Enmos isn't a homophobe. He said he's sure I'm a lesbian, but he needs video evidence, and he does not judge me. He just hates the idea of me living my life in the closet.
Homophobia in atheists
- Thread starter S.A.M.
- Start date
Enmos isn't a homophobe. He said he's sure I'm a lesbian, but he needs video evidence, and he does not judge me. He just hates the idea of me living my life in the closet.
It's about a pudge that runs away from the sadistic pudge mill where pudges are turned into television dinners and greasy pudge chops! He becomes a GIANT pudge who turns Farmer Jake to vegetarianism.
If it has a bizarre, misanthropic slant, it may just be PETA propaganda for children!
Tofurkey brats are pretty good. Not really a hot dog flavor, but very tasty. You might want to give them a try.
I am sorry for your loss, errr... gain.
Atheist's can be idiots too.
Don't you know? We can't be atheists without having to compete with theisms' percieved strength- legislated compassion.
If it has a bizarre, misanthropic slant, it may just be PETA propaganda for children!
Tofurkey brats are pretty good. Not really a hot dog flavor, but very tasty. You might want to give them a try.
Will do! It's pretty bizarre, but made me laugh.
I'm sure you're heartbroken.
S'okay. If I get really fat, I assume you'll tend to my mobility issues. That's what internet friends are for.I second this statement. It pretty much kills this thread.
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
Hating what is "other" is not specific to religion. Atheists are driven by the same foibles as everyone else. They may have to dress up the reasons for their hatred in different clothes but we all have a part of us that tries to define our world by "what we are" and "what we are not", and a large part of that comes up as the knee-jerk rejection of anyone dispolaying those "not" characteristics.
Which characteristics a given person fixates on are determined in part by culture, but also in part by some myterious subjective calculation. Once upon a time religion was the great divider. Catholics were burned in Protestant England. Jews were not burned, mostly because they had all been expelled by Edward I in 1290 (and some of them were left to drown in the process of that). Later race came to the forefront. Race seems less of an issue than once it was, but other reasons arise. Homosexuals have the unfortunate distinction of having been especially hated by the Jews, which then translated directly into the other Abrahamic faiths. (As for why the Jews hated them, I have always suspected that it was because the Jews saw the practice as largely "foreign" and then when the Jews and Cristians were ni contact with the Greeks, Greek custioms were constantly making inroads with their children so rules condemning things the Greeks liked and Jews did not (like public nudity) got another shot in the arm.
Religion is used as a reason to hate homosexuals because religion is often a wholistic view of the world. If you hate people with crooked teeth, and you adhere to such a worldview, it makes sense that you would use that worldview in an attempt to justify your belief.
Giving up religion forces atheists to abandon one system of explanations for why what they hate is Evil and Wrong(tm), but religion hardly had the monopoly on such things. Atheists are not "more logical" than everyone else (despite occasional claims to the contrary), so they are subject to the same errors as everyone else,
Which characteristics a given person fixates on are determined in part by culture, but also in part by some myterious subjective calculation. Once upon a time religion was the great divider. Catholics were burned in Protestant England. Jews were not burned, mostly because they had all been expelled by Edward I in 1290 (and some of them were left to drown in the process of that). Later race came to the forefront. Race seems less of an issue than once it was, but other reasons arise. Homosexuals have the unfortunate distinction of having been especially hated by the Jews, which then translated directly into the other Abrahamic faiths. (As for why the Jews hated them, I have always suspected that it was because the Jews saw the practice as largely "foreign" and then when the Jews and Cristians were ni contact with the Greeks, Greek custioms were constantly making inroads with their children so rules condemning things the Greeks liked and Jews did not (like public nudity) got another shot in the arm.
Religion is used as a reason to hate homosexuals because religion is often a wholistic view of the world. If you hate people with crooked teeth, and you adhere to such a worldview, it makes sense that you would use that worldview in an attempt to justify your belief.
Giving up religion forces atheists to abandon one system of explanations for why what they hate is Evil and Wrong(tm), but religion hardly had the monopoly on such things. Atheists are not "more logical" than everyone else (despite occasional claims to the contrary), so they are subject to the same errors as everyone else,
How do you then explain nude gay beaches, gay marriages and gay pride parades in Tel Aviv? What causes people to overcome such hate? Or dismiss it?
