phil

Cheetah,
I'm sorry to give you the wrong impression. Putting them on separate islands was not a test of their survival skills (in fact, I never said deserted islands, I would prefer using ones with all the comforts of home).

The thought experiment I put forward was to show how it is impossible for the human race to survive without male/female relations (even artificial insemination counts as male/female contact because it's the combining of the egg and sperm that counts).

(Now, since we are in an atheist forum I will put forth an atheist argument of ethics to show that even atheism, as a system, considers homosexuallity imoral.)

Many atheists consider something to be ethically wrong if it harms someone or society as a whole, right? So consider if everyone on earth became homosexual. The human race would be wiped out in a matter of decades. Is the extinction of the human race harmful to someone or society as a whole?

Now, if atheists are to be consistent in their beliefs then they must believe homosexuality is wrong. They must either do this or redefine their definition of ethics.

So I have to conclude that homosexuality is not only unnatural, but wrong; whether I am athiest or theist. There is no logic or science to get around this. In order to believe homosexuality is right and still be consistant one must not believe in science or reason. I am unwilling to forsake both, so I have no choice but to accept it is unnatural and wrong.

-phil

cheetah

Well, then, that includes artificial insemination and sperm banks and surrogate mothers! In which case they would survive! The thing is, it really isn’t bad for the whole race or world or anything, because you are presenting a fallacy, that all heterosexuals will go away, or disappear somehow. So, unless that came true, no problems would arise for the human race and certainly the current projected amount of homosexuality poses no danger to our species.

Godless Dave

Phil, what leads you to believe that there is any mechanism by which everyone would become homosexual?

Dr Rick

Many parents consider something to be ethically wrong if it harms someone or society as a whole, right? So consider if everyone on earth became doctors. Their would be no one to grow the food we eat, build the houses we live in, manicure the courses we golf, polish our cars, or nanny our kids.

The human race would be wiped out in a matter of decades. Is the extinction of the human race harmful to someone or society as a whole?

Now, if parents are to be consistent in their beliefs, then they must believe that becoming a doctor is wrong. They must either do this or redefine their definition of ethics.

So I have to conclude that parents advising their children to become doctors is not only unnatural, but wrong; whether I am a doctor or a lawyer. There is no logic or science to get around this. In order to believe becoming a doctor is right and still be consistant one must not believe in science or reason. I am unwilling to forsake both, so I have no choice but to accept it is unnatural and wrong.

Godless Dave

Phil, what about heterosexual people who choose not to have children? Are they also immoral? Will their choice not to have children influence all heterosexual people not to have children, resulting in the extinction of humanity?

What about infertile heterosexual people?

scigirl

Before I tear into your argument, allow me to welcome you to internet infidels!

First allow me to change a few words in your post, if I may:



Ok on to your actual argument. It is faulty on multiple levels:

1) As far as I know, no one applies virtue ethics in the manner that you do - determining the morality of an action based on a hypothetical scenario where everyone chose that action at the exclusion of all other actions.

Perhaps we want to know if being a fire fighter is a virtuous career. Well if everyone became a fire fighter, leaving no one to be cab drivers, nurses, or secretaries, the world would surely be worse off. Therefore, being a fire fighter must not be virtuous. Do you see how silly your argument is now?

2) It is a biological fact that a certain percentage of many animal species, including humans, exhibit homosexual behavior, and the rest exhibit heterosexual behavior. In humans, this appears to e around 10% gay/90% straight (ballpark figs). These statistics, until we know exactly what causes sexual orientation and make some type of endeavor to change it - are unchangeable. Therefore your scenario is irrelevant until such time that we can "change" orientation (unless you are one of those silly humans that thinks it is a choice).

3) Your dismissal of artificial insemination, or the biological fact that homosexuals can still technically produce offspring, is unwarranted. Homosexuals can have children, either "artificially" or from real live sex, if they choose to. Homosexuals do often desire children, therefore as long as women still have vaginas and men still have penises, even a world of homosexuals would still manage to produce children from time to time. Again, your hypothetical scenario is worthless.

scigirl

Dr Rick

So, assuming for the moment that homosexuality is both a disorder and immoral, is it also immoral to have the disorder of schizophrenia?

MzNeko

Er, phil...

That was HUMOR, h-u-m-o-r. Don't they have sarcasm on your home planet?

As far as it goes, it would be a bad thing if nobody reproduced.

However… I'm pretty sure that even if being gay didn't have a stigma, the straight people would still be attracted to and marry people of the opposite sex.

If a law allowing gay marriage passed in this country tomorrow, I rather doubt that droves of straight people would run out and marry folks of the same sex just because they can. I can't help wondering about people that seem to think so…

scigirl

Dr Rick you beat me to the analogy! Heh, just imagine what the world would be like if we were all MDs! Shudder. Hey maybe this phil guy is onto something. Well...maybe not.

Um one more thing since I am scigirl. Phil, how do you define if something is natural or not?

If I proved to you that homosexual sex acts do indeed occur in nature, would they be natural, or unnatural sex acts? I was just wondering, before I go through the effort of posting the appropriate
pubmed references.

scigirl

beastmaster

How does outlawing gay marriage "help" homosexuals or deter homosexuality? Should we outlaw marriage among people with bipolar disorder? Would that deter bipolar disorder?

Of course, you are wrong wrong wrong that homosexuality is unnatural, or is a disorder, or is harmful to society. But let's just assume you're right.

How do you justify the deprivation of the civil rights and pursuit of happiness of gay persons by preventing them from marrying the person of their choosing?