Evidence for God from Science

Dan: What I find interesting however is that people will be quick to say homosexuality is a mental illness but then hold them morally responsible for their actions of homosexual behaviour,

Danieltwotwenty wrote:

PaulSacramento wrote:

Danieltwotwenty wrote:I wonder how intersex babies are viewed, were they born male or female?

I think there is a combination of factors involved, well at least from what I have read, but really we are still only scraping the surface of our understanding of sexuality, I think it is too early to make a judgement based on the current evidence. Maybe the article is correct, maybe it is not, I think it is too early to tell.

But to me from what I have read, I think it is a combination of nature, "nurture" and environment. I think there is genetic conditions that could give a predisposition, then there is a "nurture" element of how you were bought up and lastly an environmental factors of pollution maybe playing an epigenetic role after birth. I put "nurture" in quotation because I don't think it is quite the appropriate word when discussing things like sexual and mental abuse.

There is no choice in this for them, they cannot help what they are and as has been proven time and again you cannot change it easily without serious mental health problems, usually resulting in suicide.

So from a Christian perspective, we should be graceful, merciful and loving. We should not cast judgement upon them as this was not something they actively chose for themselves, but was chosen for them by either genetics, environment or society.

I think a serious point of the article Daniel, is that there is NO scientific research for this commonly expressed views such as "born that way", "can't be changed", "it is natural", etc, etc.
The only scientific studies done show that it is NOT the case and shows that these "inclinations" should be viewed as a serious mental illness and treated as such.
Accepting that homosexuality is "OK" and not a disorder does NO ONE any good and cause more harm than good and that IS a proven statistical fact, as the study proves.

Now, you said that it may be to early to make a judgment, well, if that is the case for the view BASED on scientific research then even MORE SO for the view that is NOT based on anything but opinion.

What sort of treatment are you suggesting?

Danieltwotwenty wrote:I wonder how homosexuality will be viewed say 30-100 years from now?

One of my close friends has schizophrenia and has suffered with this mental illness for many years, he has good days and bad days, sometimes even bad months. Imagine say a few hundred years ago, people would have been trying to exorcise the demons from him, he would have been ostracised and banished from his community, he would have been labelled as someone suffering from sinful desires, possibly even burnt at the stake for it. Even today we do not understand what causes this "mental illness" or even if it is one, some say it is genetic, some say it is chemical, some say it is environmental, and some say it is caused by a parasite. Maybe it is a combination of many factors at play, but really science doesn't have an answer yet to solve the riddle of this terrible and debilitating disease, maybe there is no one cause.

What I find interesting however is that people will be quick to say homosexuality is a mental illness but then hold them morally responsible for their actions of homosexual behaviour, does this make my friend responsible for his behaviour when he has a psychotic episode, should I be responsible when I am suffering through a deep depression for my behaviour even though I cannot think rationally at the time?

I also find it interesting that you are quick to label something as emphatically a mental illness when we can see from history that things we once thought were just a mental illness have genetic, environmental, social, chemical or biological factors at play.

What I find interesting however is that people will be quick to say homosexuality is a mental illness but then hold them morally responsible for their actions of homosexual behaviour, does this make my friend responsible for his behaviour when he has a psychotic episode, should I be responsible when I am suffering through a deep depression for my behaviour even though I cannot think rationally at the time?

In the end, Mayer and McHugh observe that much about sexuality and gender remains unknown. They call for honest, rigorous, and dispassionate research to help better inform public discourse and, more importantly, sound medical practice.

Danieltwotwenty wrote:Just one more question, do you think that homosexuality and pedophilia are equal to each other?

Kurieuo wrote:

Danieltwotwenty wrote:Just one more question, do you think that homosexuality and pedophilia are equal to each other?

Depends on who you ask right? Muslims in various places around the world might be fine the the second, while executing gay people and throwing them off buildings is alright. Clearly such see homosexuality as worse.

Danieltwotwenty wrote:Just one more question, do you think that homosexuality and pedophilia are equal to each other?

