Humanistic Behaviorism

I would like to remind you that this is a science forum and applying religious principles, especially evangelical religious principles to science is bound to fail.

As a psychologist, you would be aware of the numerous studies and even the WHO classification of homosexuality as not being 'bestiality' or a perversion.

It may behoove you, in your professional capacity, to read up on these studies. One of the hundreds found this:

In a review of published studies comparing homosexual and heterosexual samples on psychological tests, Gonsiorek (1982) found that, although some differences have been observed in test results between homosexuals and heterosexuals, both groups consistently score within the normal range. Gonsiorek concluded that "Homosexuality in and of itself is unrelated to psychological disturbance or maladjustment. Homosexuals as a group are not more psychologically disturbed on account of their homosexuality" (Gonsiorek, 1982, p. 74; see also reviews by Gonsiorek, 1991; Hart, Roback, Tittler, Weitz, Walston & McKee, 1978; Riess, 1980).


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Certainly, if you live in the dark ages where a witch burnt a stick, waved it around and determined you were possessed by the devil, one could understand your abject homophobia. But a supposedly professional and educated man, in your field, holding such views is deeply disturbing.

Actually no. AIDS is a consequence of world wide travel and unprotected sex.

 

Until the Agricultural Revolution, there was no food surplus so in a lean year our ancestors had to regard all other nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers as hated and feared competitors for the scarce resources necessary for life. This was hardly conducive to humanitarianism. Of course they were nice to their own pack-mates: their family. In a pack-social species like humans, that's an instinct and therefore requires little philosophical reinforcement. Maslow's talking about the kind of feelings people have today, such as the Americans who wept for Neda Aga Soltan despite our shit-for-brains government telling us for 30 years that the Iranians are our enemies.

You've just lost whatever respect you had by categorizing homosexuality with bestiality. Homosexuality is a naturally occurring sexual variation. Since one of the few things we know about it is that it is not propagated genetically (some studies suggest it's the result of conditions in utero), your little rant about homosexuals dying out because they don't reproduce becomes pure bullshit. Not to mention the fact that many gays and lesbians do have children. I have a gay friend who has five; they're all heterosexual and they all love him dearly. I very much resent you accusing my dear, wonderful friend of bestiality, so I'm not liking you very much right now.

Sexuality is a spectrum. Some people are 100% homosexual and some (a much larger number) are 100% heterosexual, but it's estimated that around 20% of the population identify as one of those two absolutes yet have had flashes of sexual attraction to the "other" sex, whichever that might be. If you limit the definition to those who have acted upon that attraction rather than merely feeling it and stifling it, there are still quite a few people who qualify as bisexual.

The only reason gays and lesbians seem to be such a tiny group who can easily be dismissed as less-than-one-percenters is that virtually every society persecutes them to a greater or lesser extent. So they hide and avoid letting anyone except their most trusted friends know who they are.

 

You do realise that your link just countered your own argument about AIDS and homosexuality, don't you?

 

You actually need to go back further than that. Then you might come to understand that it was never a homosexual disease, but one that hit the homosexual community in the 80's the hardest because of the lack of use of condoms during that time amongst homosexual males.

Both HIV-1 and HIV-2 are believed to have originated in non-human primates in West-central Africa and were transferred to humans in the early 20th century.[4] HIV-1 appears to have originated in southern Cameroon through the evolution of SIV(cpz), a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) that infects wild chimpanzees (HIV-1 descends from the SIVcpz endemic in the chimpanzee subspecies Pan troglodytes troglodytes).[177][178] The closest relative of HIV-2 is SIV(smm), a virus of the sooty mangabey (Cercocebus atys atys), an Old World monkey living in litoral West Africa (from southern Senegal to western Ivory Coast).[60] New World monkeys such as the owl monkey are resistant to HIV-1 infection, possibly because of a genomic fusion of two viral resistance genes.[179] HIV-1 is thought to have jumped the species barrier on at least three separate occasions, giving rise to the three groups of the virus, M, N, and O.[180]

There is evidence that humans who participate in bushmeat activities, either as hunters or as bushmeat vendors, commonly acquire SIV.[181] However, SIV is a weak virus, it is typically suppressed by the human immune system within weeks of infection. It is thought that several transmissions of the virus from individual to individual in quick succession are necessary to allow it enough time to mutate into HIV.[182] Furthermore, due to its relatively low person-to-person transmission rate, it can only spread throughout the population in the presence of one or more of high-risk transmission channels, which are thought to have been absent in Africa prior to the 20th century.

Specific proposed high-risk transmission channels, allowing the virus to adapt to humans and spread throughout the society, depend on the proposed timing of the animal-to-human crossing. Genetic studies of the virus suggest that the most recent common ancestor of the HIV-1 M group dates back to circa 1910.[183] Proponents of this dating link the HIV epidemic with the emergence of colonialism and growth of large colonial African cities, leading to social changes, including a higher degree of sexual promiscuity, the spread of prostitution, and the accompanying high frequency of genital ulcer diseases (such as syphilis) in nascent colonial cities.[184] While transmission rates of HIV during vaginal intercourse, are low under regular circumstances, they are increased many fold if one of the partners suffers from an sexually transmitted infection resulting in genital ulcers. Early 1900s colonial cities were notable due to their high prevalence of prostitution and genital ulcers, to the degree that, as of 1928, as many as 45% of female residents of eastern Kinshasa were thought to have been prostitutes, and, as of 1933, around 15% of all residents of the same city were infected by one of the forms of syphilis.[184]

An alternative view holds that unsafe medical practices in Africa during years following World War II, such as unsterile reuse of single use syringes during mass vaccination, antibiotic and anti-malaria treatment campaigns, were the initial vector that allowed the virus to adapt to humans and spread.[182][185][186]

The earliest well documented case of HIV in a human dates back to 1959 in the Congo.[187] The virus may have been present in the United States as early as 1966,[188] but the vast majority of infections occurring outside sub-Saharan Africa (including the U.S.) can be traced back to a single unknown individual who got infected with HIV in Haiti and then brought the infection to the United States some time around 1969.[189] The epidemic then rapidly spread among high-risk groups (initially, sexually promiscuous men who have sex with men). By 1978, the prevalence of HIV-1 among gay male residents of New York and San Francisco was estimated at 5%, suggesting that several thousand individuals in the country had been infected.[189]

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That does not make it a homosexual disease, nor does it make AIDS a consequence of homosexuality.

 

One of the purposes of this forum is to discuss things and we won't always agree with what the other is saying. And sometimes, what another has to say is annoying, promotes anger and resentment. But it is up to us to work past that and remain calm.

It is better to have such opinions out in the open and hopefully, we can provide him with the correct information to allow him to make an informed choice, then to be shut away.

While it is tempting to simply shut down everything we don't agree with and Cesspool it, we should not do so.

The Marquis made a comment earlier in this thread (and yes, it pains me to agree with you on anything, Marquis

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Now apply this to Sibilia. The best way for him to stimulate and entertain this truth relies on our willingness to discuss it. Shutting it down and sending it to the Cesspool would be detrimental to that. The world does not amount to shutting away everything that makes us angry, upset, that offends our sensibilities.