Science vs. the Religion of Sexuality

[Isaac]

Boy, this must make the "sex is king" crowd massively uncomfortable.

Their king of science, their poster child of anti-Christian "just the science" person - totally denouncing the gender related nonsense that has begun to erode people's sanity and grip on reality.

The problem with all of the relative truth stuff is it just all ends up in twisted nonsensical self contradictory circles, until one strand eats or denies the existence of another strand.

The movement is strongly dependent on one primary thing: The youngest generation just being too young to know a lot of things we all knew and agreed upon just 10 years ago, like don't mix Kids and Sex, there are two sexes, some things are normal and some things are not normal, etc.

I was reading a Reddit the other day (an AITA), where a young father has a 13 year old boy who believes he is a girl. The father is actually encouraging it, deliberately confusing the boy even more, which seems like a cruel form of child abuse, but anyway .... the article was about how he treated his father ("Cole" 's grandpa), who didn't feel comfortable joining in in pretending that Cole was a girl. Which I can understand. Telling a child out loud something totally made-up about their own gender or sexuality seems to fall pretty solidly in the category of something that would have been considered a form of psychological abuse (or even sexual abuse) a short time ago.

What amazed me wasn't the % of Redditors who agreed with the father (I already know people find the threads they 'like' on Reddit, and the topics generally always go one direction and are rarely representational of the population as a whole) ... What amazed me was to hear their justifications. Nothing they said was grounded in reality in any way. Most of their responses read like something you would have only heard in an Asylum just a decade or 3 ago - someone to be pitied, sincerely believing something completely ludicrous, like they were a pink elephant or were from mars. They never mentioned anything even remotely related to Factual stuff, they only parrotted the things we have heard in the last 2-5 years, things like "until your father learns to respect his grandson, cut him off". Or, "your father is behaving like the child". (Imagine that!! - a grandpa who is hesitant to join in, in confusing a young child, who is at the age where children frequently are so confused about sex and puberty they almost all go through a phase where they think they are the weirdest person in the world, and for 1000's of years, it has been the responsibility of adults to properly guide them through that time WITHOUT making it worse) - grandpa is hesitant to push this child any further into the quagmire that his parents', school and media environment has already produced....But grandpa is being called the bad guy.

However, I AM encouraged to hear many famous voices, even including LGBT activists and transgender adult activists THEMSELVES, standing up and calling this thing CRAZY - admitting the emperor has no clothes.

Watch, though - Richard Dawkins, for decades the liberals and non-religious people's absolute, all-time historical icon, will be erased from the memory of all new students, so that someone more compliant with the latest sex religion dogma can take his place.
Amazing how it all comes full circle - Start with science, go over the edge with dogmatism, and bam - it just became a religion of its own, with all the trappings thereof.

Richard Dawkins declares there are only two sexes as matter of science: 'That's all there is to it'

Famed atheist and scientist Richard Dawkins slammed transgender and LGBTQ ideology in a recent interview with Piers Morgan, asserting, "There are two sexes."

www.foxnews.com

 

[The_Doc_Man]

As much as I respect him for many reasons, I believe the question requires clarification. It is unequivocally true that the brain has a structural gender that is independent of external sexual characteristics. (Disclaimer: Some of the linked articles may require you to supply an e-mail or other info to read the entire article.)

First linked article is from 2008.

Gay brains structured like those of the opposite sex

Brain scans have provided the most compelling evidence yet that being gay or straight is a biologically fixed trait

www.newscientist.com

Here is a more recent article (March, 2021) detailing the differences.

Brain Differences Linked to Sexual Orientation

A recent study has identified a novel link between specific genes, brain anatomy, and sexual preference.

www.psychologytoday.com

Here is another article pounding the point home.

Brains of gay people resemble those of straight people of opposite sex

Brain scans show similarities in shape and connections between gay brains and straight ones from the opposite sex.

www.nationalgeographic.com

If Prof. Dawkins is limiting his statement to say that there are only two possible polarities, then fine. In the end, either you like women or you like men. True statement if you are making a narrowly crafted comment. The question is, what is your own body like? We cannot forget that the human brain is the most powerful sex organ. The real question is whether your preference would be considered a heterosexual or homosexual preference.