I am guessing...
Israel does not want to look like a country that discriminates against gays. Even if the majority does not happen to like them, to them, its a free country.
Where doesn't it appear? Maybe it only corresponds to places corrupted by Judeo-Christian-Islamic values.
This has actually been academically studied and is not generally been agreed to be the case. Sexual relationships, marriage, partenrships, yes, romantic love? Not necessarily.
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/Q&A-800.html
Hindu mythology has both Kama [lust] and Prema [romantic love]. Thats old enough for me.
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Love#encyclopedia
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Love#encyclopedia
You're absolutely right S.A.M. Hate is learned, & not instinctive. I was just explaining to my boy just this month what homophobia was.
Course, first I had to initiate a "birds and bees" discussion, and what homosexuals were. . . but once we started getting beyond that, he has already been exposed to a little of that at school, can you imagine? Already by first grade. iOye, the mass media! And I don't even have a t.v at home!Any way, he thinks it's sick that other kids call each other "fags" and "queers" as terms of disparagement. He clearly understands that everyone should get to choose to live their lives how every they want to. What the hell happened to freedom, isn't this a free country? Can't people just mind their own business and love one another? That's his point of view. He doesn't understand what the big deal is and where all the hatred comes from. All he can do is ask me "why daddy?" "why are people so mean and hateful to people that are different then they are?"
"Fear and ignorance of differences and that which they don't understand son."
Hostility to that which is unfamiliar. Whether you are a theist or an atheist, makes no difference. It is human nature to prefer that which you are comfortable with and that which makes sense."
lol. Clearly the people in the east were loving and far more satisfied to love, while the western people lacked knowledge of romantic love for far longer. . .
perhaps that's why they had to go out and conquer and enslave the world? Nothing better to do?
Certainly explains the Romans and Greeks behavior, no?hey, i said BUDDIES.
spelling
You know S.A.M., I've looked into this definition of "prem" and no where have I seen it mention anything about "romantic" love, or anything approximating the definition. Perhaps, but, eh, I suppose that is subjective.
The definitions I have seen all refer to something called, "elated love." And, I suppose, there may be SOME elements of "romantic love" in this. . . but I do not think that other cultures have fabricated "romantic love" and brainwashed their participating individuals to the degree we here in the western world have.
To be sure, we have spread this disease onto the rest of the world through stories and ideals, so that it seems like second nature that it has always existed among all cultures. If it had existed, then I posit, that the whole notion of polygamy among the Islamic and Hindu societies would never have arisen. Indeed, even among Hebrew society, Jewish law does not forbid polygamy, it was practiced up until the inventions of romantic love.
We are social beings who LEARN our habits. And indeed, ROMANTIC love, and the qualities which constitute it, are purely an invention of the past millennium. Likewise, they continue to exist, clinging and dependent upon the existence of the personal ego. Once in a relationship, a person is no longer able to grow, spiritually, or intellectually, for this will threaten the balance of a "romantic" relationship, as the partner has identified their EGO with the EGO of another, it becomes an ego-matrix. Any upset in this balance causes grave insecurity.
If romantic love had existed before the last millennium, one would expect the same amount of art, literature, poetry, writing and all manner of humanities to be devoted to it in the same proportion that we devote to it today. Which is to say, and overwhelming amount. However, when you go back and look at the historical record? *cricket, cricket* Not a whole lot is there devoted to "love." Sure, we (as a species) have some devoted to the pleasures of the human body, and some devoted to the beauty of the human body. . . . but to the FEELING of the obsession of romantic love, like we do today? Nope, it isn't in the record.
Read the following description and think, did your average Indian peasant have the luxury to indulge in such foolishness before a 1000 years ago? If it wasn't in the culture, in the songs, movies and magazines, if it wasn't a paradigm that was taught, if people weren't "in love with the idea of being in love" would it exist? Sorry, there is just no evidence that it does exist before a thousand years ago, it's a fantasy.
"The following questions should help us determine
whether our feelings correspond with
the conventional experience of romantic love.
Answer each question "yes" or "no"—agree or disagree.
Keep a count of your "yes" answers.
