Sex Abuse Scandal in the Catholic Church

[DogOfDanger]

No, you have just been dead set on saying something is unnatural if it doesn't have a positive survival or reproductive value from an evolutionary perspective.

Nature is what is, warts and all, even the parts you don't like: that's reality.

What I've said repeatedly is that certain acts aren't primarily explained as being driven by natural instinct, instinct is something that evolved. Every instinct you have exists to hone you toward successful survival and reproduction. In nature instinct can get blocked and express in deferred ways. When that happens, the explanation for the behavior is the circumstances - the blockage of instinct. There are other reason people do things... everything you do is not in line with your natural instincts, or a full, harmonious expression of them.

And as I've explained twice, Kahns behavior did not occur in natural circumstances, where he would have been beaten over the head by people with boulders if he had gone and raped all the women in the tribe. Behavior that occurs within a social context is not the correct way to model or think about what is or isn't natural, evolved instinct. To think about our instincts, and to understand them, you should think about a tribe of cavemen living in the wilderness in mesopotamia. Those are the kinds of conditions inwhich we evolved. You also have to think in an idealistic way, because you're thinking on scales of billions of years ultimately. Do you understand? I've mentioned to you the fact that alpha male monkeys get ambushed and torn to pieces when their social approval drops below a certain point. If you spent two seconds trying to think critically about what we're talking about, instead of instantly looking for some hole to poke in FACTS about evolution to justify your life and sexuality, you would have thought of these things. But you don't stop for two seconds to look deeper into criticizing your own comments. Instead you expect me to come up with a full, giant rational to address your stupid comments because you made zero effort in thinking them through, because you are only interested in reconfirming to yourself your dogmatic ideological fixations. And you do this because, again, you are a moron.

And I'm tired of comments about human biology triggering tantrums from borderline, bipolar deluded nuts holding me accountable for their fucking sexual acts when all I try to do is avoid or smooth over their offended egos, where every fucking word I utter or idea I promote has to conform to somehow stoke these peoples fucking deluded ego about how they justify their sex lives. This has gone too far to the point we now pretend - PRETEND - that changing your fucking sex is an inherent biological need, and force us all to DENY INDISPUTABLE FACTS about biology. Fuck-off.

[Socionics Is A Cult]

What I've said repeatedly is that certain acts aren't primarily explained as being driven by natural instinct, because instinct is something that evolved. Every instinct you have exists to hone you toward successful survival and reproduction. Instinct can get blocked and express in deferred ways. When that happens, the explanation for the behavior is the circumstances - the blockage of instinct. There are other reason people do things... everything you do is not in line with your natural instincts, or a full, harmonious expression of them.

And as I've explained twice, Kahns behavior did not occur in natural circumstances, where he would have been beaten over the head by people with boulders if he had gone and raped all the women in the tribe. Behavior that occurs within a social context is not the correct way to model or think about what is or isn't natural, evolved instinct. To think about our instincts, and to understand them, you should think about a tribe of cavemen living in the wilderness in mesopotamia. Those are the kinds of conditions inwhich we evolved. Do you understand? If you spent two seconds trying to think critically about what we're talking about, instead of instantly looking for some hole to poke in FACTS about evolution to justify your life and sexuality, you would have thought of these things. But you don't stop for two seconds to look deeper into criticizing your own comments.

And I'm tired of making a comment about nature triggering tantrums from borderline, bipolar deluded nuts holding me accountable for their fucking sexual acts when all I try to do is avoid or smooth over their offended egos, where every fucking word I utter or idea I promote has to conform to somehow stoke these peoples fucking deluded ego about how they justify sexuality. This has gone too far to the point we now pretend - PRETEND - that changing your fucking sex is an inherent biological need, and force us all to DENY INDISPUTABLE FACTS about biology. Fuck-off.

To what extent did you choose to be this way, and to what extent was it natural instinct?

[DogOfDanger]

To what extent did you choose to be this way, and to what extent was it natural instinct?

Go ahead and spend another 10 years online pissing / shitting and sitting at your computer chair, and we'll see who's laughing.

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Go ahead and spend another 10 years online pissing / shitting at your computer chair and we'll see who's laughing.

Which computer chair are you speaking of?

[timber]

What I've said repeatedly is that certain acts aren't primarily explained as being driven by natural instinct, instinct is something that evolved. Every instinct you have exists to hone you toward successful survival and reproduction. In nature instinct can get blocked and express in deferred ways. When that happens, the explanation for the behavior is the circumstances - the blockage of instinct. There are other reason people do things... everything you do is not in line with your natural instincts, or a full, harmonious expression of them.

And as I've explained twice, Kahns behavior did not occur in natural circumstances, where he would have been beaten over the head by people with boulders if he had gone and raped all the women in the tribe. Behavior that occurs within a social context is not the correct way to model or think about what is or isn't natural, evolved instinct. To think about our instincts, and to understand them, you should think about a tribe of cavemen living in the wilderness in mesopotamia. Those are the kinds of conditions inwhich we evolved. You also have to think in an idealistic way, because you're thinking on scales of billions of years ultimately. Do you understand? I've mentioned to you the fact that alpha male monkeys get ambushed and torn to pieces when their social approval drops below a certain point. If you spent two seconds trying to think critically about what we're talking about, instead of instantly looking for some hole to poke in FACTS about evolution to justify your life and sexuality, you would have thought of these things. But you don't stop for two seconds to look deeper into criticizing your own comments. Instead you expect me to come up with a full, giant rational to address your stupid comments because you made zero effort in thinking them through, because you are only interested in reconfirming to yourself your dogmatic ideological fixations. And you do this because, again, you are a moron.