Now, let my clarify my own position. I fully accept that a child might BELIEVE their preference is homosexual. However, children under the age of six probably cannot understand the adult implications of the question and so don't really understand the implications of their answer. Once a child reaches puberty, at that point they should have some realization of preferences. A lot of my gay friends confirm that their realization didn't hit until just around puberty. But as to gender confirmation surgery, that should NEVER EVER IN A GAZILLION YEARS be allowed to any person who is still legally considered a minor, even with the parent's permission.

Various studies have suggested the actual frequency of homosexuality is about 3.5% of the population, but with a variance of as much as 1.5% depending on cultural influences that would skew self-reporting. More recent studies suggest it could be as high as 5.5% again with some variance.

 

[June7]

My daughter began to question her sexual orientation at any early age. She was the only girl on her Little League baseball team (girl softball players were 'silly' and can't steal in softball and the ball was too big to hold) for several years and expressed the view that boys were 'idiots', even called a teammate who had interest in her (at 9 years old!!!) a 'horny jerk' (didn't learn the language from me). Couple years later she expressed distress because she found herself staring at female bodies (the social ramifications were certainly a point of stress). My response to her was it was natural for her to be curious because her own body was changing. Might have been side-stepping the real issue of concern but it seemed to reassure her. At about 25 she had a romance with a male coworker but she terminated it as they were not a good fit and he should just be a friend. Five years later she found her fit with another woman and was devastated when her girlfriend quit the relationship.

Although my daughter hasn't stated she identifies as male (no name or pronoun or body form changes), she has come to fully embrace her sexual orientation and I only hope my acceptance and love for her helped her on that path. The father is right to support his son's declaration.

 

[Jon]

As much as I respect him for many reasons, I believe the question requires clarification. It is unequivocally true that the brain has a structural gender that is independent of external sexual characteristics. (Disclaimer: Some of the linked articles may require you to supply an e-mail or other info to read the entire article.)

If the brain is made up of cells, each cell has a certain chromosome profile: male or female. Its in the genes. Both men and women have many organs and features that are similar, such as livers, kidney, eyes, skin, stomach, throat, hands, feet, legs. Just add brains to the list.

I see gender as a term hijacked by radical progressives who wish to rewrite language to conform to a specific political ideology. Just look at how it is making a mockery out of female sports. Apparently, biological males who identify as females can now enter weight lifting competitions in the US!

There was a case in Scotland recently where a guy was sentenced for a term in prison for ra**. This person transitioned to a 'woman' while awaiting trial. He went to a female prison and it caused outrage.

 

[Isaac]

See if you can read the following facts and still believe the newly proffered concept that parents should be affirming, in a final or semi-final way, their young children's homosexual or otherwise non-anatomical "preferences" (as interpreted usually through the lens of encouragement, of course):

About 10% of men have engaged in sexual activity with other men at some point in their lives, which has led to the common belief that 10% of men are gay. Most of these men typically identify as gay before the age of 18 and act on those feelings. However, by the time they turn 18, half of them no longer identify as gay and do not pursue male partners again. It's important to note that this isn't a selected population of individuals who sought therapy, but rather a representation of the general population. Additionally, by the age of 25, only 2.8% of men still identify as gay. This indicates that without any intervention, 75% of young men who believe they are gay at the age of 16 will no longer identify as such by age 25.

...Wow.

Time and time again, scientists have claimed that particular genes or chromosomal regions are associated with behavioral traits, only to withdraw their findings when they were not replicated. "Unfortunately," says Yale's [Dr. Joel] Gelernter, "it's hard to come up with many" findings linking specific genes to complex human behaviors that have been replicated. "...All were announced with great fanfare; all were greeted unskeptically in the popular press; all are now in disrepute.

