Sneaking a lesbian onto the Supreme Court

[copdsux]

I've been "off the road", for a little over five years, and I'm still checking in here every day, to see what's going on. Still get a little nostalgic whenever I get a whiff of diesel fumes.

 

[tallcal101]

Enough now,your making me cry !!

 

[Humble2drive]

You're right - the subject is well researched and documented. In a survey conducted by the L.A. Times, 2,628 adults across the U.S. were interviewed. Out of those responding, 27% of the women and 16% of the men had been molested. 7% of the girls and 93% of the men had been molested by adults of the same sex. (Los Angeles Times, August 25-6, 1985)..

Yes. There is no question or debate about this. The question was wether or not these men who are molesting boys are adult homosexuals or adult heterosexuals.

I was responding to your assertion that the:

"only men that are sexually attracted to little boys are homosexual men."

This is not addressed in the interviews.

Also, from a study done in 2007 by Drs. Ryan and Richard Hall, A Profile of Pedophilia: Definition, Characteristics of Offenders, Recidivism, Treatment Outcomes, and Forensic Issues.

"Heterosexual pedophiles, in self-report studies, have on average abused 5.2 children and committed an average of 34 sexual acts vs homosexual pedophiles who have on average abused 10.7 children and committed an average of 52 acts. Bisexual offenders have on average abused 27.3 children and committed more than 120 acts. A study by Abel et al of 377 nonincarcerated, non–incest-related pedophiles, whose legal situations had been resolved and who were surveyed using an anonymous self-report questionnaire, found that heterosexual pedophiles on average reported abusing 19.8 children and committing 23.2 acts, whereas homosexual pedophiles had abused 150.2 children and committed 281.7 acts."

Again, nothing new or surprising here. The terms used in the study above defines men who commit male to male pedophilia as homosexual pedofiles.

From the same study you quoted:

"Research categorizes male pedophiles by whether they are attracted to only male children (homosexual pedophilia), female children (heterosexual pedophilia)"

They even explain:

"The percentage of homosexual pedophiles ranges from 9% to 40%, which is approximately 4 to 20 times higher than the rate of adult men attracted to other adult men"

This difference indicates that the majority of homosexual pedophiles are in fact heterosexual adults.

This is why I stated that it is dangerous for parents to rely on the belief that only male homosexuals pose a threat to their children.

You betcha; even the slightest investigation of that voting process reveals that the APA was under heavy pressure from gay rights organizations to take this action, furthering their agenda to normalize homosexuality. Furthermore, suppose they decide to take a vote and declare that AIDS is no longer a disease? You think that will stop people from spreading it and dying from it? Or maybe next they'll decide there's nothing abnormal about bestiality or necrophilia..

The APA lets some Gay activists dictate their professional opinions?

It's light reading according to your opinion because it doesn't support your point of view. . ...

Light reading simply because it is from a biased source that has financial interests.
My "point of view" and your "point of view" should not obscure the search for the truth. That is all that I am looking for here and in the field of human behavior that is a never ending search.

 

[pjjjjj]

This maybe should have gone in the Soapbox Forum, but it's kind of on subject? Mods are welcome to move it if desired.

There was an article in a nearby local newspaper (Ontario, Canada) last week which reported changes to take place this September to Ontario's elementary school province-wide sex education curriculum.
I looked up the article online but it seems it is no longer available for 'free', or I would post the link.
Some excerpts from the article:
-'for the first time, children will learn about "invisible differences" such as sexual orientation and gender identity in Grade 3.'
-'Some of the material to be discussed includes:
Grade 4: puberty and its physical and social changes (now taught in grade 5)
Grade 5: the concept of personal desire, liking someone "in a special way"
Grade 6: personal pleasure in m*sturbation, v*ginal lubrication and w*t dreams
Grade 7: sex acts such as or*l sex and an*l intercourse'

Meanwhile, if you talk to university professors, they are saying many of the kids arriving to university nowadays can no longer spell or write at the level expected at the university stage.

I guess it's more important to learn about anal sex and same sex relationships than making sure the 3 Rs are down pat any more.

Crazy sh*t mon!

 

[pjjjjj]

....The question was wether or not these men who are molesting boys are adult homosexuals or adult heterosexuals.

I was responding to your assertion that the:

"only men that are sexually attracted to little boys are homosexual men."

This is not addressed in the interviews.

Again, nothing new or surprising here. The terms used in the study above defines men who commit male to male pedophilia as homosexual pedofiles.

From the same study you quoted:

"Research categorizes male pedophiles by whether they are attracted to only male children (homosexual pedophilia), female children (heterosexual pedophilia)"

They even explain:

"The percentage of homosexual pedophiles ranges from 9% to 40%, which is approximately 4 to 20 times higher than the rate of adult men attracted to other adult men"

This difference indicates that the majority of homosexual pedophiles are in fact heterosexual adults.

This is why I stated that it is dangerous for parents to rely on the belief that only male homosexuals pose a threat to their children.

That's really interesting. I remember a few years ago someone was talking about pedophiles, men/boys, and I was really confused because they weren't mentioning homosexuality.. and to me, the two went hand-in-hand. I was told that pedophiles don't see much difference between boys and girls, it's the 'child' factor they're after.

Maybe it's the closet male homosexuals who get their kicks at coming out of the closet at the expense of young boys because they can't face their own reality? There is no way of knowing which 'heterosexual adults' are not really heterosexual at all, unless they self-report it.

Personally, I would love to know the 'real' stats on the ratio of straight/gay, because it seems the gay thing is all we hear about any more. (Of course, those stats can never really be known). It's plastered all over the tv, news, etc. It almost makes it seem like it's taking over and becoming the new normal. I just don't get it.

 

[AMonger]

That's really interesting. I remember a few years ago someone was talking about pedophiles, men/boys, and I was really confused because they weren't mentioning homosexuality.. and to me, the two went hand-in-hand. I was told that pedophiles don't see much difference between boys and girls, it's the 'child' factor they're after.

Maybe it's the closet male homosexuals who get their kicks at coming out of the closet at the expense of young boys because they can't face their own reality? There is no way of knowing which 'heterosexual adults' are not really heterosexual at all, unless they self-report it.

Personally, I would love to know the 'real' stats on the ratio of straight/gay, because it seems the gay thing is all we hear about any more. (Of course, those stats can never really be known). It's plastered all over the tv, news, etc. It almost makes it seem like it's taking over and becoming the new normal. I just don't get it.

The latest numbers that I heard that are considered authoritative are that the 10% number you hear being homosexual is the percentage of people who have ever engaged in homosexual acts. The percentage of people who are by exclusively homosexual is between 2 and 3%.

