Expose of hate

Wow, it's the 21st Century, and we still have people using the same old tired arguments to justify beliefs that are only marginally covered in some ancient "holy" text.  These are the same arguments used by the Nazis to justify hatred of the Jews and other peoples in the early 20th Century, arguments used by Slave Owners to justify slavery in the 19th Century, and arguments used by racist to justify keeping the races separate during the mid-20th Century.  How are they using these same bigoted arguments now?  ...to attack homosexuals and gay marriage.  I ran into a person spewing this nonsense on a social website the other day.  Here's a brief rundown of the arguments with my opinions as replies (each one of these could be their own meme):

• Societies that have embraced homosexuality have declined - (Comment: Really? Over-extended borders, reduced/squandered resources, foreign invasions, and heavy debt are all caused by homosexuality?)
• Statistics show us that it's unhealthy to be homosexual - (Comment: What's really the point of this and how is this justification to deny equal protections under the law? It's risky crossing the street.  Should we stop equal access to education for those kids that happen to need to cross a street to get to school?)
• God created and defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman - (Comment: Ah, here comes the bible-thumping!  Numerous scriptures were quoted at this point.  But, how many bible characters had multiple wives? A lot!  The bible even sets out rules on how to take captured women from military conquests home as wives.)
• Homosexuals have a higher risk of mental illness - (Comment: Given the fact that homosexuality was classified as a mental illness up until the last part of the 20th Century, I would question any statistics linking mental illness to homosexuality.  But on that point, as more scientific facts are discovered, it is becoming increasing understood that most mental illnesses have a genetic factor, which means that being prone to mental illness is also something with which certain individuals are born.)
• STDs, including HIV, higher among homosexuals - (Comment: Teen pregnancy is infinity higher among heterosexuals.  Coal miners have much higher risks of lung related diseases.  Umm, there's about a million other pointless and dubious statistics that can be pulled out of thin air.  All of this is completely unrelated to the fact that we all deserve equal treatment under the law. )
• Societies that had a spread of Christianity had a decline in homosexuality - (Comment: No, homosexuals where just forced into hiding due to the same kind a bigotry being promoted in our time.  This is a kin to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim that there are no homosexuals in Iran.  Complete nonsense.)
• The gay marriage discussion is about changing the religious definition of marriage - (Comment: Again, no.  This statement an attempt to re-frame the discussion to pretend that promoting gay marriage rights is an attack on one's own faith, as if gay marriage is somehow violating the rights of unassociated individuals.  This is disingenuous at best.  The gay marriage rights discussion is about equal protections under the law without regard for what beliefs one group of people have about another group of people.)
• Marriage isn't a human right, but rather an honored institution - (Comment: Talk about grasping for straws!  This is a scorched-earth attempt to argue that marriage is just some sort of contract. Well, even with contracts, we are all entitled equal protection under the law.  In other words, we are all allowed to enter contracts freely.  So, not only does that argument contradict the earlier argument about God defining marriage, it actually makes the opposite point it is trying to make.  The point is, we must have equal protection under the law, regardless the circumstances!)
• Gay couples wish to force their beliefs on corporations and the government to take advantage of benefit structures geared for traditional families. (Comment 1:  Yeah, again, equal protections under the law is the point.  Do we give corporations the right to deny benefits to other classes of families based on religious beliefs?  No, because that is supposedly illegal.  Comment 2: This statement is a hint about the right of the corporation to have a religious stand.  However, a corporation is an imaginary construct of the law.  The presuppositional argument is that imaginary things (like corporations) have rights that trump flesh and blood people.  Since this person seems to believe that  corporations (which are imaginary) have more rights than actual humans, then let's give other imaginary things rights too, like giving the Easter Bunny the right to vote!)
• Married couples pay more taxes.  Gay marriage would benefit the government.  (Comment:  First, "oh the horror of it all!  Oh no, the government will benefit from treating people equally!"  Second, married couples pay less, the same or more tax based on their family situation.  Number of kids, owning a home as a marriage couple, and other factors actually significantly reduce tax liability for families.)
• The point continues: What if our world economy crashes?  Labor unions may fall into foreclosure; employers may have to declare bankruptcy and then won't be able to afford the benefit structures that support gay marriage afterwards.  (Comment: Really?  Argument against equal protections for gays involves what-iffing about world wide catastrophes?  Wow!  First, the inclusion of labor unions (the reason we have a middle class in American) as "foreclosing" is down right silly, and a very backwards way of expressing one's wishful thinking.  I'm not sure how a union would fall into foreclosure, since unions are a free assembly of individuals for the purpose of collective bargaining.  The bureaucratic portion of a labor union may go bankrupt, but that doesn't mean the union would cease to exist. A free assembly of individuals certainly cannot be foreclosed upon, as they are actual living and breathing people, not property.  Second, collective bargaining is used by employers to provide benefits to their employees.  The more employees that are covered, the more economical the benefits.  Having gay couples included actually helps reduce costs, not increase them.  Third, the idea that gay marriage will worsen a world wide catastrophe is completely ludicrous.  Bankers and Wall Street will have far more to do with that than any other minority in our population.)

