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Good point, Nemesis! Here is my synopsis (and jabberwocky) of the conversations thus far:***************************************************** OK. You have me there! I suppose that natures plan is still being defined through speculations and assertions (and even rants) such as what this thread has transmogrified into!The jury is still out on the definition of Natures Plan. Which brings up the question of who humanity is accountable to? Are we accountable to God? Are we only accountable (and responsible) for each other?Is there anything sinful about two people (otherwise single, and of any gender) who spend their freetime and much of their life energy in mutual emotional/sexual fullfillment?I say no more selfish than would one person who spent their freetime and much of their life energy in solitary emotional/sexual fullfillment! Thus, I agree with the idea that sexual sin by definition is not based on absolute rules so much as it is judged on intention and motive. Ananias and Sapphira sinned against the community of believers who "was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common."If Jesus had had a lover of either gender, He would have been more absorbed in His lover than He would have been in the church...the community....which itself was His Bride!But I'm going off on a tangent here....nevermind me! Now back to the discussion! The sin of suicide, IMO, is that an individual belongs not to themselves but to the community. Our lives are not our own, so to speak. Point taken, (as a Christian). I will back off the Biblical morality argument and let this discussion flow where it may! Keep in mind, however, that some of us don't like having doubts. We are much more comfortable with an absolute setof guidelines which we then can be hypocritical about! [/joke]
Good point! Why arehumans so concerned with the behavior of other humans? Especially personal behavior? Another question would be who has the right to judge whom? Our discussion obviously is feebly attempting to pronounce a societal judgement or conclusion on some nature's plan type of issues! Sounds interesting!
Are you rediscovering that you are attracted to everyone or are you simply saying that Open Minded people are in general much less immoral than close minded bigots? But what if I had been discriminated against for liking pink? Perhaps I would now be whining about reparations.

I'm not trying to say anything profound. You summed it up pretty well:

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What causes me to like women? My examples above are the likely cause, I can sum it up to say "I just do". The same can be said about what causes a woman to be attracted to a woman "she just does". Whats the difference? None!

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The bigoted approach is to focus on the person who is attracted - gay or straight, black or white. But the proper focus is on the person attracted to. Attraction to a woman is the same, no matter who is attracted. Attraction to a man is the same, no matter who is attracted.It wasn't so long ago that white people thought that slaves "didn't mind" when their children were taken from them and sold - because black people didn't have the same feelings for their children as white people did.That attitude is exactly like what we've been seeing in this thread about homosexuality and "lust": a homosexual's feelings for a person of the same sex are "only lust" because homosexuals don't have the same feelings as "normal" people do.The bigotry lies in thinking that people have different feelings because they're different on the outside.

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Hi Phat.I think we are in charge of our bodies, we are in control, but I think we belong to God, because God made everything, we assume through our belief, therefore everything belongs to God.I am sure enough that sex itself is just the consequence of lifeforms existing and self-replicating.The big question is whether we obey God's will or we do as nature intends, by being animals.It is obvious through the bible, that we are not just animals.God's holy requirements mean that marriage itself is sanctified (cleansed, made holy) by God, and that is why he accepts sex.I don't think God is bothered by our desires because he preaches to "die to self". If no individual obeyed lust then here is teh consequences;- No rape on earth.
- No serial killers.
- No abortions.
- No sex crimes.If you die to self, you can't rape. If you die to self, you can't kill. If you die to self, you can't abort. If it is YOUR WILL to do God's will - then how can you do these things? Now people need to go back and read what I said about people changing when it comes to will. God's will - or the individuals's will. People think I just say things in a confusion. Not so - I say exactly what I have thought deeply over, and pondered greatly. Shraff is angry because of my truth.If a man accepts God's will, he no longer sees his own desires as anything more than natural hurdles. This is teh only victory possible - to die to your own sinful nature with the help of God.

