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this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2024
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This is similar reasoning to how it's always been obvious to me that the "being gay is a choice" argument bigots make is complete bullshit. If it were a choice, who the fuck would willingly submit themselves to all that discrimination and suffering?!
Well, all those Christians that are the victims of society for one. Them choosing the "difficult path of faith" explains at least part of the reason for why they are so unempathetic.
And why there are so many closeted homosexuals in their ranks.
It's easy to believe sexuality is a choice when you're constantly fighting your "deviant" urges.
New finishing move unlocked: respond to haters with "being in the closet is a choice"
Religious people have been tortured horribly and killed for their religion while refusing to recant their beliefs, and religion is very much a choice. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that this argument isn't great.
But the belief in religion like Christianity comes with an afterlife. If you truly believe that there is a heaven and hell, torture is not going to make you drop those beliefs. On the flip side, if being gay was a choice, all you're choosing is strife and being gay.
I think it's a perfectly fine argument.
I doubt that a potential future reward is going to allow a person to hold up under torture in the now. I think some Christians probably refuse to recant under torture because their sense of self is rooted in their religion, rather than because they expect a reward. Of course, paradise is part of those religious beliefs, so it's hard to tell.
I think it's less of a reward, more of a fear. How can I turn my back on god and risk eternal damnation? That's a powerful thing right there. But true, it is also a massive part of some people's identity.
When I deconverted, I found it to be really hard to get past the fear. The thing that finally did it for me was the idea that a truly benevolent God wouldn't have an issue with inquiry, and a malevolent God wasn't one I wanted to follow. Fear is definitely a factor that keeps people in the church.
That's true, to a degree, but it isn't instinctual. You don't have people staring into the mirror in the middle of the night trying to figure out why they feel Christian when they've never even seen a bible before.
The big "naturalist" angle on gay/trans issues I see is that there are plenty of bi/fluid people who could choose to lean one way or another exclusively. They kinda get erased simply because they don't have this deep instinctual impulse towards the taboo end of the spectrum.
Many religious people do argue that there is an instinct toward religious belief - the "God shaped hole", if you've heard the expression. There are stories of people feeling an intense sense that there must be some higher power, or something more than their daily life, although obviously they won't fixate on Christianity without prior exposure.
I've heard this argument for a certain kind of spirituality. And that's one reason I'm loath to hate on people for being "religious" in the abstract or to dump on "belief in god" as this singular root of moral failing. Just feels like you're going after people for being neurodivergent.
Right. Shy of the grand standing bullshitters and would-be prophets, I suppose.
There was a time when I thought that the arrival of easy global communication and information would lead to the decline of religion, but I don't anymore. Christianity may have declined to some extent, but a lot of the people leaving the church(s) have just replaced it with vague spirituality, homebrew beliefs, or other looser faiths.
These days I'm much more inclined to take seriously the idea that supernatural belief is instinctual. Materialist atheism will, unfortunately, probably remain a fringe belief.
I'd argue the biggest harm to organized religion has been the mass migration caused by the globalization of trade. People move too frequently and travel too far to reliably find communities that share their views.
Sure. People are sinking to a lower common denominator of generic mysticism and superstition. But that doesn't preclude materialism, humanism, or rationality. It's a spirituality of the gaps. When you don't have good data, you go with what you have. And that often boils down to rumor and gut-feeling.
Even the most staunch materialist atheists fall back on habits and heuristics and hearsay when that's all they've got to work with. I wouldn't call that instinctual so much as the rationality of last resort.
That's where you really start falling down the rabbit hole and swallowing the "Being gay is a way to worship Satan" and "Homosexuality is a mind-virus created by the Communists to prevent the fittest western males from procreating" blackpills.
I'm just a random straight guy so I guess I'm not up to date on all the latest homophobic bullshit, but LOLWUT?
Given that anyone saying that is implying they think gay guys are the hottest guys, to me it sounds like more of a self-report than anything else.
You don't have to be gay to recognize gay-me. Gay dudes are regularly the fittest, smoothest, most well dressed kids on the block.
Reminds me of gyms. Constantly lauded by the bigoted type but exist to make men burly and sexy and sweaty. lmao
This is a lie by a homophobe and yet goes way harder than anything I've ever heard a gay person say
"How should I know? I'm not gay. Maybe they just love Satan or something."
There are plenty of solid arguments about homosexuality not being a choice. This isn't one.