Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Katelew who wrote (94851)	11/8/2008 4:41:56 PM
From: Dale Baker	Respond to of 541453

What makes your definition of spiritual progression so superior that it should be imposed on all around you? Why not one of the dozens or hundreds of other religious views around the planet, not to mention various secular philosophies of human rights and human improvement? It's best because it's yours, and everyone will benefit if they are subjugated to it. That has been the umbrella for untold amounts of abuse inflicted by one group on another throughout human history. All in the name of "doing good" for the poor backward heathens. Fortunately, most authoritarian movements fail over time. Look at the poor Catholic Church struggling to maintain a foothold in modern America. Other would-be social authoritarians will go down the same path, sooner or later.

To: Katelew who wrote (94851)	11/8/2008 6:04:36 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 541453

That is just my refusal to cast a vote that serves to legitimize a sexual behavior I believe God has asked mankind to refrain from. It's really just this simple. I understand that. The key addendum to that is that your understanding of what god wants from you trumps your commitment to this glorious experiment, the USA. It trumps "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and "equal treatment under the law. I understand that, too. Your religion teaches you that god trumps everything. But fellow citizens with outside allegiances that undermine that glorious experiment present a problem for the rest of us. This same glorious experiment gives us freedom of religion. That presents a conundrum. Fortunately, many religious find what god expects to be compatible with "equal treatment under law" so, between them and the seculars, expectations that "we shall overcome" eventually are strong.

To: Katelew who wrote (94851)	11/8/2008 8:17:18 PM
From: spiral3	Respond to of 541453

It's also hard to explain because behind my thinking is complex Mormon theology that is rather similar to Budhist theology. It has to do with concepts of eternal progression and spiritual perfection. The framework in Buddhism is not what God said. Things are framed within a context of being either harmful or beneficial, constructive or non-constructive etc. Of course the problem is determining what those are, hence the search for objectivity. We start with the 'hand we're dealt', so to speak, and each of us is unique. We are neither unique, nor are we not unique. Beyond any designation, we just are. In Buddhism ultimately you deal your own hand. There is no start, or uncaused cause, there is begininglessness. Homosexuality is just a proclivity to be overcome. It's nothing shameful or disgusting, just a real obstacle in terms of spiritual progression Buddhism too sees it as an obstacle, simply because like just about everything else in the world, it is a form of clinging to a fixed identity, that doesn’t comport to the ultimately ever-changing nature of the self. In practice I think traditionally that organized Buddhism was homophobic and this is one of the things that the dharma is going to have to deal with going forward. I’ve no doubt it will evolve with the times, in fact this is a necessary condition. In terms of our character and intellect, there are important and unique things to be learned from a long term relationship with the opposite sex, and there are important things learned from the creation and raising of children in that relationship. This is true, but in the meantime we've engineered other options. These days the man+woman+sex=family link is broke. Just is. To become an impediment to someone else's spiritual progression is a sin bordering on evil in our theology. Buddhism (theoretically anyway) would not emphasize the homosexual identity, or make much effort to make it stick. A sense of nothing being beyond it, no spiritual progress for ex. would be seen as a form of Nihilism, doesn't agree with what they see. Given the objective of Buddhism, the elimination of human suffering, any notion of a fixed self is considered not constructive.

To: Katelew who wrote (94851)	11/9/2008 10:04:15 AM
From: Suma	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541453

Katelew: What do you project would be the response to this post about the Morman church's belief and actions predicated on that belief IF the medical community could prove that the homosexual is more than a proclivity that can be changed but based more on inheritance of some specific gene or chromosome. Just like Brown eyes, or blond hair.. ETC.. Then just counseling and attempts to change that behavior, which have worked for a few to be sure but if their lives were followed studies indicated that they often fell back into following their genetic predisposition.. One can dye one's hair and wear contacts to change ones eye color but if I asked you to be a homosexual and gave you counseling to be one do you think you really could change ? Now reverse that and make homosexuality as heterosexuality and you will have my point and question to you.