On molestation, it's true that heterosexuals commit the majority of molestations, the last numbers I remember being 60% of child molesters being heterosexual. However, when you consider that the remaining 40% of molestations are done by 2-3% of the population, that's rather frightening.

 

[greg334]

I think most are trying to find some way to qualify the acts and habits of humans in order to find ways to either correct behavior or to a least explain it.

Gay or not gay

Pedophile or homosexual male/female

IT DOESN'T matter one bit.

Because there are two real serious issues being missed -

1 - what is being gay is a real legitimate question that no one seems to want to answer because of the stakes. Is it a lifestyle, trend (fade) or actually something people can't help? Why is it people can claim to be to be gay but then reascend the claim?

2 - the gay rights movement has in the past and now even after years of trying to get them to divide real issues up and choose a real path, have in essence tied themselves with groups that are truly deviant in many ways and harmful to society - Nambla being one which has nothing to do with gay rights. With this and the issue of them claiming to be just like a minority, blacks specifically, this all cheapens their cause and when something like a gay march in Washington happens, it looks like a big free for all to the general population.

 

[letzrockexpress]

Sidestep the issues and go right to the personal attack? Really? Really?

OK, fine. Which as-yet, non-existing hypothetical case would you like me to delve into?

Every time you say, "So what?" you are in effect saying, "I'm ignorant and I don't understand," or, that you are just ambivalent and don't care one way or the other.


Yes, and the marginalization and derision always comes from ignorance. The fix for that is an easy one. But the analogy of making fun of truck drivers to that of homosexuals trying to make people feel bad about not wanting to embrace anormal behavior as normal behavior goes far beyond ignorance, and right to something that can't be fixed.

These are not mere opinions we're talking about. The Supreme Court interprets the Law of the Land, and their decisions have a direct and profound effect on the lives of every citizen in this country. Their decision are not open to debate, they have the final say. Their opinions offer up nor accept variety.

1)Attack? I wasn't attacking. I meant that as endearing moniker sent with love. As far as the hypothetical, you pick it. You brought it up.

2)You are right about one thing...I do not care at all whether a Supreme Court justice is gay or straight. Not in the slightest way. They in fact do, as you say, interpret the law of the land, and their decisions have direct and profound effect on the lives of every citizen in this country. That means gay, straight, black, white, short, tall, skinny, fat, etc. I want and expect a fair and balanced response from the court as whole. Having a bunch of yes men (and/ or women)
beholden to the right isn't likely to accomplish that.

By the way, what are you wearing right now?

 

[RLENT]

1)by the way, what are you wearing right now?

lol ....

 

[Turtle]

2)You are right about one thing...I do not care at all whether a Supreme Court justice is gay or straight. Not in the slightest way. They in fact do, as you say, interpret the law of the land, and their decisions have direct and profound effect on the lives of every citizen in this country. That means gay, straight, black, white, short, tall, skinny, fat, etc. I want and expect a fair and balanced response from the court as whole. Having a bunch of yes men (and/ or women) beholden to the right isn't likely to accomplish that.

That's just it, I don't want a fair and balanced response from the court as a whole, or in part, since their job doesn't have anything to do with fair and balanced. Their job is to unpassionately interpret the Constitutionality of the law of the cases brought before them without regard to fair and balanced, or even hurt feelings. It's the laws themselves that are supposed to deal with fair and balanced, not the Constitutionality of them. The law of the case is either Constitutional, or it's not.

But all of them have to put their own feelings and agendas into their interpretations. That's bad enough, but do we really want someone who thinks the abnormal and the anormal is normal, and then using that mental frame base to make decisions that effect everybody? Not me. Not only would it not be fair, it absolutely wouldn't be balanced.
(killer pun, no? )

By the way, what are you wearing right now?

Nothing, of course. I'm always nekkid while on the computer.

Earlier today, after I delivered my load, I went to the beach here in sunny Miami to play on the computer. People kept dumping large pales of sea water on me. I heard one call me Orca. I told them I was with PETA, and it's either this or fur. Then one called me a cop. I'm not at the beach anymore.

 

[AMonger]

Well, according the Patriot Act, you are a terrorist for merely planning or being tempted to perform a terrorist act.

Notice how (WHY) they had to specify that: because they're carving out an exception. If it were normally true, a la Minority Report, that you're guilty of something before you do it, they wouldn't have had to include that language. You can see the difference by comparing it to other criminal acts. And actually, I don't think they mention temptation, just planning.

Regardless, using your "temptation" logic, which is founded in religion,

...and that's a problem, how?

people give in to temptation because they were enticed or allured to do something, and they are bad for giving in to temptation that you're not supposed to give in to. That's a religious moral argument. That's OK, and I don't have a problem with it, other than it's the argument that is really the only way to not have God culpable in the defective creation of his creations - it must be a result of free will, purely a choice of the individual. Anything else would bring God into the mix, we'd have God actually creating homosexuals, and we just can't have that, now can we? No, it must be free will, a choice. Nothing else is acceptable.

No, that's not the reason. It's self-evident. Homosexuals don't slip and fall into each other's rectums; they go there on purpose, based on a conscious decision. Therefore, homosexuality is a choice. Their desire for another man's booty might not be a choice. Maybe it's a birth defect or God knows what else. But the act, and therefore whether or not they're a homosexual, is a choice.

The same is true for heterosexuals and heterosexual sins. Johnny and Janie are dating and want each other real bad. Do they engage in premarital sex or don't they? If they do, is it by their nature that they did, or did they choose to do so? It's rather obvious that they chose. Their desires sure made things difficult for them, but in the end (no pun intended in a thread about homosexuality), they chose.

Similarly, if Adam and Steve want each other, whether they decide to commit homosexual sin is a choice they make.

That's a little creepy, especially since you're talking about the woman I love. I would prefer, as a choice, to not be in love with her, but it happened. I didn't make a conscious decision to fall in love with her, but I did, that's how it is, no temptation or thinking about the temptation involved.

At least you're being consistent. Still wrong, but consistent. That love is a feeling over which you have no control is false. Love isn't a feeling. When you put someone's welfare over your own, that's an act of love. The feelings you have for someone, probably biochemical in nature, are infatuation. Nothing wrong with it, but it's not love.

I would much prefer to be in love with someone who loves me back, or at least knows I exist (beyond the restraining order, of course), but alas that is not to be the case.

You, too? How many has she taken out on you? I'm wallpapering my bedroom with them.

Who you fall in love with, who you are attracted to, is not a choice.

Again, perhaps a biochemical reaction is responsible for the infatuation. But it has nothing to do with love. Perhaps the confusion over love and infatuation is one of the reasons the divorce rate is so high. One day they're "in love," and later, after the infatuation wears off, they're not, and the fact that they don't truly love each other and never did precludes them from placing each other's needs over their own desires. Have you ever heard a song more pathetic than, "Please release me, let me go?" "To waste our lives would be a sin...