The scoring is explained at the end of the test.
A. Romantic love arises from pre-existing yearnings.
Did I enter the 'love-market' with strong expectations
of what love was supposed to feel like?
B. Romantic love begins suddenly, creating instant intimacy.
Did I 'fall in love' with _____ when I first met him/her?
C. Romantic love is blind.
Was I temporarily blinded by an intense flash of love
so I could no longer see who the other person was?
Romantic love is often one-sided; it loves from afar.
Do I have obsessive day-dreams about a distant love-object?
Do I imagine how it would be for some distant person
to notice me—and 'fall in love' with me?
Have I worked out a whole story of how I might meet
my love-object and begin a long life together?
E. Romantic love watches for small signs of reciprocation.
Do I interpret any response
as a sign that he/she really notices and cares about me?
Do I sometimes keep a 'love' going for a long time,
sustained by mere crumbs of hope?
F. Romantic love is often uncertain and fearful of rejection;
it is exclusive, possessive, and jealous.
Do I often ask "Do you love me?"
—perhaps phrasing it some other way?
When my beloved tells me that he/she loves me,
do I wonder what that means?
Do I want something more than mere words
to convince me that my beloved really loves me?
G. Romantic love is a fantasy-trip,
a prefabricated emotion projected onto others.
When I think of us together,
does it sometimes seem like a fairy tale?
Am I clinging to an illusion, something that was never really there?
H. Romance creates an illusion of oneness.
Can I see directly into _____'s soul?
Is communication no longer necessary
because we have become one person?
I. Romantic love depends on imagination.
Did I have elaborate love-feelings before I found a target for them?
J. Romance is being in love with love
—attempting to actualize a feeling learned from others.
Am I enjoying primarily my own internal feelings of love?
K. Romantic love sometimes depends on manipulation.
Do I sometimes wonder what I should do
to make my beloved 'fall in love' with me?
Do I strategize various things I could do or say
to bring about the response I want from my beloved?
L. Romantic love is like watching a movie.
Do I feel I am re-enacting a movie I once saw?
Am I sometimes trying to re-create a story
I saw on TV or read in a novel?
M. Romantic love is an ecstatic feeling.
Is being in love the happiest experience of my life?
Does it feel so good to be in love that I want to return to love
(or remain in love) for the rest of my life?
N. Romantic love is an altered state of consciousness.
Does the intensity of my emotion sometimes surprise me?
O. Romantic love sees the beloved as perfect.
Do I overlook his/her faults or interpret them as charming?
Do I sometimes transform the negative dimensions
of my beloved into positive attributes?
P. Romantic love causes violent mood-swings.
Do my feelings for _____ seem like a roller-coaster ride
—momentary weightlessness at the peak of feeling,
followed by crushing pressure at the bottom of the slide?
Q. Romantic love causes preoccupation and distraction.
Do I want to be with _____ every moment—day and night?
Would I like to spend the rest of my life
linked with _____ like Siamese twins?
R. Romantic love causes intrusive thinking.
Do these compulsive thoughts keep coming back
even tho I try to dismiss them and get on with my life?
Does my mind seems to have "a mind of its own"
—so that love-fantasies take over—like the wrong radio station
breaking into the program I was enjoying?
When I am involved doing other things,
do thoughts of my beloved come crowding into my mind?
S. Romantic love causes compulsive, neurotic,
dependent thoughts and feelings.
Have I spend hours going over a simple encounter,
attempting to make it mean something that it does not obviously mean?
For example, do I sift and re-sift the fragments of a conversation
for evidence of what my obsessive mind wants to find
—either proofs of love or proofs of infidelity?
T. Romantic love is an overwhelming experience.
Am I swept along by a surging power I could never control?
Is love like riding the crest of an ocean wave?
U. Romantic love is the most important thing in life.
Has my passion become so strong
that all previous concerns have fallen by the wayside?
When I am in love nothing else matters.
V. Romantic love includes suffering.
Does my emotional attachment to _____
cause me to overlook conflicts, unhappiness, and even abuse?
W. Near its end, romantic love clings to any shred of hope.
When I feel love slipping away, does my heart ache?
When I believe that he/she has 'fallen for' someone else,
do I feel sick?
