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I appreciate your attempt to shift the burden of proof to me, but I do not accept that onus.

The point, gentlemen, is that he made a completely hollow and vacuous assertion which he was wholly unable to support. That is a fact which has been demonstrated by his subsequent replies.

Yeah, I had a feeling that you would be either unable or unwilling to support your claim and address my question. It's been noted. Thanks for the complete non-response.

Name more than I can count on one hand.

While fairness has not been earned as a valid response to the OP due to his general tone, if we were to allow him a response in fairness, we'd need to acknowledge that he never claimed that ALL psychosis has religion at it's root. From what I can tell, the argument is whether or not religion could be A cause of psychosis, not THE cause of psychosis, and in that spirit, a VERY strong case could rather easily be made in support.

Indeed. There is also the Supremacy Clause of Article VI. In my mind, the Supremacy Clause is an even stronger argument than the 14th amendment when it comes to demonstrating State-level constitutions or provisions invalid... but both provide the requisite ammunition against such idiocy as that shared in the OP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause The clause establishes the Constitution, Federal Statutes, and U.S. treaties as "the supreme law of the land". The text establishes these as the highest form of law in the American legal system, mandating that state judges uphold them, even if state laws or constitutions conflict.

Dak - I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to, but I'd suspect that any differences we find are more rationalizations than rational difference. Again, though... I didn't really follow the point. In the meantime, an interesting article published today... Survival of the Kindest. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091208155309.htm Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence to show we are evolving to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive. In contrast to "every man for himself" interpretations of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychologist and author of "Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life," and his fellow social scientists are building the case that humans are successful as a species precisely because of our nurturing, altruistic and compassionate traits. They call it "survival of the kindest." <more at the link>

Listen, kid. Your argument was that people should only marry for love. The response you received was that same sex couples are also desiring to be married for love, and yet you don't want to let them. In sum, your position is not internally consistent, nor do you seem to grasp why. You should work on that.

I'm starting to think that... besides being irrelevant, nonsecular, and bigoted... that most arguments in opposition to gay marriage are pretty stupid and ignorant. In case it's not clear to the stupid and ignorant, this is my opinion. With that said, the objective summary from Padren is wholly accurate. http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Not_even_wrong http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/PRATT

I just read an interesting essay. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/hauser09/hauser09_index.html None of my comments so far are meant to be divisive with respect to the meaning and sense of community that many derive from religion. Where I intend to be divisive is with respect to the argument that religion, and moral education more generally, represent the only — or perhaps even the ultimate — source of moral reasoning. If anything, moral education is often motivated by self-interest, to do what's best for those within a moral community, preaching singularity, not plurality. Blame nurture, not nature, for our moral atrocities against humanity. And blame educated partiality more generally, as this allows us to lump into one category all those who fail to acknowledge our shared humanity and fail to use secular reasoning to practise compassion. If religion is not the source of our moral insights — and moral education has the demonstrated potential to teach partiality and, therefore, morally destructive behaviour — then what other sources of inspiration are on offer? One answer to this question is emerging from an unsuspected corner of academia: the mind sciences. Recent discoveries suggest that all humans, young and old, male and female, conservative and liberal, living in Sydney, San Francisco and Seoul, growing up as atheists, Buddhists, Catholics and Jews, with high school, university or professional degrees, are endowed with a gift from nature, a biological code for living a moral life.

No, not really applicable here since the opposition is expressing a willful disregard of the fact that PRATT is in play. http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Danth%27s_Law As an internet discussion grows and grows, it's often tempting to declare victory and move on, especially if you've rammed the point home too many times and your opponent just ignores everything you say. In this case, declaring victory and moving on may be legitimate and excusable. http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Willful_ignorance Depending on the nature and strength of an individual's pre-existing beliefs, willful ignorance can manifest itself in different ways. The practice can entail completely disregarding established facts, evidence and/or reasonable opinions if they fail to meet one's expectations. http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/PRATT A point refuted a thousand times, commonly abbreviated as PRATT, is a common phrase on internet forums where debates have a tendency to recycle over and over again. Once people have refuted a point the first thousand times, it's hard for them to muster the motivation to do it again. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged No. As was discussed earlier in the thread, this argument is countered by SCOTUS rulings. Point number one below is the most relevant to our discussion here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_v._Kurtzman The Court's decision in this case established the "Lemon test", which details the requirements for legislation concerning religion. It consists of three prongs: The government's action must have a secular legislative purpose; The government's action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion; The government's action must not result in an "excessive government entanglement" with religion. If any of these 3 prongs are violated, the government's action is deemed unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Lemon test is reinforced and informed by by the Establishment Clause of the first amendment and the Equal Protections Clause of the 14th amendment, and the ruling in Loving v. Virginia offers further precedent. The Due Process Clause of the 5th amendment also supports the contention that the argument/law suggested in your quote above is without question unconstitutional since the legislation seeks to restrict the freedoms of a whole group of citizens without adequate reason.

I know you do not live in the US, but here... Yes, we need a relevant secular reason to differentially apply our laws. Since this discussion involves the application of our laws, a relevant secular reason IS required. Perhaps in a direct democracy, but we are not a direct democracy. We are a constitutional republic, with express protections for minorities from the tyranny of the majority, and with explicit provisions for equal treatment under the law for all citizens. There is more to my position than just that, but yes... that is accurate.

Is this like one of those "This statement is false" comments... Like a word puzzle or something?

