Methodists affirm gay marriage.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

VG,
   
Sort of. I can “believe” anything and, when better evidence is produced, conclude that I was wrong and follow the new evidence wherever it leads. People with religious faith will generally to do the same on most matters, except of course when the better evidence concerns their faith itself – in which case they will often deflect. It’s the old “a man who has not reasoned his way into a belief cannot be reasoned out of it” point.

No-one though is born with a religious faith – whereas other characteristics (gender, age, sexual orientation etc) are innate, and so in a different category.     

And yet, on other boards this man argues against free will. As always with BlueHillside there is the accompanyment of the smell of mint........Pure Humbug. I follow the evidence where it leads to and if I start with your parameter of evidence I can but glean information about material. Your theophobia and antitheism however sprout from a darker angrier quarter in my opinion.

But then antitheists and theophobes even deny being materialists too. However Richard Leowontin the recently deceased evolutionist  summed up your position.

 Richard Lewontin on Materialism
“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”1

– Richard Lewontin

[bluehillside Retd.]

VtH,

And yet, on other boards this man argues against free will. As always with BlueHillside there is the accompanyment of the smell of mint........Pure Humbug.

Your lying game is strong here. I don’t argue against the experience of “free” will at all – just that the experience and the explanation for the phenmenon cannot be the same.

You knew that already though when you decided to lie about it didn’t you.   

I follow the evidence where it leads to and if I start with your parameter of evidence I can but glean information about material.

Lie 2. “My parameter” foe evidence is that which has a method to distinguish it from just guessing. If you know of another method to do that, then after all these years tell us what it is.

You never will though will you.

Your theophobia and antitheism however sprout from a darker angrier quarter in my opinion.

Then, as so often, your opinion is wrong. Just out of interest, are the parts of your church that reject the homophobic part you espouse therefore theophobic and antitheistic too then?

But then antitheists and theophobes even deny being materialists too. However Richard Leowontin the recently deceased evolutionist  summed up your position.

 Richard Lewontin on Materialism
“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”1

– Richard Lewontin”

Not very bright here is he? “We” "take the side of" materialism (actual materialism, not his straw man version of the supposed claims it makes) because it’s the only method we know of that observably produces solutions. If he and you don’t like that, then find something else to do the job. What do you suggest – the blind guessing of religions? After thousands of years of trying and countless different faiths, do you know how many solutions all of that has produced when set against the demonstrable successes of materialism?

That’s right – none whatsoever.

Funny that.   

So anyway, about your homophobia…

[Walt Zingmatilder]

VtH,

Your lying game is strong here. I don’t argue against the experience of “free” will at all – just that the experience and the explanation for the phenmenon cannot be the same.

You knew that already though when you decided to lie about it didn’t you.   

Lie 2. “My parameter” foe evidence is that which has a method to distinguish it from just guessing. If you know of another method to do that, then after all these years tell us what it is.

You never will though will you.

Then, as so often, your opinion is wrong. Just out of interest, are the parts of your church that reject the homophobic part you espouse therefore theophobic and antitheistic too then?

Not very bright here is he? “We” "take the side of" materialism (actual materialism, not his straw man version of the supposed claims it makes) because it’s the only method we know of that observably produces solutions. If he and you don’t like that, then find something else to do the job. What do you suggest – the blind guessing of religions? After thousands of years of trying and countless different faiths, do you know how many solutions all of that has produced when set against the demonstrable successes of materialism?

That’s right – none whatsoever.

Funny that.   

So anyway, about your homophobia…

Dear materialist antitheistic theophobe.

Actual materialism? Any word in your hands is flexible, pirated and altered to suit your ends.

I move that Lewontin has invited your wrath by being critical of Dawkins. My how you theophobes can work up a case of guilt by association.

[bluehillside Retd.]

VtH,

Dear materialist antitheistic theophobe.

Actual materialism? Any word in your hands is flexible, pirated and altered to suit your ends.

Flat out not true again. You seem to have forgotten that I've always been the one who's tried to stop you re-defining words and phrases for your own ends.   

I move that Lewontin has invited your wrath by being critical of Dawkins.

Then you "move" wrongly: he didn't mention Dawkins. Look, if flat out lying is all you have (and it certainly seems that way) could you at least try to be a bit less terrible at it. 

My how you theophobes can work up a case of guilt by association.

The only supposed association here is the dishonest one you just tried.

As ever, I give you arguments and you come back with ad homs, lies, evasions and fallacies but never - ever - a counter-argument of your own.

What does your consistently appalling behaviour here say about you do you think?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Fair point - my fault, to an extent I'm conflating terms. Whether you choose to believe in a God or not is not something, I'd agree, that you can 'choose' to believe - you can choose what you expose yourself to, and to some extent that can influence your beliefs and may even changed them, but it's not something you can . However, the individual tenets that anyone adopts they do seem to be a matter of individual choice - we see people move between sects and cults within religions and change to, ostensibly, 'other' religions.

To some extent I would agree that sometimes you can choose what you expose yourself to but your decision is determined by prior events as opposed to choosing in a free will kind of way. A lot of the time you find yourself exposed to things without planning it in advance, and once exposed I don't see evidence that you can choose what appeals to you, what resonates or intrigues and what doesn't.

This presumably also applies in the context of sexual attraction. Sexuality seems an abstract concept humans have created, which we only become aware of when our brains have sufficiently developed to be able to consider such abstract concepts. A baby would not be able to assess its sexuality.

The various inputs of sexual attraction are interpreted by the brain through a deterministic process whereby meanings are attached to those interpretations. Those meanings lead to a subjective assessment or belief about one's sexuality. Hence there are men who have sex with other men e.g. in prison but would still consider themselves heterosexual. We see evidence of some animals engaging in same sex sexual activity but we have no evidence that they would label themselves as heterosexual or homosexual or subscribe to abstract concepts of sexuality.

To an extent, yes. Sexual attraction, though, is not as liable to change with time as religious belief, certainly after the end of childhood. We see any number of people fall into or out of religious belief, sometimes multiple times over their lifetime; it's far less common for people to change their sexuality; this, to a degree, is abetted by the fact that we see sexuality these days as a fluid spectrum, as you say, but I don't really see any similar subtlety in belief. Nor can I see how it would work.

You either believe in something, or you don't - agnosticism, and the questions about whether you can 'know' might influence 'how much' you believe, whether you're confident or not in that belief, but we don't tend to differentiate in the belief itself.

O.

I would say that belief in something is determined by how appealing the belief is because of how it makes you feel to believe it versus not believing it. I don't think we can choose how appealing a belief is to us. This includes beliefs about sexuality. So I don't see much, if any, difference between beliefs about sexuality and beliefs about religion.

If we're comparing sexual attraction to religious beliefs, then I don't get to choose my body's physiological response to another human being. I also don't get to choose the brain activity or neural pathways that are stimulated or created that lead to a belief in the existence of nonmaterial agents; or that are responses to the changing cultural influences, ideas and doctrines that I am exposed to from infancy and throughout adulthood. I could however learn or be trained to supress and ignore both my physiological sexual attraction responses and my beliefs.   

We seem to have created a multitude of labels to describe our subjective assessment of our sexuality and we change those labels based on how they make us feel. As more and more people explore this spectrum there seems to be increasing numbers of people changing their gender and/or their sexuality e.g Elliot Page who identified as a gay woman, and then a queer, non-binary, trans man. The meaning of all these different labels seems to be in a state of flux depending on who you speak to.  https://www.them.us/story/what-does-queer-mean

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

VG,
   
Sort of. I can “believe” anything and, when better evidence is produced, conclude that I was wrong and follow the new evidence wherever it leads. People with religious faith will generally to do the same on most matters, except of course when the better evidence concerns their faith itself – in which case they will often deflect. It’s the old “a man who has not reasoned his way into a belief cannot be reasoned out of it” point.

No-one though is born with a religious faith – whereas other characteristics (gender, age, sexual orientation etc) are innate, and so in a different category.     

