Change Me

November 26, 2004 3:32 PM

Research may espouse that change is real but most think that ex-gay ministries are something that need watched. That sill hasn't stopped one 22-year old blogger in DC from trying to blog his way out of homosexuality, though.
posted by nospecialfx (312 comments total)

I fought teh gay and teh gay won? I doubt there will be a decrease in these unnatural attempts to cloack one's own identity until homosexuality is accepted by the mainstream population (and not simply as a caricature, ie: queer eye for the straight guy, will and grace, etc.).
posted by The God Complex at 3:39 PM on November 26, 2004

(err, cloak).
posted by The God Complex at 3:40 PM on November 26, 2004

Hey God Complex, what's your root?

Seriously though, there's no way to know if this sort of behaviour reprogramming is or isn't truly effective until we know exactly what causes homosexuality. We're all well aware that it isn't a choice, but the question remains as to whether it can truly be "overcome".
posted by mek at 3:47 PM on November 26, 2004

I followed this guy's blog for a while when he first started writing. The only problem he has is that his homosexuality doesn't seem to fit with his 'version' of Christianity. Despite plenty of people pointing him to more reliable translations - and pointing out the fact that Jesus said nothing whatsoever about homosexuality, he is very determined.

I don't agree with his opinions, or his reason for wanting to change himself, but I wish him luck anyway. Gotta give the guy points for his bloody-mindedness alone.
posted by lemonpillows at 3:54 PM on November 26, 2004

We're all well aware that it isn't a choice, but the question remains as to whether it can truly be "overcome"

I'm sure its overcome-able in the same way heterosexuality is.
Old argument, but it always helps me when I start thinking in those terms. I mean, no one is out there (I'll probably end up being wrong on this) trying to find out "exactly what causes" heterosexuality. That's because the very question implies an already-made value judgement: (the gay is wrong!).

Also, the kid in the last link links to "Gay Watch" which, despite its porn-title-sounding-name, is "a blog news forum that alerts the community about violence and hate coming from the homosexual community."

That's scerry!
posted by Boydrop at 4:04 PM on November 26, 2004

Seriously though, there's no way to know if this sort of behaviour reprogramming is or isn't truly effective until we know exactly what causes homosexuality.

That presumes that there is a "cause" and that its just not a natural state.
posted by pixelgeek at 4:04 PM on November 26, 2004

Seriously though, there's no way to know if this sort of behaviour reprogramming is or isn't truly effective until we know exactly what causes homosexuality. We're all well aware that it isn't a choice, but the question remains as to whether it can truly be "overcome".

Actually, we do know that it isn't effective in the slightest. All this behaviour reprogramming bullshit never, ever takes away the desire, only the actual having sex with your own gender bit.

To make it simpler: do you think it's possible to take a fully heterosexual man and make him gay? Obviously not. So how does it logically follow that you can make a gay man straight?

It's utter bullshit. Even asking the question 'can it be overcome?' just adds fuel to the fire of these thrice-damned fucking fundamentalist Christian wackos perpetuating the belief that homosexuality can be 'cured.'

On preview: what boydrop said. Nobody investigates what 'causes' heterosexuality. The subtext of investigating what 'causes' homosexuality is 'how can we make it stop?'
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:06 PM on November 26, 2004

That presumes that there is a "cause" and that its just not a natural state.

Er, natural states have causes. Everything has a cause. There is a cause for homosexuality, for heterosexuality, for asexuality, for the sky being blue, for emo kids wearing white socks. The difficulty is in determining what the cause is, and determining whether determining the cause is a worthwhile endeavor.

To make it simpler: do you think it's possible to take a fully heterosexual man and make him gay?

The problem is that folks like most of us here at Mefi don't think you can, but many of the "convert gays into straights" people think you can take a fully heterosexual man and make him gay.
posted by bugbread at 4:16 PM on November 26, 2004

Oh and:

I feel so very, very sorry for this kid. And angry. This fucking world (read: the fucking fundamentalists) has made this poor boy feel like he can't be who he was born to be, who Deity Of Your Choice made him to be.

I'm going to go see my boyfriend soon, and thank God that I didn't have any of these poisonous fuckers around when I was coming to terms with my sexuality.

On preview:

The problem is that folks like most of us here at Mefi don't think you can, but many of the "convert gays into straights" people think you can take a fully heterosexual man and make him gay.

What's that line, by their fruits shall ye know them? These people are dangerous, poisonous, irrational people who should be marginalized to the edges of society, where they will hopefully die out.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:19 PM on November 26, 2004

The problem is that folks like most of us here at Mefi don't think you can, but many of the "convert gays into straights" people think you can take a fully heterosexual man and make him gay.

Which goes back to my point about needing mainstream culture to embrace homosexuality in order to reduce the effectiveness (if you want to call it that) of these fringe groups who believe "teh gay" is a virus their kids are going to catch. I think it's a shame that perhaps the greatest civil rights movement of our time is shunned by mainstream politicians in order to appear "electable" as they play to the fears of the sexual xenophobes.
posted by The God Complex at 4:23 PM on November 26, 2004

Er, natural states have causes.

Yes but no-one appears to be investigating what makes a Thompson's Gazelle a Gazelle or Pemprose Welsh Corgi an annoying yappy dog. Certainly there is a process that 'creates" the Gazelle.

But when you compare two things (say gay and straight folks) and then ask what "creates" gay people you appear to be presuming that the "state" of being gay is some change from the state of being straight (also known as the red state...sorry couldn't resist).
posted by pixelgeek at 4:24 PM on November 26, 2004

Hey God Complex, what's your root?

Seriously though, there's no way to know if this sort of behaviour reprogramming is or isn't truly effective until we know exactly what causes homosexuality. We're all well aware that it isn't a choice, but the question remains as to whether it can truly be "overcome".

The point is that I don't care if it can be overcome through "re-training". I don't care if it's a possibility because I don't think we need to cure gay people. Most of them seem perfectly happy living out the lives with the men and women of their choice; and I would suggest that a lot of those who aren't happy might be happier if they weren't marginalized by so many others in their countries.
posted by The God Complex at 4:27 PM on November 26, 2004

Yes but no-one appears to be investigating what makes a Thompson's Gazelle a Gazelle or Pemprose Welsh Corgi an annoying yappy dog.

True, hence my caveat about determining whether determining the cause is a worthwhile endeavor in the first place.

In a sense, I hope that someone does find the cause, because then we can say, "Look, it's genetic, now shut up". On the other hand, if it's post-natal, though, all hell is gonna break loose with the fundies, so I'm a bit ambivalent.
posted by bugbread at 4:32 PM on November 26, 2004

I like the Mr. Show skit where one guy keeps relapsing back and forth between homosexuality and Christianity.
posted by bryce at 4:37 PM on November 26, 2004

If he wants to change, it is his RIGHT. As to overcoming, hello, when I got saved I had to overcome a lot of things which I won't get into here. ANY kind of change requires God's help.

It isn't "natural" to be celibate before marriage, either. It can be done.


If you are gay, and you don't want to change, don't. But if someone does, ain't your business.

And let me add that I hope none of you advocating he "accept being gay" are the same people who say that "all those fat butts out there need to lay down the Cheetos and lose some blubber. "
posted by konolia at 4:38 PM on November 26, 2004

In a sense, I hope that someone does find the cause, because then we can say, "Look, it's genetic, now shut up". On the other hand, if it's post-natal, though, all hell is gonna break loose with the fundies, so I'm a bit ambivalent.

No. Because then it's going to be something people can look for on an amnioscentesis, for example. Or some motherfuckers will try and find a way to change it. It's not post-natal. It simply is not.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:38 PM on November 26, 2004

No research does not support that 'change is real' in this case. What you have there in your first link is a rag bag of discredited older studies, NARTH who base their reparative therapy on a brand of neo-Freudianism which is even disowned by the American Psychoanalytic Association, and Conservative Christians who want to prove that being gay is a choice so they can try to claim that they're doing something different from misogynists and racists with this brand of discrimination.