Do I get other psycho-somatic reactions
whenever I get some sign that our love may be over?
X. Romantic Love is temporary—lasting 18 months to 3 years.
When I have 'fallen out of love',
does it seem that scales have fallen from my eyes,
so that I can see the one I used to love as he/she really is?
Y. When romantic love is over, it sometimes becomes hatred.
After love is gone, is my emotional orientation reversed:
Do I then exaggerate every fault I can think of?
Does it seem that nothing about a former lover is good?
Am I somewhat disgusted by the one I once 'loved'?
Z. Romantic love resists analysis.
Do I fear thinking too deeply about love
because questioning any part of the myth
may cause the whole house of cards to collapse?
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/RLT-WEB.html
Every been puzzled by people who claim to "love" each other who have met only over the internet, and want to get married on only that alone? It's called being in love with love. If people from a millennium ago saw our behavior today, they would think we are the most ridiculous creatures imaginable to have descended from them. I'm just sayin'.
You know S.A.M., I've looked into this definition of "prem" and no where have I seen it mention anything about "romantic" love, or anything approximating the definition. Perhaps, but, eh, I suppose that is subjective.
The definitions I have seen all refer to something called, "elated love." And, I suppose, there may be SOME elements of "romantic love" in this. . . but I do not think that other cultures have fabricated "romantic love" and brainwashed their participating individuals to the degree we here in the western world have.
To be sure, we have spread this disease onto the rest of the world through stories and ideals, so that it seems like second nature that it has always existed among all cultures. If it had existed, then I posit, that the whole notion of polygamy among the Islamic and Hindu societies would never have arisen. Indeed, even among Hebrew society, Jewish law does not forbid polygamy, it was practiced up until the inventions of romantic love.
We are social beings who LEARN our habits. And indeed, ROMANTIC love, and the qualities which constitute it, are purely an invention of the past millennium. Likewise, they continue to exist, clinging and dependent upon the existence of the personal ego. Once in a relationship, a person is no longer able to grow, spiritually, or intellectually, for this will threaten the balance of a "romantic" relationship, as the partner has identified their EGO with the EGO of another, it becomes an ego-matrix. Any upset in this balance causes grave insecurity.
If romantic love had existed before the last millennium, one would expect the same amount of art, literature, poetry, writing and all manner of humanities to be devoted to it in the same proportion that we devote to it today. Which is to say, and overwhelming amount. However, when you go back and look at the historical record? *cricket, cricket* Not a whole lot is there devoted to "love." Sure, we (as a species) have some devoted to the pleasures of the human body, and some devoted to the beauty of the human body. . . . but to the FEELING of the obsession of romantic love, like we do today? Nope, it isn't in the record.
Read the following description and think, did your average Indian peasant have the luxury to indulge in such foolishness before a 1000 years ago? If it wasn't in the culture, in the songs, movies and magazines, if it wasn't a paradigm that was taught, if people weren't "in love with the idea of being in love" would it exist? Sorry, there is just no evidence that it does exist before a thousand years ago, it's a fantasy.
"The following questions should help us determine
whether our feelings correspond with
the conventional experience of romantic love.
Answer each question "yes" or "no"—agree or disagree.
Keep a count of your "yes" answers.
The scoring is explained at the end of the test.
A. Romantic love arises from pre-existing yearnings.
Did I enter the 'love-market' with strong expectations
of what love was supposed to feel like?
B. Romantic love begins suddenly, creating instant intimacy.
Did I 'fall in love' with _____ when I first met him/her?
C. Romantic love is blind.
Was I temporarily blinded by an intense flash of love
so I could no longer see who the other person was?
Romantic love is often one-sided; it loves from afar.
Do I have obsessive day-dreams about a distant love-object?
Do I imagine how it would be for some distant person
to notice me—and 'fall in love' with me?
Have I worked out a whole story of how I might meet
my love-object and begin a long life together?
E. Romantic love watches for small signs of reciprocation.
Do I interpret any response
as a sign that he/she really notices and cares about me?
Do I sometimes keep a 'love' going for a long time,
sustained by mere crumbs of hope?
F. Romantic love is often uncertain and fearful of rejection;
it is exclusive, possessive, and jealous.
