Evidence for God from Science

BryanH wrote:

When you have no higher standard than humanity you could say they were wrong, but this does not mean that they were not being altruistic.

And that's how we kill in the name of God. We just invoke a higher standard.

and that's how humans kill in the name of anything, even atheism, for the greater good!!!

Do I need to say Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc... etc... etc...

This argument has been refuted so many times, religion or no religion doesn's make anyone do evil acts, people just do evil acts, it's almost like we are corrupted like the Bible says.

Power corrupts, regardless of religious affiliation. =D

BryanH wrote:

The child did have a home, in the care of the agency.

The people who sued were not working in the best interest of the child.

The best interest of the child is to have a mother and a father and a stable home enviroment, whether you think they are right or wrong does not matter, they only had the best interests of the child at heart

We already had this discussion on this forum. Psychological studies prove that gay couples make better parents.
Being a homeless child in an agency doesn't mean you have a family.
The people who sued such agencies did the right thing. Adopting a child is not something that you decide based on religious principles.
The fact that they were an institution with certain religious beliefs doesn't mean that they can refuse adoption to people with different opinions.

Adoption is not based on RELIGION and FAITH. They made a big mistake. They mixed the wrong kind of values.

You misspelled "environment." Also, what evidence do you have for gay couples making better parents? This page would very much disagree with you.

You misspelled "environment." Also, what evidence do you have for gay couples making better parents? This page would very much disagree with you.

I've read that page you provided. I simply dislike it when people manipulate numbers to suit their agenda and to fool people.

There is one table there that compares negative outcomes between 'normal' families and gay families.



If you watch the table it says that kids in gay families are 'worse'. False.The article says that only 1.7% of the US population is represented by gay families while the rest is 'normal'.

So you compare 1.7% with the rest. I don't think you can make such a comparisson.

By the way: the topic where we were discussing about OM which a lot of people here support just got locked.

Now you are telling me that that being in a gay family makes you less moral. Then it's quite clear that moral values are subjective, wouldn't you say?

Anyways, on the main website of this forum, Rich Deem ends with the following words: "The random selection method of Regnerus is far superior to the biased subject selection methods used in previous studies. However, in order to definitively study children raised through gay parenting, a sample size much larger than 3,000 would be required, if there were to be a comparison of intact biological parents vs. intact gay parents."

Why did you give me a link to something that isn't actually relevant?

P.S.: I don't know your background FlawedIntellect, but that study has many errors some of which are quite fundamental to research. So when I say that there are other studies which prove that gay parents are better, I am not joking and I offered such examples a few times on the topics connected to homosexuality and gay rights. The difference between the study that Rich Deem uses on the main website and my examples is that the study examples I have provided have been done over an extended period of time (longitudinal studies). Basically those studies have analyzed gay families over years. Now you want to compare such serious studies with this joke of a study. Sorry mate. But there is no such comparisson. Serious work is serious work. What this guy has done is a joke and he probably just wanted some media time.

P.S.: The examples I have provided here on this forum have been done in Europe. Maybe they don't apply to the US culture. I have no idea, but if I remember well, you have similar studies in the US as well, but I am not sure of that.

Honestly, that doesn't make a lot of sense...
I don't think that there are enough gay families to compare directly VS heterosexual families to get an honest comparison.
And why the heck is watching television and frequent use of alcohol there ???

Honestly, that doesn't make a lot of sense...
I don't think that there are enough gay families to compare directly VS heterosexual families to get an honest comparison.
And why the heck is watching television and frequent use of alcohol there ???

Kids watch too much tv and sometimes drink alcohol before the legal age of doing so.

BryanH wrote:

You misspelled "environment." Also, what evidence do you have for gay couples making better parents? This page would very much disagree with you.

I've read that page you provided. I simply dislike it when people manipulate numbers to suit their agenda and to fool people.

There is one table there that compares negative outcomes between 'normal' families and gay families.



If you watch the table it says that kids in gay families are 'worse'. False.The article says that only 1.7% of the US population is represented by gay families while the rest is 'normal'.

So you compare 1.7% with the rest. I don't think you can make such a comparisson.

By the way: the topic where we were discussing about OM which a lot of people here support just got locked.

Now you are telling me that that being in a gay family makes you less moral. Then it's quite clear that moral values are subjective, wouldn't you say?

Anyways, on the main website of this forum, Rich Deem ends with the following words: "The random selection method of Regnerus is far superior to the biased subject selection methods used in previous studies. However, in order to definitively study children raised through gay parenting, a sample size much larger than 3,000 would be required, if there were to be a comparison of intact biological parents vs. intact gay parents."

Why did you give me a link to something that isn't actually relevant?