And I'm tired of comments about human biology triggering tantrums from borderline, bipolar deluded nuts holding me accountable for their fucking sexual acts when all I try to do is avoid or smooth over their offended egos, where every fucking word I utter or idea I promote has to conform to somehow stoke these peoples fucking deluded ego about how they justify their sex lives. This has gone too far to the point we now pretend - PRETEND - that changing your fucking sex is an inherent biological need, and force us all to DENY INDISPUTABLE FACTS about biology. Fuck-off.

I'm bisexual and I support this comment. I think I'm well advised to at least consider that my sexuality is unnatural in the context of this discussion. Even IF it occurs in hundreds of other documented mammals and birds.

I think there was that interesting mouse study that did the rounds a couple years ago. The one where they made a mouse utopia, where eventually generations later there was a social stratified mouse society, and homosexuality was common. What was that all about? Does civilization warp the natural order and in what ways?

I thought this was common sense stuff. Obviously, going by this thread, it's not.

You get a lot of social imperative types, on this website "yeah man but that's like, a social construct".

I think hard social imperative types are deluded themselves towards their animal nature. I also think they are civilization central types. In other words, they have never been in nature, physically. They have never had to survive off their own efforts, or wit, far removed from the trappings of modernity.

So easy to critique what you think is natural vs unnatural when you've never had to literally survive off your own, complete efforts, or else you will die.

Civilization makes survival possible, comfortable, lower effort, convenient, safe and secure, luxurious, beautiful.

But don't mistake, you are an animal and a lot of what you do throughout your life is because of that.

[VewyScawwyNawcissist]

I think hard social imperative types are deluded themselves towards their animal nature. I also think they are civilization central types. In other words, they have never been in nature, physically. They have never had to survive off their own efforts, or wit, far removed from the trappings of modernity.

So easy to critique what you think is natural vs unnatural when you've never had to literally survive off your own, complete efforts, or else you will die.

a lot of animals dont survive like that. even if a wolf survives onstracized on his own he doesnt reproduce. bears are more solitary, but they can lose to wolves, and humans win wars and drive animals extinct because they mass reproduce and work their miserable lives to suffer so they can make more children they want to make miserable and more weapons. im sick of ppl trying to make themselves out ot be somehow special and better than others because they are assholes.
there are more females born when there is scarcity. there are more gay people in societies with larger population. i dont know the mechanism of this, but i hate those kind of assumptions that its somehow unnatural. u dont know how this happens. implicitly nothing is unnatural anyway, but people use that term as if to mean "good" or "necessary" and create self contradictory theories that dont factor in everything just to fir their bias and act like thats definietly truth, the only truth and the whole truth.

Civilization makes survival possible, comfortable, lower effort, convenient, safe and secure, luxurious, beautiful.

so does human intellect, and so is necessary for the development of a higher intellect. lets turn everything good into garbage so only cockroaches and parasites survive.
agroculture and civilization came after hunter-gathering, maybe due to scarcity. farmers in nature have less animal products and their bodies pay a price. often they are known for cannibalism. there have been some studies done on hunter-gatherer groups and they are what u would call lazy. agroculture has come with multitude modern diseases, contamination due to sedentary lifestyle and dense populations
there are less suicides if at all in hunter gatherer societies, and there have been suicides due to being forced into a civilized lifestyle.
u could argue those are different kinds of civilizations
if u want to return to the jungle completely on ur own, which is different than hunter gatherer societies, u will return to monke and say goodbye to ur neo cortex because that life style cant support ur body and mind. there is nothing glorious or superior about that. this is regression and degradation.

[timber]

a lot of animals dont survive like that. even if a wolf survives onstracized on his own he doesnt reproduce. bears are more solitary, but they can lose to wolves, and humans win wars and drive animals extinct because they mass reproduce and work their miserable lives to suffer so they can make more children they want to make miserable and more weapons. im sick of ppl trying to make themselves out ot be somehow special and better than others because they are assholes.

Not about the point I was making. You are saying that humans survive in a collective of some sort, instead of individually, much like animals, but I was speaking in terms of survival with Civilization around. Let's say ten people are living in a wilderness, living off what the land currently provides in that season, without trade (and therefore a move towards civilization) with other tribes . I'm talking about removing everything humanity has built over the past 10,000 years. This was the point I was making. Many people have no idea what is a natural act in this context, because they have never actually had to expend any effort in that direction. Have you hunted or gathered for you calories, across many years and seasons? No. Therefore, you are a Civilization centrist, buffered by the efforts and ingenuity of all the other people around you. This pseudo-nature, running in parallel with the natural world, looks analogous with nature, but its not.

there are more females born when there is scarcity. there are more gay people in societies with larger population. i dont know the mechanism of this, but i hate those kind of assumptions that its somehow unnatural. u dont know how this happens. implicitly nothing is unnatural anyway, but people use that term as if to mean "good" or "necessary" and create self contradictory theories that dont factor in everything just to fir their bias and act like thats definietly truth, the only truth and the whole truth.