 

[Pat Hartman]

I think there is a difference between sexual attraction and self identification which is one of the reasons the matrix of combinations keeps growing.

The bottom line is - children cannot be allowed to make decisions that will permanently affect their bodies until they technically own said body.

I grew up in a neighborhood of mostly boys so unlike many other young girls, I considered boys to be people too from a young age rather than mysterious creatures to be avoided or giggled at as I got older, although I did do my fair share of giggling. Most of the boys simply tolerated me when they needed an extra player in a game but I had intellectual connections with two of them. One of them who was two years older, loved playing very complex Avalon Hill games based on battles of earlier wars. They were complex to set up and complex and time consuming to play. We might have one game going for a week or more. His sister was my best friend and we were in all the same classes at school until we got to 6th grade where they started separating us by achievement level. My alternate friendship with her brother sometimes got in our way but we managed. So, even though I frequently played with the boys, I never considered myself a boy or even had any desire to be one. I always knew I was a girl whatever that meant. But, I grew up in a very safe neighborhood where all the families were required to have school age children (this was small town public housing). It was the 50's and most of the mothers were at home all day. In any event, I didn't have one mother, I had 60 and not one of them was at all shy about calling any one of us out if we stepped out of line. So, although I was a free range child (show up for meals and when the streetlights come on), I knew my limits from a very early age. Girls, more now than then, are more cloistered so I can understand why a young girl would really want to be a boy if only to have the type of freedom her brothers and neighbor boys had. On the other hand, boys are artistic too and girls sure have pretty stuff to play with and pretty stuff to wear and so might think they want to be a girl.

It wasn't until I was an actual adult that I wanted to be a "boy" and that was due to the discrimination women faced in the 60's and 70's rather than any sexual reason.

 

[Isaac]

I mean good gracious, I myself remember going through puberty. I had an absolutely massive amount of crazy, confused, creative ideas and thoughts and wonder-ments and questions about what the heck was going on, who I was, who I was attracted to, what I wanted, where this was all going, etc. etc. For a short while, which seemed like an eternity at the time and could've been exploited easily, by anyone or anything.

I would be very surprised if we had a "magic button" that revealed the truth about every one, where nobody could say anything except the truth, if that wasn't very much the common and vast majority experience.

During that time, you could have convinced me of just about anything, and chance are pretty good that if given a bit of very timely and well-placed steering, my life might have turned out differently. It could have come from anywhere that I paid attention to - church, school, family, neighbors, TV, any form of media, pictures, etc. Thankfully, that didn't happen, or didn't happen enough to confuse me. Obviously this isn't credit to me, but to an environment that kept me anchored and unapologetically displayed to me what was normal and what wasn't.

I don't dispute that some people struggle with the thing I don't struggle with, and am not unsympathetic to their plight, any more than I am unsympathetic to anyone's plight, having gone through plenty of my own. I don't extend or confuse that to facts, however, nor to the obvious truth that the more society encourages a certain direction, the more--not coincidentally--it seems to explode, in spades. There will be no way to convince those of us to whom this is obvious that it's not obvious, until society continues the way it is, at which point the % of this stuff will be so great that nobody will be alive who remembered the way it used to be, and thus, there will be nobody left to say "Actually,....."

But the aggressive sexual content being shoved down the throat of 1st-grade boys and girls in American schools right now is absolutely appalling, and would have been a crime just a few years ago. Everyone knew you just didn't mix children and sex. Any kind of sex - conversation, content, reading, pictures, descriptions, creative theories, anything. That consensus, which mankind more or less all agreed on until 5 years ago, is now being tested.

Let's hope it fails.

 

[Isaac]

My daughter began to question her sexual orientation at any early age. She was the only girl on her Little League baseball team (girl softball players were 'silly' and can't steal in softball and the ball was too big to hold) for several years and expressed the view that boys were 'idiots', even called a teammate who had interest in her (at 9 years old!!!) a 'horny jerk' (didn't learn the language from me). Couple years later she expressed distress because she found herself staring at female bodies (the social ramifications were certainly a point of stress). My response to her was it was natural for her to be curious because her own body was changing. Might have been side-stepping the real issue of concern but it seemed to reassure her. At about 25 she had a romance with a male coworker but she terminated it as they were not a good fit and he should just be a friend. Five years later she found her fit with another woman and was devastated when her girlfriend quit the relationship.