How on earth did you get this from what I wrote?For me at least, Ringo has introduced something that I had never considered before, which is that human to human attraction is more on the individual level than not. There are certain qualities in a person that I find myself attracted to. I define myself as straight because these same qualities seem to appear in certain females and I have yet to find these qualities in any male. But if we turn this around, there are plenty of females that I am not attracted to... at all.Society has done a very good job at branding a person's sexuality as something that agrees with the masses. It has done a good job at making people believe that if you are "straight" then you want to screw every female in your field of vision. But if we examine ourselves more carefully, we know that this is not true. After all, in college there were plenty of girls that, by all practical purposes, were very attractive (thin, big breasts, sweet voice, feminine, beautiful face, etc.) and yet I never once felt any attraction to them.Do you see what I am talking about? Human sexuality is much much more on the individual level than what society has made it out to be. If you are straight, you don't necessarily want to screw every attractive girl in your field of vision. If you're gay, you don't necessarily want to screw every attractive guy in your field of vision. Rather, there are certain traits in a person that would attract certain individuals. We could say that the gender of the individual being attracted to this person is purely coincidental. If a gay man finds me attractive, it is because there is something that I give out that would attract him rather than just the fact that I'm a man.Back in my college days, I once read a student article on this issue. The writer, which was a girl, wrote that straight guys should be flattered if they were approached by gay guys, because the same traits that were attracting the gay guys also attract the girls. This just came back to me because I realize now that those times when I got hit on by other men, it wasn't because I was a man but because I had qualities that they liked, and being another man happened to be one of those qualities.Ringo's question has a very important point. Say that both a lesbian and a straight man are attracted to person A. We know for a fact that the lesbian isn't attracted to every female in her field of vision and we also know for a fact that the straight man isn't attracted to every female in his field of vision. So, there must be some qualities that both the lesbian and the straight man find attractive in person A.Riverrat, and most other people including myself, until now have been treating this as yet just another heterosexual/homosexual issue. The issue is in fact more complicated than the blanket label created by society.

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Disclaimer:

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Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

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He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

Nator wrote: I understand. I tire of it too, and only do it based on factors such as age, previous behavior, cogency of arguments, and such. Rr showed that he was able to apply critical thinking (not just parroting of rejections) even in his own church, and is young enough that discussions with him have potential future benefits for our world. In the case of an obstinate, old, mentally addled fundamentalist, kid gloves (or any gloves) are indeed a waste of time and a service to none. Because without that, little movement is possible, and they just learn to hate open minded people. I discuss these things with opposing people to change the world, and that means that even becoming less bigoted is still a good thing. It’s a tricky judgment as to when it’s appropriate to get harsher, and I’m sure I err on either side of that line from time to time. Of course not, nor would I. That’s not to say that either is a worse offense (homophobia is just as offensive as sexism or racism), but right now society has farther to go with the homophobe issue than with women and African-Americans, so being more gentle may in fact get us farther along by avoiding polarization. I could be wrong, it’s just been my experience.Have a fun day-Equinox

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
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Actually, the first time Ringo said it, it was nice. I already considered it for more than a minute, and it did not take this thread for me to come up with that thought. I just don't think it is so big a point as everyone is making it out to be.I am married. The question is similar to my asking what is the difference between my attraction to my husband, and some other woman's attraction to my husband. Or, my attraction to my husband, and my attraction to some other man. Ultimately, nothing. I can find people attractive, my husband can find people attractive, other people can find us attractive. It has little or nothing to do with what is sexually licit or with which attractions should be pursued to a sexual finale.I know you are not talking about morality, but this is just a rants and raves thread, and my rant is that I don't see what the big deal is with attraction. It comes and goes, it's meaningless.

rR Rrote: Yeah. - sometimes there are a lot of “reasons” jumbled in our heads. It can take time and effort to figure out which are rational and which are just repeated slanders from bigots we’ve heard (and often respected - often parents, authority figures, etc.). Each “reason” presents itself as a rational reason at first.Have a fun day everyone - I’ve been watching, and I think I’ll continue to do so as this thread winds down.-EquinoxEdited by Equinox, : .

Sorry, I fail to see why it is nonsensical to believe that hateful or lustful thoughts breed hateful or lustful actions. I also don't see how controlling one's self is nonsensical. Maybe it is just the religious terms you object to, but it is pretty hard from me to extract anything worthwhile as far as communication, from potty mouth.

Are you implying that we should just not care whether we are attracted to a person or not? Are you implying that we should just go for someone/anyone of the opposite sex and be fruitful and multiply? It is a big deal. It's a big deal because bigots often try to use their own personal attraction to justify their bigotry. Look at riverrat. He still can't understand why a man would be attracted to another man. He is dealing with this issue based on his very personal-centric way, while failing to see that a person's attraction to someone else is much more complicated than just the other person's sex. I certainly didn't marry my wife simply because she was just a woman. Heck, if that was the case, I would have married someone else long before I met my wife. There was a girl I dated that wanted us to get married right away. Last I heard, she is now pregnant and in a semi-stable relationship. Since attraction isn't that important, according to you, should I have just married her and get that over with?