I can't really argue with this.

so does human intellect, and so is necessary for the development of a higher intellect. lets turn everything good into garbage so only cockroaches and parasites survive.
agroculture and civilization came after hunter-gathering, maybe due to scarcity. farmers in nature have less animal products and their bodies pay a price. often they are known for cannibalism. there have been some studies done on hunter-gatherer groups and they are what u would call lazy. agroculture has come with multitude modern diseases, contamination due to sedentary lifestyle and dense populations

Yes. Lots can be improved. But to say the future is only for cockroaches is a paradigm that exists because of the nuclear option, not anything else. Even with all our disgusting pollution, we will not collapse the entire planetary system and leave Earth on a runaway train towards the same atmosphere as venus. These are memetic devices meant to shape and socially engineer human behaviour. Earth and life will go on, no matter what occurs. Its done it several times before. By the time the next Ice Age hits, (if there is one, maybe we put forth a unconscious, purposeful effort to avoid another one, having lived, as a species, through several others), all of the life we screwed up will have adapted.

there are less suicides if at all in hunter gatherer societies, and there have been suicides due to being forced into a civilized lifestyle.
u could argue those are different kinds of civilizations

Yes. Stands to reason. A bored human being, or a human being inheriting problems from ancestors, can become neurotic, wishing for a end to the problems, and the ego complex feeling so trapped, it ends the life of the organism. Terrible and tragic. I dont suggest eating magic mushrooms if your mind is inclined to this sort of pondering. The weight of it all might be to much to bare.

if u want to return to the jungle completely on ur own, which is different than hunter gatherer societies, u will return to monke and say goodbye to ur neo cortex because that life style cant support ur body and mind. there is nothing glorious or superior about that. this is regression and degradation.

I think the hippies tried this. However, you do realize who you are talking to, right? I lived off grid for a large portion of my 20s. I don't need to be lectured on the virtues of returning to the land. I did it already and its hard and it kind of sucks. But news flash, our brains evolved PRIOR civilization. What do you make of that?

Again, you have a habit of blowing past my point. I'm not arguing for a return to nature lifestyle. I'm simply saying having an opinion about social constructs vs natural instinct- imperatives, is lopsided and incomplete, given the extent of the personal lack of experience of the one's holding the opinion. I extend this critique to University types, or whoever lacks the ability to remain objective given their comfort within the Matrix itself.

[VewyScawwyNawcissist]

I think the hippies tried this. However, you do realize who you are talking to, right? I lived off grid for a large portion of my 20s. I don't need to be lectured on the virtues of returning to the land. I did it already and its hard and it kind of sucks. But news flash, our brains evolved PRIOR civilization. What do you make of that?

not sure what do u mean that i need to make of it. a human in a hunter gatherer society is a sort of civilization. a human in that kind of society is not the same as a chimp in a chimp society. a huma nraised in a chimp society from the start even if it possibly survived wouldnt be as intelligent as he would be raised in a human society. language is a sort of civilization. why did human brains evolve? my theory is tool use, hunting and walking up right. other animals use their teeth to kill and eat which causes pressure on their skull and shrinks it. monkeys are a bit different because they use their hands more. but humans learned to use fire sharp stones and other ways to process meat. walking upright will have also removed tension from the head and jaws thats associated with the head now being supported by the body vertically against gravity instead of hovering. elephants use their nose for exerting force, not their jaws.

Therefore, you are a Civilization centrist, buffered by the efforts and ingenuity of all the other people around you.

this is what language is and what a large portion of ur brain was created by. ingenuity of the people around us, and taking care of each other. someone decided to hunt animals unlike other monkeys, to walk upright, to use fire and tools, and this is why we are here. it is a sort of civilization.

Have you hunted or gathered for you calories, across many years and seasons?

and perhaps people learned this slowly, knowledge of whats what and people dying trying the wrong shrooms perhaps. they didnt get thrown into chaos out of nothing without any kind of support. humans have a much longer developmental period than most animals, autistic people even more and they have larger brains on average and thats genetically associated with intelligence. that said the environment those ppl also lived in was not the same as now. i dont know if ur personal experience with hunting and gathering would reflect what people before the scarcity experienced. i can have theories but not certain conclusions

[timber]

not sure what do u mean that i need to make of it. a human in a hunter gatherer society is a sort of civilization. a human in that kind of society is not the same as a chimp in a chimp society. a huma nraised in a chimp society from the start even if it possibly survived wouldnt be as intelligent as he would be raised in a human society. language is a sort of civilization. why did human brains evolve? my theory is tool use, hunting and walking up right. other animals use their teeth to kill and eat which causes pressure on their skull and shrinks it. monkeys are a bit different because they use their hands more. but humans learned to use fire sharp stones and other ways to process meat. walking upright will have also removed tension from the head and jaws thats associated with the head now being supported by the body vertically against gravity instead of hovering. elephants use their nose for exerting force, not their jaws.

Our brains evolved this size before hunter gathering societies, that we know of. Crazy. If the size of our brians was what allowed us to use tools, or was it tools that made our brains big? It was the size that came first, before the tools. If brain size was what matter, why are not blue whales the most intelligent creatures on Earth? If eating meat and fat was what made us intelligent, why are Earth's predators not the most intelligent?

this is what language is and what a large portion of ur brain was created by. ingenuity of the people around us, and taking care of each other. someone decided to hunt animals unlike other monkeys, to walk upright, to use fire and tools, and this is why we are here. it is a sort of civilization.

