TIL about 'Side B' LGBTQ Christians

[Ban my account ffs!]

It's the same type of mentality that sees any hardships in life as a test from God. Except in this case, much more harmful, since it leads to the repression of sexuality, which nearly always results in mental health issues.

Given the levels of promiscuity in the gay community, it doesn't surprise me that some homosexual people have rejected gay culture by swinging all the way to the most radical opposite side of the spectrum.

Ridiculous, the more promiscuous members of the gay community are simply more visible than it's heterosexual counterparts due to more public exposure, it's not an exclusive aspect to it.

I was fine with leaving this as it is, but you're questioning facts that are pretty well-established. Gay men have far more partners than their straight counterparts. I don't want you to think I was just "projecting" here, or making broad assumptions based on non-representative portions of the community, so I thought I'd clear that up for you.

So yes, this all comes, once again, down to gay men.  Lesbians and other LGBTQ people are left out of the conversation.  This phenomenon, in and of itself, likely plays a role in the shame that some of the "Side B" men have.  They are constantly scrutinized by the public at large and every part of their relationships and sexual practices are scrutinized and judged.

As for that survey, you are talking a gay men sample size of 252 compared to 11,336 straight men.  These results would only include those gay men who were comfortable enough to reveal their sexuality in the first place... and those gay men that have 4+ partners could very well be more likely to admit or participate in the survey.  A deeply closeted gay man with 0 partners might decline or simply say he is straight.

You can question this study or that one, but this is hardly the only data that exists on the subject. I didn't come here to have a debate on the subject; I just wanted to clear things up because it was being implied that my earlier statement did not have factual evidence to back it up.

You provided sh**tty evidence and then tried to cut off debate because “uugh I just CANT right now” and then cited vague “there’s lots of other evidence”. 

My questions would undermine any possible data you could provide because it is all based on survey samples, not actual population data. 

Remember in skewl when they constantly said think critically?

[John Dule]

It's the same type of mentality that sees any hardships in life as a test from God. Except in this case, much more harmful, since it leads to the repression of sexuality, which nearly always results in mental health issues.

Given the levels of promiscuity in the gay community, it doesn't surprise me that some homosexual people have rejected gay culture by swinging all the way to the most radical opposite side of the spectrum.

Ridiculous, the more promiscuous members of the gay community are simply more visible than it's heterosexual counterparts due to more public exposure, it's not an exclusive aspect to it.

I was fine with leaving this as it is, but you're questioning facts that are pretty well-established. Gay men have far more partners than their straight counterparts. I don't want you to think I was just "projecting" here, or making broad assumptions based on non-representative portions of the community, so I thought I'd clear that up for you.

So yes, this all comes, once again, down to gay men.  Lesbians and other LGBTQ people are left out of the conversation.  This phenomenon, in and of itself, likely plays a role in the shame that some of the "Side B" men have.  They are constantly scrutinized by the public at large and every part of their relationships and sexual practices are scrutinized and judged.

As for that survey, you are talking a gay men sample size of 252 compared to 11,336 straight men.  These results would only include those gay men who were comfortable enough to reveal their sexuality in the first place... and those gay men that have 4+ partners could very well be more likely to admit or participate in the survey.  A deeply closeted gay man with 0 partners might decline or simply say he is straight.

You can question this study or that one, but this is hardly the only data that exists on the subject. I didn't come here to have a debate on the subject; I just wanted to clear things up because it was being implied that my earlier statement did not have factual evidence to back it up.

You provided sh**tty evidence and then tried to cut off debate because “uugh I just CANT right now” and then cited vague “there’s lots of other evidence”. 

My questions would undermine any possible data you could provide because it is all based on survey samples, not actual population data. 

Remember in skewl when they constantly said think critically?

The evidence I've provided is only "sh**tty" because of a completely fabricated retort you've just invented that is purely speculative and has no evidence to support it.

[Ban my account ffs!]

You made an assertion that some gay men are "side B" because of a strongly negative reaction to how promiscuous some other gay men are.

I pointed out the methodological vulnerabilities of using survey data to cover topics regarding sexuality.

You came into this thread doing precisely what you accuse me of doing.  A completely fabricated assertion (likely based on your own prejudice) that is purely speculative and has no evidence to support it.

I think you just wanted to further a negative cultural trope about gay men and you found an opportunity to do so.

[John Dule]

You made an assertion that some gay men are "side B" because of a strongly negative reaction to how promiscuous some other gay men are.

I pointed out the methodological vulnerabilities of using survey data to cover topics regarding sexuality.

