Responding to "Homosexuality is wrong, the same way incest is wrong"

[Brian37]

Okay the things Im going to say sound a little out their but read thru this please.

I just want to get this out of the way, there is no such things as right or wrong. There is no universal rules that say killing is wrong (unless your religious then in tat case its your god). Morals are ideas or sentiments decided by the majority of the population of a group. Incest is widely accepted as wrong and is therefor seen as a crime and a moral violation. Being homosexual isn't right or wrong there is simply no such thing and same with insect. 

Take killing for example, killing someone is wrong or right at all. In the stone age before humans worked in groups they realized that if they joined together and agreed to mutually not hurt each other that they would benefit. However if they killed a team member they would suffer the consequences by dying. this is commonly seen in the line "don't do to other what you wouldn't want done to you". If you kill someone you endanger your own life. Because of self preservation you don't kill others and over time this has morphed into right or wrong etc.

Im open to any ideas or suggestions, corrections etc.

~ Prometheus

Acutually, morality while an artificial abstract construct that varies upon location and can change over time, that is still different than studying something through science. And the medical/psychological experts do not see homosexuality as immoral. Incest on the other hand, while it does happen in mammals and other primates, DOES have an evolutionary reason as to why we evolved to avoid it. If we only fucked family members, we never would have evolved to the point of having so many different skin tones and facial features, not to mention possible defects incest can cause in a pregnancy.

Primates and mammals evolved with pheromones, and that allows life to make the distinction between relatives and non relatives. But it also has the use of marking territory even out side of seeking sexual partners. And sex in primates serves not just to make babies, but also as a form of socializing.

I think it is wrong to confuse our artificial abstract with what evolutionary science says. One is a layperson's abstract, and the other is lab tested.

So no, the two cannot be equated, nor should they be. This argument allows laypeople to either be flat out bigots, or water down their bigotry to the point of pretending they are not bigots.

If someone wants to know what any form of life does, or the way life behaves the way it does, the scientists are the ones to ask, everything else is like you said, our own personal bias.


And to justify this by saying "insects don't have this concept", yea and? They also don't have our complex language. Insects are good at being insects, but not good at being humans. And humans are good at being humans, but not good at being insects. While all life stems from evolution, that does not mean never take our different adaptations into account. We simply have different adaptations. But I wouldn't ignore them either.

Being LBGT isn't wrong. It is simply another outcome of evolution.

[robvalue]

@Meandering:

The very first thing to decide about morality is what the goals are. If we don't agree here, everything else will just be talking past each other.

I find almost all atheists will readily agree to this goal as being virtually the only important consideration. But theists are different. I'd split them roughly into three categories, and it's possible we may be excluding at least one of them if we don't stop and discuss what the goals of morality are:

1) Those that agree morality should be about wellbeing. They feel their religion simply helps them achieve this goal.

2) Those that try and state that morality is about wellbeing and about pleasing/following God.

3) Those that state outright that morality is just about pleasing/following God.

I find that most people in category two are confused and suffering severe cognitive dissidence. Either these two goals produce no conflict, in which case the "God" part is redundant, or they do produce conflict, and so the "God" part is actually poisoning their actions towards humans. Whatever the case, proceeding with a discussion without sorting all this out tends to go nowhere because the theist will slide back and forth between the two goals depending on what the subject is.

Those in category three are the most problematic. At least in the West, I would still guess that most people who claim this don't act like they really believe it. They like to think this is what morality is about, but their common sense and empathy cause them to actually care about wellbeing more than they would like to admit. However, the more fundamental and extremely indoctrinated may well act under this goal, as will many people in heavily religiously dominated countries. And this is in total conflict with the wellbeing goal, so much so that you're not even discussing the same thing. Proceeding regardless is futile, and announcing morality is just about wellbeing is to exclude them entirely.

This is where a separate discussion needs to happen. I'm not saying it's easy, but two people with contradictory views about morality are never going to be able to properly coexist until they reach more of an understanding. It would be ideal if the theist could be persuaded to at least be in category two, as expecting them to go straight to one is asking too much I feel. If this is impossible, the next best thing is for the theist and atheist to better understand each other's positions, and to discuss what morality means to them and how they use it to make decisions. Simply announcing the theist to be "wrong" is not helpful. If the world is ever to be united, it must be through discussion and understanding, not judgement and exclusion, wherever possible.

[robvalue]

As an example of this, I made a video rebuttal to Orangebox in another thread, who claims that his morality is based on "god's character", and nothing else. He seems to be claiming further that other forms of morality are not just useless but actually impossible. Of course, I disagree all the way, and I explain why. He is a type 3 in my list, as far as I can tell. To get anywhere we must discuss why his goals for morality are different from mine, to see if we can reach any middle ground. I get to this at the end of the video, although briefly. I ask what practical use his system of morality is. I don't care about his specific criteria, as far as my own morality goes, but I do care about discussing it to try and reach an understanding.

I just made a video response to Orangebox's reply, which I've put in hide tags below. Everyone else is of course welcome to comment on my vid, as with my video responses to Roadrunner on the previous page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ46w6J10GI

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To summarize for a newcomer to the thread.  Objective:  not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts  Subjective:  based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.  Both autonomy and utilitarianism are ontologically or foundationally derived from subjectivity and are therefore categorically subjective moralities.  Autonomy is inherently subjective in that the moral truth value of a given action is entirely up to the personal feelings, and opinions of each individual.  A statement that has been affirmed within this thread.  Utilitarianism is subjective in that it derives the moral truth value of a given action based upon maximizing well-being, and well-being is entirely determined by the personal feelings or opinions of the individual's involved.  This is also a statement that has been affirmed within this thread.  However, both autonomy and utilitarianism are inconsistent and should therefore be rejected as a reasonable explanation for the ontology of morality.

