Are you saying that all abstinent people are either lonely or depressed? If not, then my claim is true.

There are tons of married people who get sex who still feel depressed and lonely. It seems to me that you're trying to turn whatever (uncited) study you have in mind into a causation when it's merely a correlation. I suspect similar things for your other claims.

This is sufficient. It feels like you're taking unintentional pot shots.

I appreciate the rest of what you wrote as well, but I just don't have any specific responses to it. There are just fundamental disagreements that I do not think will be bridged.

reread the quote. I'm sure you would agree with the statement that 'smoking leads to lung cancer'. Also you would agree with the statement 'not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer'.

Lol, what? If less than 100% of abstinent people are being harmed by not having sex, than it's safe to completely disregard sex as a factor for human well-being? Are you seriously claiming that?

There are tons of people who die from AIDS without having had unprotected sex. Therefore, there is no point in using condoms. Are you seriously claiming that?

I don't have in mind one study, but several. And some of them are correlational, that's true. But if you knew anything about methodological constraints in psychology, you'd know that it's very difficult, if not impossible, to design an experiment which would show causal relation between abstinence and certain health hazards.

What is your stance actually? Are saying "I'm going to ignore the things you said in the previous post"? Do you even care if you might be asking those gay people to do something that could potentially harm them?

I noticed that you didn't respond to the last part of my post:

June 2011

http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/20...ce=govdelivery

You haven't answered my question as to what point you're trying to make. But you tend to not answer questions a lot.

Yes, I grant that I've overstated the position in that sentence. (La6ki, take note!)

The causation claim is the focus of my position. To take your lung cancer example, it would be like saying that smoking causes lung cancer, but that there are a huge number of non-smokers who get lung cancer, too. (More specifically, the primary causative agent is tobacco, and many non-smokers who get lung cancer do so as a result of secondhand smoke).

Is the claim that is being made as strong as citing sex as the primary (or even secondary) causative agent for depression and feelings of loneliness? There are many, many married people who are on anti-depressants, and who experience a great deal of loneliness.

Hardly. Are you suggesting that people just have sex for the sole purpose of improving their immune systems? Your attempts to obfuscate the main point are not successful.

I'm aware that it's difficult, but the difficulty should therefore cause you to be less bold with your claims. Don't you think that this is a reasonable thing to do?

There seems to be a lack of clarity in the position that is being taken. Anyone can have sex with anyone. This is not about telling the average gay person what to do with his life. Yes, we believe that such actions are immoral, but if they choose to engage in those activities, so be it.

This is about the behavioral changes that take place for those who want to follow Christ more closely. And following Christ more closely involves certain types of changes. The rest of the world can and will do what it wants.

How in the world does that follow from anything I've said? People usually have few explicit reasons to have sex: pleasure, intimacy, bonding with their partner, etc. However, sex has other benefits and abstinence not only goes against the explicit goals people have, but also takes away the other benefits (which I've already talked about).


Let me put it this way. The studies showing physical and psychological benefits of sex are correlational in the sense that the independent variable was not manipulated by the researchers, but rather the different levels of it were taken from the population. That is, it is not the case that researchers randomly chose 2000 people and assigned half of them to the "no sex" group and the other half to the "sex" group. Instead, they took 1000 people who were already having sex and 1000 people who for various reasons were abstaining (I probably don't need to point this out, but all of what I'm describing here is hypothetical). Obviously there are huge ethical issues with doing the latter. For example, you can't ask people to not have sex for 5 years in order to examine the long-term effects of this.

Now, you think that the link between smoking and lung cancer is much clearer. But surprise! If you only look at the studies comparing the number of smokers/non-smokers who end up getting/not-getting lung cancer, this is also correlational, because the procedure is exactly the same as in the sex-health benefits studies. Nobody takes random people and makes them smoke/not smoke for 20 years to see if the first group is going to be more likely to develop lung cancer.

One of the main reasons researchers are so confident in this link, however, is the mechanism through which smoking causes lung cancer. That is something that is well understood and the correlational data is simply CONSISTENT with the predictions of the mechanism.

Well, the same thing applies to the health benefits of sex domain. It is true that the data are mostly correlational, however the hormones released before/during/after a sexual intercourse are well known and understood and so is the effect of those hormones. The evidence for the fact that sex is good both for people's happiness and their health is overwhelming. Almost all studies on the topic confirm that, almost all sexologists and psychologists agree on this fact. Trying to deny is is simple blind stubbornness.

Yes, of course. Telling a person who believes in Christ "It is a sin before Jesus to have sex with another man" is definitely harmless! (By the way, can you point to a place in the Bible where Jesus is saying that homosexuality is immoral?)

So, since you so painfully refuse to answer everybody's question (including mine) on why you believe homosexuality is immoral, let me ask another question. Since you say that your belief is rooted in your cultural/religious upbringing, imagine a different religion, according to which the left hand is the place of the body which is controlled by the devil and is the source of all evil in every human's soul. The only way to free yourself from this evil is to amputate your left hand. A church of this religion requires anybody who wants to become their member to have their left hand amputated, no compromises.