You came into this thread doing precisely what you accuse me of doing.  A completely fabricated assertion (likely based on your own prejudice) that is purely speculative and has no evidence to support it.

I think you just wanted to further a negative cultural trope about gay men and you found an opportunity to do so.

I don't have time for these unfounded aspersions. Here, have some more studies.

"Sexual debut occurred earlier among MSM than heterosexuals. MSM reported longer cumulative lifetime periods of new partner acquisition than heterosexuals, and a more gradual decline in new partnership formation with age."

"These stereotypes about homosexual men seem to be supported by research in that homosexual men reported higher levels of casual sexual behaviors across all genders, sexes, and sexual orientations comparison groups (Howard & Perilloux, 2016)."

Here's a pretty fair one that, in attempting to "debunk" this "myth," is forced to admit that the average number of sex partners for gay men is higher than among straight men:

"First, although gay men typically report a higher number of partners than heterosexual men on average, we need to look at the median (or 50th percentile) before drawing any conclusions because averages can be easily distorted by a few extreme responses."

This seems accurate in that a small group may be offsetting the average, which also affects public perceptions. Nevertheless, you're trying to argue against this by calling it a "stereotype," but that's not enough to disprove it; stereotypes often exaggerate the facts but they don't always fabricate them entirely. Also, I've not said one single anti-gay thing on this site, so you're really reaching with that last comment. And although my closest gay friend is a Grindr addict who has about three different partners every week, I'm well aware that most gays (and indeed, most humans) aren't capable of that kind of stamina, so I'm definitely not extrapolating from my personal experience either.

[LucasJ]

The anus is not a sex organ, google "natural law" and research how reason can help us understand objective morality.

[afleitch]

The anus is not a sex organ, google "natural law" and research how reason can help us understand objective morality.

Welcome to the forum.

The anus is a sex organ. You also crap out of it.
The penis is a sex organ. You also piss out if it.
The mouth is a sex organ. You also puke out of it.
If you ever have sex, the whole body reacts.
If all you have is 'penis go in vagina to make 'babby'', congrats. You understand reproduction. You don't understand sex.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

To be fair, the idiot wasn't entirely wrong, as there is one primary sex organ as shown below:

"Anatomie et physiologie..." F.J. Gall & J.C. Spurheim, 1810 Wellcome L0020420
Franz Joseph Gall; Johann Gaspard Spurzheim [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

[The Mikado]

The anus is not a sex organ, google "natural law" and research how reason can help us understand objective morality.

I googled Natural Law and now I'm moving to Fairfield, Iowa. The Maharishi appreciates your evangelizing.

[LucasJ]

The anus is not a sex organ, google "natural law" and research how reason can help us understand objective morality.

Welcome to the forum.

The anus is a sex organ. You also crap out of it.
The penis is a sex organ. You also piss out if it.
The mouth is a sex organ. You also puke out of it.
If you ever have sex, the whole body reacts.
If all you have is 'penis go in vagina to make 'babby'', congrats. You understand reproduction. You don't understand sex.

Source? Sounds like you are trying to remove reproduction from the definition of sex. The sexual revolution led to misery and destruction. Check the divorce rates, std rates, and general statistics on happiness. Your free will is important my friend, you have an immaterial soul.

[afleitch]

Free will and the immaterial soul is an illusion. A prostate centred multiple anal orgasm is not.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The sexual revolution led to misery and destruction. Check the divorce rates, std rates, and general statistics on happiness.

I'm not an uncritical cheerleader for the sexual revolution either, but there are pretty serious correlation/causation issues with this claim.

[Mopsus]

Free will and the immaterial soul is an illusion. A prostate centred multiple anal orgasm is not.

I imagine this is what gets broadcast on television screens around the world moments before the Final Judgement.

[afleitch]

Free will and the immaterial soul is an illusion. A prostate centred multiple anal orgasm is not.

I imagine this is what gets broadcast on television screens around the world moments before the Final Judgement.

I'm sure I'd get 10/10 for delivery.

[LucasJ]

Free will and the immaterial soul is an illusion. A prostate centred multiple anal orgasm is not.

Proof? Very destructive claim to make. You can choose freely to turn from vices and seek God. What reason would there be for the brain chemicals to trick themselves in such a way? Why would this arrangement of particles produce sentience on its own? You should read up on the five ways by St. Thomas Aquinas, or simply research the many documented miracles and philosophical arguments for God's existence. There is objective morality and meaning in this life, you should not attempt to throw it away for the sake of vain pleasure and comfort. Search for truth my friend.

[afleitch]

Free will and the immaterial soul is an illusion. A prostate centred multiple anal orgasm is not.

Proof? Very destructive claim to make. You can choose freely to turn from vices and seek God. What reason would there be for the brain chemicals to trick themselves in such a way? Why would this arrangement of particles produce sentience on its own? You should read up on the five ways by St. Thomas Aquinas, or simply research the many documented miracles and philosophical arguments for God's existence. There is objective morality and meaning in this life, you should not attempt to throw it away for the sake of vain pleasure and comfort. Search for truth my friend.

I've been doing a lot of cutting and pasting but meh:

Free Will’ was defined at a time in which a theistic universe was generally accepted and there needed to be an manner in which to explain away the inconvenient paradoxes within a theistic universe. One of the contradictions in Christian theology (though not exclusive to it) is called ‘theodicy’; why god permits evil. If god is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, then eternal damnation is contradictory. Either god cannot create a world without evil (and we define evil as being contrary to the will of god) which means he’s not a powerful god or he won’t create a world without evil which means he is not a very capable god. But if humans can voluntarily choose to be evil because we have such a thing as a ‘free will’, then it no longer becomes a problem with god but with mankind. 

The problem is that free will doesn’t make sense. Free will; a ‘will that is free’ relies on the concept that there is some extra entity not related casually to the rest of the universe and it’s laws. Only such an entity, free from the confines of the laws of the universe and not subject to casuality could fit the requirements of a genuinely ‘free’ will that is uninfluenced by anything other than itself.

Human beings can not have free will because the very philosophical concept of a free will cannot exist within our universe. Everything is subject to the same laws and cannot be uninfluenced by anything but themselves. You have a ‘will’, yes, because you are a sentient being, but it is not strictly ‘free.’ Your will can never be uninfluenced by anything other than itself, and therefore be truly free, because your will is part your conscience which is rooted in your physical being. Your physical being and your mind are both constantly influenced by factors outside of itself. Therefore more accurately you have what can be called volition. This is a very important difference.  You have a consciousness and this drives and is driven by your body and you have some rational processess (as much as your evolution has afforded you at least) operating in your brain that can reasonably control your bodies behaviour. You, like everything else in the universe are subject to casuality, not free from it, but have the ability to influence it’s future direction. So while you have the control you are afforded you can never have full control. So you can never fully have 100% responsibility for every moral or amoral action that you undertake.

You are a one of countless processes that exist in this universe but you have advantage of being a process that is self aware. You are here because it has been determined, by the sum of all that came before you, that you will be here.  This is called ‘casual determinism.’ It rests on the understanding that the past is fixed and the present is the sum of history. This renders the concept of free will irrelevant. Your brain makes decisions based on it’s physical condition at the time you make the decision. It’s current physical condition is determined by it’s previous states. Therefore we exercise volition limited only by causality and physics to the extent that is both necessary and beneficial to us.

An apologist may fancy the ‘card’ anology. The deity providing you with a set of options, including the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ ones only when they become available. However everyone is born with different ‘qualifications’; male, female, able bodies, diabled, gay, straight, colour blind. Differing cognitive abilities in general. Everyone perceives the world differently and internalises external information on a different level. So the idea of ‘set morals’ for human existance as defined by a revealed text isn’t particularly strong.

From the point of view of the universe all events, whether or not we consider them moral, immoral or neutral are merely particle interactions. It is only us who consider such interactions; from the mind forming an idea to the hand carrying it out, as good, bad or neutral. Good and evil aren’t universal ‘forces’; (therefore if there is a deity, it has to be morally neutral) they are what we determine them collectively and in accordance to our evolutionary need, to be.

[LucasJ]

Free will and the immaterial soul is an illusion. A prostate centred multiple anal orgasm is not.

Proof? Very destructive claim to make. You can choose freely to turn from vices and seek God. What reason would there be for the brain chemicals to trick themselves in such a way? Why would this arrangement of particles produce sentience on its own? You should read up on the five ways by St. Thomas Aquinas, or simply research the many documented miracles and philosophical arguments for God's existence. There is objective morality and meaning in this life, you should not attempt to throw it away for the sake of vain pleasure and comfort. Search for truth my friend.

I've been doing a lot of cutting and pasting but meh:

Free Will’ was defined at a time in which a theistic universe was generally accepted and there needed to be an manner in which to explain away the inconvenient paradoxes within a theistic universe. One of the contradictions in Christian theology (though not exclusive to it) is called ‘theodicy’; why god permits evil. If god is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, then eternal damnation is contradictory. Either god cannot create a world without evil (and we define evil as being contrary to the will of god) which means he’s not a powerful god or he won’t create a world without evil which means he is not a very capable god. But if humans can voluntarily choose to be evil because we have such a thing as a ‘free will’, then it no longer becomes a problem with god but with mankind. 

The problem is that free will doesn’t make sense. Free will; a ‘will that is free’ relies on the concept that there is some extra entity not related casually to the rest of the universe and it’s laws. Only such an entity, free from the confines of the laws of the universe and not subject to casuality could fit the requirements of a genuinely ‘free’ will that is uninfluenced by anything other than itself.

Human beings can not have free will because the very philosophical concept of a free will cannot exist within our universe. Everything is subject to the same laws and cannot be uninfluenced by anything but themselves. You have a ‘will’, yes, because you are a sentient being, but it is not strictly ‘free.’ Your will can never be uninfluenced by anything other than itself, and therefore be truly free, because your will is part your conscience which is rooted in your physical being. Your physical being and your mind are both constantly influenced by factors outside of itself. Therefore more accurately you have what can be called volition. This is a very important difference.  You have a consciousness and this drives and is driven by your body and you have some rational processess (as much as your evolution has afforded you at least) operating in your brain that can reasonably control your bodies behaviour. You, like everything else in the universe are subject to casuality, not free from it, but have the ability to influence it’s future direction. So while you have the control you are afforded you can never have full control. So you can never fully have 100% responsibility for every moral or amoral action that you undertake.

You are a one of countless processes that exist in this universe but you have advantage of being a process that is self aware. You are here because it has been determined, by the sum of all that came before you, that you will be here.  This is called ‘casual determinism.’ It rests on the understanding that the past is fixed and the present is the sum of history. This renders the concept of free will irrelevant. Your brain makes decisions based on it’s physical condition at the time you make the decision. It’s current physical condition is determined by it’s previous states. Therefore we exercise volition limited only by causality and physics to the extent that is both necessary and beneficial to us.

An apologist may fancy the ‘card’ anology. The deity providing you with a set of options, including the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ ones only when they become available. However everyone is born with different ‘qualifications’; male, female, able bodies, diabled, gay, straight, colour blind. Differing cognitive abilities in general. Everyone perceives the world differently and internalises external information on a different level. So the idea of ‘set morals’ for human existance as defined by a revealed text isn’t particularly strong.

From the point of view of the universe all events, whether or not we consider them moral, immoral or neutral are merely particle interactions. It is only us who consider such interactions; from the mind forming an idea to the hand carrying it out, as good, bad or neutral. Good and evil aren’t universal ‘forces’; (therefore if there is a deity, it has to be morally neutral) they are what we determine them collectively and in accordance to our evolutionary need, to be.

I will respond more thoroughly when i have the time. At first glance from my understanding I see there are too many presuppositions that are not backed up, as well as no refutation of the main arguments from classical theology that i suggested. Do you have an actual understanding of these paragraphs or did you just copy and paste without bothering to entertain objections? I obviously do not know your intentions or if you are genuinely seeking truth but i recommend testing your beliefs on the matter. I have had many great experiences and found true purpose through pursuing Christ. talk later my friend.

7Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. 8For every one that asketh, receiveth: and he that seeketh, findeth: and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.

[afleitch]

What I pasted was an earlier response I gave on this forum a few years ago. You are also making presuppositions from a Christian perspective and making reference to Christian theologians and texts. As a former Christian, I advise you to argue your case with me, from a secular philosophical perspective.

[Kool-Aid]

Why is there such a high suicide rate within the LGBT community?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Why is there such a high suicide rate within the LGBT community?

I don't know, why do you think there is?

[The Mikado]

The funny (note: not actually funny) thing is that 15 or even 10 years ago, there were a lot of people on Atlas advancing Lucas' arguments. Now they're only advanced by newbies. Public opinion has been an absolute sea change.

Even when I got here 12 years ago in 2007, I remember a LOT of people making very similar points to Lucas and Atlas not seeing that as beyond the frame of reasonable discourse. Now, it isn't. Why? Because the argument was pretty decisively won by one side and lost by the other, as sometimes happens. Arguing for homophobia now is much like arguing unbanning slavery: you can do it, but you can't blame people for looking at you like you're a horrendously ignorant jackass for doing so.

