You're right, I shouldn't equate them. The history of Christianity during the dark ages was much more violent and oppressive than modern day Islam. Even the Jews said that life under Islam was far better than under Christianity during those times.

More false statements. Just incredible.

The dark ages is one of successive conquest and barbarism by non-Christians (Moors, Germanic tribes, Vikings, Avars, Magyars) with various barbaric pagan and tribal religions, after the Roman empire collapsed.

The slow spread of Christianity was actually what civilized Europe over time.

Muslims became notable from about 750 in their various conquest attempts and incredible barbarism, and that didn't stop and remained the great threat to Europe. Muslims refused to stop piracy and stealing vast numbers of European child rape-slaves all the way up until the 18th century, when they were conquered to subdue them after numerous attempts at peace coming from Christian powers and being rejected on religious grounds by Muslims.

Roy Moore is and many other Americans want to.


Yeah lucky for us you just want to tell homosexuals what they should do in their bedroom and think social policy should discourage it. Not an ugly look at all.

Withdrawn? You were making comments about an entirely different human then i was and criticizing me for my opinions on the other person. With conviction! lol....

Of course not. What is the problem with the president of the US supporting and trying to put into power someone who wants homosexuals jailed.

Im not a dem and voted against Bill twice. But yes if i did vote for him and helped him to power like your lie above says, i would feel somewhat responsible for that.

If he supported a candidate who wanted homosexuals in jail i would feel responsibility for that also. And speak up loudly against him and that support. If it did not change i would completely pull my support. Personal responsibility for my voting and all.

But i know you are somehow not discouraging it.

Yes you do. And with almost all of your posts on the subject.

Where is that ok grif.

Um i have given answers to all those many many many many times in this forum. Like probably in the hundreds of post range. You can invent i dont want to because of cowardice though. Im ok with that.

You dont know my views but it is fun seeing you invent them. Tell me what my view on three is...

So there were no Christians in Europe before the Dark Ages?

lolz, you are such a goofball. I know you do that on purpose, too.

Europe became enlightened despite Christianity.

Do you think there is something important or special about religious beliefs (legally, morally, or otherwise) compared to non-religious beliefs?

Is your bullet-point equivalent in meaning to something like "Should people be forced to do things they don't want to do, that are against their beliefs", or do you think there are notable differences?

Did the men in these past civilizations with high rates of homosexual behavior suffer terrible effects to their minds and health? I don't recall that in Greek and Roman history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedera...ancient_Greece

Did the men and boys in these past civilizations with high rates of socially accepted male child pedophilia suffer terrible effects to their minds and health? I don't recall that in Greek and Roman history.

Using your logic, are you now a NAMBLA supporter?

To answer your question in the hypothetical (there was no CDC in ancient Greece that I know of), frequent buttsex is extremely unhealthy on many levels, from the transmission of disease to digestive tract problems. Whether it happened 2000 years ago or now is irrelevant. It's a function of anal trauma and how it creates and transmits disease.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4936006/
This is settled fact. Purely from a public health perspective across all domains - mental, physical and sexual - it is very undesirable to promote homosexuality as normal as healthy. That's without getting into child rearing issues and the general breakdown of healthy social norms.

There were Christians in Europe. They were attacked by successive waves of pagans and barbarians from all sides - the East, the North, the south - after the collapse of the Roman Empire, which is what caused the dark ages.

This is something we'll have to do a thread on. I had entirely your view of the situation until a few years ago when I became far more knowledgeable of the history of Europe's micro regions by living in them, and read more of the classical literature. I was surprised by how profoundly wrong my view was.

Guy asks about homosexuality gets asked if he supports NAMBLA. Yup...

What is it with the pro gay lobby and sleazy dishonesty? You're not making your side look good.

Guy made a point about his lack of awareness of knowledge of writings about homosexuality being deleterious for homosexuals in ancient Greece, I provided a reductio ad absurdum using his logic. QED. The point has zero to do with NAMBLA. In fact, it is assumed that he (and I) are hugely against NAMBLA, or the logic or the reductio ad absurdum doesn't even make sense.

All you're doing with this drive-by smearing is gaining sympathy for me and hurting your own cause.

lol itt you made up positions for me lied about my view and attacked those lies you expected me to defend. What a sad little human you are.


Lucky you just attack AA and homosexuals otherwise your account might get banned for bigotry like your last one.

I've never been banned for bigotry. I got banned because I questioned a politics mod a long time ago and he got into a petty rage and insta permaed (he's insta permaed tons of reasonable people who disagree with him including good posters without a hint of bigotry, he has personality problems). He was fine for weeks with my commentary until I questioned his political views; there was no trigger except that. I no longer post in politics.

I don't "attack" any group based on race or sexual orientation. Never have, never will. I don't even think like that. Ideology, however can and should be robustly discussed, as can the effects of behavior, religion, lifestyle choices and cultural attitudes.

Religion is fair game and I attack religious ideas and practices. Culture is fair game too as long as it's not a thin cover for a racial attack.