You can get a quick summary of some of what's wrong with this sort of stuff here

But one of the most noticeable things about the first site linked to is that it carefully fails to mention recent studies which contradict Spitzer et al, such as Shidlo and Schroeder's work. If you're coming to this from a religious angle you might find this talk A Critique of Sexual Conversion Therapy by a psychologist to a Christian group to be useful - it's a helpful read on the topic whether you're religious or not.
posted by Flitcraft at 4:39 PM on November 26, 2004

what dirtynumbangelboy said--this is a crime, and i only hope to God that he gets over it and can be who he is sooner rather than later--why should he have to hate who he is? Someday hopefully he'll learn that who he is is not a sin, or against God, or anything bad--it just is. This guy has it right: I read with shock, as a young man of 22 had indeed developed a site entirely devoted to his own self hatred based upon week and delusional interpretations of the scriptures by both himself and the poisonous hands of narrow minded Christian “teachings” that appear to have captured his mind. He also unfortunately has linked himself into a network of sites that only continue to feed his poor self image. Organizations such as Ex-gay and The Promise Tree who hide behind Christianity in order to promote ignorant ideas based on biblical misinterpretations. ...
posted by amberglow at 4:43 PM on November 26, 2004

Well actually, it kind of is our business, because he's blogging about it.
posted by PrinceValium at 4:43 PM on November 26, 2004

And let me add that I hope none of you advocating he "accept being gay" are the same people who say that "all those fat butts out there need to lay down the Cheetos and lose some blubber. "

That has to be the single most fatuous comparison I have ever heard, konolia, even from you. He should accept being gay because that is who he is, for God's sake. Being fat is a health issue.

And yes it absolutely is my business when you people, konolia, you fundamentalists who have no grasp on reality, create a poisonous environment where people like me aren't free to love who they choose, and feel they have to change because people like you, konolia have forced them to believe that what they are is sick, against God's will, and they will go to Hell for it.

Take your bigotry elsewhere.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:45 PM on November 26, 2004

The first link was about a guy who was honest and open about his sexuality. For example:-

Some skeptics erroneously assume that by change we always mean (or should mean) a 180 degree shift from 100% homosexual to 100% heterosexual in all behaviors, interests, attractions and thoughts, forever after. Anything less than that, some skeptics like to argue, isn't real change. Some look for evidence of "only" a 170 degree shift or "only" a 100 degree shift, and cry "failure!"

The truth is that any degree of change toward greater peace, satisfaction and fulfillment, and less shame, depression and darkness, is change well worth pursuing. For most people who seek change, heterosexuality is not actually the ultimate goal; happiness is. For them, happiness is not contingent on sexuality alone, but on living a life congruent with their values, beliefs and life goals.

Enough said.
posted by SpaceCadet at 4:46 PM on November 26, 2004

konolia, the only reason he doesn't want to be gay is because of people like you.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 4:50 PM on November 26, 2004

Geez, I so can't wait for the rapture. We'll finally get some peace and quiet.
posted by Jimbob at 4:52 PM on November 26, 2004

Space, when you teach people that who they are is a dirty, shameful, dark, sinful thing and then they believe what you taught them, we're not talking at all about happiness, peace or satisfaction--we're talking about indoctrination and brainwashing. If people are teaching others to hate themselves, then there's nothing even close to happiness possible until they unlearn that to begin with.
posted by amberglow at 4:55 PM on November 26, 2004

Imagine a "journey out of blackness" blog.
posted by digaman at 5:00 PM on November 26, 2004

As to overcoming, hello, when I got saved I had to overcome a lot of things which I won't get into here.

Let me guess: logic, compassion, realistic self-awareness, respect for other people, sanity?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 5:02 PM on November 26, 2004

I've always been fascinated by how similar the conservative Christian communities and glbt communities are. Obviously, there are no universal stereotypes for either group (considerate, open-minded conservative Christians exist, as well as devout, faithful homosexual believers).

But for the most part, each group spends its time preaching to the choir about how The Other is tremendously powerful and influential, is trying to marginalize and destroy "us," wants to prey on children, and consists entirely of fringey activists willing to kill, maim, and destroy for an extreme ideology.

Both communities have co-opted epithets and made them ironic inside-jokes (Jesus Freak/Fag/Holly Roller/Queer). Both communities tends to jump on any public figure who converts/comes out of the closet as "proof" of the community's worth to the greater society.

Not sure it has much relation, but golly, does it tend to piss off some of the Christians I point it out to...
posted by verb at 5:02 PM on November 26, 2004

Space, when you teach people that who they are is a dirty, shameful, dark, sinful thing and then they believe what you taught them, we're not talking at all about happiness, peace or satisfaction--we're talking about indoctrination and brainwashing. If people are teaching others to hate themselves, then there's nothing even close to happiness possible until they unlearn that to begin with.

That's what I was getting at, as well. As I said, it's deplorable how this cause has been treated by everyone, including the non-combative progressives who have allowed themselves to be shamed into submission.


If he wants to change, it is his RIGHT. As to overcoming, hello, when I got saved I had to overcome a lot of things which I won't get into here. ANY kind of change requires God's help.

It isn't "natural" to be celibate before marriage, either. It can be done.

Did you have to get over your natural hair colour? Skin colour? Anything genetic? Because if you did, my guess is you have thus far failed, allowing, of course, some small chance that you belong to a top secret scientific community that has allowed you to change your genetic code midstream.

There is an inherent supposition that you think homosexuality is a choice, which is just scientifically unacceptable at this moment in time.

Of course, I'm coming from a place where I feel even if it was a choice that could be re-trained (what an awful though), it shouldn't be pursued. The idea is physically repulsive, in fact, and I can never quite get over the way jesus love has been co-opted into something so brutish and hateful.
posted by The God Complex at 5:03 PM on November 26, 2004

There's a fundamental disconnect in the language used by both "sides" of this discussion. On the one hand, Christians consider "orientation" to be a question of temptation, or lust, or desire-to-sin. This isn't inherently bad, in Christian doctrine. It's the action that follows a desire for something prohibited by God that's troublesome.

Thus, the sin of "homosexuality" in Christian circles is the actual act. The problem is that few acknowledge the difficulty faced by someone attracted to members of the same sex. Whether it's inherently genetic, purely choice, or anything in between, heterosexual desires *can* be acted upon in a marriage context with the full blessing of Christian tradition. There's no way for someone attracted to members of the same sex to "righteously" find a romantic connection.

it's a bit obvious, when you step back and look at it, but it shows where both sides are missing a bit of the point. Christians aren't suggesting that any "inherent state" is sinful, only certain actions. But they often refuse to acknowledge the fundamental difference between, say "premarital heterosexual abstinence" and "lifelong homosexual abstinence."
posted by verb at 5:44 PM on November 26, 2004

Space, when you teach people that who they are is a dirty, shameful, dark, sinful thing and then they believe what you taught them, we're not talking at all about happiness, peace or satisfaction--we're talking about indoctrination and brainwashing. If people are teaching others to hate themselves, then there's nothing even close to happiness possible until they unlearn that to begin with.

Hey amberglow, direct those words to him, not me. It's his words. He wasn't saying he's 100% anything, he was saying that his sexuality wasn't the most important thing in his life. Whether you agree with that or not is irrelevant to him.
posted by SpaceCadet at 5:49 PM on November 26, 2004

He's not here, Space--you presented them as something "open and honest." I disagree--very strongly. You have to be carefully taught, indeed. (and your "enough said" really wasn't.)
posted by amberglow at 5:59 PM on November 26, 2004

Does anyone think about gay sex as much as fundy Christians? Do gay people even think about gay sex as much as fundy Christians?

If I were a fundy Christian, I'd spend all my time asking God to help me stop thinking about gay sex. Well, all the time that isn't already taken up thinking about gay sex, that is.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 5:59 PM on November 26, 2004

konolia, the only reason he doesn't want to be gay is because of people like you

No, he doesn't want to be gay because he loves God and wants to please Him. I believe God is blessed by the effort.

How many people are going to go to hell because other people worked so hard to make them comfortable in their sin instead of encouraging them to be free from it? When people's own consciences are lulled to sleep by the politically correct lies of "tolerance"?

I do not want ANYONE to go to hell. But I am not going to lie to them and say that homosexuality is okay with God and call THAT love. What that is is cowardice, being more afraid /more concerned with the opinions of people than the opinion of God.

All of us are going to appear before Him to give an account. Whether one believes it or not. I want that to be a happy occasion for as many people as possible. To call that hate is a perversion.
posted by konolia at 6:00 PM on November 26, 2004

If tolerance is a "lie," konolia, i don't think it's God that you're listening to. God put all of us different people here on Earth together--think about that a little.

And if we are going to appear before God to give an account, then your judgements, and opinions of others won't be looked on too kindly, as you say yourself.
posted by amberglow at 6:13 PM on November 26, 2004

Konolia: the only hell that exists is what we do to ourselves and eachother on this planet.
posted by cheaily at 6:20 PM on November 26, 2004

If you are gay, and you don't want to change, don't. But if someone does, ain't your business.

By the same token, if you don't believe that God approves of homosexuality, don't. But if someone else does, ain't your business.
posted by adampsyche at 6:24 PM on November 26, 2004

First of all, it's not fair at all to compare gay people to fat people. Fat people are just gross.

Human beings have a natural tendancy to want to eat food. This can be overcome. Human beings have a natural tendancy to avoid death. This can be overcome.

Homosexuality is a set of behaviors, and behaviors can be changed. If a person can be convinced to blow themselves up for their religion, then certanly they can be convinced not to be homosexual.

"But they would be happier if they accepted their sexuality", you say, and that's true. But if a persons world view is set on certan foundation, the destruction of that foundation would be much more painful, if not imposible.

This gay blogger, I guess. belives in god and all that, and belives gayness is a sin. Obviously, it seems easier to him, on some level, to stop taking it up the butt then to re-factor his faith, warped as it is.

---

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for gay butfucking, and I definetly support lesbians, especialy hot ones. That said the gay community seems to be about as anti-science as the christian right. They keep screeming "IT MUST BE GENETIC" because they want it to be that way, in fact all of the scientific stuff I've seen seems to indicate that while there is a genetic disposition (meaning your geens make you more or less likely to be gay) homosexuality is mostly congenital (meaning it's caused by conditions in the woomb) and probably caused by maternal stress.
posted by delmoi at 6:31 PM on November 26, 2004

"A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34)

Didn't Jesus hang out with hookers and other non-believers? I'm sure there were probably a few homosexuals at the wedding in Canaan.
posted by cheaily at 6:35 PM on November 26, 2004

I believe God is blessed by the effort.

Random digression, but how can God be blessed?
posted by bugbread at 6:36 PM on November 26, 2004

I could never really understand this "converting gays" thing. I mean, the more gay men are out there, the more choice that leaves for us straight guys, doesn't it? Let them be gay is what I say.
Talking men out of their gayness just reduces your own chances of finding a mate and spreading your genes.
So in evolutionary terms, there should even be a disadvantage for those who try to talk their peers out of being gay and thus compete with them in the gene pool, which means that they should be gone in a couple of thousand years.

Now lesbianism, that is something that needs to be severely punished.
posted by sour cream at 6:36 PM on November 26, 2004

There is a hell, konolia, but it exists only in the here-and-now, and you have chosen to put yourself into it.

And that's your choice and I defend your right to so choose, even as I shake my head in amazement and sadness.
posted by rushmc at 6:37 PM on November 26, 2004

"Fat people are just gross."

Yeah? Fuck you and your horse, you dick.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:37 PM on November 26, 2004

the only reason he doesn't want to be gay is because of people like you

No, he doesn't want to be gay because he loves God and wants to please Him.

No, he doesn't want to be gay because of people who have convinced him that there is a God and that there is some value in trying to please Him. People... like you. Not you specifically, of course, unless you know him. But the people who are causing his self-loathing are indeed very much like you in every important way.
posted by kindall at 6:38 PM on November 26, 2004

The Bible on family values:

Exodus 32:27-29 "[Moses' orders to his army] he said to them, "The Lord God of Israel commands every one of you to put on his sword and go through the camp from this gate to the other and kill his brothers, his friends and his neighbours. The Levites obeyed and killed about 3000 Men that day. Moses said to the Levites, "Today you have consecrated yourselves as priests in the service of the Lord by killing your sons and brothers, so the Lord has given you his blessing."

Luke 14:26 Jesus speaking, "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."

Matthew 23:9 "And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven."

Matthew 10:34-36 "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law (sic) against her mother in law(sic). And a man's foes shall be they of his own household."

konolia, your Bible is good in parts. In other parts it is evil. It is also internally inconsistant and thus cannot be the truth.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 6:42 PM on November 26, 2004

amberglow, do you have a problem with somebody who puts his [insert belief] before his sexuality? I found his words forthright and open (in the first link - I admit I haven't read every link posted). Or perhaps he is genuinely confused as to what his sexual orientation is. Maybe he's (actually) completely aware of his desires but he has greater priorities in his life.
posted by SpaceCadet at 6:42 PM on November 26, 2004

Space, could you deny your sexuality? That's your answer.
posted by amberglow at 6:48 PM on November 26, 2004

Amberglow:

That's no answer. "Do people like broccolli?" "Do you like broccolli? That's your answer." See, doesn't work.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but it was a stunning non-sequitor.
posted by bugbread at 6:52 PM on November 26, 2004

Comparing broccolli to sexuality is like comparing my left heel to the british house of commons.
posted by cheaily at 6:53 PM on November 26, 2004

amberglow, I'm sure that if it was important enough to me, I could quit masturbating to Animal Planet

It'd have to be DAMN important.
posted by graventy at 6:54 PM on November 26, 2004

When I look at gay and lesbian people, I see them, I see faces and smiles and eyes and clothes and cheekbones and hands. I think when Christians and other right wing Republicans look at gay men they see penises entering anuses. That's the long and short of it.

Lesbians are rarely treated with such contempt-- and I think it is because the sexual act they practice is not so threatening.

But we constantly hear how "disgusting" homosexuals are. What about them other than the sex act is disgusting? And why are they perceived as disgusting when heterosexual couples engage in all sorts of strange acts including putting penises in anuses. Is it just that they have the possibility of procreating? What about old people? Are they disgusting too?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:56 PM on November 26, 2004

But I am not going to lie to them and say that homosexuality is okay with God and call THAT love.

What I think you need to do, konolia, is remember that you absolutely can not speak for God. Mankind will invariably fuck it up when he tries. Further, considering that the textual evidence that homosexuality is a sin is extremely thin, and that modern Christianity ignores things that are a lot more clearly stated in the Bible as sins, the best course of action is to not pretend you know one way or the other whether God thinks homosexuality is a sin.

Because you don't have any frickin' clue if He (should He even exist) disapproves. All you have is the (extremely scant) word of men saying he does. A word which is, almost certainly, based on human bigotry, not the word of God.
posted by teece at 6:56 PM on November 26, 2004

It's not a non-sequitor at all--most straight people can't even conceive of denying their sexuality--they never are asked to, nor have any occasion to--it's only a problem if they become priests or nuns, i guess. Yet--they think it's ok when people of differing sexuality are denying it, and making excuses about it.

graventy--you're a filthy filthy boy! ; >
posted by amberglow at 7:04 PM on November 26, 2004

Amberglow:

Like I said, I'm not saying you're wrong. It just doesn't match the question. So, "do you have a problem with somebody who puts his [insert belief] before his sexuality?"
posted by bugbread at 7:09 PM on November 26, 2004

Some side thoughts:

The nature/nurture debate is pretty much moot in both biology and psychology where the question has been redefined as "how much of each?" But of course, that does not prevent misleading versions of it from popping up here.

It also is worth mentioning that most religions seem to have some version of "Pascal's Wager." I think my odds are more likely to become a hungry ghost though.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:11 PM on November 26, 2004

What's that line, by their fruits shall ye know them?

Did anyone else read that with teh thaucy Thcott Thompthon lithp?

Did you have to get over your natural hair colour? Skin colour? Anything genetic? Because if you did, my guess is you have thus far failed

My wife shaves her armpits. OH NOE! Is she doing something wrong by changing something that is genetic?

Miss July got a boob-job. OH NOE! Is she doing something wrong by changing something that is genetic?

The Pope has taken a vow of celibacy, and so has this gay dude. OH NOE!

But I am not going to lie to them and say that homosexuality is okay with God and call THAT love.

[Mr. Burns voice] Excellent.

The more Christians shit all over everyone, the fewer people will tend toward religious beliefs. The fewer people with religious beliefs, the more sane this world can become.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:18 PM on November 26, 2004

Putting a belief before his/her sexuality is not what any straight person ever does, nor something that's even asked, bugbread--I don't see how it doesn't match. This guy is denying his sexuality because the beliefs demand it, and that's ok with Space. Straight people are not put in that position, nor are they torn that way. Thinking about it the other way points out the hypocrisy, impossibility, and unacceptability of it, let alone the unhappiness it would cause.
posted by amberglow at 7:22 PM on November 26, 2004

Humans, by the nature of their electrochemical neurological functioning, are programmable. Any human can be manipulated to perform any task, remember any "memory", or adhere to any belief. The complexity of the human, is what invites this critical flaw.

Great strides have been made in the field of human programmability, but you will find little recognition in medical journals. Agencies with unlimited budgets, and lesser known acronyms have done most of this "innovative" work. Fear of losing power and influence are powerful means of motivation. Even powerful enough to perform such taboo
work.

Can I, a non practicing heterosexual, be programmed to become a homosexual. Yes. I can be. But I can also be programmed to enter a nuclear reactors containment vessel to manually insert cadmium/boron control rods into place, or to believe that when I was six I did not hit a mailbox while learning to ride a bicycle.

The output of any human thought or action is directly linked to the desired outcome of the party performing the programming.

Mostly, we perform of our own programming. Sometimes, other parties interfere. The interference is what I find deplorable.

We make ourselves. We are all instruments of our own design.

We are all tools.... to perform the tasks that bring us joy.


And in conclusion:

To any of you who prefer to house your mailboxes within a brick enclosure......may you one day know the pain of slamming into it headlong.
posted by PROD_TPSL at 7:24 PM on November 26, 2004

No one is going to hell. No one is going to heaven. We have reached the point where we can scientifically show that death is the end. Anyone who doubts that, just ask and I'll explain it to you.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:25 PM on November 26, 2004

We have reached the point where we can scientifically show that death is the end. Anyone who doubts that, just ask and I'll explain it to you.

Go for it.
posted by Krrrlson at 7:29 PM on November 26, 2004

Stop being gay. Stop being caucasian. Stop being Jewish. Stop being African. Stop being female. Stop being all these things because someone once said it was wrong.

See the logic? The lack thereof?

Believe me, I went through a phase where I fought teh gay, I dated women, and even tried feebly to denounce teh gay. Once, by the grace of Whodat, my spirituality expanded radically, and I realized that my narrow perceptions were choices, only then could I not only accept my nature, but affirm it. I never once woke up and thought 'having this in my mouth is better than having that in my mouth,' I always knew not matter how I tried to deny it what seemed right for me (blush), and fighting it only made me more neurotic and further removed from the world. Perhaps we feel so strongly about our sexuality because homo-, bi-, and heterosexualities are an essential part of natural balance, as biologists have suggested, thus substantiating the 'hard wired' behavior.

I have to thank fate for the intervention of psychedelics at 18 for helping me to 'see the light' or rainbow or whatever. Anyway, I won't knock these folks for their choice of God, but such selective interpretations have caused a lot of misery for people struggling not only with their sexuality, but their class, race, and gender.
posted by moonbird at 7:32 PM on November 26, 2004

Oh, hell, let me try to provide an answer that fits the question, then.

do you have a problem with somebody who puts his [insert belief] before his sexuality?

Overall, no. I do believe that in a fight between a belief and sexuality, sexuality will win. As such, and assuming that we're limiting ourselves to what happens in this world, doing so will most likely cause a tremendous amount of anguish for a smaller reward (the knowledge that they're consistent with their beliefs). However, I am not opposed to them putting themselves through that anguish, provided they realize the extent of it beforehand. I also acknowledge that there is a possibility that the enjoyment of being consistent with beliefs may exceed the torment of fighting against their innate sexual drive. I don't know how big that possibility is, but I imagine it's small, and overall that the torment will exceed any reward.

However, I believe that the societal pressures to cause someone to face this conundrum (an unwinnable situation: live in despair because you think you're going to hell, or live in despair from denying your own sexual orientation) are a bad and unnecessary thing, and I think a better position would be one in which people didn't feel the need to make such choices, allowing them to live contently.

See, it answers the question while providing an explanation of your opinion on the subject. Very different from the apparent Mefi norm of ignoring the question and just stating your opinion.
posted by bugbread at 7:40 PM on November 26, 2004

Amberglow, lots of straight people put their faith before their sexuality. There's nothing more common in an observant religious community than long-married couples who, out of religious obligation, remain married and faithful despite any passion having withered away years, or decades, before.

That said, I think it is pure folly for "ex-gay" ministries to push their success stories into straight marriages. Obtaining tools to maintain celibacy is one thing -- more power to them, if the gay lifestyle's not making them happy -- but getting into false-pretenses marriages, just doesn't make any sense.
posted by MattD at 7:44 PM on November 26, 2004

amberglow Putting a belief before his/her sexuality is not what any straight person ever does, nor something that's even asked, bugbread.

I disagree. Any married (or equivalently attached) person, straight or gay, who has the opportunity and desire to have an affair, and doesn't, has put a belief before their sexuality. Anyone who has a position of power over another person, and could have had a sexual relationship with them and didn't, has put a belief before their sexuality. A person who is vegetarian for moral reasons puts a belief before their desire for food, which is equal or greater than sexuality in many people. A person who loses weight to become more attractive puts a sexual desire before a desire for food.

Sexuality is a desire. Maintaining a religious belief is a desire. Being attractive is a desire. Anything can be seen as the balancing of incentives and disincentives, and delmoi hit the nail on the head when s/he said that a person's worldview is often more important to them than anything else. Self-image is a powerful part of world-view; it is possibly even the same thing spelt differently.

I disapprove of gay-to-straight would-be converts, anorexics, drug addicts and transgenders: all inflict serious physical and emotional damage on themselves in pursuit of self-image. I recognize their sovereign right to do it, but I have a definite problem with the cheerleaders for people doing stuff like this, like konolia. I'm unclear as to what to do about them, other than to debate the issue publicly enough so that their victims get a chance to make their minds up with full information.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 7:49 PM on November 26, 2004

First of all, it's not fair at all to compare gay people to fat people. Fat people are just gross.
---
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for gay butfucking, and I definetly support lesbians, especialy hot ones.

Oh, piss off. Both for the fat comment and so your leering 'hot lesbian' comment. Lesbians don't have sex for your delectation. I hate to break it to you, but it doesn't have anything to do with you or any man's pleasure. You're irrelevant to lesbian sex-- the real thing, not that stuff you see on porn tapes and somehow believe is the truth.

Hang in there, amberglow. My patience evaporated within the first 20 seconds of entering this thread.
posted by jokeefe at 7:55 PM on November 26, 2004

But none of those examples require elimination of their sexuality entirely, as this guy is trying to do. More than half of all married couples cheat, and even if they don't love their partners, can still express their sexuality with them, and usually do. Many powerful people have a spouse or other at home or can purchase what they desire, so are not faced with a choice of an underling or nothing. Even a vegetarian doesn't give up food entirely, which is what this guy is doing with his sexuality. There's a giant difference here between not acting on every impulse and not having any expressable sexuality at all.
posted by amberglow at 7:56 PM on November 26, 2004

and thanks jokeefe--jump in and help me explain that what they're describing and what this guy is doing is not at all the same : >
posted by amberglow at 7:58 PM on November 26, 2004

To throw some medical knowledge here: the pediatricians have no problem with gays adopting, and the psychiatrists deny any scientific evidence that "conversion therapy" actually works.

You're completely wrong about transgender(ed) people, aeschenkarnos. There are very few medical treatments that provide an almost 100% cure rate like hormone or gender reassignment therapy. If you were born phenotypically/sexually male, but feel that your gender is female, I think you might want to make the two match as well.
posted by gramcracker at 8:10 PM on November 26, 2004

I disapprove of gay-to-straight would-be converts, anorexics, drug addicts and transgenders: all inflict serious physical and emotional damage on themselves in pursuit of self-image.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Do not include transgendered people in that lineup. Being transgendered is a serious disease in which the body, and the chemicals produced by it, do not match the person's identity as determined by his or her brain. For most transgendered people, hormone therapy and surgery are the cure to this disease. "Pursuit of self-image" has nothing to do with it. A very dear friend of mine is transgendered, and suffering greatly as an indirect result of it (discrimination and inability to afford SRS, if you must know the specifics of her suffering), and she would tear your spine out through the soles of your feet if she heard you say that it was her own fault.

(On preview, what gramcracker said more nicely than I did.)
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:17 PM on November 26, 2004

Equal time from some people who have given up on their previous abhorrent, unnatural lifestyle choice.
posted by gimonca at 8:20 PM on November 26, 2004

Historically, there was every reason to believe in an afterlife, because people had no idea what our human behavior and intelligence was caused by. It seemed quite possible that there was an ethereal object which allowed for life to exist, which we called a soul. Although that soul was temporarily assigned to a human body, there seemed no need for soul and body to be tied inextricably, and for both to die at the same time. God could choose to do whatever he wanted with the soul when it left the body, punishing or rewarding it depending on its past behavior, since it existed based on the same mysterious unknowable ruleset that he did and was not bound by any laws of science.

The study of psychology has destroyed this myth. There is no place for it any more except in fiction and history books.

The reason is that we now know our behavior is dependent on our chemical makeup. I'm not just talking about DNA here. Every new memory you make is recorded chemically. Every changing aspect of your personality is recorded chemically. The world is chemical, and you interact with it chemically. Many MANY people appear not to realise this, or choose to ignore it as an inconvenient or depressing concept, and it stuns me.

When you break down the chemical system in part of the brain, that part ceases to function, and the person's personality changes. Let's say someone is involved in a car crash that destroys the part of their brain that deals with a sense of smell. It previously allowed the person to smell odours because of an amazingly complex and fragile chemical pathway. Now it is destroyed by the collision, it can't do it's job. It's that simple. It's that obvious.

This fact, that you are your molecular configuration, applies to every aspect of you. Your memories, your personality, your consciousness. For a soul to "be" us, allowing us to live after death, it would have to be an exact encoded copy of our molecular configuration at the point of death.

When a person dies, is his mind encoded in soul form at the point of death? If you think that's the case, bear in mind that the destruction of the mind is not an instantaneous thing. If you have a momentary brain process, a thought, after part of your brain is destroyed, is that included in your soul? Or is your soul just the brain in its perfect state, before any damage occurs to it? You're going to have to go for the latter option, otherwise you're going to end up in heaven braindead. Of course, by that logic, going back to the person without a sense of smell, their soul would have to be encoded before they damaged that part of their brain. On the other hand, maybe the sense of smell part is encoded in soul form when it's destroyed, and bums around in heaven sniffing things and waiting for the rest of the brain to arrive. That can't be true of course; it's not like you can mix and match these mystical brain-blueprints from different points in time, because the brain grows and changes and really isn't LEGO-brick simple.

The human body isn't a binary on/off machine, and death is gradual, and so a soul would have to be encoded gradually, each part of the brain and spinal cord being recorded just prior to destruction. The resulting "time-lapse" image of the brain would not function. The soul-encoding event gives off no heat or light or any evidence of its existence at all, and by all the laws of physics is impossible. Quite simply, you are your chemical configuration, and when that is destroyed, the memories and personality that you consist of are destroyed, and so you are destroyed.

In this post I'm being very patronising, and I'm stating the obvious. I apologise, but these facts are so very, very self-evident to me, that I don't quite know how to express them otherwise, to people who can't see them. If you can think in any serious depth about the scientific mechanics that would be necessary for an afterlife, and still believe in one, you need psychiatric help (in the case of konolia, extra sessions).

Please, I beg you, point out any flaws in my argument, because all I'm interested in is finding the truth.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 8:22 PM on November 26, 2004

The problem with "ex-gay" ministries (well, the biggest problem) is that they're not just trying to get people to be celibate. They share with many gay people (and few progressive heterosexuals) the view that sexuality and gender perception are tied together: as a mechanism to get people to stop having gay sex, they ask them to renounce the other attributes of their personality that are stereotypically gay: stop liking musicals, start playing football.

It's so mind-bogglingly stupid and frustrating, so clichéd, that it's hard to wrap your mind around the fact that that is, in fact, what these ministries teach. But it is.
posted by Tlogmer at 8:22 PM on November 26, 2004

An ex-ex-gay testimony
posted by gimonca at 8:23 PM on November 26, 2004

P_G, I'm not a Christian, nor do I ascribe to any major belief system, nor am I convinced that there's any place where a soul "goes" after the body has died. But nevertheless, I do believe that somehow there exists an element of consciousness that is divorcible from the body and the brain. Is it detectable by modern scientific means? Probably not. Might it be detectable by future scientific means? Maybe. Frankly, I don't think you're giving science enough credit. We will know far more about the workings of the universe a hundred years from now (assuming the Bush administration lets us live that long) than we do today. You say the concept of a soul doesn't obey the laws of physics; I say it doesn't obey the laws of physics as we know them.

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:31 PM on November 26, 2004

I'm a bit unclear on my bible history, but something has always confused me. Aren't there a variety of things that are declared by the bible to be a mortal sin? How do homosexual acts compare to say, not honoring the sabbath? I mean, one is even a commandment. So, my question has always been why christians get so much more disgusted/offended by homosexual acts than the other sins that everyone commits every day. Why does homosexuality get this special, exalted position, and should it? How do christians compare the sinliness of something, anyway?

In reference to the spat above over putting beliefs ahead of natural inclinations, that's a debate we won't end here. At least to me it seems clear that it is pretty much our natural state to rebel against our natural state. We're inquistive, stubborn, people and trying to change aspects about ourselves that are "natural" is pretty much the goal of most of humanity. I think it's unfair to automatically claim that submitting to natural inclinations is automatically the best choice. Besides, heterosexuals (well, except they were often homosexual, historically) have been totally giving up sexuality for religions reasons for millenia. There's nothing new about the influences that result in people doing this, and I think it may be possible to say they "naturally" want to give up their sexuality for beliefs. It totally depends on the individual person.
posted by JZig at 8:33 PM on November 26, 2004

ANY kind of change requires God's help.

For you maybe. A great many people have changed and grown and done great things for themselves and others without any help from the Christian God or any god at all, myself included.

How many people are going to go to hell because other people worked so hard to make them comfortable in their sin instead of encouraging them to be free from it?

How about respecting the fact that not everyone is going to be going to your hell, because many people don't happen to believe in the same god or the same heaven/hell scenario that you do. I know you are convinced that you are right and your way is the only way to live, but forcing everyone to conform to your god's plan is wrong. The last time I checked there were a multitude of other religions and philosophies out there with a great many believers. My Jewish relatives, for example, believe it is wrong to eat pork, but they have never made me or anyone else feel like less of a good person because I/they happen to like bacon, and I haven't seen them out on any crusades to make the consumption of pork illegal.

You and any other person are free to believe that homosexuality is a sin and that homosexuals are going to hell. What you aren't free to do is demand that they stop doing what your god says is a sin. Your god just might not be their god or they may have no god at all. I'm glad you have a personal relationship with your god and that it brings you pleasure and joy and balance in your life, but it's just that ... your own personal relationship with your own god. It shouldn't extend to insisting that everyone behave as you and he wish in order to save them from going to hell.

Now if someone wants to change themselves in some way, more power to them. If they want to get the help of a god, a therapist, a support group ... great, fine and dandy. But someone else saying a person should change something about themselves, be it their sexuality, their weight, the way they dress, whatever, because it offends them or their god is just not acceptable, and it won't be until everyone on the planet worships the same god and all believe the exact same things (heaven forbid because I can't see that happening without war involved) ... and it imposes on that person's free will to do as they please with their own life and be who they please ... and to believe or not believe in a religious-based omniscient being.

Geez, I so can't wait for the rapture. - Jimbob

On the drive to my Mom's on Thanksgiving, my husband quipped that the rapture has already happened and that all these folks waiting for the big day haven't yet realized that they were left behind. Just something to think about.

On preview: A person who loses weight to become more attractive puts a sexual desire before a desire for food.

Or maybe they thought it might be nice to be healthy enough to stick around a few more years. Most of the overweight individuals I have known who put major effort into losing weight didn't do it in the hopes that they'd get laid more often. They wanted to have a longer and more healthy life.
posted by Orb at 8:33 PM on November 26, 2004

Another religious group chimes in...
posted by gimonca at 8:33 PM on November 26, 2004

P-G, I think you're leaving out the possibility of a soul being something totally different than what is normally considered, but still being immortal. It is very obvious from the study of neuroscience that various bits of encoded behaviors, memories, and abilities are distributed in specific aspects of the brain. What is totally unclear is the exact functioning of conciousness. As a general comparison, my Neuroscience text has 300 pages on visual processes and 2 on conciousness. There are a variety of people who make fairly decent (although not personally convincing) arguments that conciousness cannot in fact be chemical in nature. Jon Searle has several excellent papers on the subject.

Anyway, if we hypothesize that conciousness is not chemical, it becomes possible that this bit can be immortal. What is vitally important is that this soul is in no way identical to our concious experiences today. What would survive is pretty much the unexplainable bits that make those decisions that we think may not be predesignated. So, my response to you is if you believe in free will, and believe that conciousness is not chemical in nature, there may be a soul. However, it will be nothing like us as people. Thus, the conclusion to be made from this is that it's best to live life as if there is no immortality to begin with, because if you do live forever, it will be an entirely different you.
posted by JZig at 8:41 PM on November 26, 2004

P_G: I agree there's little room in this world for dualism. However, science struggles with explanations for conscious experience, as far as I know, though some very fascinating papers have been written as of late. Anyway, threadjack! Everybody to the limit!

JZig: The primary anti-homosexual passage of the bible - "Thou shalt not lie with man as with woman. It is abomination" - lies smack in the middle of the book of Leviticus, most of which is ignored by those who are not strictly kosher, and some of which is, even by them. (Apparently if you get a foot fungus, you have to burn your house down! Neato.)

The other passage interpreted as being anti-homosexual is the infamous burning of Sodom, which is done by God because a bunch of guys rape an angel. Well, yes, it is a gay act, but I think he may have been angrier about the raping an angel aspect of it. The residents of Sodom had a bad reputation for mistreating strangers in a variety of ways, and thus this passage can also be interpreted as a warning against a lack of hospitality (indeed very unchristian).
posted by mek at 8:50 PM on November 26, 2004

Well, yes, it is a gay act, but I think he may have been angrier about the raping an angel aspect of it.