Again, you're stuck on the moral argument. Temptation, gambling, drinking, sex and sex acts (and the use of pitying her soul), these are the cornerstones of religious fundamentalist morality

Being that it's a moral issue...

Ever woke up with a ?

Of course. And then the choice of what I did with it was mine, just like every body else.

But please don't tell me that you think that what society deems acceptable is also what God deems acceptable,

It's supposed to be the other way around.

and unless God deems it acceptable, that society should reject it.

That's exactly what I'm telling you.

Truth does not change because it is or is not believed by a majority of the people.

Glad to hear you believe that. Because it's only been recently that people believed your point of view--that homosexuality is an orientation. For the thousands of years of prior human history, homosexuality was defined by what people did. Now the majority seems to believe as you, but as you agree, the numbers don't change the facts. But have you noticed that before the shift, society was better off? Fewer divorces, fewer families broken, fewer diseases, etc?

That's the moral argument, the same one which cannot allow for evolution. It's an argument that demands that you believe that all people are created, by God, to be heterosexual, that God cannot make mistakes (even if those mistakes are not mistakes at all, and he did them absolutely on purpose, but you just don't understand them),

We have birth defects, too. God didn't create mankind with Down's Syndrome in mind, but the defects have creeped into our genome. Whether homosexual desire is such a defect, I don't know.

and that homosexuality can only be the result of someone breaking away from God's will and defying God in giving in to temptation of the Devil and OMG self pleasure.

Being that homosexuality is based on an act, unless God pulls their strings like a puppeteer, forcing them to have sex against their will, then it's obviously based on such a choice.

Wow, that's quite a piece of litmus paper ya got there. Even people who are absolutely attracted to and sexually tempted by others of the same sex and have no desire, yay no temptation of having sex with someone of the opposite sex, and who think it's perfectly normal to be that way, are find and dandy in your book, solely because they haven't had actual homosexual sex, yet.

Just as I have little to no problem with someone who is tempted to steal but doesn't because he knows it's wrong...

Never mind the fact that they want to, really, really badly, and very likely will, everything's still A-OK until they actually pull the trigger, as it were. Wow.

...just as I have a problem with the guy who's tempted to steal and then does. Think of an alcoholic who gets smashed and then goes home and beats his wife and kids. If he stops drinking and never repeats that behavior, in defiance of his desire to, that's pretty admirable. Likewise, someone who's tempted to engage in sexual perversion but fights it and doesn't do it is fighting a good fight. I admire him or her. Feelings and urges are hard to resist. I admire their willpower.

 

[Turtle]

Well, according the Patriot Act, you are a terrorist for merely planning or being tempted to perform a terrorist act.

Notice how (WHY) they had to specify that: because they're carving out an exception. If it were normally true, a la Minority Report, that you're guilty of something before you do it, they wouldn't have had to include that language. You can see the difference by comparing it to other criminal acts. And actually, I don't think they mention temptation, just planning.

That's just it, though, they aren't carving out an exception and we absolutely have Minority Report-esque thought crime laws. I used the Patriot Act simply as being one of the most obvious and most well known example of it. Temptation isn't specifically mentioned as it is wholly understood and is in concert with any planning, as without the temptation happening first, no planning would ensue.

As for other examples, as a driver of a commercial motor vehicle, if you have in your possession anywhere in the CMV a bottle of whiskey or some other perfectly legal-to-have alcoholic beverage, whether you are drinking it or not, whether you are on-duty or not, you are committing a crime simply by virtue that being in possession of it provides you the means to drink and drive, regardless of whether or not you actually do it.

A well publicized case recently had a man found guilty, and then upheld by the Minnesota Supreme Court, for sleeping while drunk in his own legally parked car at his apartment complex, with the keys inside the center console and not in the ignition, and the engine stone cold indicating the vehicle had not been driven recently. He was convicted of drunk driving because he had the means and the opportunity to drive while intoxicated. Not because he did, but because he could have.

Turns out the car was broken, wouldn't start, and wouldn't run even if given a jump, because the starter was bad, and had been for several days.

All it takes is to have "dominion and control" with the mere potential of not only drinking and driving, but it gets applied to many other "thought crimes" as well, including being a terrorist.

Another glaringly disturbing example is, if you, as an example, kill someone in cold blood, you should be tried (and convicted) of murder. However, if that someone just so happens to be a homosexual, whether you knew it at the time of the murder or not, you will be tried (and found guilty) of a hate crime, guilty of something that you might have been thinking, whether you were thinking it or not. We're now prosecuting criminals for what we think they were thinking, rather than for what they actually did.

On Wednesday April 7 of this year, an Elyria, Ohio man was arrested after a neighbor called police and reported that he was standing on his front porch holding a shotgun while having a "crazy look" on his face. Donald Ray Battiste was inside his house when the police arrived, and was ordered outside by police using a loudspeaker. He exited the house empty handed, and police determined he was drunk, as had has slurred speech and glassy eyes. When they asked him about the shotgun, he said he had one, just inside the front door, but it was a pellet gun that he had with him on the porch. He gave police permission to go into the house and get the gun, and upon inspection the police found two fully loaded pellet guns, one a pellet pistol and the other a pellet rifle, and one unloaded shotgun near the door. The shotgun had not been discharged, nor had either of the pellet guns, but according to police, since he was drunk and "had the ability to discharge a firearm could pose a danger to others," he was charged with using weapons while intoxicated, having weapons under disability, and disorderly conduct by intoxication.

Up in Canada they're even more blatant about it, where the Criminal Code Section 810 gives the police the right to arrest someone merely because the police or anyone else thinks they might commit a crime of a sexual or personal injury nature.

Regardless, using your "temptation" logic, which is founded in religion,

...and that's a problem, how?

Well, I never really said it was a problem, but since you brought it up, it becomes a problem because it's a morality based on a specific set of beliefs and a certain faith, and when you begin to impose your morality onto others you are demanding they think like you do. Aside from being astoundingly arrogant to think you are right and they are wrong simply because they don't think like you do, what if the situation were reversed and someone imposed their morality onto you, forcing to you live by their beliefs and by their faith? The fact that there is more than one religion suggests that you might just be wrong about some thing, no matter how right you think you are.

No, that's not the reason. It's self-evident. Homosexuals don't slip and fall into each other's rectums; they go there on purpose, based on a conscious decision. Therefore, homosexuality is a choice.

That's not self-evident, it's a classic illusory corollary, where the correlation between two things is an illusion because other factors were not considered or even recognized. You're too fixated on the act itself, rather than on what the act represents. Meaning....