You may want a world where people can only discuss flowers and ponies and heaps superlatives and praise on unhappy lifestyle choices and mental illnesses, but fortunately we're not there yet.
I apologized when I realized I'd misread you regarding the Mike Pence thing. I'll apologize again. Not that your actual position isn't ridiculous, it is.

I no longer post in politics, like its a choice.

You lied about more that that and regularly from our first interaction have given me positions and demand i defend them. Its like your thing.


What position is ridiculous? Holding who i vote for accountable with criticism if they support people who want homosexuals in jail? Thats just decency and personal responsibility. I understand those things are ridiculous to you.

Well it was certainly not my intention to make you feel like that. Perhaps it is a matter of debating styles, confusing the personal with the rhetorical.
The world is full of nasty positions. Take this position:

California Proposes Jail Time for Using the Wrong Pronoun for Transgenders
If the choice in your district is Democrat and Republican, and the Democrat supports a law like this that is basically 1984 crimethink, are you horrible for supporting them over the Republican?

Also, I looked up Roy Moore. You're exaggerating. He didn't say he wants gays in jail, he said sodomy should remain illegal.
This was a mainstream position until recently, so I don't think it's awful that some people cling to these ideals. It's illegal to expose yourself in public too, but no one goes around arresting people who do it in private homes.

Life is competing priorities. There are plenty of old brains full of racism and prejudices. People are good despite that. It is only the zealots who condemn absolutely based on one axis. His views aren't harmful to anyone; if you look at the mental, physical and sexual disease burden that MSM (men who have sex with men) suffer, it is probably a net positive overall to discourage homosexuality. At the very least you can argue that it's a genuinely held position with decent evidence behind it.

It's even more absurd when you consider that Trump is merely endorsing the local senator; to smear him as a homophobe for supporting a man who supports the mainstream Democrat views of 20 years ago is a little silly and uncharitable.
I think decency and personal responsibility involves cultivating a broader view than you're espousing.

Nah you mean to make up strawmen to knock down. And it not just me you do it to.

Never said trump was a homophobe. That is another lie.

Btw Roy also thinks muslims should not be allowed in the military or serve in their government. Not ugly views at all trump is trying to help put into power.

You said this:
This strongly sarcastically implies that Trump is an extremist, which beyond a homophobe. You can deny that if you want but your words and attitude are plain.
People are allowed to think and express what they want; it is part of a rich discourse and tapestry of views. You want to ostracize and demonize anyone even slightly associated with this. If we use your criteria on say the Muslim community, given that > 50% of worldwide Muslims are sometimes ok with honor killing women, or that > 60% support governments that have laws where homosexuals are killed or physically flogged and jailed for > 3 years, you get some very very ugly results. Your views and your threshold for smearing by association are far worse and more bigoted than Roy's or most rednecks, if you actually think about them and follow them to their logical conclusion.

Right you lied that I called him a homophobe. If I had to guess he is. Pretty safe bet.

Yes I know my extremist view of holding the president to account for supporting someone who wants homosexulaty crimlised and wants muslims banned from service and government is more extreme then Roy. Good talk. 3

If "[c]hoosing homosexuality is as bad as choosing hard drug use for the effects it has on your mind and health" we should expect the residents of past societies featuring "widespread homosexual... behavior" to show negative effects. The age of consent for both males and females being approximately 13 in ancient Greece (according to your wiki link) isn't evidence of homosexuality inherently causing mental and physical health problems.

You're aware some of the difference especially in "mental" is due to negative cultural stigma. I don't see how, separate from that stigma, e.g. two adult men are attracted to one another and engage in oral sex => mental health problems ensue.

Homosexual behavior and anal sex are not synonyms. If you mean "frequent anal sex is dangerous" you should say that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_sex#Prevalence_2 (warning graphic images)

Care to remind us, who was ToothSayer previously?

Truthsayer.
How did my NAMBLA point fly right out over your head? Read it again, slowly.

You made a ridiculous assertion, I countered it with an equally ridiculous assertion in a reductio ad absurdum.

I was making a point about the likely available evidence.
Well, there are lots of plausible mechanisms. For one, gay men have about 8x the lifetime sexual partners. So far less long term intimate bonding and less of the development of deep and meaningful relationships. For two, there are multiple mechanisms in male minds which make them enjoy females and dislike the intimate company of males (male brains are geared to find various things about women attractive, to feel sated on the achievement of pussy penetration, etc). It is probable that homosexual minds have some of these mechanisms left as well, just overcome by habit or culture or early experience or a couple of mechanisms missing. This leads to deep feelings that you're doing something not quite right.

Of course there are confounding variables, but the sexual, mental and physical health of gay men hasn't improved much, despite society doing a 180 on general views toward homosexuality in that last 20 years. That's powerful data the stigmatization narrative is mostly bull**** and the causes mostly lie elsewhere.