But angels have no gender, so it can't be called a homosexual act to begin with.

(And as an aside, we know what sodomy is. What's gomorrahy?)
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:56 PM on November 26, 2004

"because if you do live forever, it will be an entirely different you."

That's right. I don't need to know the exact workings of the human mind to say these things. All I need to show is that SOME parts of the human mind, for example memories, elements of your character, and your sense abilities, are dependent on a chemical system which is destroyed at death. What might remain, these as-yet unknown aspects of conciousness which science cannot yet rule out being immortal, do not encode information allowing YOU as a person to live. Something without my character or memories is not me, and if that thing continues after my death, it is not my afterlife.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 8:58 PM on November 26, 2004

And as for God punishing or rewarding something for actions it cannot remember and does not have the character to perform... not terrible sensible, is it?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:00 PM on November 26, 2004

Hi.

I'm just piping up down here to say that I haven't RTFT at all, but I think that I really liked JimBob's line "Geez, I so can't wait for the rapture. We'll finally get some peace and quiet."

That's it.
posted by yhbc at 9:05 PM on November 26, 2004

If you are gay, and you don't want to change, don't. But if someone does, ain't your business.

The problem with this line of thought is that there are too many people these days who think that making me (or others who are gay/lesbian) change is their business — indeed, their God-given duty. For exactly the reasons that konolia mentions.

It may well be none of my business if a person thinks that he or she can change his or her sexual orientation.

By the same token it's not as simple as saying "If you are gay, and you don't want to change, don't." The legislative and ideological direction of the country I live in (I have no idea where konolia lives) is predominantly toward "If you are gay, and you don't want to change, we'll eventually make life so unlivable for you that you'll have no choice but to change."
posted by blucevalo at 9:06 PM on November 26, 2004

Someone's suggested to me that the brain isn't the cause of the mind, but merely reflects it, like a TV isn't the cause of a TV signal but merely displays it.

The reason that can't be the case, is that when you wreck part of your TV, the signal sent out by the transmitter doesn't change. That's because the TV is the effect, not the cause. When you wreck part of the brain, you'll usually know about it, and the rest of your brain alters to reflect the change. This shows that the brain is the cause, not the effect.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:08 PM on November 26, 2004

Your analogy is, uh, false. As an observer you know nothing of the "signal" so all you see is your broken brain/TV.
posted by Krrrlson at 9:09 PM on November 26, 2004

I'm proud of most of you new kids, except PROD_TPSL, who sounds like he/she is either 14 or an Extropian or both.

I just got back from watching "Kinsey." Great flick, you'd enjoy it. Sad, though - we really are no further along, as a society, than we were in the mid-50s.

Not so long as there are the likes of konolia and this poor, misguided bastard about, anyway.
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:17 PM on November 26, 2004

Krrrlson - of course we know something of the "signal", if the brain reflects the signal. We know the signal in the parts of the brain that are undamaged. In the same way as, if some pixels in your tv are destroyed, you can still see the rest of the signal.

In someone who suffers brain damage, this theory would lead to the "signal" consisting of the undamaged parts of the brain all behaving as if part of the brain has been destroyed, and continually changing to reflect new experiences, shackled together with the "damaged" part of the brain, never changing, at the point just before it was destroyed. That's one seriously fucked up Frankenstein's-monster of a brain. Wouldn't work.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:23 PM on November 26, 2004

But none of those examples require elimination of their sexuality entirely

You're not helping your case by making obviously false claims (many heterosexual people do, in fact, choose to mute or abandon their sexuality for various reasons). Fortunately, your case does not require this argument—I'd abandon it and return to what is more relevant, i.e., the inappropriateness of OTHERS demanding that someone change their sexuality.
posted by rushmc at 9:27 PM on November 26, 2004

he may have been angrier about the raping an angel aspect of it

Isn't the Qur'anic version of the Lot/Lut story quite a bit more explicit about the wickedness being teh gay? This would argue against the "rules of hospitality" or "don't rape angels, for crying out loud" interpretations of the story. Although, on the other hand, I believe that all other times the example of Sodom's mentioned in the Bible, they're talking about how inhospitable they were, so maybe it was an angel-raping thing after all.

(Not that it matters, of course. It is, after all, a made up story about people living a long time ago in which the only unambiguous moral message is strongly in favour of giving your daughters up to be raped. So, um, possibly not with the ethical guidance.)

Still no idea what Gomorrah did wrong. Telephone marketing, perhaps.
posted by flashboy at 9:33 PM on November 26, 2004

Reading Krrrlson's suggestion again, that we can't know anything at all about the "signal" if the brain is damaged... well then, you're basically saying that the brain does not perfectly reflect the signal if it is at all damaged. But yet we know that a person's character and memories change if their brain is damaged. And how do you define damage anyway? Is a traumatic experience damage, and if so, will you have no memory of it in the afterlife? How do you scientifically define a traumatic memory? Can someone without your memories be said to be you? No, clearly not.

So this theoretical signal thing, which does not change dependent on parts of the brain being damaged, is shown to not contain a person's character or memories, since those things are shown to be dependent on the brain (which the signal is not), and so cannot provide them with an afterlife.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:40 PM on November 26, 2004

P_G - Maybe if I could make sense of that second paragraph I'd have more, but it seems you're stretching the metaphor beyond reason (not to mention grammar). I could keep speculating and present you with *my* version of the analogy that is internally consistent... which is, of course, irrelevant since I will not be able to prove it or you disprove it, because we simply do not know enough about the brain to settle the question as to whether it is influenced by some non-physical force.

On preview: What if the only thing that changes is how you perceive the "damaged" person? What if your "signal" is merely not being transmitted properly and you're interpreting that as personality change? Clearly we will not arrive at a definite conclusion here.
posted by Krrrlson at 9:44 PM on November 26, 2004

You're suggesting that the signal might not change based on your personality changes. Your personality alters throughout your existance. The signal is therefore not you, at any point in your life. The reason I'm stretching the metaphor so horribly is because I'm trying to find a situation in which it could make sense, and failing, cause it don't, mofo.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:52 PM on November 26, 2004

I think what P_G's saying is that, if your personality is dependant on the physical makeup of your brain, it's difficult to decide at what point the theoretical soul is formed. Most people assume that the soul is somewhat like "you". However, if you are born retarded, is your soul also retarded (no, I'm not being flippant). If your brain is damaged as a small child, does your soul stay at the child stage? If you do a lot of methamphetamines, does your soul become irritable and alienated? Does it retain the form you had before your first hit? Your 10th? And what if it isn't something as clear as meth? If you work in a paint plant that uses lead, does the soul stop changing when you first go in for the job?

And, regarding Christianity in particular (and I know this is a tangent from the soul discussion, which is not necessarily tied to Christianity), if you're a good person, and then suffer some sort of brain damage that causes you to become violent or a pathological liar, do you go to Heaven? Presumably, if your soul isn't tied to your brain, you could still be a good person who kills other people because your brain is damaged. How would that work?

On preview: Ok, that's pretty much what I was getting at.
posted by bugbread at 9:54 PM on November 26, 2004

It is an interesting disconnect. In religious terms (in this instance, Christianity) all events are pre-defined as part of God's divine plan (read: justification).

So, to use bugbread's example, the accident causing brain damage that leads to violence etc. is part of God's plan. The disconnect comes as part of the resulting aftermath in which the violent tendencies could lead to other deaths, and the taint of the perpetrators' soul. However, it could mean that the victims deaths were also part of the divine plan, thereby the perpetrator was the instrument of God. In this instance, the soul would be, conceivably, clear.
posted by purephase at 10:08 PM on November 26, 2004

In retrospect, I guess this might be where Satan comes into play. Damn, I thought I had a loophole. ;)
posted by purephase at 10:11 PM on November 26, 2004

aes.: A person who is vegetarian for moral reasons puts a belief before their desire for food...

Um, not always. I found that once I made the moral "click" that led me to vegetarianism, the idea of eating meat became quite repulsive. Quite thankfully, there is lots of very good food out there that does not involve animal ingredients.

Faint of Butt: (And as an aside, we know what sodomy is. What's gomorrahy?)

Probably something I tried, but wrote off as overrated.

blucevalo: The problem with this line of thought is that there are too many people these days who think that making me (or others who are gay/lesbian) change is their business — indeed, their God-given duty. For exactly the reasons that konolia mentions.

This is good. In addition, I don't feel the need to cheerlead the peddling of snake oil either.

rushmc: You're not helping your case by making obviously false claims (many heterosexual people do, in fact, choose to mute or abandon their sexuality for various reasons).