P.S.: I don't know your background FlawedIntellect, but that study has many errors some of which are quite fundamental to research. So when I say that there are other studies which prove that gay parents are better, I am not joking and I offered such examples a few times on the topics connected to homosexuality and gay rights. The difference between the study that Rich Deem uses on the main website and my examples is that the study examples I have provided have been done over an extended period of time (longitudinal studies). Basically those studies have analyzed gay families over years. Now you want to compare such serious studies with this joke of a study. Sorry mate. But there is no such comparisson. Serious work is serious work. What this guy has done is a joke and he probably just wanted some media time.

P.S.: The examples I have provided here on this forum have been done in Europe. Maybe they don't apply to the US culture. I have no idea, but if I remember well, you have similar studies in the US as well, but I am not sure of that.

I said to provide evidence of your point. All you did was try to disassemble the argument of a page. That doesn't prove your point. It is only sufficient to say that you may have disproved an example. Even so, care to link to those studies or the forum threads you're referring to so I can see them for myself? And also, what is it that makes these things so outright erroneous? Care to give an explanation of the errors?

Some links would be nice, please. If anything, though, I'm just trying to see if there's evidence of this for myself on the matter. Mkay? (Sorry, but I haven't really kept up too much with other threads on debates of homosexuality, so... perhaps link to certain pages and help me to understand the point you're trying to make?)

Edit: On another note, the closure of the Objective Morality thread had to do with the decay of the thread into name-calling due to the inability for both sides to apparently be rational in the discussion, instead with one side dodging the subject and handwaving/smuggling things in, while both sides also resorted to a mudslinging contest, and the other side having a rather poor sense of humor. So, this does not prove morality to be subjective. Rather, it just shows that both sides can be extremely hot-headed and miss the overall point.

Secondly, a lifestyle of homosexuality is, by objective moral standards, wrong. Also, no one is saying that merely being in a family of homosexuals is immoral. Rather, it's stating that moral standards are more "relaxed" in such environments, which leads to further irresponsibility and immoral conduct. (As per the issue with watching too much TV, from a standpoint it's not so much that it's immoral but that people lose track of time and may fail to accomplish other things. It's like spending too much time on the computer, which, well... is what I tend to do...) Anyway, rather than seeing the overall point that the purpose of the article was to say that homosexual parents have rather relaxed standards and are accepting of lifestyles that are damaging (which was the intended point, by the way. ¬_¬), you'd rather accuse it of meaning to say that automatically being in a family of homosexuals constitutes being sinful. The sin is that of the parents, not the kid. ¬_¬ The kid is instead guilty of its own sin, though the parents are somewhat responsible for not teaching the kid to be more responsible.

That being said, I will need to spend less time on the computer.

That being said, I will need to spend less time on the computer.

http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/parenting.aspx

Good luck with that! Here is a lot to read.
While you read this I will look for the links you asked for.

And also, what is it that makes these things so outright erroneous? Care to give an explanation of the errors?

"A new study2 by Mark Regnerus has selected 3,000 study participants randomly by telephone in order to reduce sampling bias."

He chose them randomly and he reduced sampling bias.
But... at the same time he has a lot uf unknown factors that he can't take into account when trying to compare certain groups. Those unknown factors can influence some of the areas he is trying to measure and then compare.

I will give a couple of examples:

1) Let's say you call kid number 1: he is in a bad mood that day. His answers are not relevant.
2) Kid number 2 and 3: one is white, one is black. Unfortunately, in the US, black people encounter higher numbers in terms of jail time. You can't compare them in this case.
3) Kid number 4: he comes from a Latino family. You can't compare him with other gay kids that aren't Latino. He has different (sub)cultural values. So he evaluates his parents differently.
4) Question: Can kids evaluate their parents objectively?
...... etc etc

Secondly, a lifestyle of homosexuality is, by objective moral standards, wrong. Also, no one is saying that merely being in a family of homosexuals is immoral. Rather, it's stating that moral standards are more "relaxed" in such environments, which leads to further irresponsibility and immoral conduct.

Don't want to turn this into another OM discussion. Once you agree that OM exists and it exists outside of our will and grasp, then you can't say that gay families have more relaxed moral standards. A standard already exists and it is called OM.

What you can say though is that kids in gay families are less obedient of God's law. But then again, if they choose to bend rules, then they live by their own subjective moral standard and the OM doesn't apply.

I guess this is my biggest question about OM: what is the point of it? Nobody in the world lives by such rules. Everybody bends it according to certain needs and preferences.

P.S.: This is one of the amuzing parts of the study from the main website: "For example, only 61% of children of lesbian mothers reported themselves to be "entirely heterosexual" compared to 90% from IBF.2 Likewise, only 71% of children of gay fathers reported themselves to be "entirely heterosexual."2 This data shows that nurture has a large effect on sexual preference and discredits the claim that people are born gay."