Although my daughter hasn't stated she identifies as male (no name or pronoun or body form changes), she has come to fully embrace her sexual orientation and I only hope my acceptance and love for her helped her on that path. The father is right to support his son's declaration.

I can definitely see where you are coming from.

 

[Pat Hartman]

We all need to be sensitive to the needs of others but somehow we are being pushed to let the abnormal be the norm. And I don't mean that in any judgemental sense. In earlier times, people, especially children were likely to be cruel rather than kind. We cannot allow what is likely a "phase" to rule our society. Boys can not be allowed to participate in girls' sports. Even as youngsters, they have certain types of physical advantages. Do we allow the .05% to dictate how the other 99.95% live. Doesn't make sense to me. I do remember a girl who was in the drum and bugle corps with me. There were whispers but I never quite understood the problem so although I can't say we were friends, we were friendly and had the occasional lunch together and often sat together on the band bus. I saw her a few years ago at our 50th reunion. She was a Baptist minister and she came with her wife. We were genuinely pleased to see each other. I realized then that I probably had made life a little easier for her in high school without even thinking about it.

 

[Isaac]

I agree with that sentiment.

As hard as some will try to demonize us / me for my position, the truth is I harbor no ill-will toward those in the groups we have mentioned, and further, I totally AGREE that a major change was needed from how people like that used to be persecuted, ill-treated, or rejected. That was and is, wrong.

But like I have said a dozen times on this forum, with American social issues, the pendulum sometimes needs to swing--but then swings too far.

Women's rights was obviously needed. It was never right to treat women as 'less-than', allow persistent brazen harassment, openly deny opportunities, or allow domestic violence. But now, some things have gone too far, where they can do no wrong, all prostitutes are "trafficking victims", all who stand accused of ra** are instantly guilty on the mere word of the accuser and names are instantly made public only for the accused, so far as the pendulum swung to support them that statistics now show males are falling substantially behind in many meaningful areas, such as college education. Domestic violence laws are almost a joke at this point; any accused male stands virtually no chance of justice, and though studies show within younger age brackets females actually originate more aggression than males, this fact is virtually never prosecuted, partly because of the legal biases and partly because men are programmed to feel they must not complain of such a thing, else they wouldn't be manly, whereas in a large % of unpleasant divorces, women automatically add-in something about "abuse" as the default method of gaining the upper hand. Women are preferred as custodians, even when the objective evidence and the wishes of the father would say otherwise. The right result would have been a truly equal set of opportunities--no more, no less.

Race was terrible in this country for years. Once we equalized our laws and did a few other remedial things, opportunities were equal again. Then people continued to go with it, to where we are today, with everything being viewed through Race to the point where it is as harmful to those who used to persecute and we are being asked to accept harsh reverse-discrimination. Many people now use 'racism' as an explanation for what is 90% natural results of choices. Anyone who says so publicly is automatically labelled a bigot, even with an ocean of facts on their side. Entire ethnic groups are now officially immune from all critiques, but the reverse is indulged in ad nauseum, with rewards given to those who speak the harshest vitriol against whites or asians.

Public education formerly was too harsh to those with disabilities or special needs. Change was needed.
But now, teachers are expected to endure literal abuse - my own family's experience in school is "even if they stab you with a scissors, you aren't allowed to touch them back" - objectively ludicrous, but that's where pop culture-parenting got us.

School bullying of children who were "different" was wrong, and change was needed.
But now, sexually explicit content in droves is being forced upon small children. What used to be near-criminal to do to a child, is now required. Parents who simply object to it are considered criminals. Isaiah 5:20

People who wish to have these "uncomfortable conversations", calling attention to policy shifts that have gone too far, are labeled as Bigots, Misogynists, Racists, Sexists.