Do you think what that church is doing (in the United States) is immoral, are they free to require this from their wanna-be members?

I disagree. I think a lot of people are impacted subliminally in their thinking by group thinking and peer pressure.

If there is a God who shapes and molds character then insisting on "your rights" could interfere with that.

I prioritize my right of redemption above all other rights it's just in theology we rarely talk of it as a right because there's a striving or competitive activity people engage in when insisting on their rights and that lacks the grateful acknowledgment element essential when accepting your right of redemption was given as a gift. I never had to strive to get it.

There is something deceptive in the behavior of striving for rights or anything else. We get caught up in that mode of behavior to our own detriment. Fighting for rights tends to keep you from learning gratitude. It appeals to the ego. You start to think everything depends on your own activity when it doesn't and you start to self congratulate. I'd rather be grateful its more spiritual.

You could win your rights and lose your spiritual benefits as a result without knowing you're doing so but just by going along with the crowd fighting for "your rights"...just saying....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratitude

Okay. I guess we disagree about the utility of having guaranteed rights. I think it is a good thing, and seemingly, you either don't think it is a good thing, or think that we shouldn't be very concerned with it.

Here we go again... I'm not denying that there exist benefits to having sex. Here is what *YOU* said:

Go find a study that proves THIS claim (not some claim about general health benefits, but specifically this). I'll give you this correlation graph for smoking:

http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/can.../lung/smoking/



Go find me the best thing you can find to support your claim, and we'll see whether you are as justified in making your claim about depression as I am about lung cancer.

Edit: I'll even point out that there's an oddity in the graph, as female lung cancer incidence is going the wrong way!

The question is confusing. Are you asking me my view from within that context, or are you asking me to observe this hypothetical from an exterior context?

Interestingly, I don't think it's immoral in either perspective (though in reality I think it's stupid). And they are free to require self-mutilation (as far as I know, there's no law against self-mutilation), and I suspect that this will cause very few people to join them.

Thanks for this shortened version. +1

That's funny because I consider my political views to be quite leftist, what others decide to do in their lives is no ones business but their own.

So if i owned a large corporation you shopped at and you found out it was my policy to not hire non whites or gay people, that wouldn't change your buying habits?

That perfectly describes what's going on here!

Why would it?

The point is he doesn't mean what he says if the situation gets pushed far enough.

So you think that setting a (edit: illegal) corporate policy is the same as what people do in their own lives with their own money? The situation isn't even remotely analogous. It's like you're asking what he would do in an entirely different situation.

He said.

"...what others decide to do in their lives is no ones business but their own."

I dont think he means that if pushed.

If i decide to take his money that he spends at my business and use it to try and make homosexuality a crime. By this logic it should be no ones business but my own and he would not change his buying habits. I dont think he means it.

You're welcome to push him on his views. But you've got to at least be playing the right game. What you have here is not what you had a couple posts ago.

Edit: To be clear, you need to be talking about whatever personal income he claims from the business, not actually taking the business' money directly (that is, a part of the budget of the business) because that's not in the realm of the individual's life. That's back to a corporate policy.

Why dont you let him speak for himself?

Maybe you could give an opinion on your op.

He can speak for himself whenever he wants. I'm certainly not stopping him. But what he thinks/says is basically irrelevant. *I* am talking to *YOU* about stuff.

Did you change your mind? A few posts ago, you told me you didn't really care to hear it.

I think it was an interesting business decision to decide between a potentially volatile internet boycott (despite the rather low sub-1000 internet signatures) and honoring a contract. I think that Willow Creek was gracious to let him out without penalty, and I thought that the presentation on the video was done with a high level of respect to Schultz and to the organizers of the boycott threat. From a business perspective, I think Willow Creek wins, and because of how Willow Creek handled things, I think Starbucks wins as well.

However, I'm personally a little disappointed that I did not get to hear him speak. I think it would have been a very fascinating and insightful presentation.

And i gave you my answers. Look i know you like precision in words and posts but thats not me. Im scattered. I post off the cuff without thinking things through and as i go i refine my points and thinking. Which means im wrong a lot.

But with all that said. I think the main point, which is he doesn't mean what he said if pushed, is right. You can bog it down in all the semantics you would like but when we get to the end of the road. It ends with him not thinking, "...what others decide to do in their lives is no ones business but their own.".

Not really i still dont care i was just being an ass. I find it more interesting you rarely put your views out there and ask others to.
Still dont know what you think about the boycott threat. But alright fair enough.

Zuh?

That really doesn't answer my question. It just means you think they should be allowed to do what they what with their money (which is really a given anyway when spending money in the free market system). It speaks noting about whether or not you think they were right or wrong in doing so.