Their desire for another man's booty might not be a choice. Maybe it's a birth defect or God knows what else. But the act, and therefore whether or not they're a homosexual, is a choice.

To state the act itself, and solely the act, is the only valid litmus test for homosexuality, is to defy common sense, human nature and humanity itself. To say the desire might not be a choice, but the act itself is, is again fooling with common sense and illusory corollaries. They might not have a desire for another man's booty at all. All humans have a deep-rooted need to be affectionate with the ones they love, often in a physical manner. The desire they have might be the same exact desire that heterosexual couples have, that of expressing their love for each other physically. It's just that with homosexuals that manner is obviously going to be different than with heterosexuals. You can't deny anyone this need simply because you don't agree with how they do it (OK, granted, you can if you're the State of Georgia, where certain things between married heterosexual couples are illegal).

The real problem comes in what the Bible actually says, when compared to how it gets interpreted. The Bible doesn't mention any specific acts of homosexuality. You get into where you have to start defining and interpreting things in certain ways. You have to interpret and define things like "lie with" to mean something both very specific and very broad at the same time. Since the act itself seems to be so important to you, I will infer that you are amongst those with the more broadly and commonly interpreted meaning of "lie with" to mean "have sex with". But the problem with that comes in what the Bible actually says. "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." It's quite impossible, for example, for a man to have sex with another man in the same way that a man has sex with a woman. Can't be done.

I cant believe you've got me defending homosexuality. But I'm really not. Not by a long shot.

The same is true for heterosexuals and heterosexual sins.

Sins? Really? It's awfully arrogant to impose your morality onto others. You're expecting others to think exactly like you, even though they may not have had the same religious upbringing and education, or they may have a completely different set of religious beliefs.

Johnny and Janie are dating and want each other real bad. Do they engage in premarital sex or don't they? If they do, is it by their nature that they did, or did they choose to do so? It's rather obvious that they chose. Their desires sure made things difficult for them, but in the end (no pun intended in a thread about homosexuality), they chose.

I submit that you turn it around completely. That knowing how powerful the drive to have sex is within humans, that it is absolutely in their human nature to have sex, and that since the notion of marriage and therefore premarital anything is purely religious based in origin, and as such artificially puts limits and constraints on sex based solely on religion, the only difficulty they encountered was dealing the external guilt placed upon them by religious forces who want to control their behavior and thought.

Similarly, if Adam and Steve want each other, whether they decide to commit homosexual sin is a choice they make.

Charging someone with committing a sin is no different than charging someone with not thinking they way you want them to. That's a very dangerous thing.

Keep in mind, morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.

At least you're being consistent. Still wrong, but consistent. That love is a feeling over which you have no control is false. Love isn't a feeling. When you put someone's welfare over your own, that's an act of love. The feelings you have for someone, probably biochemical in nature, are infatuation. Nothing wrong with it, but it's not love.

So you're extending this whole "think like me" extravaganza to include the proper meaning of love, too, and only as defined by Ephesians? That's the definition of Christian love. Do Jews, Buddhists, and other non-Christians never experience love?

Yeah, sure, putting someone's welfare over your own is indeed an act of love, and arguably the most important one, but it's not the only one. Love can be and has been defined in many ways by many people for many centuries. Believe it or not, words like "love" can and do have definitions outside of the Bible and is a word and meaning that predates Christianity. Biblical love cannot be separated from biblical righteousness. Christian love is drawn toward right and repulsed by wrong, and that's a good thing. But when you start limiting all forms of love to biblical love and righteousness you can get to a point where you are so full of right that you lose sight of what is good. You start telling people how to think, you start noticing specks in other's eyes while unable to see that log in your own, and you run the risk of becoming a critical and judgmental spirit with an unholy sense of superiority where you end up losing the power to forgive, and end up with the sinner and the sin being one in the same. That's a dangerous place to be.

Besides, what makes you think I'm not putting Jennifer's welfare and interests above mine? I am, you know.

You, too? How many has she taken out on you? I'm wallpapering my bedroom with them.

Just the one. I'm putting her interests above mine, remember? Ah, true love.

Again, perhaps a biochemical reaction is responsible for the infatuation. But it has nothing to do with love.

I dunno, God works in mysterious ways.

Perhaps the confusion over love and infatuation is one of the reasons the divorce rate is so high. One day they're "in love," and later, after the infatuation wears off, they're not, and the fact that they don't truly love each other and never did precludes them from placing each other's needs over their own desires.

Could be, I don't know. Infatuation lasts about a year, and then if true love doesn't set in pretty soon after that, it's over. It is interesting though that the divorce rate among professed Christians nearly mirrors that of the "unbelieving" world.

Have you ever heard a song more pathetic than, "Please release me, let me go?" "To waste our lives would be a sin...

You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, Know when to walk away and know when to run.
Same thing.

But please don't tell me that you think that what society deems acceptable is also what God deems acceptable,

It's supposed to be the other way around.

and unless God deems it acceptable, that society should reject it.

That's exactly what I'm telling you.

That is also exactly what Islam states.

Truth does not change because it is or is not believed by a majority of the people. Sorry, but yes I am. Orientation is a state of being, a pointed direction, or a relative position.

Glad to hear you believe that.

It's not a question of me believing it or not. Do not confuse "truth" with really, really, really believing it. That's what I mean by saying that "truth does not change because it is or is not believed by a majority of the people." That's actually a quote by Giordano Bruno, an Italian Dominican friar who postulated the universe was infinite, that there were an infinite number of worlds and that the stars were distant suns. He said the Earth was just one of countless heavenly bodies, as was the sun, and that the universe was not the static, permanent thing that the church said it was, but a dynamic combination of infinite space and infinite time.

He was burned at the stake in 1600 after being found guilty of heresy by the Roman Inquisition. He was executed for daring to have free thought.

Because it's only been recently that people believed your point of view--that homosexuality is an orientation. For the thousands of years of prior human history, homosexuality was defined by what people did. Now the majority seems to believe as you, but as you agree, the numbers don't change the facts.

Be very careful throwing that "fact" word around. It's far from a "fact" that it's a choice. It's simply what many people believe. Just because it was defined for thousands of years in one way, by a certain segment of the people on the planet, doesn't mean that it's the truth. The whole universe revolves around the Earth, right? That's what people believed, absolutely, for thousands of years. The actual truth was out there all the time, tho. There was a time, before Christianity, where homosexuality was not viewed strictly in terms of what people did, and all those thousands of years where people defined it as you do, there were other cultures that defined it in other ways. Well before Christianity China and Egypt both independently recorded homosexuality as an identity rather than an act.