Anyone seeing a trend yet, or understanding why some people are concerned?

Then after all this, they pretend they can't possibly imagine where QAnon gets its beliefs from.... Gee, I wonder!

 

[Jon]

I think that because equality or power operates on a continuum, rather than it being a binary thing, what happens is that once a movement moves the needle towards equality, their activism is still in full flow, and so they keep on going. Consequently, they overreach in the other direction. Whilst before they wanted equality, now they are pushing for ever increasing inequality.

When a movements members feel so passionate for their cause, to suddenly find themselves redundant is a hard pill to swallow. So instead, they pervert reality to justify their own continued existence within their movement. At least that is how I see it.

 

[Isaac]

Good intentions > Persuasive Arguments > Wide Acceptance > A Measure of Success > Power > Corrupts, wants more indefinitely

 

[Jon]

Beware of perverse incentives. Once you get the rewards for your good work, it primes the mind for getting another dopamine hit from your tribe. A case in point is Trump Derangement Syndrome. In the end, certain tribes were falling over themselves to brand him a danger to society, Trump collusion, will cause nuclear war, and so on. Just look at all the lawsuits he faces because he plants a mind virus that infects his opposition, and they just can't get rid of it! Ever-increasingly outrageous claims get ever-greater applause from those infected.

 

[Galaxiom]

When a movements members feel so passionate for their cause, to suddenly find themselves redundant is a hard pill to swallow. So instead, they pervert reality to justify their own continued existence within their movement.

Perfect description of the reactionary attitudes of the religious when their bigoty is challenged.

 

[Jon]

[Puts tin foil hat on]

 

[Pat Hartman]

Sort of like the zombie ants you see on the nature channel. They get this fungal infection and it starts growing out of their head. Eventually the Fungus bursts and infects any nearby ant starting the process all over again.

 

[Galaxiom]

Sort of like the zombie ants you see on the nature channel. They get this fungal infection and it starts growing out of their head. Eventually the Fungus bursts and infects any nearby ant starting the process all over again.

Pretty much how any religion works.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I look at it as an ultimate cognitive dissonance. A child in a religious family is brought up to trust, to revere, to practically worship the family because everything that the "child" self remembers is warmth and love. The "parent" self (seat of learned behavior, the absorber of the "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not" type of admonition) gets religious training from the parents, reinforcing anything learned in religious schools. But then, when the adult self kicks in and looks logically at what is going on, and starts to actually QUESTION religious teachings, you get the incredibly tough inner conflict. The adult self cannot logically accept what religion says, but the "parent" self cannot accept that the things taught by the parents could ever be wrong. That admonition in the Bible, "Suffer the little children to come to me," is actually the unwitting blueprint for making the logical person not question the teachings of childhood due to the implication that ... <gasp> your parents might have lied to you!

I was 35 when I finally did what I should have done earlier, but I had family issues and a strong sense of duty. I was raised as a Methodist, but when Mom started down that lonely Alzheimer's path, I turned to the Bible for answers. And got NOTHING. What happened is that I actually read the Bible with a critical eye rather than a suspension of doubt and disbelief. Once I started reading in that mode, I made a sudden recognition. The Bible does NOT tell us about God. It tells us about the beliefs of people who believed in God. In other words, 2nd-hand information. Which is now why I take the Bible as a good source of old societal information, but its mysticism and miracles are merely misinterpretation of reality.

Mark Twain said a few things about the Bible:

“I am not troubled by the things in the Bible which I do not understand, but I am troubled by those things which I do understand and which I find very difficult to measure up to.”

"It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies."

"The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible."

Actually, he said a lot more than these quotes, but these will do for now.

 

[NauticalGent]

Pretty much how any religion works.

<sarcasm>But that is different!</sarcasm>

 

[AccessBlaster]

The people who can no longer define what a woman is and believe biological men can get pregnant, truly think the world is ending any minute now because of global warming all while kneeling at the altar of wokeness, they somehow have ALL the answers