One of the big confounding variables is not stigmatization but sexual and general child abuse.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3535560/
The data appears to show this to be bidirectional. It certainly strengthens the case that homosexuality is an unhealthy abnormality, as well as the public policy case to avoid this behavior; abuse and neglect of all kinds causes young adults to seek out unhealthy and unnatural relationships that wouldn't be seeking out if not abused. That's tragic when you consider the consequences, which include lack of participation in normal male-female pair bonding and child rearing, and a feeling of being not quite right, independent of social stigmatization, and the disease burden on top of that.
Well that only strengthens my case for the harm of homosexuality. If anal sex is less frequent and gay men still have this massive disease burden across all categories, you're merely making the point.

One of the causes of disease in non-anal-sex MSM is that MSM (men who have sex with men) are rampant disease carriers. I assume it's a combination of 8x the level of promiscuity in the gay community, and anal sex as a highly effective disease transmission vector.

The disease burden in non-anal sex gay men is near certainly a result of interaction with this pool of diseased individuals. You can see this in other subgroups. For example, most of the HIV infections that black women suffer actually come from MSM, despite being a smallish minority of the population. I see no reason the same thing wouldn't be happening in the gay community, perhaps even more strongly. You can see the public health grounds for discouraging this behavior; AIDS for example would not exist without homosexual behavior. Normal intercourse is insufficient to transmit it with sufficient frequency for it to spread. For example, from the CDC:
This graph puts it all into perspective. HIV rates by the most affected group:



Look at the prevalence compared to percentage of the population...heterosexuals outnumber gay 20:1 and yet less than 1/10th of the total infections each year. That's a ratio of > 200:1. And most of those heterosexual infections are from MSM - for example the black female community mostly get infected via black MSM. The disease burden and its ripples are truly incredible and very destructive.

So I hope that answers your questions.

I didn't mean to get on a side track with this, but people ITT are making out like religious people are horrible bigots who should be shut up and ostracized and are harming gay people. The opposite is true; promoting homosexuality is in fact deeply harmful, and discouraging it is good for people who would otherwise not end up in homosexual behavior, which is a large population given the ratio of bisexuality:exclusive homosexuality. Religious people are saints for doing it despite the ostracization and bigotry they receive. We should all be a little more tolerant.

Is it your position that any minority group that might suffer from mental and physical health problems beyond the 'norm', that the group should be "discouraged as a matter of social policy"? Why not "helped as a matter of social policy"?

Lesbians are by far the lowest health risk group, so should they be encouraged as a matter of social policy? But, or perhaps I should say 'butt' - isn't this all really about gay men rather than homosexuality in general? It always seems to come down to butt sex, and lo and behold there you go bringing it up not once, but at least a couple of times. You must know that same-sex couples also indulge, and it is not mandatory for gay men. So, is it mainly about gay men, as it appears?




(iii) Since Native Americans (or pick another matching group) are also afflicted with serious mental and physical health problems, should they be discouraged as a matter of social policy?

(ii-a) If there were no significant health concerns, would you then consider homosexuality to be morally acceptable?

(ii-b) If not, how do you support your moral position? Just a summary.

More lies and intentional misstatements. Cite where i said religious people are horrible bigots for their views on homosexuality. You cant because i didn't and dont think it. It takes more then saying its a sin to put you in that camp for me.

I think you are a bigot. But you are an atheist right? So a scummy. Well it was certainly not my intention to make views up for you. Yeah....

More lies and intentional misstatements. Cite where i said religious people are horrible bigots for their views on homosexuality. I didn't and dont think it. It takes more then saying its a sin to put you in that camp for me.

I think you are a bigot. But you are an atheist right?


Not your intention to make up views for me to defend. Yeah... So a scummy.

I'm not advocating discouraging the group, but rather not encouraging the behavior, when the behavior is sometimes a choice and sometimes encouraged by social norms. The widely varying prevalence of say pederasty throughout history shows the large contribution of social norms to said behavior.
Of course, discouraging and helping are not exclusive. In fact, they come from the same place (see: drug efforts, sex workers). But the best cure is prevention.
Lesbianism isn't a healthy choice either (it has the highest levels of domestic violence, for example - gay men have by far the lowest), but it doesn't have the disease burden. Should it be encouraged? No, it's not happy choice (lesbians tend to have very abusive relationships and mental health issues), it's contrary to optimal child rearing, and the disease profile isn't that different to straight. There are no advantages to promoting it and several disadvantages.
Male-male homosexuality has always been viewed differently. Female "pillow friends" were merely laughed at while male homosexuals were ostracized. I've never really thought about why. But in terms of the harm analysis, including self harm and societal harm, gay males have the worst of it.
It mainly about outcomes.

See above. Not sure why you're willfully being dense.
If there were no (or few, or net zero - good and bad) mental, physical, sexual, emotional, spiritual, or social negative outcomes, then sure. We're dealing with reality though, not pony world. And in reality, homosexuality is one of the worst things you can catch. Encouraging and calling it normal isn't healthy or helpful - most of all to gay people.

Devout religious people believe that homosexuality is spiritual suicide, hence their attempt to help. They may or may not be wrong, but to smear and ostracize them for it is kind of weird, imo. Particularly when their spiritual views line up with other categories of suffering and harm.