The term "sexual orientation" is indeed a recent invention, invented as a normal part of social evolution as a social and historical construct to better explain certain things. You're right, in the 1700's homosexuality didn't even exist as an identity, it was strictly a case of what you did, namely sodomy. But that was largely only the case in western society. Not so in China, Japan, and parts of the Middle East.

But have you noticed that before the shift, society was better off? Fewer divorces, fewer families broken, fewer diseases, etc?

Fewer diseases? I don't think so. Under-reported, unreported, misdiagnosed, and misunderstood, sure, but fewer? Not hardly. I can't think of a single disease that appeared as a result of a social reclassification of homosexuality, and that includes AIDS. Saying that homosexuality is an orientation rather than a choice has little to no effect on divorce and broken families. There's a snotload of variables that have gone into the decline of the nuclear family unit, not the least of which is The Pill which removed a lot of social and personal dependence women had for men, and a lot of personally responsibility for all concerned. But that's another novel that I won't get into here.

We have birth defects, too. God didn't create mankind with Down's Syndrome in mind,...

How can you be so sure? There may be all kinds of reasons for Him doing so.

...but the defects have creeped into our genome. Whether homosexual desire is such a defect, I don't know.

Like I said before, I think it's a complex combination of nature and nurture. People are trying real hard to find a biological marker for it, tho. So far no luck. But if they ever do find it, the ramifications will be wild. For one, they might be able to "fix" it. Homosexuals really don't like that one, 'cause it means they're broken. Also, it brings The Creator into the mix, legitimizing homosexuality as being created by God, and homosexuals will ride that puppy for all it's worth. Why do you think they refuse to accept a legal Civil Union and instead will only accept Marriage? It's because they don't want equality, they want to beat religion who has beat them down for centuries, they want to win and win big. They know that even though it has become a social legality, marriage is at the core a religious institution, and they wanna win with a strike at the heart of religion. It won't be long before they try to get the Bible classified as "hate speech" because it condemns homosexuality.

Being that homosexuality is based on an act, unless God pulls their strings like a puppeteer, forcing them to have sex against their will, then it's obviously based on such a choice.

That's very easy for someone who would never make such a choice to say.

Just as I have little to no problem with someone who is tempted to steal but doesn't because he knows it's wrong...

...just as I have a problem with the guy who's tempted to steal and then does. Think of an alcoholic who gets smashed and then goes home and beats his wife and kids. If he stops drinking and never repeats that behavior, in defiance of his desire to, that's pretty admirable. Likewise, someone who's tempted to engage in sexual perversion but fights it and doesn't do it is fighting a good fight. I admire him or her. Feelings and urges are hard to resist. I admire their willpower.

You think it's a choice, because you would never make that choice, and because your religion tells you that it's a choice. That doesn't necessarily make it a choice. Just the same, people cannot control who they are attracted to or who they are aroused by. And whether you want to accept it or not, the natural thing for humans to do is to follow through on that attraction. But all you have to do is take a step back and look at it with common sense. Who would choose to be homosexual knowing that they are opening themselves up to ridicule, scorn and even violence by a vast majority of society? They can hope, wish and think that society accepts homosexuality as normal, but that ain't ever gonna happen.

I apologize for both the length and the number of inevitable typos.

 

[highway star]

.



Who would choose to be homosexual knowing that they are opening themselves up to ridicule, scorn and even violence by a vast majority of society?

The same kind of people that make choices like jumping out of an airplane, knowing that if the chute doesn't open it won't be good? I've been told that's not a good analogy, but I'm not so sure.

I find the "it's a choice" argument to, sometimes, be supported by the points of the other side. When you hear things like "I knew when I was 4 years old I was gay", well, c'mon, what a load. Statements like that support an argument that it's, at best, a choice based on some kind of confusion.

 

[greg334]

OK I think people are forgetting two important things;

crowd mentality coupled with the need to belong and be different at the same time drives people to do their 'own thing' but not

AND

that Christianity was also considered a cult, and people during the early years didn't always join (and renounce other religions) based on spiritual needs but because of the first reason.

 

[AMonger]

Ok, we're losing a lot of important stuff here. I don't like the way the forum chops off previously quoted material. This is becoming less clear, rather than more. Nevertheless, we can muddle through.

That's just it, though, they aren't carving out an exception and we absolutely have Minority Report-esque thought crime laws.

As for other examples, as a driver of a commercial motor vehicle, if you have in your possession anywhere in the CMV a bottle of whiskey or some other perfectly legal-to-have alcoholic beverage, whether you are drinking it or not, whether you are on-duty or not, you are committing a crime

A well publicized case recently had a man found guilty, and then upheld by the Minnesota Supreme Court, for sleeping while drunk in his own legally parked car ... He was convicted of drunk driving because he had the means and the opportunity to drive while intoxicated. Not because he did, but because he could have.

Turns out the car was broken, wouldn't start, and wouldn't run even if given a jump, because the starter was bad, and had been for several days.

All it takes is to have "dominion and control" ...

Most of these, as I pointed out before, are, well, I don't know if exceptions is the right word, but they are specific instances of how a given law has specified that certain precursors will be treated the same as actually having done it. I didn't mean to imply that PATRIOT was the only example. But they're specified in the given laws precisely because the legislature wanted to treat the precursors of the crime as the crime itself. Because of that (with exceptions, such as the drunk "driving" case you mentioned, which is a different problem), they specify in the law that you're also guilty if you do such-and-such. The operative principle here being that they had to say it, because everybody can see the difference in wanting to do something and actually doing it.

The Minnesota problem appears to be slightly different, that of encroachment. You watch baseball? Sometimes a pitcher will throw one on the corner. If it gets called a strike, he'll throw one slightly farther out. If that gets called a strike, he'll go out a little bit more, until something gets called a ball. Then he'll do the same with the other corner. He's expanding the strike zone. That's what cops and prosecutors do. Not that it's entirely relevant here, but...

if you, as an example, kill someone in cold blood, you should be tried (and convicted) of murder. However, if that someone just so happens to be a homosexual, whether you knew it at the time of the murder or not, you will be tried (and found guilty) of a hate crime,...

More stretching of the strike zone, though I have yet to hear an example of applying the hate crime statute against someone who didn't even know their victim was gay. I guess I wouldn't be surprised, though. And while we're at it, let's be clear: the hate crime statute itself flies into the face of everything reasonable and decent. It's immoral and unethical. So does it occur? Yes, but it's wrong.

...

Up in Canada they're even more blatant about it, where the Criminal Code Section 810 gives the police the right to arrest someone merely because the police or anyone else thinks they might commit a crime of a sexual or personal injury nature.