How are you evidencing your assertions that no one is born with a religious faith whereas gender and sexual orientation are innate. All of them require sufficient brain development to be able to understand and respond to external stimuli before they can be detected or assessed.

They also all seem to be defined based on subjective interpretations or in many cases seem to defy any definition at all.   

[Outrider]

To some extent I would agree that sometimes you can choose what you expose yourself to but your decision is determined by prior events as opposed to choosing in a free will kind of way.

So I'd qualify all of it at the fundamental level by saying that I take a deterministic view; I think free will is a myth, but in the common understanding of choice, I think we can choose particular tenets (regardless of whether we're religious or not) but the conclusion you come to regarding whether there's 'something else' out there or not isn't a choice in even that sense.

A lot of the time you find yourself exposed to things without planning it in advance, and once exposed I don't see evidence that you can choose what appeals to you, what resonates or intrigues and what doesn't.

To some extent. Equally, you get people in restricted settings who don't have the freedom to go and explore wherever they will, which also limits their exposure.

This presumably also applies in the context of sexual attraction. Sexuality seems an abstract concept humans have created, which we only become aware of when our brains have sufficiently developed to be able to consider such abstract concepts.

We've identified it, but we haven't created it. When we become aware of it is one thing, but there are signs that it starts to develop before we become aware of it; indeed, it's the development and manifestation of it that leads us to become aware of it.

A baby would not be able to assess its sexuality.

It's not likely to have one, I'd suggest.

The various inputs of sexual attraction are interpreted by the brain through a deterministic process whereby meanings are attached to those interpretations.

Not just through the brain's activity, though. Although there isn't a single 'gay gene', or even a single definitive pattern, there are a number of gene sequences that are strongly identified with homosexuality, so at least an element of it - a tendency, if you'd like - is inherent.

Those meanings lead to a subjective assessment or belief about one's sexuality.

I'm not sure any other assessment is relevant - who I'm sexually attracted to is subjective, and that IS my sexuality.

Hence there are men who have sex with other men e.g. in prison but would still consider themselves heterosexual.

I don't think that's the case. They might think of themselves as bisexual, the might think of themselves as homosexual, they might be lying to themselves and consider themselves heterosexual with a 'needs must' policy. Whether they'd choose to openly admit to any of that, given various attitudes around them and their lives is a different matter. Whether they'd understand the implications of the term is a different matter. If they're attracted to men, even only in certain circumstances, then there's at least an element of homosexuality about them.

Of course, in a confined environment like a prison, whether they have sex with men may not have anything to do with attraction - behaviour is guided by sexuality, but not defined solely by it.

We see evidence of some animals engaging in same sex sexual activity but we have no evidence that they would label themselves as heterosexual or homosexual or subscribe to abstract concepts of sexuality.

I'd agree with that, with the qualifier that we don't necessarily have a good handle on exactly what level of sentience animals have; my instinct is that most of them where we've seen evidence of homosexual activity have insufficient awareness. I don't know if we've seen homosexual activity in some of the great apes, or other 'more intelligent' animals.
 

I would say that belief in something is determined by how appealing the belief is because of how it makes you feel to believe it versus not believing it. I don't think we can choose how appealing a belief is to us.

I've said before that, to some extent, rational arguments against god aren't going to be effective because there are vanishingly few people who come to a belief in gods through a rational assessment; there are post hoc rationalisations of greater or lesser effect, but belief tends to be an aesthetic or emotional response.

This includes beliefs about sexuality.

I'm not sure it's in the same category, because as we've established the sexuality is subjective; the existence of a god is objective. Your belief about your sexuality is by definition correct, because it's your opinion about you, there is no other take. What words you'd use to describe it could be discussed and argued (i.e. when is homosexuality actually homosexuality, such as your prison example above), but someone else's take on who your attracted to is meaningless by comparison. God, though, isn't a subjective characteristic, it's a claim about reality.

So I don't see much, if any, difference between beliefs about sexuality and beliefs about religion.

I hope I've explained why I do.

If we're comparing sexual attraction to religious beliefs, then I don't get to choose my body's physiological response to another human being.

And, so far as we know, we can't do anything to alter that.

I also don't get to choose the brain activity or neural pathways that are stimulated or created that lead to a belief in the existence of nonmaterial agents; or that are responses to the changing cultural influences, ideas and doctrines that I am exposed to from infancy and throughout adulthood.

You do have some choice over the cultural influences you're exposed to - some people to a greater or lesser extent.

I could however learn or be trained to supress and ignore both my physiological sexual attraction responses and my beliefs.

Exactly, and this is where it becomes problematic. Vlad's 'anti-theism' ravings notwithstanding, there aren't a huge number of people calling for religious expression to be prohibited or restricted or limited; there are moves to put it on a more equal footing with other philosophies in some instances, but I'd suggest that's a different thing (a discussion for elsewhere, if needed).

There are, though, organisations looking to restrict, limit and constrain the freedom of people to express their sexuality, and in most instances they are either religiously motivated or strongly supported by SOME religious bodies and organisations.

We seem to have created a multitude of labels to describe our subjective assessment of our sexuality and we change those labels based on how they make us feel. As more and more people explore this spectrum there seems to be increasing numbers of people changing their gender and/or their sexuality e.g Elliot Page who identified as a gay woman, and then a queer, non-binary, trans man. The meaning of all these different labels seems to be in a state of flux depending on who you speak to.  https://www.them.us/story/what-does-queer-mean

That's moving from a relatively simple question of sexuality - who are you sexually attracted to - to the intersection of gender, sex and sexuality which introduces all sorts of complications, not least of which is because gender is an entirely created concept. No-one naturally has a sense of gender, the develop an understanding of how well or badly they conform to the sex-based expectations and stereotypes of their culture - which can be confounded by attitudes towards sexuality as well, but are separate.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

VG,

How are you evidencing your assertions that no one is born with a religious faith whereas gender and sexual orientation are innate.

Not sure if you’re being serious here? Religious beliefs are learned, almost always as a reflection of the proximate culture – remote Amazonian tribespeople for example don’t spontaneously become Christians (and vice versa). Sexual orientation on the other hand (to take just one example of an innate characteristic) occurs with the more or less the same frequency regardless of culture.   

All of them require sufficient brain development to be able to understand and respond to external stimuli before they can be detected or assessed.

No they don’t. To stick with homosexuality, it appears in any population and for that matter in populations of many other species too. There are various ideas about the evolutionary advantages of homosexual sub-populations within the larger genome, but there’s nothing “to understand and respond to” – it just happenes.     

They also all seem to be defined based on subjective interpretations or in many cases seem to defy any definition at all.

Not really. Either individuals are attracted to the same sex or they’re not. That’s observably the case, both in our species and in others. 

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

I don't think that's the case. They might think of themselves as bisexual, the might think of themselves as homosexual, they might be lying to themselves and consider themselves heterosexual with a 'needs must' policy. Whether they'd choose to openly admit to any of that, given various attitudes around them and their lives is a different matter. Whether they'd understand the implications of the term is a different matter. If they're attracted to men, even only in certain circumstances, then there's at least an element of homosexuality about them.

Of course, in a confined environment like a prison, whether they have sex with men may not have anything to do with attraction - behaviour is guided by sexuality, but not defined solely by it.

I think this is where it gets more interesting. It's been reported that men and women who are raped can involuntarily experience orgasm - it is a physiological response to physical stimulation. This includes heterosexual men who are sexually assaulted by men experiencing arousal. Current thinking is that it does not mean they wanted the sexual assault to happen or that we should interpret their physiological response as them having homosexual tendencies. So the psychological component of sexuality is important.

Hence my view that the labels people attach to their responses are based on nurture/ cultural inputs and these labels do not exist objectively to be identified. 