I think a definition of Civilization is needed before its used to loosely.

and perhaps people learned this slowly, knowledge of whats what and people dying trying the wrong shrooms perhaps. they didnt get thrown into chaos out of nothing without any kind of support. humans have a much longer developmental period than most animals, autistic people even more and they have larger brains on average and thats genetically associated with intelligence. that said the environment those ppl also lived in was not the same as now. i dont know if ur personal experience with hunting and gathering would reflect what people before the scarcity experienced. i can have theories but not certain conclusions

I'm only speaking in context of this thread. Lots of nature vs nurture arguments. Which is what I was addressing. I'm just sick of so many opinions that lack that real world application. I'm a hard natural imperative type, btw. I think a lot of everything we do daily is because of our natural inclinations from our animal selves. Even if those expressions look warped, due to Civilization. For example, I think that harming children is the warped instinct to have sex. Their authority allows it to happen. In another time and setting, these people would be killed, or chased out, by the family unit. Some of them are killed when they are finally convicted to prison.

Finally, we did not evolve from apes, we ARE apes, still, today. All of dualism is false. But I prefer Mckenna's poetical thoughts on the matter "we are angels [or devils], trapped inside the monkey."

[VewyScawwyNawcissist]

Our brains evolved this size before hunter gathering societies, that we know of. Crazy. If the size of our brians was what allowed us to use tools, or was it tools that made our brains big? It was the size that came first, before the tools. If brain size was what matter, why are not blue whales the most intelligent creatures on Earth? If eating meat and fat was what made us intelligent, why are Earth's predators not the most intelligent?

i told u predators use their jaws which collapses their skull on their brain. its a mechanical issue. most animals walk horizontally which also causes pressure on the head to collapse. monkeys and humans are more vertical and smarter. elephants monkeys and humans use their limbs to kill and process food unlike other animals who mostly use their jaws whcih collapses their brains. elephants have larger brains than the most intellinget monkeys but are not much more intelligent, why is that, its because they are vertical. both humans monkeys elephants and blue whales have much larger brains compared to other animals. u are trying to make me create a theory that explains everything for u but just because i dont have all the answers to all the specifics personally it doesnt mean they dont exist. i suspect sea animals have to deal with the pressure of always having to swim maybe inhibits some of the cognitive processing. meditaiton is one way to improve cognitive functioning although i will add clauses to that as well since there are ways it can be counter productive if u dont address them. blue whales also dont use tools or have complex limbs for their minds to interact with. they have brain parts responsible for sound processing and that may be a kind of way they are more intellingent than all of us but this alone does not translate into everything.

and predators are on average more intelligent than their preys. as i said there are factors, and humans have a lot of factors coming together to make us who we are, that other animals dont.

Finally, we did not evolve from apes, we ARE apes, still, today. All of dualism is false. But I prefer Mckenna's poetical thoughts on the matter "we are angels [or devils], trapped inside the monkey."

depends on what u mean ur thinking is too rigid. we are apes in one sense but we are not the same as them, they dont live the same as us, they cant do what we can, and we cant reproduce with them the same we can with other humans.

For example, I think that harming children is the warped instinct to have sex.

this may be a lone truth in some sense but not in all the sense. i suspect a lot of that has to do with cognitive deficits in areas of empathy that can make those ppl shunned by others regardless. ppl with ASPD can overreact to criticism or threats hence their inclination to aggression which is related to depression and shrinkage of those brain parts. i suspect some of those pedos may have been criticized and rejected by women, in potentially cruel ways, after having been repeatedly rejected by others, kids treat them well and cant defend themselves (harm them). there is an inclination to innocence and safety, and in general, whatever u repress, u tend to externalize on others. a pedo has to repress his own innocence, because when he expresses it he gets harmed, now he seeks someone innocent who wont harm him who matches him, and a sexual connection is about matching someone. he is also socially inept and just like a kid who sticks its arms in places in places they dont belong, touches everything and plays with his own body and objects, who struggles to differentiate right from wrong and learns by direct experience.
i dont see how civilization specifically would be the cause of that tho. perhaps the scarcity that led to forcing civlization would be a "cause". being a hard natural imperative doesnt mean anything on its own. it could be taken to mean that pedophilia is natural or that u mean its caused unnaturally. there is no nature vs nurture its just both and ppl take them out of context because something's wrong with their perception

[VewyScawwyNawcissist]

Our brains evolved this size before hunter gathering societies, that we know of. Crazy. If the size of our brians was what allowed us to use tools, or was it tools that made our brains big? It was the size that came first, before the tools.

and no they literally did not.
they also came to a certain size, then tools came, then more size came and other things came etc
literal wolves are hunter gatherers so are and were humans

[Metamorph]

I'm bisexual and I support this comment. I think I'm well advised to at least consider that my sexuality is unnatural in the context of this discussion. Even IF it occurs in hundreds of other documented mammals and birds.

I think there was that interesting mouse study that did the rounds a couple years ago. The one where they made a mouse utopia, where eventually generations later there was a social stratified mouse society, and homosexuality was common. What was that all about? Does civilization warp the natural order and in what ways?