Much like the average fundamentalist propaganda brochures, the individual who made these points concluded their statements with a bunch of rhetorical questions that they believe they answered in their diatribe.  I reserved my sharpest criticism for my own blog here, but I didn't let these bigoted claims go unchallenged on that social forum, nor was I the only one.  Another Christian and others also chimed in and called out this individual for those statements. 

Superstitious metaphor

I am superstition only to the extent that I know thinking about something contributes to making it real to me. The new goal I set for myself is to focus on what I desire, and discontinue thoughts on that which I spurn. I feel this simple truth is nothing new, however. It was expressed by the ancients through metaphor, in the form of stories about gods. In that, I do not hold any beliefs regarding gods. When I do refer to god, it is simply the knowing use of such as a metaphor. Another metaphoric use of gods employed by the ancients was to plainly explain and understand what was then unknowable. As knowledge increases, that metaphor loses value.

However, this does not mean I deny the spiritual or supernatural experience. Too many people from every realm on Earth, in every known time frame, and walk of life have extraordinary experiences that go beyond simple physical world explanation. Too easy is it when someone who is void of such experiences attributes anecdotal recountings to the devil or imagination. I regard these dismissals as silly.

Even after experiencing something extraordinary, it is hard for some to understand the experience properly because they have been so indoctrinated with a system of beliefs. How much less so can someone who has not experienced a thing judge one who has?

The question is why have beliefs? Why not base everything on the self-quest for knowledge? I find that I seek out what others have learned, and augment that with my own experiences. For example, I know that terrestrial life develops over time through the processes of evolution and natural selection, but I do not hold a belief about these. I simply know that discernable and testable evidence makes knowledge about these processes more clear. I don’t try to fit in a god into my understanding of these processes. Nor do I try to use my limited knowledge of these processes to come up with unsupported conclusions that I then rigidly believe. In other words, I do not hold any beliefs about how life got started, even though I have knowledge about how it develops. I am aware of notions and ideas about the origin of life, but I treat these has just that. I do not need to have a belief regarding the origin of life in order to know that evolution is currently the best description of those processes.

My experience is that Christians and Atheists alike are too easy to judge something based on beliefs they hold, rather than on the human experience itself. To a supernatural event, the Christian will say, “It was God’s will” or “The devil did that”. To that same event, the Atheist will say, “It was your imagination” or “You misinterpreted the event; there must be a logical explanation.” To this I say that’s pretty arrogant to assume that they know the answer outright. In particular, this is the one area with Atheist are hypocrites because the general idea behind atheism is the lack of beliefs without evidence. If they have no evidence one way or another, they normally don’t jump to conclusions, except when something supernatural or spiritual is being questioned. Of course, Christians just make stuff up in their heads as they go along, in order to fit everything into their picture of this world created from their overly literal, under-educated understanding of ancient texts.

It’s expected to develop notions about something, and to test those as hypothesis. Most of us are in the wrong profession and/or will simply not live long enough to have the time to challenge every hypothesis or theory for ourselves. So, some bit of trust has to be placed in the works of others. Just as long as everything is understood as not absolute, it’s ok to accept reasonable margins of error in one’s knowledge.

I am not an atheist. I am not religious either. To me, both are contrary to my experiences and gathered knowledge. Both have had value in the process of developing my current knowledge base. They are not useless. They are both stepping stones to gaining experience and knowledge in one’s life. They both have their place, though neither can be used as reason to end the search for new knowledge and experiences.

Focusing one’s thoughts on a god can make that god real to that person. But each of us has the power to create our own metaphoric god. Judging someone’s metaphor is ultimately a judgment of our own. In this, I am also a little superstitious. Do not judge, lest ye be judged. Of course, I’m not perfect. I judge all the time. It’s the effort that counts; at least in my metaphor.