This data shows that nurture has a large effect on sexual preference?

This data shows that kids from heterosexual families are LIARS. Of course they won't admit they have gay interests. Why would they when they see all this hate against homosexuals? They are a bunch of liars and also they prove to be socially intelligent and recognize the danger of admitting certain biased subjects.

BryanH wrote:

That being said, I will need to spend less time on the computer.

http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/parenting.aspx

Good luck with that! Here is a lot to read.
While you read this I will look for the links you asked for.

And also, what is it that makes these things so outright erroneous? Care to give an explanation of the errors?

"A new study2 by Mark Regnerus has selected 3,000 study participants randomly by telephone in order to reduce sampling bias."

He chose them randomly and he reduced sampling bias.
But... at the same time he has a lot uf unknown factors that he can't take into account when trying to compare certain groups. Those unknown factors can influence some of the areas he is trying to measure and then compare.

I will give a couple of examples:

1) Let's say you call kid number 1: he is in a bad mood that day. His answers are not relevant.
2) Kid number 2 and 3: one is white, one is black. Unfortunately, in the US, black people encounter higher numbers in terms of jail time. You can't compare them in this case.
3) Kid number 4: he comes from a Latino family. You can't compare him with other gay kids that aren't Latino. He has different (sub)cultural values. So he evaluates his parents differently.
4) Question: Can kids evaluate their parents objectively?
...... etc etc

Secondly, a lifestyle of homosexuality is, by objective moral standards, wrong. Also, no one is saying that merely being in a family of homosexuals is immoral. Rather, it's stating that moral standards are more "relaxed" in such environments, which leads to further irresponsibility and immoral conduct.

Don't want to turn this into another OM discussion. Once you agree that OM exists and it exists outside of our will and grasp, then you can't say that gay families have more relaxed moral standards. A standard already exists and it is called OM.

What you can say though is that kids in gay families are less obedient of God's law. But then again, if they choose to bend rules, then they live by their own subjective moral standard and the OM doesn't apply.

I guess this is my biggest question about OM: what is the point of it? Nobody in the world lives by such rules. Everybody bends it according to certain needs and preferences.

P.S.: This is one of the amuzing parts of the study from the main website: "For example, only 61% of children of lesbian mothers reported themselves to be "entirely heterosexual" compared to 90% from IBF.2 Likewise, only 71% of children of gay fathers reported themselves to be "entirely heterosexual."2 This data shows that nurture has a large effect on sexual preference and discredits the claim that people are born gay."

This data shows that nurture has a large effect on sexual preference?

This data shows that kids from heterosexual families are LIARS. Of course they won't admit they have gay interests. Why would they when they see all this hate against homosexuals? They are a bunch of liars and also they prove to be socially intelligent and recognize the danger of admitting certain biased subjects.

As per your argument involving kids and the subjective matters, I can see that as being valid in a hypothetical sense, though you'd need to go a step further and prove that it is the case for each and every subject. (Or alternately, use that as a way to filter things out.)

With regards to morality, I believe that morals are objective in and of themselves, yet subjective when put in the hands of people.

On what grounds do you have that kids in heterosexual families are liars? There are heterosexual families that are very "tolerant" of homosexuality (I.E. embracing it.), so such a claim is inadequate. Secondly, on what grounds could you say that people are born homosexual instead of becoming homosexual through, say, peer pressure or "experimentation" in high school and/or college, or through other social cultural aspects of a particular region? Not only would you have a lot to prove and rule out, but then you'd have to have evidence that people who claim to be heterosexual are liars. (I've been accused of lying about being a heterosexual male by my friend's friends... ¬_¬ It's just blatant trolling. Only my friend wasn't joining in on that accusation, and even then she has yet to just stand up to them, that I know of, but eh... Some people don't understand that certain forms of joking are harmful, though I myself also fail to recognize this with some of my jokes, so...)

With regards to homosexuals and hatred to them, I don't hate homosexuals. I oppose homosexuality. I will call homosexuality wrong, and make that clear, but it's not justification to be mean to homosexuals. Homosexuality is a choice, and though I do not respect that choice, I can respect the person as an individual.
That's just my personal approach, though. Regardless, I do not see abuse or harm or malice towards them as justified.

This data shows that kids from heterosexual families are LIARS. Of course they won't admit they have gay interests. Why would they when they see all this hate against homosexuals? They are a bunch of liars and also they prove to be socially intelligent and recognize the danger of admitting certain biased subjects.

What proof do you have they are liars?

What proof do you have they are liars?

Jeez guys. This was just a demonstration of how you can offer an interpretation for numbers you have on paper. The proof is in the numbers. I don't know if they are actually liars, but it shows us how numbers on paper can be interpreted in different ways. The researcher just has numbers on paper. The psychological conclusion is his.