I thought this was common sense stuff. Obviously, going by this thread, it's not.

You get a lot of social imperative types, on this website "yeah man but that's like, a social construct".

I think hard social imperative types are deluded themselves towards their animal nature. I also think they are civilization central types. In other words, they have never been in nature, physically. They have never had to survive off their own efforts, or wit, far removed from the trappings of modernity.

So easy to critique what you think is natural vs unnatural when you've never had to literally survive off your own, complete efforts, or else you will die.

Civilization makes survival possible, comfortable, lower effort, convenient, safe and secure, luxurious, beautiful.

But don't mistake, you are an animal and a lot of what you do throughout your life is because of that.

I used to think surviving on a desert island would be fun and give me bragging rights. Then I decided I had better things to do with my time than try to forage for plants and kill random animals while sleeping in a tent or a trench. We have mathematics, science, art, and all the rest of culture. Culture comes from the same root as cultivate like agriculture, and the same root as cult like religion. Culture, religion, and "civilization" seem the same to me. I wouldn't voluntarily give that up. I wouldn't want to live in a mud hut.



Yes, humans are animals. Aristotle called humans rational animals. Animal comes from the same root as animate and animosity and means something that can move and take actions that way. It doesn't mean humans are beasts or monkeys (no offense to beasts and monkeys.) Humans are probably made from other animals like evolution says, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a category shift in the process. Most people misunderstand evolution anyways. Very little of it happens due to competition and "selection pressures," and most happens due to a change in environment (how most or, on some level, all species are defined.)

[DogOfDanger]

There's alot of confused jibberish floating around in this thread.
To just arbitrarily divorce purpose from inherent function is to completely ignore reality. Reality is not just merely what you decide it is.
As far as biology is concerned, survival is an organisms fundamental purpose, this is what it is designed for, this is what it does. In the same way that your livers purpose is to filter your blood, the most fundamental purpose of an organism is survival and reproduction. Evolution gives meaning to the organisms behavior through selecting for survival / reproduction. You could maybe argue the organism has some need for promoting good on a metaphysical or spiritual level if you wanted to get really deep into it. The Mississippi River is not an organism, it is a river, it does not struggle for survival, there are no forces of natural selection acting on it... if there are some analogous forces they are very abstract and not very relevant. The analogy is bad.

Firstly I'd like to point out there is a self-identified bisexual person here who took no offense whatsoever to my comments and even agrees with a good bit of what I've said. When I've talked about this topic on the past I've had many self-identified LGBT people who have reacted the same way.

Note that I've never said homosexuality is "unnatural", I've said that it isn't caused by an evolved natural instinct. I've then explained in great detail how many behaviors are not caused primarily by instinct. Depending on the conditions, instinct can be blocked, and when that happens it expresses in ways that are distorted. Instinct can't be turned off, when it's blocked it behaves kind of like water being forced through a firehose. For example, you might be the monkey at the very bottom of a very top-heavy social hierarchy, where the one alpha male is getting all 10 of the female monkeys, and you have no chance whatsoever at reproducing... this can occur for a variety of reasons. It can happen due to habitat destruction - your monkey tribe is confined to very small pieces of land, and you can't go claim your own territory where you're the alpha monkey. Yes this occurs in nature, but the primary cause is not instinct, this is being driven by circumstances... I am not saying homosexuality does not occur in nature, it occurs in nature. What homosexuality definitely does not do is increase the probability of successful survival and reproduction. We know that because that is impossible... And due to that, it could not possibly drive the evolution of animal instinct. That is all I have said.

I am also not saying that we should scorn homosexuals. Actually I am providing homosexuality with a very realistic explanation for its occurrence, which is something that has been lacking for very a long time. Instead people usually have resorted to hurling emotional abuse while insisting that very weak genetic evidence is what is 100% accountable for the condition... despite the fact pretty much no other psychological condition works that way, twins aren't both effected, and a number of other things. You could see my comments on evolution as an actual solid grounding that justifies your sexuality if you wanted to. These are just facts, you actually are the one deciding to interpret them in the way that you see fit.

[timber]

There's alot of confused jibberish floating around in this thread.
As far as biology is concerned, survival is an organisms fundamental purpose, this is what it is designed for, this is what it does. In the same way that your livers purpose is to filter your blood, the most fundamental purpose of an organism is survival and reproduction. Evolution gives meaning to the organisms behavior through selecting for survival / reproduction. You could maybe argue the organism has some need for promoting good on a metaphysical or spiritual level if you wanted to get really deep into it. The Mississippi River is not an organism, it is a river, it does not struggle for survival, there are no forces of natural selection acting on it... if there are some analogous forces they are very abstract and not very relevant. The analogy is bad.

Firstly I'd like to point out there is a self-identified bisexual person here who took no offense whatsoever to my comments and even agrees with a good bit of what I've said. When I've talked about this topic on the past I've had many self-identified LGBT people who have reacted the same way.