I'm not sure it's in the same category, because as we've established the sexuality is subjective; the existence of a god is objective. Your belief about your sexuality is by definition correct, because it's your opinion about you, there is no other take. What words you'd use to describe it could be discussed and argued (i.e. when is homosexuality actually homosexuality, such as your prison example above), but someone else's take on who your attracted to is meaningless by comparison. God, though, isn't a subjective characteristic, it's a claim about reality.

On other threads I have argued that for something to exist objectively, there must be an objective way to establish its existence. Without the ability to establish this we are left with faith - a belief that is not supported by objective evidence. One of the characteristics of a god is that it is non-material, which would mean believers have to rely on faith. Your definition of reality would also presumably link to objective evidence and would therefore not make room for gods?

And, so far as we know, we can't do anything to alter that.

Again this is interesting. I have seen experiments that allow people to control their physiological responses to pain so we may find that it could be possible to control your responses to other stimuli including your physiological responses to sexual stimuli. For example a Shaolin monk's brain measured very few pain points when he submerged his hand in a bowl of ice water while being measured in an MRI scanner, and he could keep his hand in the ice water for a long time. Whereas a person who had not spent years training to use his mind to control his physiological responses was shown to have many pain points light up in the MRI and he could not keep his hand in the ice water because of the pain. 

You do have some choice over the cultural influences you're exposed to - some people to a greater or lesser extent.

True but not so much of a choice over your reaction to those influences, though you can train yourself to supress or control your reaction. 

Exactly, and this is where it becomes problematic. Vlad's 'anti-theism' ravings notwithstanding, there aren't a huge number of people calling for religious expression to be prohibited or restricted or limited; there are moves to put it on a more equal footing with other philosophies in some instances, but I'd suggest that's a different thing (a discussion for elsewhere, if needed).

No. However, if we "other" religious people we do react and respond to them differently compared to how we would respond to people we think are similar to us.

There are, though, organisations looking to restrict, limit and constrain the freedom of people to express their sexuality, and in most instances they are either religiously motivated or strongly supported by SOME religious bodies and organisations.

Yes and often the people who feel their religious expression is an intrinsic part of who they are and should therefore not be repressed seem comfortable telling other people that they should repress aspects of themselves that they feel are intrinsic to who they are. It's not really surprising that if they come on a message board and advocate such views that they might experience some of the same hostility they display to other people. Flawed people telling other people they are flawed generally don't tend to get a kind and welcoming reception. But that would apply to all of us. Hence I don't expect to get a kind and welcoming reception on a message board - if it happens it's a bonus.

That's moving from a relatively simple question of sexuality - who are you sexually attracted to - to the intersection of gender, sex and sexuality which introduces all sorts of complications, not least of which is because gender is an entirely created concept. No-one naturally has a sense of gender, the develop an understanding of how well or badly they conform to the sex-based expectations and stereotypes of their culture - which can be confounded by attitudes towards sexuality as well, but are separate.

O.

It used to be simple but not sure it is any more. It used to be that if the people I seemed interested in or fantasised about kissing belonged to the opposite sex then I was heterosexual. But ever since I went to the US to a cousin's wedding and met their close family friend who is a trans man who used to date lots of boys in his teenage years as a girl, but is now in a relationship with a woman, who told me that she considers herself straight (she had a previous relationship with a man and has a child out of that relationship), I don't think these abstract concepts of sexuality can still be defined the way we used to define them. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

VG,

Hence my view that the labels people attach to their responses are based on nurture/ cultural inputs and these labels do not exist objectively to be identified.

This makes little sense. It’s not a matter of “labels” being attached – in a given population (of our and of many other species) it’s observably the case that a sub-population will exhibit same-sex attraction. This is no more culturally determined than eye colour is culturally determined – it just happens.   

You’re on dangerous ground here too by the way – if you want to claim that homosexuality is culturally determined, then you open the door to so-called “deconversion therapies”. After all, if culture did it then you can de-culture when it suits right?   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

VG,

Not sure if you’re being serious here? Religious beliefs are learned, almost always as a reflection of the proximate culture – remote Amazonian tribespeople for example don’t spontaneously become Christians (and vice versa). Sexual orientation on the other hand (to take just one example of an innate characteristic) occurs with the more or less the same frequency regardless of culture.

Not sure whether world religions can be classed as ''local''. What mechanism are you suggesting? On the other hand I believe that white middle class attention seekers can go full New Atheist (which AS THE BIOLOGIST AND ATHEIST DAVID WILSON reminds us is a stealth religion) When they are in the locality of a microphone, TV camera , Book signing, an opportunity to reprise Alf Garnett in quasi academic idiom.............so there might be something in it.

[Outrider]

I think this is where it gets more interesting. It's been reported that men and women who are raped can involuntarily experience orgasm - it is a physiological response to physical stimulation. This includes heterosexual men who are sexually assaulted by men experiencing arousal. Current thinking is that it does not mean they wanted the sexual assault to happen or that we should interpret their physiological response as them having homosexual tendencies. So the psychological component of sexuality is important.

I think you're using sexuality, there, in a sense that I wouldn't - at least in the sense of who you are attracted to. What your physiological response to any given sexual activity (or, in some instances, an ostensibly non-sexual activity) might be is probably influenced by your sexuality, but it doesn't define your sexuality. And certainly it goes beyond the use in this context of 'what group/groups of people are you sexually attracted to'.

On other threads I have argued that for something to exist objectively, there must be an objective way to establish its existence. Without the ability to establish this we are left with faith - a belief that is not supported by objective evidence. One of the characteristics of a god is that it is non-material, which would mean believers have to rely on faith. Your definition of reality would also presumably link to objective evidence and would therefore not make room for gods?

Yes and no. The nature of our existence is that our consciousness is entirely subjective - even the ostensibly objective measurement of phenomena by physical instruments is only interpreted through a subjective lens. At a practical level, that subjectivity behaves so consistently that it provides a reasonable basis for presuming the findings of measurement to be likely accurate.

My definition of reality would be that you have to have a reasonable basis for presuming something, anything, is a part of it. That consistency of scientific enquiry validates that methodology, to an extent. I'm not averse to another methodology - logic, perhaps - but I'm not aware of one that gives a justifiable basis for accepting any claim of 'god', non-material or otherwise.

Again this is interesting. I have seen experiments that allow people to control their physiological responses to pain so we may find that it could be possible to control your responses to other stimuli including your physiological responses to sexual stimuli.

I'm aware of a few people for whom the two are interlinked, but that's a different discussion again. Again, though, is this difference of understanding of what we mean by sexuality in this context: yours appears to be a more expansive term which includes behaviour and active responses, whereas I'm using it in a narrower sense limited to the attraction people feel. What they do about it, how they respond to sexual overtures that are or are not in keeping with that attraction are important, generally, but are outside of my use of the term here.

For example a Shaolin monk's brain measured very few pain points when he submerged his hand in a bowl of ice water while being measured in an MRI scanner, and he could keep his hand in the ice water for a long time. Whereas a person who had not spent years training to use his mind to control his physiological responses was shown to have many pain points light up in the MRI and he could not keep his hand in the ice water because of the pain.

Which I'd argue is a conditioned reduction in the extent to which a physiological response is being experienced; it neither signifies a change in the nature of the response, nor indicates that his desire to feel or not feel that sensation is necessarily changed.

However, if we "other" religious people we do react and respond to them differently compared to how we would respond to people we think are similar to us.

Ironic, given religion's history of being used amongst other things as a tribal identifier to signify the 'in' and 'out' group.

Yes and often the people who feel their religious expression is an intrinsic part of who they are and should therefore not be repressed seem comfortable telling other people that they should repress aspects of themselves that they feel are intrinsic to who they are. It's not really surprising that if they come on a message board and advocate such views that they might experience some of the same hostility they display to other people. Flawed people telling other people they are flawed generally don't tend to get a kind and welcoming reception. But that would apply to all of us. Hence I don't expect to get a kind and welcoming reception on a message board - if it happens it's a bonus.

I'm not for a moment suggesting that's not your experience, but I find it sad that this is the case. I hope I've not been a part of it; I try to argue the case, not the person. I'm fully supportive of people practicing their religion however they choose, I just advocate that it isn't allowed to spill over and restrict how other people live their lives any more than is absolutely necessary.

[quoteIt used to be simple but not sure it is any more. It used to be that if the people I seemed interested in or fantasised about kissing belonged to the opposite sex then I was heterosexual. But ever since I went to the US to a cousin's wedding and met their close family friend who is a trans man who used to date lots of boys in his teenage years as a girl, but is now in a relationship with a woman, who told me that she considers herself straight (she had a previous relationship with a man and has a child out of that relationship), I don't think these abstract concepts of sexuality can still be defined the way we used to define them.[/quote]

Gender is a social construct, and as our social understanding of gender evolves so do those elements that interact with it. Is sexuality dependent upon sex, gender or both? Given the variability of gender, and the fact that gender is defined in response to social understandings of the particular roles of the sexes, is a strictly linear spectrum of sexuality the right model, or do we need something that varies on multiple axes - can you be strictly attracted to biological femaleness but open to a variety of gender identities? I think we're still working those ideas out - at least now we do seem to working on them rather than pretending they don't exist.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

VtL,

Not sure whether world religions can be classed as ''local''.

You’ve missed the point. Religious people almost always subscribe to the religion that happens to be most proximate (or “local”) to them in time and place. That’s why Amazonian tribespeople don’t spontaneously become Christians and vice versa.
 

What mechanism are you suggesting?

For enculturation? Tribal stories, “holy” texts, various incantations and dances, special schools etc.

On the other hand I believe that white middle class attention seekers can go full New Atheist (which AS THE BIOLOGIST AND ATHEIST DAVID WILSON reminds us is a stealth religion) When they are in the locality of a microphone, TV camera , Book signing, an opportunity to reprise Alf Garnett in quasi academic idiom.............so there might be something in it.

Now you’ve had your paranoid fantasy, did you have an argument of any sort to make?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

VG,

Not sure if you’re being serious here? Religious beliefs are learned, almost always as a reflection of the proximate culture – remote Amazonian tribespeople for example don’t spontaneously become Christians (and vice versa). Sexual orientation on the other hand (to take just one example of an innate characteristic) occurs with the more or less the same frequency regardless of culture.

Yes being very serious. While there is evidence that the way people express their religious belief is learned, this is not the same thing as religious belief itself - if there are people all over the world in different cultures who believe in a non-material agent, how have you established that this belief does not have a genetic or innate component?

That sexual orientation occurs in more or less the same frequency does not tell you how much of that orientation is down to cultural inputs and how much is innate.

No they don’t. To stick with homosexuality, it appears in any population and for that matter in populations of many other species too. There are various ideas about the evolutionary advantages of homosexual sub-populations within the larger genome, but there’s nothing “to understand and respond to” – it just happenes.

Yes they do. Without developing sufficiently to be able to experiment, how would they arrive at a label that they identify with? And how do you establish how much of that development and experimentation was influenced by their environment or experiences after birth?

Ok so your answer is that for you the observation that "it just happens" is sufficient for you. Other people on this message board might not be satisfied with "it just happens" and might want to understand how people arrive at their various identities and labels - they might want to know more about the psychological and physiological components, the nature v nurture etc. By the way, I don't think a psychological component applies to eye colour so I don't think you have established that sexuality can be analysed and discussed in the same way as we analyse eye colour.

Not really. Either individuals are attracted to the same sex or they’re not. That’s observably the case, both in our species and in others.

Yes but the labels they attach to their attractions are diverse. As I mentioned to Outrider, an example that made me see these issues in a less simplistic way was when someone I met at a wedding (my parents were good friends with his parents many years ago) had changed gender and their new partner considered herself a normal heterosexual woman who was attracted to a man whose biological sex was female.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

VtL,

You’ve missed the point. Religious people almost always subscribe to the religion that happens to be most proximate (or “local”) to them in time and place. That’s why Amazonian tribespeople don’t spontaneously become Christians and vice versa.
 
For enculturation? Tribal stories, “holy” texts, various incantations and dances, special schools etc.

Now you’ve had your paranoid fantasy, did you have an argument of any sort to make?

Have you read Karen Armstrong on local antitheism? For example, the focus of say, your antitheism will be Christianity and so forth and throughout history the antitheism of a locality is based on the theism.

Matthew suggests that there is a theology which those not carrying the overt doctrinal theology can display knowledge of.
''When did we do these things Lord?''
Besides, Even you show you make the distinction between antiheism and religion.

[bluehillside Retd.]

VG,

Yes being very serious. While there is evidence that the way people express their religious belief is learned, this is not the same thing as religious belief itself - if there are people all over the world in different cultures who believe in a non-material agent, how have you established that this belief does not have a genetic or innate component?

Ah, now you’re drawing your parameters too narrowly. It seems that pattern and explanation-seeking behaviour is innate – if the grass rustles and you tell yourself it’s a tiger and run away for example explanation-seeking will become embedded over time (and as the people who didn’t run away and were eaten by tigers die out). Religion – typically starting with creation myths – is just a functional manifestation of same explanation-seeking phenomenon.     

That sexual orientation occurs in more or less the same frequency does not tell you how much of that orientation is down to cultural inputs and how much is innate.

Yes it does. First, that it occurs at about the same frequency regardless of the prevailing culture suggests strongly that it’s innate.

Secondly, other species homosexuality where there are no cultural factors at play also at consistent incidences points strongly to the same thing.

Yes they do. Without developing sufficiently to be able to experiment, how would they arrive at a label that they identify with? And how do you establish how much of that development and experimentation was influenced by their environment or experiences after birth?

You’re making no sense. Either, say, some dolphins exhibit same sex attraction or they don’t (they do by the way). This is observably the case. How you choose to “label” that is a separate matter entirely. There’s no evidence either that dolphins (or black swans or elephants or marmots or for that matter people) have to “experiment” before deciding on their sexuality. Did you feel the need to experiment with boys, then girls, then whatever before making a choice about your orientation? I know I didn’t.     

Ok so your answer is that for you the observation that "it just happens" is sufficient for you.

Actually it’s sufficient for people who research these things – so far as they can tell, it’s a nature (ie, genetic) and environmental mixture, but the environmental part seems to be mostly inter-uterine. So far as societal (ie, cultural) issues are concerned, there’s a higher reported incidence of gay people in more tolerant societies, but that seems to be to do with how secure they feel being out rather than with societies changing anything fundamental.     

Other people on this message board might not be satisfied with "it just happens" and might want to understand how people arrive at their various identities and labels - they might want to know more about the psychological and physiological components, the nature v nurture etc.

Again, the “identities and labels” part is a separate matter. I’m talking about the attraction itself – not what it’s called.

By the way, I don't think a psychological component applies to eye colour so I don't think you have established that sexuality can be analysed and discussed in the same way as we analyse eye colour.

That wasn’t the point. You were saying that babies don’t have a sexual orientation. That’s doubtful as they more likely don’t have a sexual orientation that’s expressed yet, but in any case eye colour is an analogy. Babies often don’t have an adult eye colour that’s expressed yet either – the colour of eyes at birth will change to the final colour months or even tears later.   

Yes but the labels they attach to their attractions are diverse. As I mentioned to Outrider, an example that made me see these issues in a less simplistic way was when someone I met at a wedding (my parents were good friends with his parents many years ago) had changed gender and their new partner considered herself a normal heterosexual woman who was attracted to a man whose biological sex was female.

So what? None of this is relevant. You can talk about labelling to your heart’s content if you want to, but the point here is that our and many other species exhibit sexual attraction behaviours that are distinct and different from other sexual attraction behaviours. That’s it, and why it happens is a matter of some conjecture – possibly it creates more resources for care of the offspring for example. And yes, the lines between these behaviours can be blurred, and yes individuals can move across those lines over time sometimes, and yes labelling is therefore a complex and uncertain business. The point though is that these behaviour happen, not because people decide about them (“I think I’ll try being gay these week to see how I like it”) but because they’re compelled to by their character.         

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

I think you're using sexuality, there, in a sense that I wouldn't - at least in the sense of who you are attracted to. What your physiological response to any given sexual activity (or, in some instances, an ostensibly non-sexual activity) might be is probably influenced by your sexuality, but it doesn't define your sexuality. And certainly it goes beyond the use in this context of 'what group/groups of people are you sexually attracted to'.

Ok so are we assuming that a voluntary desire to kiss someone or not is a measure of attraction? If you want to kiss them, you are attracted to them? And that determines the label you attach to your sexuality?

I would then want to know how much of that attraction has a psychological component. I am not sure that people operate in an environment where there are no constraints or influences. In the context of artificial constraints such as in a prison environment or where access to the opposite sex or access to sexual activity is limited or prohibited, I assume this will have a psychological effect. Now if we look at non-prison environments that have fewer external constraints and more freedoms, I think it is safe to assume that different people react differently to the influences around them, which forms the psychological component of their attraction and therefore their sexuality. This would tie in with the idea that sexuality is on a spectrum.

Yes and no. The nature of our existence is that our consciousness is entirely subjective - even the ostensibly objective measurement of phenomena by physical instruments is only interpreted through a subjective lens. At a practical level, that subjectivity behaves so consistently that it provides a reasonable basis for presuming the findings of measurement to be likely accurate.

My definition of reality would be that you have to have a reasonable basis for presuming something, anything, is a part of it. That consistency of scientific enquiry validates that methodology, to an extent. I'm not averse to another methodology - logic, perhaps - but I'm not aware of one that gives a justifiable basis for accepting any claim of 'god', non-material or otherwise.

Yes I am not aware of a method that can be used to justify any claim of 'god' hence my belief relies on faith, not evidence.

I'm aware of a few people for whom the two are interlinked, but that's a different discussion again. Again, though, is this difference of understanding of what we mean by sexuality in this context: yours appears to be a more expansive term which includes behaviour and active responses, whereas I'm using it in a narrower sense limited to the attraction people feel. What they do about it, how they respond to sexual overtures that are or are not in keeping with that attraction are important, generally, but are outside of my use of the term here.

Fair enough. I am more interested in behaviour and active responses rather than desires, because society tends to regulate action rather than thoughts. Society often requires me to not act on my desires, even though I cannot choose what I desire.

Which I'd argue is a conditioned reduction in the extent to which a physiological response is being experienced; it neither signifies a change in the nature of the response, nor indicates that his desire to feel or not feel that sensation is necessarily changed.

I am not sure I understand. Without a bio-chemical reaction of some kind to measure, how do we establish the nature of the response?

Ironic, given religion's history of being used amongst other things as a tribal identifier to signify the 'in' and 'out' group.

Agreed

I'm not for a moment suggesting that's not your experience, but I find it sad that this is the case. I hope I've not been a part of it; I try to argue the case, not the person. I'm fully supportive of people practicing their religion however they choose, I just advocate that it isn't allowed to spill over and restrict how other people live their lives any more than is absolutely necessary.

Hostility is a subjective assessment so all I can say subjectively is that no I don't remember any hostile exchanges with you. Plus I am not sure I was on this message board to feel welcomed, though it's a bonus to my ego if that happens, but I also think seeing people's hostile reactions helps me to better understand the perspectives of others by their emotional reaction to certain ideas, which has been a great learning experience for me.

Yes that is the incredibly difficult and therefore interesting part - how to balance the competing rights and freedoms of individuals and groups, who are convinced that someone else's freedoms and rights are negatively impacting on their own freedoms and rights. People seem to want the freedom or right to not hear things they don't like, not see things they don't like, not feel triggered by images, words and actions they don't like. This seems to apply to religious as well as non-religious.

Gender is a social construct, and as our social understanding of gender evolves so do those elements that interact with it. Is sexuality dependent upon sex, gender or both? Given the variability of gender, and the fact that gender is defined in response to social understandings of the particular roles of the sexes, is a strictly linear spectrum of sexuality the right model, or do we need something that varies on multiple axes - can you be strictly attracted to biological femaleness but open to a variety of gender identities? I think we're still working those ideas out - at least now we do seem to working on them rather than pretending they don't exist.

O.

Yes I would agree. The human construct of gender makes things more complicated. What will become more interesting is if we start attributing gender concepts to animals that is distinct from their biological sex.

[bluehillside Retd.]

VtH,

Have you read Karen Armstrong on local antitheism?

No.

For example, the focus of say, your antitheism will be Christianity and so forth and throughout history the antitheism of a locality is based on the theism.

The “focus” might be because that’s the one that most affects the society I happen to live in. As you know full well though, I’m an equal opportunities atheist – they all seem to rest on the same mistakes in reasoning or on statements of blind faith, and they seem to me to be equally harmful at least in principle (except maybe Janism?). The variances in the actual harm they do seem to me to be a function of the extent to which they’re kept in check by secular societies (Taliban-era Afghanistan at one end of the spectrum vs liberal Sweden at the other for example).

Matthew suggests that there is a theology which those not carrying the overt doctrinal theology can display knowledge of.
''When did we do these things Lord?''

?

Besides, Even you show you make the distinction between antiheism and religion.

?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

VG,

Ah, now you’re drawing your parameters too narrowly. It seems that pattern and explanation-seeking behaviour is innate – if the grass rustles and you tell yourself it’s a tiger and run away for example explanation-seeking will become embedded over time (and as the people who didn’t run away and were eaten by tigers die out). Religion – typically starting with creation myths – is just a functional manifestation of same explanation-seeking phenomenon.

Yes it does. First, that it occurs at about the same frequency regardless of the prevailing culture suggests strongly that it’s innate.

Secondly, other species homosexuality where there are no cultural factors at play also at consistent incidences points strongly to the same thing.

If your conjecture is that religious belief is an embedded innate manifestation of explanation-seeking behaviour, I don't think people decide about these embedded innate manifestations - they do not have a choice about believing. Either they believe in nonmaterial / supernatural agents framed in whatever religious terms their particular culture uses or they don't. Some people may believe in the paranormal instead. And some people believe in neither or both.

Rather than repeat your assertion it would help if you support your assertion with some links about the frequency of same-sex attraction in different cultures and the possible explanations for this. I assume there are different views and theories about the expression of nature and nurture in relation to sexuality.

You’re making no sense. Either, say, some dolphins exhibit same sex attraction or they don’t (they do by the way). This is observably the case. How you choose to “label” that is a separate matter entirely. There’s no evidence either that dolphins (or black swans or elephants or marmots or for that matter people) have to “experiment” before deciding on their sexuality. Did you feel the need to experiment with boys, then girls, then whatever before making a choice about your orientation? I know I didn’t.

I was referring only to people, as humans attach labels to sexual behaviour, not animals. And by "experiment" I did not suggest that people need to experiment with both sexes. By "experiment" I meant that people firstly have to have matured enough to recognise feelings of sexual attraction, and then matured sufficiently to consensually engage in sexual behaviour based on those feelings of sexual attraction. Therefore babies cannot experiment but teenagers can.     

Actually it’s sufficient for people who research these things

Again, something more than your assertions are needed here for your argument to be convincing.

– so far as they can tell, it’s a nature (ie, genetic) and environmental mixture, but the environmental part seems to be mostly inter-uterine. So far as societal (ie, cultural) issues are concerned, there’s a higher reported incidence of gay people in more tolerant societies, but that seems to be to do with how secure they feel being out rather than with societies changing anything fundamental.

Some evidence to back up your assertions would be welcome.     

Again, the “identities and labels” part is a separate matter. I’m talking about the attraction itself – not what it’s called.

And I am not interested in the statement that someone has desires or attractions. People feel attractions and desires for lots of different things. Hence we were comparing human sexual attraction to human attractions to a particular type of belief and discussing whether and how both are influenced by nature and environment, especially given that human attraction to things has an evolutionary biological and psychological component. Given these 2 components, I am interested in whether society seeks to regulate people acting on those desires and how far it seeks to regulate this.