Don't get me started about the GWN. They do all sorts of things contrary to reason and what we would call the law.

...and a certain faith, and when you begin to impose your morality onto others you are demanding they think like you do. Aside from being astoundingly arrogant to think you are right and they are wrong simply because they don't think like you do, what if the situation were reversed and someone imposed their morality onto you, forcing to you live by their beliefs and by their faith? The fact that there is more than one religion suggests that you might just be wrong about some thing, no matter how right you think you are.

Oh, I readily admit that I might be wrong about some beliefs, but you have to consider what belief is. When you say you believe something, you're saying you believe it to be a fact. If you don't believe it to be a fact, then you don't believe it. So how can I say that my religion is right and the religion of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is wrong? Not because I prefer my religion over theirs, but because I believe mine to be fact. And my belief doesn't precede fact; the fact exists and then I attach myself to it or I don't. Its factuality isn't based on what I, a fallible human, believe. So when my religion says it's wrong to do such-and-such, I believe that to be a fact, globally, not just for me. If it were just for me it would be a mere preference.

To state the act itself, and solely the act, is the only valid litmus test for homosexuality, is to defy common sense, human nature and humanity itself. To say the desire might not be a choice, but the act itself is, is again fooling with common sense and illusory corollaries. They might not have a desire for another man's booty at all. All humans have a deep-rooted need to be affectionate with the ones they love, often in a physical manner. The desire they have might be the same exact desire that heterosexual couples have, that of expressing their love for each other physically.

Just the opposite is true, because their desire to commit perverse acts is something they can choose to act on or not. They still have the choice. Ever been offered sex? You have the ability, regardless of your desire, to accept or reject the offer. That's it's an urge doesn't change that.

Sins? Really? It's awfully arrogant to impose your morality onto others. You're expecting others to think exactly like you, even though they may not have had the same religious upbringing and education, or they may have a completely different set of religious beliefs.

So if their religion says murder isn't a sin, then it isn't? God, the one true God, Yahweh, Father of Jesus Christ, defines sin. It matters not whether a Buddhist (or whoever) has other beliefs; it's still a sin. You're free to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but that won't make you less wrong.

I submit that you turn it around completely. That knowing how powerful the drive to have sex is within humans, that it is absolutely in their human nature to have sex, and that since the notion of marriage and therefore premarital anything is purely religious based in origin,

That doesn't make it incorrect. It is still within their power to do it or not do it, much like how we discussed what I'd like to do with Jennifer Aniston. The drive might be there; whether or not I gratify myself that way is still up to me, regardless of my desire, regardless of how strong it is.

We're not beasts. We don't operate on instinct. If you leave food where a dog can get it and it takes it, don't you scold yourself for leaving it where he could get it? He's a beast, operating largely on instinct. You're a human, operating on intelligence. You have a choice whether or not to do things, just like Elton John, Ellen Degeneres, Nathan Lane or anybody else. That it's an urge doesn't mean you have to do something or be held blameless when you do.

and as such artificially puts limits and constraints on sex based solely on religion, the only difficulty they encountered was dealing the external guilt placed upon them by religious forces who want to control their behavior and thought.

My pastor and sunday school teacher have no interest on controlling me for its own sake, or for money, or any other temporal thing. They believe that the Bible accurately recounts God's standards, that there are blessing for obedience and penalties for disobedience. They then tell me those things. Fact precedes belief. The restraints aren't there because of religion; the religion is there because God, Who mandated the restraints, exists.

Charging someone with committing a sin is no different than charging someone with not thinking they way you want them to. That's a very dangerous thing.

No, charging someone with sin is to say that have deviated from God's standards of right and wrong.

If someone broke into your house and stole your new plasma TV or stereo or whatever, and then told you that their religion okays that, would you shrug your shoulders and say that you don't want to impose your morality on him? Or would you still have him arrested and prosecuted?

Infatuation lasts about a year, and then if true love doesn't set in pretty soon after that, it's over. It is interesting though that the divorce rate among professed Christians nearly mirrors that of the "unbelieving" world.

It's sad, the degree to which Christians have adopted the views of the world around us. Surveys show our beliefs largely mirror those of non-believers. We conduct our lives accordingly, and suffer the consequences of our actions.

Be very careful throwing that "fact" word around. It's far from a "fact" that it's a choice. It's simply what many people believe. Just because it was defined for thousands of years in one way, by a certain segment of the people on the planet, doesn't mean that it's the truth. ...

Well before Christianity China and Egypt both independently recorded homosexuality as an identity rather than an act.

I don't know that to be a fact, but if it is, it's a good thing Western Civilization arose, isn't it?

Fewer diseases? I don't think so. Under-reported, unreported, misdiagnosed, and misunderstood, sure, but fewer? Not hardly. I can't think of a single disease that appeared as a result of a social reclassification of homosexuality, and that includes AIDS. Saying that homosexuality is an orientation rather than a choice has little to no effect on divorce and broken families.

Fewer diseases, yes. Neither genital herpes or AIDS existed thousands of years ago. And it's not the reclassification of homosexuality itself that's responsible, but once people started believing they're born that way and shouldn't restrain themselves from sexual perversion, once it became falsely equated with skin color or ethnicity, society lost much of the distaste that properly accompanies "the sin that dare not speak its name." Note that that sin loudly shouts its name now. This doesn't go only for homosexual sin, but sexual sins in general, and disease spreads. One-third of all adults in America have genital herpes now. Unheard of in years past. No one could have imagined that a hundred years ago, even if you explained to them what genital herpes was.

Me: "Being that homosexuality is based on an act, unless God pulls their strings like a puppeteer, forcing them to have sex against their will, then it's obviously based on such a choice."

You: That's very easy for someone who would never make such a choice to say.

No, it's plainly observable. If Elton puts a part of his body into Lance's rectum, it's because he chose to put it there. Unless we're talking about someone with a gun to his head, but let's not go there.

Look, if Jennifer Aniston is passed out, I could take the opportunity and have my way with her. The urges, both in general for me to have sex, and specific, that I find her the most beautiful woman to ever set her foot on the planet Earth, are present. If I do take advantage of her unconsciousness, do you excuse me by saying that I'm programmed to want sex, or do you expect me to have more self-control than a beast?

You think it's a choice, because you would never make that choice, and because your religion tells you that it's a choice.

Nope. Fact precedes belief. I believe it because it's a fact, not the other way around.

That doesn't necessarily make it a choice. Just the same, people cannot control who they are attracted to or who they are aroused by.

Probably false, to a degree, anyway, but for the sake of argument, let's go with that...

And whether you want to accept it or not, the natural thing for humans to do is to follow through on that attraction.