Note that I've never said homosexuality is "unnatural", I've said that it isn't caused by an evolved natural instinct. I've then explained in great detail how many behaviors are not caused primarily by instinct. Depending on the conditions, instinct can be blocked, and when that happens it expresses in ways that are distorted. Instinct can't be turned off, when it's blocked it behaves kind of like water being forced through a firehose. For example, you might be the monkey at the very bottom of a very top-heavy social hierarchy, where the one alpha male is getting all 10 of the female monkeys, and you have no chance whatsoever at reproducing... this can occur for a variety of reasons. It can happen due to habitat destruction - your monkey tribe is confined to very small pieces of land, and you can't go claim your own territory where you're the alpha monkey. Yes this occurs in nature, but the primary cause is not instinct, this is being driven by circumstances... I am not saying homosexuality does not occur in nature, it occurs in nature. What homosexuality definitely does not do is increase the probability of successful survival and reproduction. We know that because that is impossible... And due to that, it could not possibly drive the evolution of animal instinct. That is all I have said.

I am also not saying that we should scorn homosexuals. Actually I am providing homosexuality with a very realistic explanation for its occurrence, which is something that has been lacking for very a long time. Instead people usually have resorted to hurling emotional abuse while insisting that very weak genetic evidence is what is 100% accountable for the condition... despite the fact pretty much no other psychological condition works that way, twins aren't both effected, and a number of other things. You could see my comments on evolution as an actual solid grounding that justifies your sexuality if you wanted to. These are just facts, you actually are the one deciding to interpret them in the way that you see fit.

I don't really want to talk about it in this thread particularly , but are aware of some of the studies discussing the genetic advantages to having gay offspring? Its a huge topic with a lot leg work done already. I also find it interesting the notion that its the Mother and her epigenetics that might be casual to her offspring's sexuality while they develop in the womb. Of course its not anyone's choice, and if you choose to think otherwise, you would in my mind be choosing purposeful ignorance.

This notion of gene survival is also no longer in vogue. I mean Dawkins did a lot of work, but the field has moved past this point.

What homosexuality definitely does not do is increase the probability of successful survival and reproduction.

Please research this, before you affirmatively claim it. I refer you back to the first sentence. There is some speculation that gay siblings, uncles, aunts, are all advantageous. Further, why cant a gay person have sex with a woman, or a gay woman have sex with man at least once enough to produce a child? Gayness is not altogether directly inheritable from parent to offspring. So, something is going on, but its not a direct trait, like dominant or recessive genes.

I'm not sure you are aware, but I personally know a dozen gay men and woman with their own genetic children. So.

If gayness played no role, purpose, usefulness, from a genetic standpoint of survival of the species, then it would not exist, as per your argument. Life has had millions of years to wipe it out, or not even create it in the first place. So, it stands to reason that it is at very least neutral a difference and has no net negative effect on survival of the genes - and therefore species. So that blows the moral arguments out of the water as well, if "the natural state of affairs" was what morality on this topic stems from (and it does for everything else sexual that "the church" seems to protect example: union between man and woman). I guess you could say that disease associated with sodomy in preindustrial era, is enough of a reason to think homosexuality is destructive, but I would point out that disease also effects straight people just as much, HIV in North America and Europe notwithstanding.

As a last point here, I get a kick out of people that think homosexuals played no role in the advancement of Civilization. We wouldn't even be on computers right now without a gay person. And that extends to every single piece of anything we have going for us throughout all of history. I'm not saying gay people are responsible totally, but they have played their role. So from a cultural technological standpoint, gay people are very important for the survival of Civilization. That's just a straight up fact.

Deal with it.

[DogOfDanger]

I don't really want to talk about it in this thread particularly , but are aware of some of the studies discussing the genetic advantages to having gay offspring? Its a huge topic with a lot leg work done already. I also find it interesting the notion that its the Mother and her epigenetics that might be casual to her offspring's sexuality while they develop in the womb. Of course its not anyone's choice, and if you choose to think otherwise, you would in my mind be choosing purposeful ignorance.

This notion of gene survival is also no longer in vogue. I mean Dawkins did a lot of work, but the field has moved past this point.

Please research this, before you affirmatively claim it. I refer you back to the first sentence. There is some speculation that gay siblings, uncles, aunts, are all advantageous.

Gene survival is the foundation of evolution, so... I don't know what you mean by that being 'in vogue'.
You're thinking about gene propagation in an incestuous way - if the organism is limited to helping along the genes of its family members it's because it can't branch out & reproduce, it's due to scarcity in the environment... there's no social mixing of genes happening. You're just talking about an extremely restrictive, repressive environment that is blocking successful reproduction. That's exactly what I've been talking about, I'm saying that's the fundamental cause. Genes being weeded out of existence due to their not being adaptive in an environment.
If there were no problems in the environment there'd be no need to sacrifice ones own self-interest to help out aunts / uncles / cousins, you are actually making the case for what I'm saying.
Also... you haven't separated celibacy from homosexuality in regards to these effects. Why doesn't the instinct just turn off in these scenarios where it would be beneficial? Why is it channeled into something else that has no reproductive value? The answer is the instincts can't be turned off like that, because it isn't evolutionary for them to be.
Also... if you're posing a scenario where one set of genes die out so that another can live on... you're imagining this altruistic cooperation of genes, but taking it so far as to dismiss the inherent competition for survival, so... when altruism undermines your very survival it ceases being beneficial. It may be inconvenient for you to see nature as a game of survival... but survival is necessary, go watch a cheetah chase down a gazelle. The alpha male monkey benefits tremendously from the fact he's getting all the female monkey mates, sure, but the other monkeys are dying out, and what you aren't seeing is the broader problem & cause.