Do I often ask "Do you love me?"
—perhaps phrasing it some other way?
When my beloved tells me that he/she loves me,
do I wonder what that means?
Do I want something more than mere words
to convince me that my beloved really loves me?
G. Romantic love is a fantasy-trip,
a prefabricated emotion projected onto others.
When I think of us together,
does it sometimes seem like a fairy tale?
Am I clinging to an illusion, something that was never really there?
H. Romance creates an illusion of oneness.
Can I see directly into _____'s soul?
Is communication no longer necessary
because we have become one person?
I. Romantic love depends on imagination.
Did I have elaborate love-feelings before I found a target for them?
J. Romance is being in love with love
—attempting to actualize a feeling learned from others.
Am I enjoying primarily my own internal feelings of love?
K. Romantic love sometimes depends on manipulation.
Do I sometimes wonder what I should do
to make my beloved 'fall in love' with me?
Do I strategize various things I could do or say
to bring about the response I want from my beloved?
L. Romantic love is like watching a movie.
Do I feel I am re-enacting a movie I once saw?
Am I sometimes trying to re-create a story
I saw on TV or read in a novel?
M. Romantic love is an ecstatic feeling.
Is being in love the happiest experience of my life?
Does it feel so good to be in love that I want to return to love
(or remain in love) for the rest of my life?
N. Romantic love is an altered state of consciousness.
Does the intensity of my emotion sometimes surprise me?
O. Romantic love sees the beloved as perfect.
Do I overlook his/her faults or interpret them as charming?
Do I sometimes transform the negative dimensions
of my beloved into positive attributes?
P. Romantic love causes violent mood-swings.
Do my feelings for _____ seem like a roller-coaster ride
—momentary weightlessness at the peak of feeling,
followed by crushing pressure at the bottom of the slide?
Q. Romantic love causes preoccupation and distraction.
Do I want to be with _____ every moment—day and night?
Would I like to spend the rest of my life
linked with _____ like Siamese twins?
R. Romantic love causes intrusive thinking.
Do these compulsive thoughts keep coming back
even tho I try to dismiss them and get on with my life?
Does my mind seems to have "a mind of its own"
—so that love-fantasies take over—like the wrong radio station
breaking into the program I was enjoying?
When I am involved doing other things,
do thoughts of my beloved come crowding into my mind?
S. Romantic love causes compulsive, neurotic,
dependent thoughts and feelings.
Have I spend hours going over a simple encounter,
attempting to make it mean something that it does not obviously mean?
For example, do I sift and re-sift the fragments of a conversation
for evidence of what my obsessive mind wants to find
—either proofs of love or proofs of infidelity?
T. Romantic love is an overwhelming experience.
Am I swept along by a surging power I could never control?
Is love like riding the crest of an ocean wave?
U. Romantic love is the most important thing in life.
Has my passion become so strong
that all previous concerns have fallen by the wayside?
When I am in love nothing else matters.
V. Romantic love includes suffering.
Does my emotional attachment to _____
cause me to overlook conflicts, unhappiness, and even abuse?
W. Near its end, romantic love clings to any shred of hope.
When I feel love slipping away, does my heart ache?
When I believe that he/she has 'fallen for' someone else,
do I feel sick?
Do I get other psycho-somatic reactions
whenever I get some sign that our love may be over?
X. Romantic Love is temporary—lasting 18 months to 3 years.
When I have 'fallen out of love',
does it seem that scales have fallen from my eyes,
so that I can see the one I used to love as he/she really is?
Y. When romantic love is over, it sometimes becomes hatred.
After love is gone, is my emotional orientation reversed:
Do I then exaggerate every fault I can think of?
Does it seem that nothing about a former lover is good?
Am I somewhat disgusted by the one I once 'loved'?
Z. Romantic love resists analysis.
Do I fear thinking too deeply about love
because questioning any part of the myth
may cause the whole house of cards to collapse?
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/RLT-WEB.html
Every been puzzled by people who claim to "love" each other who have met only over the internet, and want to get married on only that alone? It's called being in love with love. If people from a millennium ago saw our behavior today, they would think we are the most ridiculous creatures imaginable to have descended from them. I'm just sayin'.
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