Whether they do or not is entirely in their control. They're not machines; they're not beasts. They have free will. They can choose to do it or not. That's indisputable fact.

But all you have to do is take a step back and look at it with common sense. Who would choose to be homosexual knowing that they are opening themselves up to ridicule, scorn and even violence by a vast majority of society?

Elton enjoys the physical sensations of sex, and wants to insert Rod A into Aperture B. He either does or he doesn't. He may have the urge to do so, but whether he does or not is up to him. If he does, he chose to gratify his urge over whatever he perceived to be the penalty, which is the social approbation you mention. His urge to gratify himself outweighed any desire to not be seen as a homosexual. He weighed the two, however briefly, and reached for the Anal-ease.

I just ate at the buffet. I'm overweight. I could have eaten sensibly. I chose not to. I can say, "I wish I wasn't overweight," but I am overweight because I indulge my urge to eat mass quantities of food. Day by day, meal by meal, I prefer overeating over my relatively superficial desire to not be overweight.

Eating is an urge. Not only do we desire it, our bodies will begin to demand food if we deny it. That doesn't happen with sex. So here I am with this urge to eat, and I choose to overindulge in it. I could choose to eat sensibly, but I don't, and my penalty is being overweight.

It's like the comic who said he was hanging out with a fat friend. They were watching a movie. The fat guy says, "Look at Brad Pitt...if I had his money, I could look like that." To which the comedian replied, "If you had his money, you'd just buy better food."

The likely SCOTUS nominee is said to have perverse sexual urges. She could recognize that her urges are perverse and control them. She chooses not to. The penalty is that she's regarded as a sexual pervert and is being opposed in her bid for SCOTUS (this is song about Alice, remember Alice?). Simple.

 

[Turtle]

"My pastor and sunday school teacher have no interest on controlling me for its own sake, or for money, or any other temporal thing. They believe that the Bible accurately recounts God's standards, that there are blessing for obedience and penalties for disobedience. They then tell me those things. Fact precedes belief."

People have a deep need to be validated in their beliefs. They will recruit and indoctrinate as many people as they can to their way of thinking, and they will use a wide variety of means to convince others to think the same way they do, including using basic emotions as a catalyst to engender belief. Saying that fact precedes belief is true, but by definition a faith in something that is absolutely unprovable cannot be a fact. And it's certainly not a fact just because a large number of people believe it, nor is it a fact just because you believe in it a really, really lot.


"So if their religion says murder isn't a sin, then it isn't? God, the one true God, Yahweh, father or Jesus Christ, defines sin."

Actually, no, it's not a sin if their religion says it's not. It might be wrong, but it's not a sin within their religion if their one true God says it's not. To say that God defines sin, you must first assume to be fact something that is absolutely unprovable.


"If someone broke into your house and stole your new plasma TV or stereo or whatever, and then told you that their religion okays that, would you shrug your shoulders and say that you don't want to impose your morality on him? Or would you still have him arrested and prosecuted?"

No, I'd shrug my shoulders and tell him that I will not allow him to impose his morality on me. The separate issue of him breaking a law that society has adopted for itself is one that he will have to deal with independently of my own morality. I may or may not have him prosecuted.


"I don't know that to be a fact, but if it is, it's a good thing Western Civilization rose, isn't it?"

I don't know if it is or not. It's kind of like my position on a One World Government - I'm all for it, so long as that one government is ours.


"Oh, I readily admit that I might be wrong about some beliefs, but you have to consider what belief is. When you say you believe something, you're saying you believe it to be a fact. If you don't believe it to be a fact, then you don't believe it."

There's a big difference from believing something to be a fact, and in in saying because you believe it to be fact therefore it is fact regardless of what other people believe.

I'm not arrogant enough to say that there is no God and therefore you shall not believe, anymore than I'm arrogant enough to say that there is and therefore you shall believe. I don't like other people telling me how to think, especially if it differs from my own beliefs, therefore I will not be so arrogant as to tell others how to think. It's not up to me, no matter how strongly I believe it, to set the standards for others to follow, and then condemn them if they don't.


"So how can I say that my religion is right and the religion of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is wrong? Not because I prefer my religion of theirs, but because I believe mine to be fact."

Because you believe it to be fact. It might be a fact, might not be, but it's your belief that makes the call. If you can demonstrate unambiguously that your belief is an actual fact without using the concept of belief or faith, then you might be on to something real. Otherwise, it's nothing more than an opinion.


"And my belief doesn't precede fact; the fact exists and then I attach myself to it or I don't. Its factuality isn't based on what I, a fallible human, believe."

But you just got through saying, "When you say you believe something, you're saying you believe it to be a fact." So the factuality itself is fully based on what you, a fallible human, believe to be fact. You might be wrong, you know, what with being fallible and all that. Just because you believe it was a fact before you believed in it, doesn't mean it was, in fact, a fact. All that thinking does is bolster your own validation in your beliefs. People don't like to be wrong, so they will use everything they can to make their case for a belief as strong as they can, to validate themselves and their beliefs. And that's fine, right up until you start imposing those beliefs onto others.


"So when my religion says it's wrong to do such-and-such, I believe that to be a fact, globally, not just for me. If it were just for me it would be a mere preference."

That's exactly what the Qur'an says, actually. It's one thing to believe in a certain way and live your life accordingly, but it's quite another to try and force your beliefs onto others.

 

[greg334]

... Nathan Lane ...

You implying that Nathan Lane may be gay?

 

[AMonger]

You implying that Nathan Lane may be gay?

Hard to believe, huh?

 

[AMonger]

"My pastor and sunday school teacher have no interest on controlling me for its own sake, or for money, or any other temporal thing. They believe that the Bible accurately recounts God's standards, that there are blessing for obedience and penalties for disobedience. They then tell me those things. Fact precedes belief."

People have a deep need to be validated in their beliefs. They will recruit and indoctrinate as many people as they can to their way of thinking, and they will use a wide variety of means to convince others to think the same way they do, including using basic emotions as a catalyst to engender belief.

Amazing that that's how you see church and Sunday school.

Saying that fact precedes belief is true, but by definition a faith in something that is absolutely unprovable cannot be a fact. And it's certainly not a fact just because a large number of people believe it, nor is it a fact just because you believe in it a really, really lot.

Not true. That something is provable is not what's required of something to be a fact, unless you're in a court of law.

You know that scientists and biologists still don't know what marine life exists down farther than our instruments and submersibles can go in the Marianas Trench? Every once in a while, some undiscovered species comes up far enough to be discovered. But prior to its discovery, its existence was a fact, just a fact of which we weren't aware. So even though I can't put God in a test tube or tell you His atomic weight or half-life doesn't affect the nature of His being, which is a fact. If I somehow am able to do so next week, His existence doesn't become a fact next week; it was always so. So if His existence is a fact, His statutes are and were valid prior to that point.