It's true the genetic / evolutionary gay explanation has been studied far more than explanations such as environmental or social factors... the latter are generally shunned by stupid people, case in point you / others in this thread. Whats also true is a coherent explanation is still very lacking, usually people have to be forced to accept the explanations.
The dismissal of environmental / social causes is an emotional / social conformity one, not a scientific one... people can come up with all the evolutionary theories they like, what they need is evidence of genetic causality. The genetic evidence is ultimately pretty weak - you'll never get around the twin studies, and they've already searched very thoroughly using supercomputers for this set of gay genes... they only found very complex clusters of genes / epigenetics that have some minor correlations, there is no way of separating out that data from environmental factors or intermediary effects, so.... you're basically talking about coming up with a theory that defies basic principles for an effect that is only weakly supported by evidence.

It's a politically relevant issue, people generally want it to be true, they come up with all sorts of theories but the evidence isn't there. And tbh the explanations never make much sense. Try describing the proposed mechanism - you haven't done that. Show you understand how this works, you've just implied someone has surely figured it out somewhere.
I'll also say that psychology tries to be a science but it is closer to a pseudo science, it has the worst peer-review process of any science, the subject matter itself is very intangible which leaves it open to people affirming their preconceived notions, it's also almost entirely left-leaning people, who also tend to have much lower IQs than other scientists, so... I would not really expect anything except genetic explanations to be taken seriously by psychologists due to what this explanation means to them socially...

Further, why cant a gay person have sex with a woman, or a gay woman have sex with man at least once enough to produce a child? Gayness is not altogether directly inheritable from parent to offspring. So, something is going on, but its not a direct trait, like dominant or recessive genes.

I'm not sure you are aware, but I personally know a dozen gay men and woman with their own genetic children. So.

If this condition is genetically determined from birth, what changed - why did they switch to the different sex? They're technically bisexual in this scenario.
They can successfully reproduce, they do not succeed at the same rate. When we talk about evolution we're talking about net effects over billions of years, where even minor advantages amount to big differences. We're talking about what is responsible for all the complex and refined structure of life, it's not a messy mechanism. And we're talking about evolved instincts. Again, evolutionary forces were there molding the first cells... that then became sponges that evolved into jellyfish, fish, worms, and then animals... all the way along, at every step, every single chemical process that produces life, there was successful reproduction accounting for it. Even very small disadvantages in survival / reproduction mean everything on this scale, this is why your biology is so incredibly refined and sophisticated, this is why your arguments on evolution make no sense... these theories / explanations that you people come up with really just seem to be desperate attempts.

If gayness played no role, purpose, usefulness, from a genetic standpoint of survival of the species, then it would not exist, as per your argument. Life has had millions of years to wipe it out, or not even create it in the first place. So, it stands to reason that it is at very least neutral a difference and has no net negative effect on survival of the genes - and therefore species. So that blows the moral arguments out of the water as well, if "the natural state of affairs" was what morality on this topic stems from (and it does for everything else sexual that "the church" seems to protect example: union between man and woman). I guess you could say that disease associated with sodomy in preindustrial era, is enough of a reason to think homosexuality is destructive, but I would point out that disease also effects straight people just as much, HIV in North America and Europe notwithstanding.

Evolution is a neverending process due to changing circumstances and mutations. You could make the same argument that disease should not exist, and yet disease exists... But what you aren't understanding is that their genes are being weeded out, and that is evolution. I've explained extensively that changing environmental conditions, extinction conditions (or those that mimic them), repressive social conditions, physical disabilities & deformities, etc. all occur regularly in nature. Things dying and failing to pass their genes on is the other half of evolution, whenever you select for something you are choosing not to select something else. The alpha male monkey's genes are being selected over the other monkeys. The other monkeys genes are being weeded out of existence. The choice is based on many factors, and can occur for many reasons...

As a last point here, I get a kick out of people that think homosexuals played no role in the advancement of Civilization. We wouldn't even be on computers right now without a gay person. And that extends to every single piece of anything we have going for us throughout all of history. I'm not saying gay people are responsible totally, but they have played their role. So from a cultural technological standpoint, gay people are very important for the survival of Civilization. That's just a straight up fact.

I think they do advance civilization, but when we talk about evolution and instinct we're not talking about civilization. If anything civilization has stopped evolution from occurring and completely derailed human instincts, not to mention that it's destroying the planet.

Deal with it.

You should take your own advice here, you're beginning to promote anti-evolutionary arguments that are very wanting, out of a desperate need.