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Disclaimer:

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Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

​

He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

So you have the same problem as riVeRraT - when you hear something "offensive", your mind snaps shut like a bear trap.(You also seem to have picked up riVeRraT's habit of inserting, commas at random, locations. ) Controlling oneself is not the issue.The holier-than-thou types have got it backwards. It's the attraction to only one type of genitalia that's "carnal", "lustful", etc. To rise above the carnal, we have to look at the whole spectrum of "attractions" in the individual.Anybody who can't see the love between two individuals without peeking under their skirts doesn't understand what love is.

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Actually, racism isn't really racism, according to conventional unspoken view, if it's directed toward asians. BBC articleOk, so the crew was suspended. So? you might ask. The fact that the song was allowed to play for a whole week even though there were complaints from day 1 before someone on top decided to take it off the air should tell you something about people's attitude. If these racial slurs were directed at blacks, there would have probably been riots in the streets and heads would be rolling.Janet Jackson exposing her tit for 1 second and the FCC was all over the thing. Yet, they considered this song to be not indecent and allowed it to continue for a whole week after complaints after complaints.Miss Jones, in an argument with an asian over this issue, said, "You think you're superior probably cause you're Asian"? No action against Miss Jones has taken place. She's still babbling on the air.Oh, here is an excerpt of the song.

quote:

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Knowing other kids
There was a time
When the sun was shining bright
So I went down to the beach to catch me a tan
Then the next thing I knew
A wave 20 feet high
Came and washed your country away
And all at once
You could hear the screaming chinks
And no one was safe from the wave
There were Africans drowning
Little Chinamen swept away
You could hear God laughing, "Swim you bitches, swim!"

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So now you're screwed
It's the tsunami
You better run or kiss your ass away
Go find your mommy
I just saw go by
A tree went through her head
And now your children will be sold, child slavery

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Now, just imagine if this song was about the Rawanda genocide.So, no, I don't think we are quite there with racism yet. Apparently, it's still ok to make fun of the hundreds of thousands of people who lost their lives in the tsunami and all the resulting orphans who ended up in the human trade industry.Added by edit.Here is an mp3 of the song. Tsunami SongEdited by Tazmanian Devil, : No reason given.

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Disclaimer:

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Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

​

He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

Is it just me or do all atheists start to attack the punctuation when the kitchen starts to get hot? You know, this is why theists think atheists come off as looking like people who think they are the informed-omniscient. No, it's God who's omniscient, you just look like idiots trying desperately to be pedantic. Leave the big-brain requirements to super-mikey or you'll only end up getting confused. Everybody makes errors here and there, and it is tautologous that nobody is perfect in every area, except God and his lawyer, thou irrefutable one.IS the atheist's best ambition really to only go as far as being a surface-smart? When will they realize that they are not this elite bunch of brhains, but are just sinners like everybody else, and therefore have sinful morals, and over-inflated egos. Tee hee hee.

And here is where we can see a perfect example of Mike's ethnocentric attitude. Sin is a religious concept. There's a reason why us atheists call ourselves "atheists". I told riverrat this before and I'm going to tell you now.If the theists really want atheists like myself to consider that there is a god and this god is the judeo-christian god, you could start by stop talking and actually try to do some good in this world. Just remember that it's us atheists that fight for human rights, and it always seems to be the christians who want to take human rights away. A christian judge even once said that he believed god didn't want the racists to mix and that was why god put different races on different continents. This was a remark in support of the interracial marriage ban back in the old days. You guys are practically using the same argument against gay people today.In other words, show us what you got. Show us this superior morality that you guys keep telling us about. Until then, I'd have to conclude that my tolerance is a much better moral standard than the christian bigotted intolerance.

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Disclaimer:

​

Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

​

He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

mike the wiz This is not to know the will of God but only the opinion of the writers of the scriptures take on what the will of God is. Since all men fall short then by what measure do you ascertain their opinion on God to be correct?

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"We patronize animals for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth." - Henry Beston

oh, i wasn't trying to represent you. i was trying to humorously illustrate the subconcious male logic regarding why we like lesbians, but not male homosexuals. did you somehow mistakenly gather from our discussions somewhere along the line that i'm gay? i'm straight. i like women.

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