"So if their religion says murder isn't a sin, then it isn't? God, the one true God, Yahweh, father or Jesus Christ, defines sin."

Actually, no, it's not a sin if their religion says it's not. It might be wrong, but it's not a sin within their religion if their one true God says it's not. To say that God defines sin, you must first assume to be fact something that is absolutely unprovable.

Ok, you're risking crossing the that separates uninformed from ridiculous. Something that God, Yahweh, Father of Jesus Christ, says is sin is sin regardless of to which religion you subscribe. On Judgement Day, neither you nor anyone else will be able to claim that you were following your religion, and X wasn't a sin in your religion. That it wasn't a sin in your or Mohammed's religion is irrelevant. Their "one true god" doesn't exist. If I'm right, then the Mohammedans and Buddhists et al are wrong; we'll find out which on Judgement Day (I know the results in advance, and to return to the topic, Elton, Ellen, Nathan, et al had better begin a re-evaluation of their actions). It doesn't matter what their religion says is or isn't a sin, unless they turn out to be right, and me wrong, as is covered in this hilarious comedy bit: YouTube - The Devil in Mr Bean

"Oh, I readily admit that I might be wrong about some beliefs, but you have to consider what belief is. When you say you believe something, you're saying you believe it to be a fact. If you don't believe it to be a fact, then you don't believe it."

There's a big difference from believing something to be a fact, and in in saying because you believe it to be fact therefore it is fact regardless of what other people believe.

That's what I believe, too. It's not a fact because I believe it; facts are facts regardless of my or anyone else's belief.

I'm not arrogant enough to say that there is no God and therefore you shall not believe, anymore than I'm arrogant enough to say that there is and therefore you shall believe. I don't like other people telling me how to think, especially if it differs from my own beliefs, therefore I will not be so arrogant as to tell others how to think. It's not up to me, no matter how strongly I believe it, to set the standards for others to follow, and then condemn them if they don't.

I don't disagree with that. You've mentioned a few times how it's the followers of the Qu'ran that believe in forcing others to follow what they believe, and that appears to be right. I, otoh, say that what I believe is right, and if I'm right, one ignores it to his detriment. Just like the assumed SCOTUS nominee-to-be and others like her, she ignores God's standards but will pay the price later. I don't propose jailing her or anyone else that disagrees with me. It's not my place to punish her. The One who will is far better at it than me.

"So how can I say that my religion is right and the religion of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is wrong? Not because I prefer my religion of theirs, but because I believe mine to be fact."

Because you believe it to be fact. It might be a fact, might not be, but it's your belief that makes the call. If you can demonstrate unambiguously that your belief is an actual fact without using the concept of belief or faith, then you might be on to something real. Otherwise, it's nothing more than an opinion.

An opinion that will eventually be proven true or false.

 

[Turtle]

Amazing that that's how you see church and Sunday school.

Well, of course, it's not quite that simplistic, but yeah, it's part of it. It's not like I never sent to Sunday School or Church. I did. I was raised in the church, active in the church, can count on one hand how many times prior to the age of about 23 that I missed Sunday School or Church, sang in the choir every Sunday, youth and adult, and was a member of the brass choir in high school and college. It's not like I'm some crackpot coming at this from a point of ignorance.

Not true. That something is provable is not what's required of something to be a fact, unless you're in a court of law.

Being able to prove it isn't the only requirement of what constitutes fact, but the fact in question must exist or have actually occurred within reality. A belief that it exists or has occurred, no matter hard hard you believe it, nor how many believe it, doesn't make it a fact unless it actually exists or has occurred.

You know that scientists and biologists still don't know what marine life exists down farther than our instruments and submersibles can go in the Marianas Trench? Every once in a while, some undiscovered species comes up far enough to be discovered. But prior to its discovery, its existence was a fact, just a fact of which we weren't aware.

In a sense, that's true, but until the known existence of it, until it's actual discovery, it's existence could not be stated as fact. That's actually the very definition of a theory, and of the scientific method of "observation and experiment" to to prove or disprove all or part of the theory.

So even though I can't put God in a test tube or tell you His atomic weight or half-life doesn't affect the nature of His being, which is a fact.

Unless and until you can prove it, it's still just a theory, no matter how strongly you believe it. Sorry, but that's just how it is. It's also why it's called "faith", duh.

If I somehow am able to do so next week, His existence doesn't become a fact next week; it was always so. So if His existence is a fact, His statutes are and were valid prior to that point.

If next week you were able to prove his existence, then it is next week in which his existence becomes a fact, a reality, an incontestable, incontrovertible fact, and whether or not his existence was "always so" would require additional proof, as well. Discovering life at the bottom of the oceans is proof that it exists, not proof that it always did.

It's a logical fallacy to use an actual fact within reality, like the discovery of new marine life, and then say because it (almost certainly) existed before we discovered it, then you should have believed it as a fact before we discovered it. And that's exactly what you are arguing, that we should believe in God, because one day his existence might be discovered in reality and therefor proven. At best you're in line for a really good, "I told you so," but until then, it's a theory, nothing more.

Ok, you're risking crossing the that separates uninformed from ridiculous.

I may very well be ridiculous, but I guarantee you I am not informed.

Something that God, Yahweh, Father of Jesus Christ, says is sin is sin regardless of to which religion you subscribe.

That's an arrogance based purely on faith, that your God is the only one true God and that you're absolutely stone cold right about it. What if you're wrong?

On Judgement Day, neither you nor anyone else will be able to claim that you were following your religion, and X wasn't a sin in your religion. That it wasn't a sin in your or Mohammed's religion is irrelevant. Their "one true god" doesn't exist. If I'm right, then the Mohammedans and Buddhists et al are wrong; we'll find out which on Judgement Day (I know the results in advance, and to return to the topic, Elton, Ellen, Nathan, et al had better begin a re-evaluation of their actions). It doesn't matter what their religion says is or isn't a sin, unless they turn out to be right, and me wrong, as is covered in this hilarious comedy bit: YouTube - The Devil in Mr Bean

He's got several really funny religious bits. But even Judgment Day itself is an assumption based on religious belief. Even the definition of religion itself speaks to a set of beliefs and practices agreed upon by a number of persons or groups. It's all based on faith, and not in facts nor reality.

Make no mistake, I have not nor will not tell someone they should not believe in what they believe, whatever that may be, unless I can actually prove to them otherwise. I will, however, tell them straight up to stop telling me to believe the same things they do solely because they believe it and because it's the right thing to believe. They have to prove otherwise, too.

An opinion that will eventually be proven true or false.

There ya go.