Anyway, Lucas is fond of classical philosophy, so have a bit of Aristophanes' speech at the Symposium, per Plato:

In the first place, let me treat of the nature of man and what has happened to it; for the original human nature was not like the present, but different. The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two, having a name corresponding to this double nature, which had once a real existence, but is now lost, and the word "Androgynous" is only preserved as a term of reproach. In the second place, the primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike; also four ears, two privy members, and the remainder to correspond. He could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast. Now the sexes were three, and such as I have described them; because the sun, moon, and earth are three;-and the man was originally the child of the sun, the woman of the earth, and the man-woman of the moon, which is made up of sun and earth, and they were all round and moved round and round: like their parents. Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they made an attack upon the gods; of them is told the tale of Otys and Ephialtes who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven, and would have laid hands upon the gods. Doubt reigned in the celestial councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained.

At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: "Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg." He spoke and cut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or as you might divide an egg with a hair; and as he cut them one after another, he bade Apollo give the face and the half of the neck a turn in order that the man might contemplate the section of himself: he would thus learn a lesson of humility. Apollo was also bidden to heal their wounds and compose their forms. So he gave a turn to the face and pulled the skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called the belly, like the purses which draw in, and he made one mouth at the centre, which he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the navel); he also moulded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles, much as a shoemaker might smooth leather upon a last; he left a few, however, in the region of the belly and navel, as a memorial of the primeval state. After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one, they were on the point of dying from hunger and self-neglect, because they did not like to do anything apart; and when one of the halves died and the other survived, the survivor sought another mate, man or woman as we call them, being the sections of entire men or women, and clung to that. They were being destroyed, when Zeus in pity of them invented a new plan: he turned the parts of generation round to the front, for this had not been always their position and they sowed the seed no longer as hitherto like grasshoppers in the ground, but in one another; and after the transposition the male generated in the female in order that by the mutual embraces of man and woman they might breed, and the race might continue; or if man came to man they might be satisfied, and rest, and go their ways to the business of life: so ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man.[/b]

Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of a man, and he is always looking for his other half. Men who are a section of that double nature which was once called Androgynous are lovers of women; adulterers are generally of this breed, and also adulterous women who lust after men: the women who are a section of the woman do not care for men, but have female attachments; the female companions are of this sort. But they who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they hang about men and embrace them, and they are themselves the best of boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature. Some indeed assert that they are shameless, but this is not true; for they do not act thus from any want of shame, but because they are valiant and manly, and have a manly countenance, and they embrace that which is like them. And these when they grow up become our statesmen, and these only, which is a great proof of the truth of what I am saving. When they reach manhood they are loves of youth, and are not naturally inclined to marry or beget children,-if at all, they do so only in obedience to the law; but they are satisfied if they may be allowed to live with one another unwedded; and such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love, always embracing that which is akin to him. And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and would not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment. Suppose Hephaestus, with his instruments, to come to the pair who are lying side, by side and to say to them, "What do you people want of one another?" they would be unable to explain. And suppose further, that when he saw their perplexity he said: "Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night to be in one another's company? for if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt you into one and let you grow together, so that being two you shall become one, and while you live a common life as if you were a single man, and after your death in the world below still be one departed soul instead of two-I ask whether this is what you lovingly desire, and whether you are satisfied to attain this?"-there is not a man of them who when he heard the proposal would deny or would not acknowledge that this meeting and melting into one another, this becoming one instead of two, was the very expression of his ancient need. And the reason is that human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love. There was a time, I say, when we were one, but now because of the wickedness of mankind God has dispersed us, as the Arcadians were dispersed into villages by the Lacedaemonians. And if we are not obedient to the gods, there is a danger that we shall be split up again and go about in basso-relievo, like the profile figures having only half a nose which are sculptured on monuments, and that we shall be like tallies.

[afleitch]

Also this, from reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/dd5ubh/intelligent_design/

[Kool-Aid]

Stats
1 in 4 youth suicides is from LGBT

Why is there such a high suicide rate within the LGBT community?

I don't know, why do you think there is?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Free will and the immaterial soul is an illusion.

And there is no choice. So shut up and accept your lot in life.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Stats
1 in 4 youth suicides is from LGBT

I'm aware. What I meant was, why do you think that's the case, since you're asking the rest of us why we think it's the case?

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

Stats
1 in 4 youth suicides is from LGBT

Why is there such a high suicide rate within the LGBT community?

I don't know, why do you think there is?

Systemic homophobia, being disowned and abused by their own families, bullying and discrimination might all play a cause?