger one than dismissing some one’s argument on the grounds of sexual orientation or voting intention. [source]
OTHER BLOGS:
Christian Voice Apology to Richard Dawkins
I have to give credit for the group for trying to parody the Church of England apology to Charles Darwin. Though naturally they are more funny when they get the wrong end of the stick in their observations on nature (such as Peacocks feathers – which Dawkins had a conversation about with Clive James). Their insults are at odds with the manner by which Dawkins goes for arguments, and the manner in which he does describe opponents. No doubt they would benefit from a day out at the zoo with a zoologist, rather than picketing outside one on Gay Sunday.
14 September 2008, Zoo then party animals at G-A-Y Late
Evolution does not underpin my reasons for being an atheist. That it explains the development of life on earth without having to resort to supernatural explanations, and has evidence for it rather than circular reasoning that says all other opinions are from the devil. As a scientific theory new discoveries and ideas play a part in building up what we know about the process of evolution, once they are verified. They will be obtained by pursuing science, and not fearing where the truth will take us.
Those reasons would be Bertrand Russell’s Why I am Not A Christian and becoming aware that philosophy allowed serious discussion of life on earth without needing the assumption of god to work. That you really do have a credible choice in not believing in a higher power that needs worship or else.
Anyway here is the press release:
Dated 15th September 2008 21.00 hrs
Professor Richard Dawkins is to receive an apology from the prayer and lobby group Christian Voice, despite being spiritually dead for over sixty years. The move follows a posthumous apology to Charles Darwin which the Church of England issued today.
The apology will read:
‘Professor Dawkins, 67 years (give or take a month or two) from your birth, Christian Voice owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still. (We are not sure that is good English, but please forgive us for that as well.)
‘In the past Christian Voice has ridiculed you for your irrational belief in evolution and for failing to blaspheme the Holy Spirit.
‘We said, in a press release dated 10th October 2007, that you were ‘daffy’ in encouraging children on your website to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. We said your failure to understand what blaspheming the Holy Spirit actually was stemmed from ignorance and implied that you were barking mad to get people to try to blaspheme a God in whom you did not even believe.
‘We described you as an “evangelical atheist” who looked “malicious, loony, ill-informed and stupid in equal measure”. We pondered your “peculiar combination of wickedness and madness” and asked, “Has the evolutionary biologist lost the plot?”
‘Yesterday, outside London Zoo, while witnessing against the Zoo’s ridiculous “Gay Sunday”, we gave out leaflets mocking the theory of evolution, for which you are such a prominent advocate.
‘We imagined in the leaflet a conversation between two prototype swallows, desperately trying to work out how to stick mud together and watching all their eggs smash on the ground. We had the male swallow saying “I’m sorry about the eggs, darling, it takes time to evolve this nest-building lark.”
‘We ridiculed the idea that the tail of the peacock and the tuft on the head of the tufted duck are there to attract a mate, observing that starlings and sparrows manage to reproduce without over-the-top tails and redundant tufts.
‘In so doing, we characterised you as irrational, illogical and a total loser. We implied you were ill-educated if not a complete plank to think that the incredible interdependence and design in creation could just “happen” over time and did not need a divine designer.
‘People, and institutions, make mistakes and Christian people and Churches are no exception. When a big new idea, like Jesus Christ being King of kings and Lord of lords, emerges that changes the way people look at the world, it’s easy for Roman Empire pagans and modern secularists, both Christian and Atheist, to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then to do battle against the new insights.
‘So we recognise now that your dependence on evolution is not science, or even bad science, but an irrational excuse to deny Almighty God. We see that your attempts to poor scorn on Christianity and Jesus Christ are the result of a sort of ‘virus of the mind’, put there by the father of lies.
‘We acknowledge that your hatred of intelligent design – and the Intelligent Designer – is merely a faith-based position, as is the use of your gifts to obscure and even deny the truth of the Gospel.
‘Above all, we now realise, that contrary to your being a complete waste of space and a descendant of apes, you are actually made in the image of God. We realise that although you are still stupid, that is simply because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and that your eyes are blinded and your ears will not hear any contrary view. In short, we now see you are a sinner in need of the saving, life-transforming grace of God in Jesus Christ.
‘It is a start for you, that you realise there is a deep incompatibility between the pseudo-scientific theories you have adopted and developed from Darwin and Christian teaching. But that is not quite enough.
‘So we apologise if we have failed to say, that rather than continue as a militant, proselytising sinner, you need to recognise your failings right now and seek the forgiveness of the incarnate, crucified, risen, ascended, glorified Lord Jesus Christ.
‘The struggle for your spirit is not over yet, and we pray that you will cast away the dead faith of Darwinism for a living faith in the living Saviour.’
OTHER BLOGS:
