Originally posted by bbarrThe fact that straight people do not choose to be straight does not imply that gay people do not choose to be gay.
Did you choose to be straight? I understand that when you engage in sexual activity, it is a choice, but did you choose to start finding women attractive, or did you just start finding women attractive?
For example, I do not choose to breathe, but I can choose not to.
Breathing is natural, but I can choose, or dare, to defy that part of my nature.
Originally posted by DoctorScribblesWas I presenting a deductive argument? No. So why would you think issues of entailment are relevant? You seem to have some sort of fetish for deduction, which is strange given that most interesting things can't be established via that form of reasoning.
The fact that straight people do not choose to be straight does not imply that gay people do not choose to be gay.
For example, I do not choose to breathe, but I can choose not to.
Breathing is natural, but I can choose, or dare, to defy that part of my nature.
Anyway, as an empirical matter, those who are homosexual do not report having chosen to be so. Just as those who are heterosexual do not report having chosen to be so. Further, if homosexuality is a choice, then anybody with a functioning will could choose to become homosexual (not merely act as such, but choose to be attracted appropriately).
As to your breathing analogy, prove it!
Originally posted by lucifershammerPrejudice = "an unfair and unreasonable opinion or feeling, especially when formed without enough thought or knowledge."
(Sorry about that last one)
[b]It's a normal case of someone overcoming her prejudices, in this case religiously-induced.
In this forum, we've long discussed the prejudices of the religious and, in recent times, the prejudices of the atheists (regarding religion and the religious).
Do you think this family's experience might be replicated in a modern, secular/liberal family if the son chooses religion?[/b]
Atheists are not prejudiced against the religious.
Our derision of religious beliefs is well considered and justified by evidence (fossils, etc) and lack of evidence (God, Devil, Heaven, Souls, etc).
Theists are inevitably prejudiced, because most of their opinions are formed from an uncritical acceptance of a book of baloney.
The belief that homosexuality is intrinsically wrong because the bible says God said it is, is one example of such prejudice.
Originally posted by bbarrWho's relying on entailment now? There is a time and place for empiricism, and this is a wonderful realm in which to engage in it. To begin, conduct an experiment which attempts to reject the null hypothesis that married men don't get to sleep with women. With a self-proclaimed title such as yours, your only difficulty should be in eliminating experimenter bias.
You get to sleep with women? I thought you were married.
Originally posted by DoctorScribblesGiven the sad state of many marriages, you may not be able to reject the null for say 2% significance.
Who's relying on entailment now? There is a time and place for empiricism, and this is a wonderful realm in which to engage in it. To begin, conduct an experiment which attempts to reject the null hypothesis that married men don't get to sleep with women.
Originally posted by DoctorScribblesre·spect ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-spkt)
This is basic English. Pronouns can only refer to nouns that are already in play.
It may be true that "In the end, siblings make a lifestyle choice, and Tom's was just odder than most" could conceivably express what she meant to say, but she didn't say that. And I won't presume to put words in her mouth and then analyze them - that's str ...[text shortened]... tions and chose neither, I am comfortable in finding that it is the lifestyle that she respects.
tr.v. re·spect·ed, re·spect·ing, re·spects
1. To feel or show deferential regard for; esteem.
2. To avoid violation of or interference with: respect the speed limit.
3. To relate or refer to; concern.*
Grammatically, (3) is out. From the rest of her letter, I think it's clear she isn't talking (1) either. What we're left with is (2) - avoiding violation or interference; and I don't think it makes a big difference whether the object there is "choice" or "lifestyle", so I'm not going to debate it (although I still think "choice" was the intended object; "I don't understand it" being used in the sense of "I don't get it"😉.
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* http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=respect
Originally posted by telerionResponse: Well duh of course it is silly. Environment obviously plays some role. However given that fewer than 10% of the general population is gay, a measure of 50% is very strong evidence.
What a great link! Not only did I discover that some evidence of genetic link = no evidence of genetic link, but I also learned (from a supposed psychology think tank) that all sorts of major media groups including NPR, Newsweek, and the Wall Street Journal are out to destroy our nation.
Basically, the ariticle was an example of quote mining and dece ...[text shortened]... also have links to lots of papers so that you can actually read some of these quotes in context.
Not necessarily. In order to separate environment from genetics, the correct metric to look at would be the correlation of homosexuality for identical twins brought up in different environments/families.
http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/answers.html#choice
This FAQ does not answer the nature/nurture question. If indeed homosexual orientation is a product of the environment, then there is no reason to assume that the environmental factors driving it would not have an impact pre-pubescence.
First, thanks to everyone for their views and contributions. While I wanted to focus on prejudice and tolerance with this thread, we're still having some interesting discussions about nature/nurture (re: homosexuality) etc.
Second, this thread was part-experimental in that I wanted to find out how people respond to what seems like a common situation. In fact, the article was not taken from a Catholic paper, and it isn't about a Christian sister reacting to a homosexual brother. The full article from the Guardian is reproduced below *:
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My brother, the monk
In Mike Leigh's new play, a secular Jewish family is stunned when a son finds religion. Lucy Ward knows how they feel
Saturday September 17, 2005
The Guardian
The August sun was shining through the chapel windows and my brother was lying face down on the floor in his white tunic and scapula. The arpeggios of the litany sung by his fellow monks and the nuns with whom they share Turvey Abbey in Bedfordshire filled the bright room, but all I could think of was the strange mundanity of seeing Tom's battered sandals and grey jogging bottoms sticking out from the bottom of the white robe. Never mind the beauty or the mystery, it was the vulnerable ordinariness that finally made a secular big sister cry.
The monastic profession, the ceremony in which a junior monk takes his final vows and becomes a fully fledged member of his order, is full of the symbolism of death and resurrection and comes with a certain medieval kick, even if the star doesn't happen to be a family member. If it's your only sibling, the power of the ritual and the undeniable sense that the kid you used to prod surreptitiously on long car journeys has opted for a kind of rebirth are almost too much to bear. I was rescued from a feeling close to bereavement only when my second daughter was found cheerfully drinking holy water: a ritual not generally part of the Benedictine rule.
It's now approaching 10 years since Tom told our parents he had decided he wanted to enter the Monastery of Christ our Saviour at Turvey as a postulant (trainee monk). I often half-forget the abnormality of it; Tom is simply a contemplative monk, in the same way as other people's brothers are accountants or teachers.
It wasn't always so easy. When Tom first began going on retreats I felt the same bafflement, frustration and even anger as the Jewish but secular family in Mike Leigh's new play, Two Thousand Years, when 29-year-old Josh unexpectedly turns to God. Though our dad is Catholic he has been non-practising since I was at primary school, and our Protestant mum has been a non-church-goer for years.
It was only when Tom, then 16, started coming in late on Sunday nights that our parents, expecting experimentation with drugs or girls and prepared to handle either in their liberal, Guardian-reading fashion, gently asked where he had been. The revelation that he had been going to the local CofE church youth group threw them.
I dealt with it as a typically bolshy older sister, challenging Tom to justify his belief. I didn't understand it, didn't want to, and felt it was all, well, incredibly disloyal. We had grown up pretty close, but Tom's faith sat stubbornly between us for several years. For mum and dad their only son's experimentation with religion was, I think, much harder. Tom shopped his way round a series of denominations, settling at first on Methodism. In the end, he came back to Catholicism, and in 1998, aged 25, while living in London and teaching RE at the Oratory School, he rang home to tell our parents he had made up his mind to become a monk.
Although they had been half expecting the news, it still shocked them. Mum was upset - she now feels embarrassed that she thought of the grandchildren Tom might have had. Dad was bewildered, coping by writing down all he could. They asked, gently as ever, for reasons, and Tom wrote long letters home that set out his belief that his entry into a monastery was necessary as part of his search for God. He could not pursue that quest in the outside world and rejected even the option of an active religious order such as the Franciscans, where his good works would have been easier for his secular family to understand.
Mum and dad wept, talked, accepted what they couldn't at that time understand and in the end waved him off with endless pairs of new socks and a warm duvet. I, meanwhile, left rejected and unwilling to hear theological explanations, all but cut him off.
What has helped us come to terms with Tom's decision, apart from the simple passing of time, has been Turvey itself. The abbey is set in a 17th-century manor house and grounds. There is a walled garden and peaceful woods where the monks walk or work as if in a medieval book of hours. More importantly, the small community of monks - and the nuns - have from the outset been wise, welcoming and utterly understanding that, for us, Tom's presence there is a complex and sometimes difficult thing to accept. They have opened us up to a worldview for which we previously had no time.
In the end, siblings choose a career path, and Tom's is just odder than most. I don't exactly understand it, but I respect it. And if I get too serious or worried, I can just think of him in the monastery garden, showing his nieces the delights of the tyre swing, his habit flying out behind him.
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BdN, howardgee - any comments?
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* http://www.guardian.co.uk/family/story/0,16371,1571052,00.html
Originally posted by howardgeeThis real story refutes that post. Look at the following extracts from the article:
"BdN, howardgee - any comments?"
EH?
See above for my reply to your accusation of atheistic prejudice.
I dealt with it as a typically bolshy older sister, challenging Tom to justify his belief. I didn't understand it, didn't want to, and felt it was all, well, incredibly disloyal.
...
I, meanwhile, left rejected and unwilling to hear theological explanations, all but cut him off.
As Palynka observed:
It's a normal case of someone overcoming her prejudices, .... First denial, then acceptance.
Originally posted by lucifershammerSo, she rejects the word of God now then?
This real story refutes that post. Look at the following extracts from the article:
I dealt with it as a typically bolshy older sister, challenging Tom to justify his belief. [b]I didn't understand it, didn't want to, and felt it was all, well, incredibly disloyal.
...
I, meanwhile, left rejected and unwilling to hear theological expl ...[text shortened]... t's a normal case of someone overcoming her prejudices, .... First denial, then acceptance.
She cannot be a Catholic then.
Good for her - she has seen the light!
Originally posted by lucifershammerWhile that metric would be ideal, and the studies done using this metric corraborate the results cited so far, the problem is that sample sizes have been small in such studies. What we do see is that when roughly half of monozygotic twins reared together are homsexual when their twin is homosexual, and this is roughly twice the rate observed among fraternal twins reared together. So, we're talking about studies where early environment has been controlled for across groups.
Not necessarily. In order to separate environment from genetics, the correct metric to look at would be the correlation of homosexuality for identical twins brought up in different environments/families.
Originally posted by howardgeeShe wasn't Catholic to begin with - she's an atheist. I simply switched the situation around.
So, she rejects the word of God now then?
She cannot be a Catholic then.
Good for her - she has seen the light!
So - still think atheists cannot be prejudiced?
EDIT: Did you actually read the Guardian article?