I think a lot of the content of the whole ex-gay ministries reveals how religious heterosexists and gays see the world radically differently. For religious heterosexists, its all about the sex, specifically buggery. For quite a few lesbigays, the sex is just one part of how we see and experience the world.

So for example, the ex-gay ministries seem to say that you can love your fellow man, as long as you don't love (engage in sodomy with) your fellow man. However, gays and lesbians are more likely to focus on the emotions of what is going on, whether that relationship is explicitly consumated or not. Some of the most important relationships in my life never went beyond some pretty wild and passionate kissing. Most of the ex-gays wouldn't recognize G. H. Hardy's unreturned and unconsumated love for Ramanujan as a "gay" relationship, most gays I know do.

The reason I identify as bisexual and queer is not because I ever expect to have sex with another man again. I identify as bisexual and queer because I jumped into love with both feet, and loved with every nerve, tendon, muscle and breath in my body. My feelings for those men were not a phase, a fling, an experiment or a mistake. They form the core of who I am today.

I sat down last week with a guy I fell for, HARD back about 12 years ago. 12 years ago, I was all about wanting to be with him for the rest of my life. He was not interested in more than friendship, a good thing in retrospect, but I still loved him. As we were talking last week, a long time after he pulled a lot of shit that broke my friendship and my heart at the same time, I suddenly realized, "damn, I'm still attracted to him." That's part of what it is all about.

So while I think that you can mute or abandon sexual behavior, I think sexuality goes beyond sexual activity, and includes how you see yourself in relationship to other people. As the saying goes, "just because I'm on a diet, does not mean that I don't look at the menu." Monogamy or even celibacy does not mean that your sexuality just goes away, even if you make a choice that engaging in rumpus pumpus would be an open invitation to a Big Ugly Mess than you wish to avoid.

Interestingly enough, this thread has been responded to on Ben's blog.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 10:19 PM on November 26, 2004

You're trying to get into the specifics of an arbitrary, vague, easily tunable analogy and, just as in your previous argument, attempting to disprove it by making assumptions then stating that they do not make sense. All the analogy does (in my view) is suggest there is a non-physical component to your being that may interact with the physical. Everything else you've introduced to try and flesh out this relationship is your own speculation. If it's inconsistent, feel free to alter your assumptions. The basic claim in its bare form, however, is impossible to prove or disprove at our current level of knowledge.

Anyway, I don't care to keep this up. If you can't see my point now I doubt I can explain it better.
posted by Krrrlson at 10:22 PM on November 26, 2004

there is a non-physical component to your being that may interact with the physical

Sure, maybe. But it has been shown that crucial aspects of your being are based on the physical. Without those, the thing which may or may not exist after your death, cannot be said to be you.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 10:42 PM on November 26, 2004

Still no idea what Gomorrah did wrong. Telephone marketing, perhaps.

We could do to Gomorrah what an English quack doctor did to Onan and link Gomorrahy to some sexual act that is practiced in large numbers by gay and straight people. Meanwhile, we also need to invent a large number of symptoms for it in order to raise panic about its effects and sell cures.

But then again, look at how much trouble that caused.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 10:43 PM on November 26, 2004

You mean like Santorum?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 10:51 PM on November 26, 2004

Faint of Butt Being transgendered is a serious disease in which the body, and the chemicals produced by it, do not match the person's identity as determined by his or her brain.
As far as we know at the moment, the actual physical state of a transgendered person is caused by a genetic condition, where the fetus is masculinized or feminized during pregnancy. This isn't necessarily due to the genetic makeup of the fetus itself, it could be due to the mother's genetic makeup, or the interaction between the two. There are indications that homosexuality has a similar cause. I expect we agree on this issue.

For most transgendered people, hormone therapy and surgery are the cure to this disease. "Pursuit of self-image" has nothing to do with it.
Here is where we diverge, Faint of Butt. Hormone therapy and surgery are alteration of self, and why else would a person do that, other than to conform their body to their mental self-image? Calling it "curing a disease" stretches the definition of disease past recognition. Transgenderism a condition that the person may choose to address by having surgery to make their body look more like (but not often actually pass for) the gender of their self-image.

As far as individual transgender people in the present day are concerned they have every right to be treated as their presented gender. It would be grossly rude not to. But I suggest that the problem is not with the transgender's body, or his/her self-image which is divergent from it; I don't believe having a body different from your mental self-image is a "disease" which needs to be "cured". The problem is with strict construction of sex roles and minimal understanding for the intersexed in our culture, which exacerbates the transgendered person's mental conflict, and drives him/her to seek out major physical surgery and drug treatment. That is, the choice to have sexual reassignment surgery or not also becomes the choice to conform to social expectations or not, and it's social expectations that cause the problem, not being born transgendered. The transgender is being pushed and pushed hard, and not just by people like konolia, to have that surgery so that people will accept them as per their self-image.

Which of course raises the question of how a person can be accepted as per a self-image they don't physically conform to, which is a deeper issue that I don't have an opinion on.

A very dear friend of mine is transgendered, and suffering greatly as an indirect result of it (discrimination and inability to afford SRS, if you must know the specifics of her suffering), and she would tear your spine out through the soles of your feet if she heard you say that it was her own fault.
I don't mean to be snippy about this, but strength of belief in an idea has nothing to do with its correctness. What would your friend have thought and done, before the idea of physically altering a person's body to resemble that of the other gender, became physically possible?

For what it's worth, I do not think that being transgendered is anybody's "fault". The idea of imposing fault on genetic conditions is irrational, the kind of error a religious thinker would fall into. Your friend's choices are to have surgery to conform to social expectations, or not to.

To summarize, I'm saying that not meeting social expectations is not a disease. What I mean by "I disapprove" is "I don't think this is good for that person". I absolutely recognize a person's right to change their body however they want to, within the limits of not actually being dangerous to other people.

A question for you, Faint of Butt: where would you draw the line between what is and isn't reasonable for a person to do, to make themselves conform to their self-image? I'm not asking "what would you make illegal", I'm asking what you think is good for people to do.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 10:57 PM on November 26, 2004

Well, I can certainly sympathize with these ex-gays. I was born straight but for many years I envied gay men, their witty conversation, their knowledge of show tunes, their urbanity, their tendency to look good in a tank top, and I simply wanted to be gay. But no matter how often I tried, it just didn't work for me. I would get into bed with my "boyfriend" and nothing would happen -- my unit would just lie there limp no matter how much he tried to arouse me. I found that I could perform if I got really drunk and thought about breasts. Well, one thing led to another, and I found myself hitting the bars and picking up women. I didn't mean to hook up with them but somehow they had a straightdar that told me I was part of their tribe. After these one night stands, I felt guilty and terrible afterward, that I could not control my desires. I was gay and proud but nothing beat sex with a woman. The worst part was riding the subway with my boyfriend in the summer. I couldn't keep my eyes off women's breasts and asses. I know he caught me looking.
I would see a really cute woman and her eyes would meet mine, and I could practically see her pupils dilate. I finally came to realize who I truly was during lunch with a few of the girls at work. "Well, as a gay man," I began, when they all burst out laughing. "What?" I asked them. "What is it?"

A hot little number named Cindy said: "You are so not gay. When you are going to stop living a lie? Have you ever looked at yourself in a tank top? My God, you even have a mullet! No gay man has worn a mullet since 1978!"

And I knew she was right, I had been living a lie. I leaned over and stuck my tongue down her throat. We were married within a year.
posted by Slagman at 11:04 PM on November 26, 2004

Gosh, the impact of metafilter threads on the subject always tickles me the right way. It's so downright quantum.

Slagman: do you write for SA?
posted by mek at 11:33 PM on November 26, 2004

You're not quite getting it, aeschenkarnos. For one thing, transgenderism and intersexuality are two different things. An intersexed person possesses physical characteristics of both genders, whereas most transgendered people are born as fully functional and anatomically normal members of one gender or the other. Now, to address your main argument, while the outward physical body is a major problem for most transgendered people, both for social interaction and personal self-image (I don't deny that self-image is an issue; I'm saying that it's only part of the transgendered condition), the much bigger problem is endocrinology. I see by your profile that you're male, so imagine what it would feel like to receive regular injections of estrogen. You wouldn't feel right. Your emotions would behave in ways you didn't want them to. You might feel sad at times when you intellectually thought you should feel angry. In other words, you would sense a disconnect between your thoughts and feelings and the way you knew you were supposed to be. This is what many transgendered people deal with every single day. It's not just a matter of "I want to look like a woman and have people treat me as one," it's a much deeper conflict. While social pressures have significant influence, they are not the cause of the problem.