Autonomy is inconsistent with reality in that while it maintains morality is not objective, society applies moral laws objectively.  If autonomy were true then no single moral truth claim could be applied to multiple individuals as this would be inconsistent with the foundation of autonomy.  In other words, autonomy as a moral framework, prevents any universal application of a moral truth claim.  Yet, we as a society function in just the opposite way.  Society functions by universally applying moral truth claims.  Take the moral truth claim:  it is wrong to murder.  Society has establishes a law, based upon this moral truth claim, stating that murder is illegal, and that anyone who murders will be punished.  If autonomy were true, then a person who murders wouldn't be punished.  If autonomy were true, society would respond to the murderer by saying, well that's immoral for me, but moral for you, therefore we have no basis by which to punish you.  It is in this way that autonomy is inconsistent with reality and should therefore be rejected as an explanation of the ontology of morality.

Utilitarianism is logically inconsistent.  Utilitarianism determines the moral truth value of a given action based solely upon whether or not the action maximizes well-being, and well-being is ultimately subject to an individual's opinions and preferences.  Therefore the foundation or origin of morality within the utilitarian framework is subjective.  The foundation of utilitarian morality is at it's essence one single moral rule:  Do what maximizes well-being.  Any action concurring with this rule is moral, and any action contradicting the rule is immoral.  Functioning within utilitarianism however, requires applying the moral rule universally and thus subjecting every individual to it.  Therein lies the inconsistency.  If something is applied universally it is no longer subject to an individual's feelings or opinions and is therefore no longer subjective.  This is a category mistake.  Because utilitarianism derives it's moral truth values subjectively but functions objectively it makes a category mistake.  Therefore, because utilitarianism is logically inconsistent it should be rejected as an explanation of the ontology of morality.

So what about God?  Isn't He a person?  Isn't His asserted morality subjective in that His morality is derived from His personal feelings or opinions?  If God is a person and He determines morality then isn't morality subjective after all?  Is the Christian moral framework logically inconsistent as well?  These are common objections that demand an answer.  In Christianity, the moral truth value of a given action is determined not by God's personal feelings or opinions but by His inherent nature.  This is why Christians can consistently claim that morality is objective.  Morality is determined as an extension or expression of God's eternal nature, it is not determined by His personal feelings or opinions.  Therefore it is by definition objective.  From our perspective, it is also objective in that it is determined outside of mankind's personal feelings, tastes, or opinions and is therefore universally applicable to us.  Between utilitarianism, autonomy, and Christianity, only Christianity can provide a logically consistent framework of morality, and thus a reasonable ontology of morality.

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[Iroscato]

There's no number of gay people or gay stories I'll ever see on tv that will "turn me gay".  I seriously doubt that this is how it works for anyone.

Have you ever wanted to drink a beer that tastes like piss? You didn't watch the advertisements and think "wow! If I drink that cheap beer then lots of hot girls will show up!" You were conditioned by advertisements to have a positive association with that product. The same thing can happen with just about any behaviour. The term to look for is 'operant conditioning'

Meandering:

Sure, Sam Harris says "let's agree morality is about maximising wellbeing". I am on board, that's what I think it should be about. And if someone thinks it's about something else, I'm going to try and explain why I think it's a bad idea.

However, from a philosophical point of view, all he's actually doing is excluding certain people from the discussion. I am fine with that, but I also like to keep in mind that if you ever want to bring other people round (those who don't agree about what morality should be about) you need to explain why your goals are better, not simply tell them they can't be part of the discussion.

Under Harris' definition, which most civilised people would agree with (after some make irrelevant extra points about god), homosexuality is in no way a danger to anyone's wellbeing and so is not a problem.

Could you go into more depth on who he actually excludes and why? I'm genuinely interested.

This might just be the stupidest fucking thing I've heard all year.

Why is it that straight people are so fucking worried about people TURNING GAY, when they're the ones who are trying to TURN PEOPLE STRAIGHT.  I mean give me a fucking break.  They're the ones trying to 'fix' what isn't broken.  You don't see "Pray Away the Straight" therapy centers, now fucking do you?

Now, now. Surely you've heard stupider things this year. Please don't get the false impression that I actually want to prevent people from being who they want to be. My only (minor) concern is in social engineering, and pushing politically correct notions of acceptance too far.

Frankly, there are too many fucking people as it is in the world. If 20%, 50%, 95% of them were attracted to the same sex, big whoop. The world keeps turning.

[robvalue]

Quite. If anything, we need to be giving incentives for not having children. Gays are a go.

[Regina]

Pff good luck with that, lots of gays are having kids now via surrogacy and sperm donorship. It's not a means of population control anymore like it might once have been

The best incentive to stop people having kids it to tax the crap out of anyone who has more than 1 or 2. Unfair to suddenly introduce it now for people who already have kids, no, but it should be introduced at a later date to apply in future. You can't force people not to have kids, but you can make it painfully difficult for people who want to irresponsibly pump out dozens. Currently in The UK you end up better off if you have more kids because of the welfare system. That has to go.

[robvalue]

It drives me spare! It's one of my personal bugbears. People can literally choose between getting a job, and getting pregnant and living off the state. It's utterly ridiculous. And the amount of benefits you get, and the amount you can earn while still getting benefits, is just absurd. If instead you genuinely need money because you're ill and can't work, you have to fight tooth and nail for it.