[extropy-chat] over the edge...

[Keith Henson]

At 02:15 PM 4/18/2006 -0500, Darin Sunley wrote:
> > *what* precisely is the Biblical basis for objecting to 
> homosexuals?  (If it
> > isn't too much trouble.)
>
>As one of the very very few people in North America familiar with both
>transhumanism, extropianism, and Christian Evangelicalism, I may be
>able to help with this question. :)

snip

>  [As a
>side note, other seemingly arbitrary command of God from this portion
>of Scripture, like the Jewish dietary laws, have been found by modern
>science to be, by and large, really good advice. So they might be
>worth looking into.]

They were for the time, though they were as much economic laws as anything 
else.

snip

>  Even secular sociologists will tell you
>that when casual sex exists as a social institution, the stability of
>families goes way down, and you get a whole host of social ills
>accompanying that [STDs, victimization of prostitutes, associated
>crime and narcotic use thereof, etc].

I have real doubt about the direction of the causal arrow here.

>Many religions believe that something cosmically significant occurs
>between people's [souls / consciousnesses / qualia] when they have
>sex.

That's actually true.  Only it is the result of a hormone dump.  The pair 
binding has been studied in meadow voles and the receptors are known.

>A link is formed between those two people. When people have a
>large number of sexual [hetero or homo] partners serially [or
>simultaneously, it doesn't matter] , what they are doing is repeatedly
>forming and dissolving this link. This invariably damages the ability
>of the person to form intimate relationships down the road.

Again, the direction of causality is a concern here.  My bet is that people 
who have a large number of relations may lack either the receptors or the 
hormone dump at orgasm.  Or there may be other factors involved.

snip

>At this point it's important to make two things clear.
>
>First: Fred Phelps is a whackjob of the highest order. He operates his
>"church" as a tightly bound, highly authoritarian cult consisting
>mostly of his extended family.

He gets discussed on alt.religion.scientology as heading a tiny cult even 
more loony than the couch jumping, space cooties, UFO cult.

snip

>He brings shame and disgrace to the name of the God he claims to
>worship. By his behavior he turns countless people away

I really doubt people blame the rest of the Christian community for what 
this attention hound does to get in the news.  I know a few people who read 
Fred's web site for the inadvertent humor.

Do you understand why he acts this way?  I do, but Fred probably does not.

>from the
>Gospel message that might otherwise be at least willing to listen, and
>he will have to give an account of his behavior on Judgement Day.

  . . . . Possibly.  I can't see him as being important enough to write a 
special script for when he is uploaded.  (Transhumanist version of the 
rapture and much more likely to happen.)

>Second: As regards the eternal destinty of homosexuals, their
>homosexuality is literally the least of their sins. All of us,
>including Christians, every day, break all ten of the Ten
>Commandments. We fail to put the God who made us first in our lives
>[breaking the First Commandment] , we tell white lies [breaking the
>Ninth Commandment], we look with lust at others [committing adultery
>in our hearts according to Jesus, therefore breaking the seventh
>Commandment.] Christians believe that God's standard, when He judges
>us on Judgement Day is not going to be "Were you an OK person?" or
>"Were you better then most people?". It's going to be "Were you
>morally perfect." None of us can say that, so we're all in deep
>trouble. We will be found guilty and be sentenced, quite reasonably,
>to Hell. We commit crimes against God on an ongoing basic, and have no
>way to pay the fine. The good news, the Gospel, is that God made a way
>for us to be freed. Jesus paid our fine for us by voluntarily
>sacrificing Himself on the Cross for us. If we turn from our sins and
>trust in Him to save us from the justice we deserve on Judgement Day,
>He will.

Good example of the coupling of memes.

>Whew. OK. That got a little preachy. I apologise. But it's still
>important to say. Most people think they know what Christian
>Fundamentalists believe, but there are a lot of confusions and
>misconceptions. I know that message was very new to me when I first
>heard it, and I'd been debating Christians in chatrooms all my life.
>I'd just never heard it laid out that way before.

I think you did a good job.  I exposed to this so I can verify your 
statements.  For me though, 46 years ago the silliness of a god that could 
whump up a universe being concerned with the doings of social primes on a 
minor planet around an insignificant star just got to me.

None the less, I appreciate that there may be features of religion that are 
more important than the local meme set tends to credit.

I have recently come to suspect that religions provide seed xenophobic 
memes when the population needs to be cut back by wars.

Best wishes,

Keith Henson