That wasn’t the point. You were saying that babies don’t have a sexual orientation. That’s doubtful as they more likely don’t have a sexual orientation that’s expressed yet, but in any case eye colour is an analogy. Babies often don’t have an adult eye colour that’s expressed yet either – the colour of eyes at birth will change to the final colour months or even tears later.

You're entitled to your belief that babies have a sexual orientation - when evidence is found to support this we can assess at that point. What does it matter what the final eye colour is? My point was that it is possible to record an eye colour in babies, regardless of whether it changes or not later. We don't need to wait for them to grow up and articulate their eye colour.

So what? None of this is relevant. You can talk about labelling to your heart’s content if you want to, but the point here is that our and many other species exhibit sexual attraction behaviours that are distinct and different from other sexual attraction behaviours. That’s it, and why it happens is a matter of some conjecture – possibly it creates more resources for care of the offspring for example. And yes, the lines between these behaviours can be blurred, and yes individuals can move across those lines over time sometimes, and yes labelling is therefore a complex and uncertain business. The point though is that these behaviour happen, not because people decide about them (“I think I’ll try being gay these week to see how I like it”) but because they’re compelled to by their character.       

It's relevant to the idea that Outrider and I were discussing that some people exhibit attraction to beliefs that are distinct and different from the belief attractions exhibited by other people and that you can't choose which beliefs attract you.

 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

VtH,

No.

The “focus” might be because that’s the one that most affects the society I happen to live in. As you know full well though, I’m an equal opportunities atheist – they all seem to rest on the same mistakes in reasoning or on statements of blind faith, and they seem to me to be equally harmful at least in principle (except maybe Janism?). The variances in the actual harm they do seem to me to be a function of the extent to which they’re kept in check by secular societies (Taliban-era Afghanistan at one end of the spectrum vs liberal Sweden at the other for example).

?

?

I think religion would and does affect your actual day to day very little. I led an atheist existence, not at all bothered by religion. However you have a commitment to antitheism and what it is that drives you into a paranoid state that is completely unnecessary. My atheist years were a fair few years ago when the swiveleyed tendency demonstrated on this forum didn't exist. Obviously such frenzy needed the anonimity of the internet and a bit of 'consciousness raising.....or shit stirring as it's known, from Dawkins and co.
consider
We are living in a secular society where it is dead easy to be free of religion. It's a great place isn't it.

On the other hand your references to Nigerian ant gods, amazonian gods, taliban, bronze age goat herders leave a bit of an unsavoury taste in the mouth with a kind of invitation to ridicule and  consider them in terms of social immaturity hanging over their mention. I hope you have some alternative explanation as to why you are using these.

In any case Amazonians quite often want no cultural input from outside at all,

[bluehillside Retd.]

VG,

If your conjecture is that religious belief is an embedded innate manifestation of explanation-seeking behaviour, I don't think people decide about these embedded innate manifestations - they do not have a choice about believing. Either they believe in nonmaterial / supernatural agents framed in whatever religious terms their particular culture uses or they don't. Some people may believe in the paranormal instead. And some people believe in neither or both.

But the point here is why they believe in such things: stick children in religious schools, and you’ll get religious adults (moreover, religious adults who subscribe to whichever denomination the school happens to be: kids put in madrassas become muslims; kids put in christian schools become christians. For that matter Amazonian tribespeople whose kids are brought up in their traditions become whatever their culture teaches them. These days with more multi-cultural societies you do see more crossover than there used to be (and more escapees too), but there’s no mystery about this).

Conversely, leave kids to develop their critical faculties and then to decide for themselves (as we do with, say, politics) and relatively few will become religious from a standing start after age 18. 

Rather than repeat your assertion it would help if you support your assertion with some links about the frequency of same-sex attraction in different cultures and the possible explanations for this. I assume there are different views and theories about the expression of nature and nurture in relation to sexuality.

Bit rich given your reliance on only assertion so far, but ok. Here you go:

“The prevalence of women’s and men’s heterosexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality was assessed in 28 nations using data from 191,088 participants from a 2005 BBC Internet survey. Sexual orientation was measured in terms of both self-reported sexual identity and self-reported degree of same-sex attraction. Multilevel modeling analyses revealed that nations’ degrees of gender equality, economic development, and individualism were not significantly associated with men’s or women’s sexual orientation rates across nations. These models controlled for individual-level covariates including age and education level, and nation-level covariates including religion and national sex ratios. Robustness checks included inspecting the confidence intervals for meaningful associations, and further analyses using complete-cases and summary scores of the national indices. These analyses produced the same non-significant results. The relatively stable rates of heterosexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality observed across nations for both women and men suggest that non-social factors likely may underlie much variation in human sexual orientation. These results do not support frequently offered hypotheses that sexual orientation differences are related to gendered social norms across societies.”

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01590-0

I was referring only to people, as humans attach labels to sexual behaviour, not animals.

But the point here remains the observable behaviour itself (across species) not how you happen to label it. 

And by "experiment" I did not suggest that people need to experiment with both sexes. By "experiment" I meant that people firstly have to have matured enough to recognise feelings of sexual attraction, and then matured sufficiently to consensually engage in sexual behaviour based on those feelings of sexual attraction. Therefore babies cannot experiment but teenagers can.

Whoosh. People will engage sexually with whichever gender they feel the urge to feel attracted to. That’s it. You don’t need to have “matured enough” mentally – either you feel a certain way when your hormones kick in or you don’t. You know this already though – people with severe developmental issues can also have sexual urges of various types even though they'd be considered mentally very immature.         

Again, something more than your assertions are needed here for your argument to be convincing.

Again, you were the one making he unqualified assertions, and again – nonetheless, here you go (there are thousands of papers on this online by the way – this is just one of the first that I found):

“Research on the causes of human sexual orientation has been marshaled in support of predetermined and opposing theological viewpoints. Whilst acknowledging that there is still much that is not known, the peer reviewed scientific literature clearly shows that a combination of genetic and environmental factors contribute to sexual orientation, with approximately one third of variance currently attributed to the former. Much of the known environmental influence appears to be intra-uterine and there is no currently convincing evidence that social environment plays a significant part...”

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13558358.2020.1818541

Some evidence to back up your assertions would be welcome.

See above.       

And I am not interested in the statement that someone has desires or attractions. People feel attractions and desires for lots of different things. Hence we were comparing human sexual attraction to human attractions to a particular type of belief and discussing whether and how both are influenced by nature and environment, especially given that human attraction to things has an evolutionary biological and psychological component. Given these 2 components, I am interested in whether society seeks to regulate people acting on those desires and how far it seeks to regulate this.

Oh for sure many societies (especially religious ones) seek to regulate private sexual behaviours. You missed the point though: regardless of how you choose to label these behaviours, they happen. Various species contain sub-groups of same sex partners that observably pair bond, engage in sexual activity etc. Call that gay, straight of pineapple-flavoured for all I care, the point remains the behaviour itself, not what you call it.   

You're entitled to your belief that babies have a sexual orientation - when evidence is found to support this we can assess at that point.

Wrong again. As so far the biggest causes of homosexuality are believed to be genetic (about a third) and intra-uterine environmental (about two thirds) with no significant later cultural difference at all (see above) that’s all there already in latent form by the time the baby is born. So are the genetic markers for eye colour, which is why it's analogous.

What does it matter what the final eye colour is? My point was that it is possible to record an eye colour in babies, regardless of whether it changes or not later. We don't need to wait for them to grow up and articulate their eye colour.

Actually we do, though it may be possible to do a genetic test to find out what the eventual eye colour will be. That’s not the point though: the point is that later life eye colour and later life sexual orientation alike are highly likely to be programmed in by birth, not determined by environmental factors that come later.     