What I find interesting however is that people will be quick to say homosexuality is a mental illness but then hold them morally responsible for their actions of homosexual behaviour, does this make my friend responsible for his behaviour when he has a psychotic episode, should I be responsible when I am suffering through a deep depression for my behaviour even though I cannot think rationally at the time?

Danieltwotwenty wrote:For the record I did read the article.

I found this part interesting and validates what I said earlier about not knowing the cause of homosexual behaviour. If we don't know the cause, we can hardly label it purely a mental illness.

In the end, Mayer and McHugh observe that much about sexuality and gender remains unknown. They call for honest, rigorous, and dispassionate research to help better inform public discourse and, more importantly, sound medical practice.

We just simply don't know the full cause at this stage, until such time I will remain neutral about the causes and categories that homosexuality falls into.

RickD wrote:

Kurieuo wrote:

Danieltwotwenty wrote:Just one more question, do you think that homosexuality and pedophilia are equal to each other?

Depends on who you ask right? Muslims in various places around the world might be fine the the second, while executing gay people and throwing them off buildings is alright. Clearly such see homosexuality as worse.

That just proves subjective morality!

Kurieuo wrote:

Danieltwotwenty wrote:Just one more question, do you think that homosexuality and pedophilia are equal to each other?

Depends on who you ask right? Muslims in various places around the world might be fine the the second, while executing gay people and throwing them off buildings is alright. Clearly such see homosexuality as worse.

PaulSacramento wrote:It is clear that there are vary degrees of mental disorders, some of which that the behaviour CAN be controlled.
Homosexuality is one of those.

Ye, it is true that we do not know the FULL case BUT the point is that the evidence we do have points to a mental disorder and NONE of the evidence points to anything but.
Imagine not treating schizophrenia because, while the majority of the evidence points to a mental disorder, we don't have ALL information.

How do you determine which ones are controllable and which ones are not, what is your yard stick that you measure this against?

They used to treat schizophrenia with exorcisms and then later we locked them up untreated in institutions. Just because our current understanding is where it is, does not mean we are not doing more harm than good. We may well find in the future that our understanding of it changes, it may well not be treatable if it turns out that it is not a mental illness or disorder. Medical history is littered with mistreatment and harmful practices due to ignorance, ideology and religious dogma. Sadly I think this will be one of those cases that go down in history as a medical embarrassment, I feel more though for the innocent people that this may harm along the way.

PaulSacramento wrote:

How do you determine which ones are controllable and which ones are not, what is your yard stick that you measure this against?

You aren't suggesting that sexual urges are uncontrollable, are you?

They used to treat schizophrenia with exorcisms and then later we locked them up untreated in institutions. Just because our current understanding is where it is, does not mean we are not doing more harm than good. We may well find in the future that our understanding of it changes, it may well not be treatable if it turns out that it is not a mental illness or disorder. Medical history is littered with mistreatment and harmful practices due to ignorance, ideology and religious dogma. Sadly I think this will be one of those cases that go down in history as a medical embarrassment, I feel more though for the innocent people that this may harm along the way.

That doesn't even begin to address what I wrote.
That schizophrenia was treated that way BEFORE we knew what it was, has ZERO to do with how we treat something that we KNOW what it is.
We know what Homosexuality is and, from what evidence we currently have, it resembles a mental disorder and ignoring THAT FACT, is NOT in the best interest of the person suffering from the disorder.

I feel for your concern about the people that could be harmed along the way with misdiagnosed mental disorders.
The fact is, that is what seems to be happening RIGHT NOW with how homosexuality and gender identity issues are being treated ( or not) right now.

Imagine, if you well, 10 years from now when/if we get definitive proof that it is a mental disorder and can be treated, what do you say to ALL those that suffered when we just decided to accept it because it is politically correct to do so?


No one is suggesting electroshock therapy or anything like that, what is being suggested is that it should be treated as a disorder, since the evidence points to that, and that people should get the help they need.