Carry onward

[Metamorph]

Gene survival is the foundation of evolution, so... I don't know what you mean by that being 'in vogue'.
You're thinking about gene propagation in an incestuous way - if the organism is limited to helping along the genes of its family members it's because it can't branch out & reproduce, it's due to scarcity in the environment... there's no social mixing of genes happening. You're just talking about an extremely restrictive, repressive environment that is blocking successful reproduction. That's exactly what I've been talking about, I'm saying that's the fundamental cause. Genes being weeded out of existence due to their not being adaptive in an environment.
If there were no problems in the environment there'd be no need to sacrifice ones own self-interest to help out aunts / uncles / cousins, you are actually making the case for what I'm saying.
Also... you haven't separated celibacy from homosexuality in regards to these effects. Why doesn't the instinct just turn off in these scenarios where it would be beneficial? Why is it channeled into something else that has no reproductive value? The answer is the instincts can't be turned off like that, because it isn't evolutionary for them to be.
Also... if you're posing a scenario where one set of genes die out so that another can live on... you're imagining this altruistic cooperation of genes, but taking it so far as to dismiss the inherent competition for survival, so... when altruism undermines your very survival it ceases being beneficial. It may be inconvenient for you to see nature as a game of survival... but survival is necessary, go watch a cheetah chase down a gazelle. The alpha male monkey benefits tremendously from the fact he's getting all the female monkey mates, sure, but the other monkeys are dying out, and what you aren't seeing is the broader problem & cause.

It's true the genetic / evolutionary gay explanation has been studied far more than explanations such as environmental or social factors... the latter are generally shunned by stupid people, case in point you / others in this thread. Whats also true is a coherent explanation is still very lacking, usually people have to be forced to accept the explanations.
The dismissal of environmental / social causes is an emotional / social conformity one, not a scientific one... people can come up with all the evolutionary theories they like, what they need is evidence of genetic causality. The genetic evidence is ultimately pretty weak - you'll never get around the twin studies, and they've already searched very thoroughly using supercomputers for this set of gay genes... they only found very complex clusters of genes / epigenetics that have some minor correlations, there is no way of separating out that data from environmental factors or intermediary effects, so.... you're basically talking about coming up with a theory that defies basic principles for an effect that is only weakly supported by evidence.

It's a politically relevant issue, people generally want it to be true, they come up with all sorts of theories but the evidence isn't there. And tbh the explanations never make much sense. Try describing the proposed mechanism - you haven't done that. Show you understand how this works, you've just implied someone has surely figured it out somewhere.
I'll also say that psychology tries to be a science but it is closer to a pseudo science, it has the worst peer-review process of any science, the subject matter itself is very intangible which leaves it open to people affirming their preconceived notions, it's also almost entirely left-leaning people, who also tend to have much lower IQs than other scientists, so... I would not really expect anything except genetic explanations to be taken seriously by psychologists due to what this explanation means to them socially...


If this condition is genetically determined from birth, what changed - why did they switch to the different sex? They're technically bisexual in this scenario.
They can successfully reproduce, they do not succeed at the same rate. When we talk about evolution we're talking about net effects over billions of years, where even minor advantages amount to big differences. We're talking about what is responsible for all the complex and refined structure of life, it's not a messy mechanism. And we're talking about evolved instincts. Again, evolutionary forces were there molding the first cells... that then became sponges that evolved into jellyfish, fish, worms, and then animals... all the way along, at every step, every single chemical process that produces life, there was successful reproduction accounting for it. Even very small disadvantages in survival / reproduction mean everything on this scale, this is why your biology is so incredibly refined and sophisticated, this is why your arguments on evolution make no sense... these theories / explanations that you people come up with really just seem to be desperate attempts.



Evolution is a neverending process due to changing circumstances and mutations. Their genes are being weeded out, and that is evolution. I've explained extensively that changing environmental conditions, extinction conditions (or those that mimic them), repressive social conditions, physical disabilities & deformities, etc. all occur regularly in nature. Things dying and failing to pass their genes on is the other half of evolution, whenever you select for something you are choosing not to select something else. The alpha male monkey's genes are being selected over the other monkeys. The other monkeys genes are being weeded out of existence. The choice is based on many factors, and can occur for many reasons...


I think they do advance civilization, but when we talk about evolution and instinct we're not talking about civilization. If anything civilization has stopped evolution from occurring and completely derailed human instincts, not to mention that it's destroying the planet.


You should take your own advice here, you're beginning to promote anti-evolutionary arguments that are very wanting, out of a desperate need.

Carry onward

What do you think about the gap in IQ measurements between different races?

[DogOfDanger]

What do you think about the gap in IQ measurements between different races?

I think you have a distorted value system that leads you to see the recognition of differences in IQ as bigotry that should never be allowed, but since this rule requires we deny reality it is just futile and pointless. It is also dumb. For one, IQ predicts success in society, but success in society is not the highest ideal. As I've said many times, society is inherently destructive, fundamentally we are animals, we are meant to be living in mesopotamia... where success is more loosely correlated with IQ, along with other factors like your physical makeup... and where all this excessive complexity is not bombarding your brain constantly. But in modern society a high IQ is increasingly required to thrive; to handle the mental workload and complexity. If you have one... it makes you lucky, but there's not moral superiority attached to that, some very horrible people have been geniuses... and for the intelligence to have social value the person still has to do something useful.
Secondly, I wouldn't equate smarts directly with IQ, I say this because I've known more than one genius whose opinions on things were quite dumb... like their value systems were not coherent. One thing about IQ is it only tests you within a very limited time period.... if you look at the greatest intellectual contributions they were made by people who thought about particular things over their whole lives, and they formed very deep and sophisticated value systems. I know people who don't score too high on IQ tests yet have well formed value systems, so...
Also... usually peoples aspirations don't exceed their abilities...
That being said, IQ correlates well with most of what we think of as intelligence, with alot of measures of social success, and it is well validated.
Denying statistical fact does not make you a good person.
Carry onward