iNow

Disgust / distaste / repulsion... there are evolutionary reasons we respond this way. Those reasons are to avoid illness and stop the spread of parasites. When those feelings apply to homosexual acts, it means we find those acts to be unclean, pathogenic, sick... When the bonobo ignores the banana peel because it's too close to a pile of scat, they're feeling repulsion because it's unclean and likely to spread illness to them. When kangaroos avoid patches of grass that are freckled with feces, they're feeling repulsion because it's unclean and likely to spread illness to them. When antelope gather their poo in dunghills, they're feeling repulsion at the idea of it being left in their territories. When bullfrog tadpoles flee the fungus infested ponds, or lobsters avoid crowded dens of crustaceans during viral outbreaks, or nematodes wriggle away from meals that seem to have bad bacteria... they're all doing so to guard against disease. This all makes evolutionary sense. These reasons are all valid, and interestingly many of them involve feces, dung, poo, dookie, excrement, etc. It's entirely possible these feelings against male heterosexual acts have similar deeply primal mostly unconscious tendencies, I grant you that. However, it's hard to escape the conclusion that despite evidence to the contrary these feelings many of you have toward male gay sexual acts are themselves rooted in a belief or feeling that they are unclean, pathogenic, sick, likely to spread parasites, likely to lead to illness, likely to lead to death. That's what I'm trying to get you to understand. Feeling that way even in the face of contrary evidence (safe sex practiced by hetero and homo couples are equally likely to lead to negative outcomes, there's nothing specifically about the gay version that makes the risk higher)… feeling that way is a type of bigotry. Why does this matter in context of our broader civilization? Why should we attempt to root out bigotry and bias in all of its many forms? Well, if you don't already know the answer to that question yourself without me spelling it out for you with construction paper and fat crayons, then I'm afraid you're likely too far gone for me to convince anyway. There's nothing unclean about safely practiced male gay sex. If you feel otherwise, then the problem is with you and the tens upon tens of millions of others who feel the same way. Indeed, couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, right now today in the actual present in the actual reality we share, my state ALONE has a staggering NINETEEN (19) bills targeting the LGBTQ community, and there are 340 (three hundred and forty) more being actively pursued in the other 49 state legislatures (an average of 7 each). We're a LONG effing way away from "normality" and lack of "threats." We must ask ourselves which side we're going to be on, because there is no middle ground on issues like this. Join or die.

Once you've convinced people to believe in absurdities it's not hard getting them next to commit atrocities.

Nonsense. Unfamiliar with cognitive behavioral therapy? Why wouldn’t you if you could? You seem to have conflated me with someone else. I have several guns in my home, safely locked, and I will teach my children to respect and use them safely when they’re old enough. I’ve actually posted multiple times about the deep problems with a punishment / incarcerate first mentality and now critical it is we reform to focus more on rehab and reintegration into society.

Ignoring the cosmologists off topic nonsense and returning to the actual discussion at hand... It's a distinction without a difference, especially in context of my own points encouraging acceptance. Your comments suggest otherwise. If it walks like a duck... For decades, people felt distaste or disgust at couples of different faiths. For decades, people felt distaste or disgust at couples of different nationalities. For decades, people felt distaste or disgust at couples of same gender. Now, you say the couples themselves aren't the source of your distaste / "mild feelings of revulsion," but there's no distinction. You may as well be saying you don't feel distaste for the couple, just the way they breath or drive or exist in other parts of the world. They're one and the same. You don't have "mild feelings of revulsion" toward heterosexual acts, ergo the dependent variable here is the fact that they're gay males. The words distaste, and revulsion, and disgust all stem from a deeper idea that there is something rotten, diseased, unhealthy, contagious, and detrimental in the act. It suggests that male gay sex in your view is about the spread of pathogens and parasites... the underlying evolutionary pressures that causes animals to feel disgust in the first place... to avoid illness. It means you think male gay sex is a type of illness, even though you've compartmentalized your mind so much that you can with a straight face claim to accept homosexuals "as they are." This is a majorly important part of who they are, though, and yes. Yes, that's borderline bigoted, no matter how many times thou dost too much protest. x-posted with Charon who touches on the same point re: disgust as a well studied mechanism to increase group health For the same reason it became unacceptable to say nigger, or retard, or faggot, or ad infinitum. As long as these problems have plagued us, IMO it's not enough merely to not same them. We need to encourage being against them... anti-racist. Anti-bigoted. Anti-finding perfectly normal acts "repulsive."

I don’t need a special badge or patch on my jacket to point out the obvious This is irrelevant since we’re discussing his disgust of others doing that.