It's relevant to the idea that Outrider and I were discussing that some people exhibit attraction to beliefs that are distinct and different from the belief attractions exhibited by other people and that you can't choose which beliefs attract you.

That’s a different issue from labelling, and in any case the answer to that seems to be to do with the type of belief. An intellectualised belief – that the sun orbits the earth for example – can generally be changed when there’s enough evidence to show it to be wrong. An emotional belief on the other hand – “god”, that you love your children etc – on the the hand cannot be reasoned away. The problem with the god belief though is that people will then act on that belief in ways that affect other people - Vlad’s unpleasantly homophobic denial of “holy” marriage services to gay people for example.       

[Walt Zingmatilder]

VtH,


Not very bright here is he? “We” "take the side of" materialism (actual materialism, not his straw man version of the supposed claims it makes) because it’s the only method we know of that observably produces solutions.

He's talking about the philosophy of materialism i.e. the presumption of materialism before one undertakes science. Many people on here have questioned whether non materialists can be proper scientists or suggest that non materialists drop their non materialism. So are you saying that philosophical materialism comes from the methodology or the enterprise of science follows from the commitment to materialism?

If he and you don’t like that, then find something else to do the job. What do you suggest – the blind guessing of religions? After thousands of years of trying and countless different faiths, do you know how many solutions all of that has produced when set against the demonstrable successes of materialism?

The dichotomy between science and religion you present here is a false one. I can have all of science and religion. You are trying to stop at the method of materialism so when the question of the philosophy of materialism rises you can guff on about the method and sticking your fingers in your ear over an actual motivation for pursuing the method. Lewontin has in fact nailed it....and you.

You have become your own spiv salesman and mug customer.
Since Lewontin has succesfully described the philosophy of materialism and that the method of materialism. You have no justification to eliminate the philosophy.

Any argument you have with Lewontin proceeds from a misrepresentation of materialism.

I feel also that you are slighting Lewontin as a scientist here too. What is that all about?

[bluehillside Retd.]

VtH,

He's talking about the philosophy of materialism i.e. the presumption of materialism before one undertakes science. Many people on here have questioned whether non materialists can be proper scientists or suggest that non materialists drop their non materialism.

“Non-materialists” can be anything they wish, but if they want to investigate and verify truths about the universe and they don’t like materialism as their paradigm, then they have all their work ahead of them to find an alternative. Otherwise all they have is guessing

So are you saying that philosophical materialism…

Given that you’ve never been able to grasp what that term means (despite being given numerous citations) I’ve no idea how you expect me to answer questions about it – by reference to its actual meaning, or by reference to the various re-inventions of it you’ve attempted (being generally conflations with physicalism)).

…comes from the methodology or the enterprise of science follows from the commitment to materialism?

Philosophical materialism (actual meaning) is simply the conviction that materialism is the most reliable method we know of to investigate and verify the universe. Absent any other known method, it simply affirms that – so far at least – materialism is the only show in town. 
 

The dichotomy between science and religion you present here is a false one. I can have all of science and religion.

Not when your religion makes scientific claims you can’t. Stick with, “I can have all of science and all of the guessing of religion” though and you’re fine. 

You are trying to stop at the method of materialism so when the question of the philosophy of materialism rises you can guff on about the method and sticking your fingers in your ear over an actual motivation for pursuing the method. Lewontin has in fact nailed it....and you.

You’ve collapsed into a straw man, albeit incoherently expressed. I “stop at the method of materialism” only because I know of no other method to distinguish truth claims from just guessing. Nor moreover do you.   

You have become your own spiv salesman and mug customer.

You’re hysterical now. Do you have a point of any sort to make?

Since Lewontin has succesfully described the philosophy of materialism and that the method of materialism. You have no justification to eliminate the philosophy.

Lying doesn’t help you here. Lewotkin (according to the quote you posted) straw manned materialism. Perhaps that's why you’re in thrall to him?

Yet again – if you don’t like me materialism, what do you propose as its replacement?

Or do you intend to stay silent on this problem forever? 

Any argument you have with Lewontin proceeds from a misrepresentation of materialism.

Still lying eh? No – the problem is with Lewontin (and your) misrepresentation of materialism. He ascribes to it claims it doesn’t make, and then critiques it for not delivering on those claims. Like you, he also fails to suggest what he’d put in its place to do a better job. 

I feel also that you are slighting Lewontin as a scientist here too. What is that all about?

And another straw man to finish. I said very specifically that he’s not very bright “here”. I made no comment about anything else he may have said or done.

Anyway, back to the homophobia you’ve been peddling here…

[Walt Zingmatilder]

VtH,

“Non-materialists” can be anything they wish, but if they want to investigate and verify truths about the universe and they don’t like materialism as their paradigm, then they have all their work ahead of them to find an alternative. Otherwise all they have is guessing

Given that you’ve never been able to grasp what that term means (despite being given numerous citations) I’ve no idea how you expect me to answer questions about it – by reference to its actual meaning, or by reference to the various re-inventions of it you’ve attempted (being generally conflations with physicalism)).

Philosophical materialism (actual meaning) is simply the conviction that materialism is the most reliable method we know of to investigate and verify the universe. Absent any other known method, it simply affirms that – so far at least – materialism is the only show in town. 
 
Not when your religion makes scientific claims you can’t. Stick with, “I can have all of science and all of the guessing of religion” though and you’re fine. 

You’ve collapsed into a straw man, albeit incoherently expressed. I “stop at the method of materialism” only because I know of no other method to distinguish truth claims from just guessing. Nor moreover do you.   

You’re hysterical now. Do you have a point of any sort to make?

Lying doesn’t help you here. Lewotkin (according to the quote you posted) straw manned materialism. Perhaps that's why you’re in thrall to him?

Yet again – if you don’t like me materialism, what do you propose as its replacement?

Or do you intend to stay silent on this problem forever? 

Still lying eh? No – the problem is with Lewontin (and your) misrepresentation of materialism. He ascribes to it claims it doesn’t make, and then critiques it for not delivering on those claims. Like you, he also fails to suggest what he’d put in its place to do a better job. 

And another straw man to finish. I said very specifically that he’s not very bright “here”. I made no comment about anything else he may have said or done.

Anyway, back to the homophobia you’ve been peddling here…

Your error at root was always equating science with materialism.
Regarding alleged homophobia, driven theophobes, antitheists, antichristians, people suspisciously acting as if they are inviting us to snigger at the lack of intellectual and social sophistication of amazonians, ant god worshippers, ancients and people who live in glasshouses shouldn't really be throwing stones.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

VG,

But the point here is why they believe in such things: stick children in religious schools, and you’ll get religious adults (moreover, religious adults who subscribe to whichever denomination the school happens to be: kids put in madrassas become muslims; kids put in christian schools become christians. For that matter Amazonian tribespeople whose kids are brought up in their traditions become whatever their culture teaches them. These days with more multi-cultural societies you do see more crossover than there used to be (and more escapees too), but there’s no mystery about this).

Conversely, leave kids to develop their critical faculties and then to decide for themselves (as we do with, say, politics) and relatively few will become religious from a standing start after age 18.

No, talking about schools and particular religious practices might be a point that you want to make but that is irrelevant to the point that I was discussing - that some people have always been attracted to a belief that there is something more out there, a non-material agent, the supernatural. My discussion was not about any specific religion but about whether we can choose beliefs. A belief in something more has been happening long before the existence of mass education. If you want to discuss the link between religious schools and particular religions you'll have to find someone else to discuss it with, as from my perspective, you and I have discussed and disagreed many times on this topic so I have no interest in a repeat performance.

Bit rich given your reliance on only assertion so far, but ok. Here you go:

Not sure I follow - what assertion are you referring to? I expressed opinions and asked questions and spoke about what has been argued on other threads about beliefs but if something came across as an assertion feel free to point it out and I'll either modify it or clarify my meaning or provide some supporting evidence, depending on what it was. 