In addition to the links shared already by swansont, I thought these might be of assistance: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea2.html#proof27 http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD011.html

Are there any relevant secular reasons to oppose gay marriage? [ANSWERED: NO]

And yet, the state IS involved in marriage, and they confer 1138 different benefits and privileges to heterosexual couples which they are denying from homosexual couples. This is not a discussion about state involvement in marriage. The state's involvement in marriage is taken as a given, since that's precisely the way it works in our society, and how it has worked for several decades. With that accurate representation of reality as your baseline, you have been asked what relevant secular reasons there are for allowing the state to confer those 1138 benefits and privileges to heterosexual couples, but to deny those same benefits and privileges to homosexual couples. You have failed thus far to address that root question. State involvement is given. The state allows heterosexual marriage. The state confers 1138 benefits and privileges to heterosexual couples. What relevant secular reason does the state have to deny those same benefits and privileges from homosexual couples?

And yet, atheists have been marrying for decades, and all without objection from church groups or otherwise. Fancy that. And yet, people who are infertile, people with no desire for children, and the elderly who are no longer reproductively viable have all been marrying for decades, and all without objection from church groups or otherwise. Fancy that. Since you are trying to restrict equal rights for an entire group of the population, the onus is on you to demonstrate why we should allow that restriction to be implemented. It's not about proving worth, it's about equality and removing unwarranted discrimination from our laws and the state conferment of benefits and privileges to citizens born in this country. So, as per the thread title, and in response to your claims that homosexuals should be denied equal rights, what relevant secular reason is there for you to oppose/deny gay marriage?

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The flaw in the reasoning here is this. It's the engaging in sex practices unsafely which make people more prone to health risks. It's not the fact that they are homosexual, and not all homosexual sex acts are risky, nor are those acts restricted to homosexuals. Why is this so hard, people?

I actually couldn't agree with you more here, Mr.Skeptic. Your method is solid, and is focused on the root of the issue, not the symptoms. The difficulty, however, is in the likelihood of success. After all... I wasn't even able to get him to agree that thermometer readings were objective. I'm not optimistic that he'd agree there is no conspiracy no matter how solid of a case I make. He's tied to the narrative, not to the truth. I've encountered the same problems in discussing evolution with him. It's just a waste of time. You need to know, however, that I'm not sitting here calling him a moron or a ridiculous asshat. While I feel more comfortable severing relationships online, I work with these guys, and have to see them each and everyday... So I need to be much more attentive to nurturing the relationship, even if it makes me sick to my stomach sometimes. I'll keep fighting the good fight, but sooner or later I'm just going to give up and write them off, because... to be perfectly honest... and you probably know this about me already... I'm really not that patient of a person. Cheers.

I'll take the hit on that one, Moo. The resurrection was mine, as I wanted to share the graphic below. As for the poster above, I really have no interest going around in circles with a kid who thinks homosexual activity results in illness the same way that cigarettes and alcohol do. Some comments are just so silly that they really are not even deserving of correction. Going to the mat with such a blatantly ridiculous claim would imply that our readership is too dumb to see how stupid such an assertion truly is. In essence, I'll treat his claim the same way I would someone claiming that the farts of pink unicorns cause erections in leprechauns. With a disheartened shake of the head... http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2009/12/the_same-sex_marriage_debate_g/samesexmarriage.jpeg

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0165-0270(97)00058-7 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9023726 http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/109690094/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 I just googled estimate synapse number in animals.

Indeed, but in addition to the hippocampal and amydalal activation, the cortical areas (temporal, parietal, prefrontal, occipital, etc.) are also being activated, which was the point I was trying to convey. The neocortex is active in very similar ways when awake as when dreaming. I imagine our knowledge has greatly advanced on this topic since I studied it a dozen years ago though, so I welcome any corrections you would be willing to share when needed.

Let me give you an example of an actual conversation. HIM: Temperatures have not been increasing during the last several decades. That's all a big lie. ME: Well, they have been increasing, so if you reject something even as simple as that, I'm not sure we can have a productive conversation about this. HIM: Oh yeah, well how do you know they've been increasing? You're just taking the word of others who want you to think temperatures are increasing. ME: I know because we have this technology called a thermometer which reads the same thing no matter who is looking at it. HIM: Did you actually read the thermometer, or are you taking the word of someone else who did? ME: I'm taking the word of the thermometers which feed their data directly into databases, and I'm looking at the graphs which are formed based on that raw data. HIM: Well, as the hacked emails demonstrate, we can't trust those databases. How do you know they didn't bias their data which went into them? ME: Because the results are consistent across different databases programmed by different people with different ideas, politics, and agendas... and despite all of their differences, the data is consistent. HIM: But you don't know that it hasn't been tampered with, and neither do I, so my claim that temperatures have not been increasing is just as accurate as your claim that they have been. ME: No, I have evidence from thermometers supporting my position. HIM: But you said yourself you did not personally read the thermometers, so you're just accepting the propaganda they've been feeding you. You don't know that it's been warming, and you can't prove it. ME: Okay. We're done here. I'm going to lunch. I kid you not, that's almost word for word. These are people whom I have to trust and respect on work-related projects, mind you. How can I reasonably take instruction from someone who thinks that way, or trust them to make quality decisions based on the data available? In short, I cannot. They've lost my respect, and I'm like a lone wolf in the office right now... the only one who doesn't reject or deny basic science or empiricism. It's quite disheartening and sad, really.