Recycling

In most senses, specifically herein

This would be boring if it weren’t so annoying. Dim - You’re saying sometimes stories from religion have value, correct? If not, please set me straight. If so, please advise who claims otherwise. There are so many conflated concepts here. Atheism and lack of belief in god or gods. Opposition to organized religion, primary of the Abrahamic variety. Perhaps going back to the basics and defining our terms would suffice to move past the bickering ridiculousness.

ChatGPT is similarly confident when declaring plainly wrong answers as entirely valid

Because the one’s you’re expressing here are borderline bigoted and we should always seek to extinguish such positions. Nobody is asking you to abandon your own heterosexual preferences and become a practicing homosexual. The hope is only that you’ll work on discarding the visceral disgust you feel at the mere thought or mention of how two males engage intimately with one another.

*too

But with very little nutritional value plus the likelihood of serious illness after consuming too much And silver sonnets, rainbowed rituals, and hot steaming hymns.

There you go again… troubling yourself with what’s happening inside the minds of others. Mind ya business! 😂 This resonates with me As does this

Most don’t. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

I’m not sure I see the distinction you’re making and see one as a subset of the other. Perhaps you intend to reference apatheism?

No. Theism or atheism are positions of belief. Agnosticism is a position of knowledge. One can be an agnostic theist or an agnostic atheist (lack certainty), but calling oneself agnostic usually means you’re an atheist without the courage to just say so.

Atheist. A+theist. Not+theist. It’s right there in the word. Not theist. Just happen not to believe in god(s). MigL - You’re conflating that far more common form with a far less common form called “hard atheism.” As opposed to regular atheism where gods just aren’t accepted as valid, hard atheism is the Active belief that there are no gods. That’s what you’re arguing against, perhaps bc it’s an easier target? Beliefs in deities exist along a spectrum really, but it’s also irrelevant since the OP meant “against religion” (and didn’t even mean that it turns out they just meant “against the popular ones”).

Okay, but which religion(s), then? Are you against Buddhism? What about Jainism? Do your feelings differ at all when it comes to Shintoism? You probably mean Christianity and Islam, which is understandable, but terribly imprecise.

I believe we’ve located the source of the misunderstanding..

He was OOO. Had an appt at the Department of Redundancy Department. Or it was AI generated text… especially common in financial news pieces

Is “not playing golf” learned? Is “not collecting stamps” learned? Is “not playing the guitar” learned? Is “not believing in Zeus” learned? If not, then why would “not believing in the current flavor-of-the-day god(s) that happen to be popular” be learned? Autodidact So, against religion, not just secular? It’s not hard to understand why 😲

My mistake. Read this wrong.

Self-identity and social acceptance play big meaty roles here. Challenges to either can knock the wind right out of us at times, especially when delivered crisply by someone admired on a topic on which we define ourselves as expert. So many great posts here already it’s challenging to add, but so much of this is about perspective. What does our brain space look like at the time? What’s our “neural baseline” state when the new stimulus perturbed it? How wobbly were our brains and bellies (same thing?) when the information arrived and a narrative constructed around it? What other demands on our minds were burdening us when the interaction happened? How familiar or novel was the event? How loud was the ambient, how cold was the room, how full were our stomachs… All of that context matters, and so does the topic / topic area. I love science, studied science, and think scientifically, but I play more here in Politics so in that regard I tend prioritize throwing hard bruising rhetorical punches over protecting other people’s feelings. It makes me a polarizing figure, and while I’d prefer being accepted, I have no plans to change who I am to allow for that. That’s not the outcome I prioritize in those exchanges. I am comfortable with who I am and accept myself. I didn’t always and it’s some days are harder than others, but my only goal is to be better today than I was yesterday, and better tomorrow than I am today. If I can influence the world/cosmos in some way to also be somehow better today and tomorrow than yesterday, well then it’s hard to hope for much else.

Technically, yes. Insects are an excellent source of protein and even the ONLY source of protein in some locales. Just bc we fancy rich Americans prefer steak and pork and chicken and various artery clogging preparations of them does not make them better than insects or grubs or various other bugs that help millions survive. They’re just more familiar … more comfortable … like boys doing things with girls instead of boys doing things with boys. It’s called Fear Factor because the response is rooted in fear. Why do so many people still fear two men loving and being intimate with one another?

No x2 Other than ad buys and fees for events or equipment rentals or fair grounds…. or digital media and sponsorships of content and paying people to knock on doors or get signatures or… what exactly are they teaching you in political science class if you don’t already know this?