“The prevalence of women’s and men’s heterosexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality was assessed in 28 nations using data from 191,088 participants from a 2005 BBC Internet survey. Sexual orientation was measured in terms of both self-reported sexual identity and self-reported degree of same-sex attraction. Multilevel modeling analyses revealed that nations’ degrees of gender equality, economic development, and individualism were not significantly associated with men’s or women’s sexual orientation rates across nations. These models controlled for individual-level covariates including age and education level, and nation-level covariates including religion and national sex ratios. Robustness checks included inspecting the confidence intervals for meaningful associations, and further analyses using complete-cases and summary scores of the national indices. These analyses produced the same non-significant results. The relatively stable rates of heterosexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality observed across nations for both women and men suggest that non-social factors likely may underlie much variation in human sexual orientation. These results do not support frequently offered hypotheses that sexual orientation differences are related to gendered social norms across societies.”

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01590-0

Thanks for your link. I read it. It's very interesting though not based on a random sample of people so not representative enough to rule out other factors.

It seems to be the views of BBC service-users in different countries who had an interest in the topic enough to volunteer to participate and report on whether they have felt any same sex attraction and what label they would attach to their sexual orientation from a choice of heterosexual, bi-sexual or homosexual, including whether they would label themselves heterosexual despite reporting having felt a same-sex attraction. So it's a study on how people who are comfortable with the BBC's culture (enough to access their survey) would rate the level of opposite sex and same sex-attraction they have ever felt (“1—not at all” to “7—very”) and which label they would pick to describe their sexual orientation from a choice of 3.

The survey found that among their volunteers there was a higher rate of men who identified as homosexual compared to women, in all the nations where volunteers completed the survey. And then it spoke about the limitations of the study e.g. cultural factors to do with self-identification, the use of only English as the language in the survey so the language of other cultures might not correspond to the English word, and that the samples used were not random or necessarily representative of national patterns overall.

And the discussion ends with "Future empirical studies are needed to better test the extent to which national gender norms and economic factors are related to variations in the expression of sexual orientation across nations." So look forward to reading the explanations that those future studies put forward.

But the point here remains the observable behaviour itself (across species) not how you happen to label it.

And my point remains that babies are not developed enough to report same-sex attraction so we have to wait until they develop sufficiently to exhibit or report it, unless you have a study we can read about the biological markers for same-sex attraction being observed in babies?   

Whoosh. People will engage sexually with whichever gender they feel the urge to feel attracted to. That’s it. You don’t need to have “matured enough” mentally – either you feel a certain way when your hormones kick in or you don’t. You know this already though – people with severe developmental issues can also have sexual urges of various types even though they'd be considered mentally very immature.

No sure what the whoosh means, given you just agreed with my point - when the hormones kick in and people exhibit or report same sex attraction is a development point that does not occur in babies.

Again, you were the one making he unqualified assertions, and again – nonetheless, here you go (there are thousands of papers on this online by the way – this is just one of the first that I found):

“Research on the causes of human sexual orientation has been marshaled in support of predetermined and opposing theological viewpoints. Whilst acknowledging that there is still much that is not known, the peer reviewed scientific literature clearly shows that a combination of genetic and environmental factors contribute to sexual orientation, with approximately one third of variance currently attributed to the former. Much of the known environmental influence appears to be intra-uterine and there is no currently convincing evidence that social environment plays a significant part...”

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13558358.2020.1818541

See above. Ain’t facts a bitch sometime eh?

Again - what exactly are you referring to when you say "unqualified assertions". I have not formed a view on this and was after information. Why would facts be a bitch - you're not making any sense? 

Your link is very interesting and I look forward to further research that can provide more certainty. Your link indicates that men and women experience attraction differently - men experience more category-specific attraction - they are attracted to a particular sex - whereas women's "experiences of sexual attraction are more malleable and context dependent than men’s" and women are more likely to demonstrate sexual fluidity. On the subject of genetics your link says "these analyses suggest that, overall, sexual orientation in homosexual people is 32% due to genetic factors, 25% due to family environment, and 43% due to specific environment. These figures represent a modest, but not insignificant, genetic contribution to sexual orientation.....the processes that lead to bodily anatomical and physiological sexual characteristics must clearly be distinguished from those that act upon the brain to influence experiences of sexual attraction and associated sexual behavior. It is therefore entirely possible, at least in principle, that differences in adult sexual orientation are the result of exposure of particular brain regions to atypical hormone levels during a crucial period of development.....Is it possible, then, that variant levels of androgens acting differentially upon sexual organ development and certain brain regions during crucial periods of development might sometimes result in adult males who experience androphilia, or adult females who experience gynephilia? Evidence from animal studies, and from clinical studies of humans, suggests that this indeed might be possible."

Your link says that putting aside differing interpretations of the evidence, "it is also important to recognize that the scientific perspective still understands “nurture” as a part of the natural order. Distinctions between “nature and nurture” are easily misunderstood as a contrast between what is “natural” and what human agency imposes. Influences of nurture – family upbringing, wider society, life events of various kinds – are still part of the natural order. Human life in this world cannot be conceived of without them. They may be judged adverse or beneficial to human flourishing, and they may be more or less amenable to intentional manipulation, but they are still a part of the whole system of causation that science takes into account when studying sexual orientation or, indeed, most other human traits and characteristics, as well as many physical and mental disorders. Even if “nurture” were found to be more important in the causation of sexual orientation, it would therefore still only be one part of the whole natural system of interacting variables that go to make people who and what they are. In any case, the present weight of evidence is strongly in favor of non-social, rather than social, causes of sexual orientation."

On the effect of hormones during in-uterine development, your link says "There is some evidence that these irreversible, or “organisational”, influences might include changes in the brain which determine adult sexual orientation. Whilst this evidence is subject to significant limitations, notably due to the impossibility of ethically conducting the appropriate scientific experiments on human beings, it derives from a variety of sources and, taken together, provides a body of support which cannot currently be completely dismissed."

Oh for sure many societies (especially religious ones) seek to regulate private sexual behaviours. You missed the point though: regardless of how you choose to label these behaviours, they happen. Various species contain sub-groups of same sex partners that observably pair bond, engage in sexual activity etc. Call that gay, straight of pineapple-flavoured for all I care, the point remains the behaviour itself, not what you call it.

What point am I missing, given your statement that "they happen" is agreeing with my statement that people feel attractions and desires for lots of different things?

Wrong again. As so far the biggest causes of homosexuality are believed to be genetic (about a third) and intra-uterine environmental (about two thirds) with no significant later cultural difference at all (see above) that’s all there already in latent form by the time the baby is born. So are the genetic markers for eye colour, which is why it's analogous.

Did you read the part in your link which said "these analyses suggest that, overall, sexual orientation in homosexual people is 32% due to genetic factors, 25% due to family environment, and 43% due to specific environment. These figures represent a modest, but not insignificant, genetic contribution to sexual orientation"?

Actually we do, though it may be possible to do a genetic test to find out what the eventual eye colour will be. That’s not the point though: the point is that later life eye colour and later life sexual orientation alike are highly likely to be programmed in by birth, not determined by environmental factors that come later.

Did you read the part in your link that starts "it is also important to recognize that the scientific perspective still understands “nurture” as a part of the natural order...."? (see above)

That’s a different issue from labelling, and in any case the answer to that seems to be to do with the type of belief. An intellectualised belief – that the sun orbits the earth for example – can generally be changed when there’s enough evidence to show it to be wrong. An emotional belief on the other hand – “god”, that you love your children etc – on the the hand cannot be reasoned away. The problem with the god belief though is that people will then act on that belief in ways that affect other people - Vlad’s unpleasantly homophobic denial of “holy” marriage services to gay people for example.       

Yes Outrider and I were discussing emotional beliefs. Yes that is the problem with emotional beliefs - people act on them - and as humans can't do away with emotional beliefs we'll just have to learn to work with them.

Edited as I forgot to insert a quote to differentiate BHS's comment from my reply.

While I am here, BHS, did you say gender is an innate characteristic - do you have any studies you can link to on that?