That researcher says that the numbers say that nurture is important. Maybe... He would need another study to prove that. You can't offer such a conclusion based solely on a kid's statement.

As per your argument involving kids and the subjective matters, I can see that as being valid in a hypothetical sense, though you'd need to go a step further and prove that it is the case for each and every subject.

I don't need to prove anything. The researcher should have already ruled such an option out. FlawedIntellect there are certain steps and rules you need to follow when conducting a psychological study. He didn't respect that. You can't just compare people around and then draw conclusions without respecting guidelines.

What do you want me to prove? That kids are subjective? PEOPLE are subjective beings. Psychology has already proven that. Do you want me to prove that people coming from different cultural backgrounds have different values and analyze things differently? That has already been researched.

Secondly, on what grounds could you say that people are born homosexual instead of becoming homosexual through, say, peer pressure or "experimentation" in high school and/or college, or through other social cultural aspects of a particular region?

I didn't say that. I said that certain factors the researcher is trying to measure can be different within a 'gay vs normal' group comparison because he has subjects coming from different cultural backgrounds. The issue is not being gay and normal, but rather other elements that influence that factors you are trying to measure. In a psychological study you can't just compare random groups and then draw such conclusions as this researcher did. It doesn't work that way.

BryanH wrote:

danieltwotwenty wrote:They were doing what they thought was in the best interests of the child, which I would call altruistic.

Sorry Dan. All they had was prejudice. That's all. The best interests of the child would be to have a home than none at all.
I understand why they don't want to marry gay couples in a church, but what does that have to do with their ability to provide a home, education and love for a homeless child?

Bull. They took a stand on a moral issue. Shame on you for even inferring that taking a moral stand is simply prejudice.

Bryan,
I agree that people CAN be liars in surveys, as a matter of fact, I KNOW they can.
Years ago at the university I was going to, they did a study and asked for volunteers.
They were interviewed and asked the typical sex questions like, when did you lose your virginity, do you cheat, etc.
They were then asked back 1 week later and hooked up to a lie detector and asked the same questions.
The results showed that both men and women lied to a substantial degree that made the original survey invalid.
Some were honest and changed the answers right off the bat, others tried to lie.
Because of the issue with lie detectors, the study was "controversial" but the point of it was clear and, IMO, proven: People can and do lie on surveys.

jlay wrote:Bull. They took a stand on a moral issue. Shame on you for even inferring that taking a moral stand is simply prejudice.

What moral issue? The problem discussed here is about gay couples and parenthood. I didn't see any chapter in the bible about this. What moral stand are they taking?

Even if you assume that gay couples are sinners and you don't want to give a child to sinners, then they shouldn't have started that institution in the first place. Heterosexual couples are sinners as well.

They acted based on prejudice.

By the way: your statement is based on a prejudice as well.

Please read http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/parenting.aspx and then say to me that those guys were taking a moral stand.
So shame on you. There is enough evidence to prove that what the institution did was wrong and you still defend them.

PaulSacramento wrote:People can and do lie on surveys.

The researcher conducted his study over the phone. That was my point. His methodology is far from professional when asserting such a bald conclusion.

What moral issue? The problem discussed here is about gay couples and parenthood. I didn't see any chapter in the bible about this. What moral stand are they taking?

Bryan, the fact that you don't agree with a position, shouldn't be a reason that you can't understand the reasoning of others who don't hold your views. The fact that you can't is a huge problem in discussing anything with you on this forum. And since you are a moral relativist you have major problems in making such declarations.

Even if you assume that gay couples are sinners and you don't want to give a child to sinners, then they shouldn't have started that institution in the first place. Heterosexual couples are sinners as well.

You are creating a strawman. The issue with homsexual couples is that the very foundation of their union is contrary to the moral ethics of Christianity. That is a fact. You may not agree with Christian ethics, but surely you can understand WHY a Christian organization would NOT permit this.

There is enough evidence to prove that what the institution did was wrong and you still defend them.

According to what? You? Who are you to impose your subjective morals onto us or any organization? You are a moral relativist. That a moral relativist would say something is 'wrong' is ridiculous. The only thing more ridiculous is that you lack the clarity to see this, not actually think through it, ignorant that someone will quickly point it out. The word "wrong" means nothing coming from your mouth. You have a mountain of post on threads about OM to more than prove my point. So, please spare me the nonsense.

Prejudice for the sake of prejudice is wrong. Objectively, I might add. But being prejudice against things that are a danger to the moral fabric and foundations of family are certainly justified. Just as you are prejudice against believers who hold opinions on this issue contrary to your own.
When you start making assertions as to what people or organizations OUGHT to do, and that they are WRONG, how can we see anything other than blatant hypocrisy?