What would my friend have done before the invention of SRS? Criminy, I don't know. I'll ask her if I get the chance. I imagine she would have done the same sorts of things that the millions of other transgendered people throughout history have done. I'm no historian.

And as for your final question, I don't draw the line anywhere. When it comes to people's own bodies, I'm a strict libertarian. If it doesn't bother me and interfere with my way of life, and I can't imagine anything that someone could do to him- or herself that would, then do whatever blows your hair back.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:36 PM on November 26, 2004

The scatteredwords blog is worth reading. I don't agree with much of it, but then again, I also lost my religion before figuring out the whole bisexuality thing.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:37 PM on November 26, 2004

Pretty_Generic: Sure, maybe. But it has been shown that crucial aspects of your being are based on the physical. Without those, the thing which may or may not exist after your death, cannot be said to be you.

It's wholly a matter of how you define the self. You seem to have defined it as largely memories and personality. If you define personality as a (mostly) consistent response to similar stimuli and memory as information about past states you could easily conceive of self as being portable. A crude analogy would be to a computer program which contains both memories, as data, and personality, as algorithm. Now one could take a given program and port it to any number of platforms wherein the code is not identical but the functioning and information contained therein are the same. One could make a chemical computer or a electronic one or even a mechanical binary one a la Leibniz that all perform identically when exposed to a stimulus. The question then becomes whether we judge them by their fruits or by their essence, in this case code.

This fact, that you are your molecular configuration, applies to every aspect of you. Your memories, your personality, your consciousness. For a soul to "be" us, allowing us to live after death, it would have to be an exact encoded copy of our molecular configuration at the point of death.

Your argument seems to be a version of the Sorites Paradox which would apply equally well to your life as well as your death. If you assume that your self changes throughout your life and you take progressively smaller time slices you could just as easily show that you are not you because you are not the same as the you of five minutes ago. Furthermore you assume the soul has to inhabit the body right up until the final moment of death which as you point out is a gradual process. Perhaps, it the souls flight from the body that begins the process of death.

"Body am I, and soul" -- so says the child. And why should one not speak like children?
But the awakened one, the knowing one, says: "Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something about the body."
--Thus Spoke Zarathustra

To digress from my digression and return to the topic at hand I fail to see the point of caviling about the root cause of homosexuality as if that would dissolve the argument. If homosexuality is genetic in origin that does not make it any less a sin in the eyes of fundamentalists. In fact it would mesh nicely with the concept of original sin. If all people have a natural inclination to temptation what is the difference between those with an inclination to sexual sins and those with an inclination to avarice. The fact that homosexually may be "natural" does that impose a moral valuation. What is interesting is that homosexuality is viewed as a much more serious sin by fundamentalists than seemingly similar sins like adultery. I think this is most likely a result of the unrepentance of practicing gays which is taken to be an attack on their entire moral value system because it seeks to redefine certain actions as acceptable. Fundamentalists can't relent on this issue because if they concede a change in morality they become the same as the relativists they despise. They rely on the bible; whose age they have somehow mistaken for an eternal foundation. Without infinities they have no ground to stand on.

But I think it is important to point out the internal consistency of the fundamentalist position. If you indulge the assumptions of the fundamentalist position, ie the bible as the word of God, its conclusions become quite plausible. Furthermore, this persons struggle becomes quite admirable and the radical excision of desire the only moral possibility. For as JC said "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell." What is not consistent with the bible is the attempts of biblical literalists to forcibly eradicate homosexuality for others instead of themselves.

Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
"The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?'
" 'An enemy did this,' he replied.
"The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'
" 'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.' "

In other words mind your own fucking business jerkass. It's a poor God indeed who is not capable of judging man for himself and to usurp his position speaks either to a distrust in his power or an arrogance in one's own.
posted by Endymion at 1:02 AM on November 27, 2004

If you can think in any serious depth about the scientific mechanics that would be necessary for an afterlife, and still believe in one, you need psychiatric help

Okay, I'll bite.

Just for starters: Without math there's no science, and without a zero there's no math as we know it. And the "proven" "fact" of the existence of zero is about as solid as the more science-friendly conceptions of an afterlife (Buddhist ones, in particular - any wonder that the Indian subcontinent gave birth to both that school of philosophy and the concept of zero?). The metaphysical mechanics of an afterlife begin, then, from the acknowledgement that there are limits to the scientific mechanics of everything.

In other words, P_G, your irrefutable scientific proof for the nonexistence of an afterlife (and, by extension, a god of some sort) falls apart under Thomas Aquinas' centuries-old proofs for its existence. By which I mean, to paraphrase old St. Tom just a bit, that if you accept that there are limits to human knowledge, then you must then accept the possibility that there are forces in this universe beyond your understanding (more in heaven and earth, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your philosophy). And the name some of us give to those forces is god, and for some of us that god offers the possibility of a great beyond.

Call me nuttier'n a fruitcake if you must, but I've built myself a worldview - one that I'm happy to rejig in the face of new evidence - that can contain both quantum physics and the possibility of the existence of Nirvana.

Oh, and speaking of fruitcakes, if you think homosexuality's a choice, then you might need some of P_G's psychiatric help. And at the very least, your willingness to be honest with yourself about the nature of human sexuality is spectacularly underdeveloped. Acting on a homosexual urge - or a lifetime of them? That's a choice. But not the urge itself.
posted by gompa at 1:07 AM on November 27, 2004

String theory says there is much we don't know (12 or more dimensions and vibrating strings) and cannot validate either. I'll try to be humble in the face of all that I cannot see or test, but also avoid mean-spirited and selective bashing of other humans. Science and spirituality can co-exist, like in gompa's cool worldview.
posted by faux ami at 1:30 AM on November 27, 2004

you could just as easily show that you are not you because you are not the same as the you of five minutes ago.

The problem is that I believe this, also, to be true.

science-friendly conceptions of an afterlife (Buddhist ones, in particular

As far as I am aware, there is no concept of an afterlife in Buddhism proper, though one was assigned to Buddhism some several hundred years after Buddha died.
posted by bugbread at 1:42 AM on November 27, 2004

bugbread: The problem is that I believe this, also, to be true.

Who is it that does the believing.
posted by Endymion at 1:54 AM on November 27, 2004

The guy who was sitting in this chair about 20 minutes ago. The guy sitting in the chair now also believes it.
posted by bugbread at 2:11 AM on November 27, 2004

It was a joke.

Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.
Desiring to show his attainment, he said: "The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no relaization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received."
Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.
"If nothing exists," inquired Dokuon, "where did this anger come from?"

posted by Endymion at 2:30 AM on November 27, 2004

So was the answer.

Two pounds of flax!
posted by bugbread at 3:01 AM on November 27, 2004

Putting a belief before his/her sexuality is not what any straight person ever does, nor something that's even asked

A vow of celibacy only applies to homosexuals?
posted by SpaceCadet at 3:10 AM on November 27, 2004

i mentioned that above, Space.

From HRC: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE:WHY REPARATIVE THERAPY AND EX-GAY MINISTRIES FAIL... "It's disturbing to realize that these groups know that the best they can do is suppress a person's sexual orientation, and yet they hold out an entire industry catered to ‘curing’ homosexuality.” ...
posted by amberglow at 5:19 AM on November 27, 2004

Hey everybody, it's just sex... relax.

No body that matters to you cares if you boinking a man or a woman ny one that cares shouldn't matter. It's your own conscious that tells you how to feel comfortable. The best part is realizing you don't always have to listen to that sack of chemicals... It's JUST an organ.


Sorry to put it so bluntly and inarticulately. It's something that fascinates me.
posted by joelf at 5:42 AM on November 27, 2004

Faint of Butt: word. You nailed it.

I'm TS and the simple fact of the matter is before: messed-up; after: happy. It would be very difficult for someone, having seen both the isolated, suicidal, wrecked boy of my early twenties and the successful, happy, well-adjusted woman I am now, to say that the boy was more aesthetically pleasing, more godly, more psychologically consistent, more natural (maybe it was the natural body I was born with, but watching every movement and vetting every word to make sure you don't give yourself away is not natural), or better in any way.

aeschenkarnos: The problem is with strict construction of sex roles and minimal understanding for the intersexed in our culture, which exacerbates the transgendered person's mental conflict, and drives him/her to seek out major physical surgery and drug treatment.

The key word there is exacerbates. Seeing the 50/50 world made me miserable because it made it slap-in-the-face obvious that I was on the wrong side of the divide, but I would have done it anyway. Emotional torment and physical/psychological issues (I was a good-looking boy, but back then I used to look in a mirror and see a face so ugly I wanted to cut it) played far bigger parts in my decision to start treatment. As far as I've always been concerned, the world can go stuff itself.

Apologies for the overshare.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 6:07 AM on November 27, 2004