BrainDrain if amoeboids created life, the universe and everything then posting wether they are gay or not would be no problem. Of course amoeba are asexual and their procreation supports Darwinism. The lab assistant did not create them , he merely fed them. As for God if he is what the Bible or Quran claims he is he is, he is well able to respond , which he hasnt which means if he exists he is definetely gay. Lets see what God himself personally has to say about that?

“You can distinguish between a person, a tendency, and a behaviour. Many people feel strong heterosexual attractions that they choose not to pursue. Some people choose total celibacy.”

Indeed.

In the christian view a heterosexual may pursue one sexual attraction, or none. A homosexual person may pursue none. In the christian view, this is not unjustified discrimination.

Just to relate this back to the original article, Johnson argued that a christian beliefs should mandate against this kind of unjust discrimination. (In fact in many honourable cases they do.) That Kevin Rudd chooses to ignore it reveals his social conservatism.

Westy,

Forgive my failing - it is very dificult for me to tell if you intend for people to take your arguments, and what you pass off as logic, seriously or if you just jest.

Perhaps also i was being a little too subtle?

Allow me to redress that fault.

Man is so inferior to anything capable of bringing into existance the Universe and everything in it (and surely something did, be it a Big Bang or the entity that may have 'ignited' it in the first place) that direct communication between it (lets use the euphemism man has created and call 'him' God) and humans is effectively impossible - indeed there has never been a single provable example of such unambiguous communication as you require as 'proof'. Numerous people have claimed and even written of their 'one on one' communication with God or an intermediary such as an Angel or talking flaming bush or column of smoke but these examples generally take the form of God 'touching' their hearts and/or minds in a unique way followed by the 'recipient' translating the 'message' into normal human communication formats.

It is as impossible as a lab technician communicating with an amoeba in a language that the amoeba could understand and 'reflect' upon its meaning to amoebakind, despite the vastly superior intellect and amoeba-universe altering abilities of the technician.

Denying that such an entity as God exists because he doesn't answer your challenge in the way you demand makes as much sense as saying the lab technician is a figment of an amoeba's imagination.

Assuming any semi-evolved ape is capable of proving or disproving the existance of God using his limited consciousness alone is equally as futile.

Are you able to detect and possibly even accept the logic posed here? (just the Logic - not a 'proof' of God's existance?)

Neither can God's 'refusal' to respond to humankind personally be taken under any law of logic to prove that he is Gay (which 'he' is, for reasons stated previously)

God has spoken! (through me, his humble messenger in Oz) ; )

Boaz,

Having just ploughed through Deuteronomy, I feel I can now reengage.

“It is a great temptation to spiritualize things like weather and sickness.”

No, it isn’t a temptation, it’s just plain ignorant.

The problem I have with our discussions is I’m never quite sure if that is what you’re doing or not. You seem to toy with the idea that plagues, famines, wars and other misfortunes are the punishment from a supernatural being for being naughty or being “spiritually wayward” (more specifically for breaking a “covenant”), and then you pull back. You’re a tease.

Deuteronomy sets out a worldview in which a particular tribe sets up an agreement with their imaginary deity: we’ll behave in particular way, and you won’t smite us. In doing so, they rationalize their genocide of the people they’ve just invaded (or are just about to invade). They also codify a set of social norms – some adaptive and sensible, some that can only make sense in their particular time and place and some that are just plain weird, at least from a 21st century humanist’s point of view. Yes, it’s true, people sometimes thought that way, and even today some still do. People are puzzling, huh?

I wasn’t thinking of the Israelites as my primordial religion (where a priestly class cracks the calendar code and thus manages to predict the rains and the floods) but I don’t they’re all that many stages further on. The principle that fortune and misfortune are a function of the relationship between a people and supernatural beings or other forces belongs, I think, in anthropology and history, not current social policy.

I don’t have anything against religion, as such. On another thread, FellowHuman suggested instead of praying for rain we should pray for a water policy. Like most Muslims, quite a lot of Christians and Hindus, and nearly all Buddhists he seems to realize that prayer (or meditation) work by focusing human attention, not by appeasing or manipulating imaginary supernatural beings. As an atheist humanist I can see the value in this.

Just not sure if that’s your take.

West,

The other issue is whether a lab assistance who knew an abusive amoeba was insulting him and demanding that he do something would comply in any event.

“Sexuality although genetically influenced also depends on hard wiring of the brain. When a heterosexual male sees a female with curvy hips, full bottom and large breasts his brain receives those attributes as signs to a potential healthy child bearing attributes and that translates to sexual arousal and it is the sexual arousal which the mind focuses on.”

I have known males who like skinny women with small breasts and some who like women with fake breasts. When Titanic was showing many women found a very non masculine De Caprio appealing. Mick Jagger had a big female following in the seventies and some fans even considered him good looking. Now The Rock and Arnie seems to be causing most female drooling although they are exaggeratedly masculine. In a laboratory setting males have been trained to be sexually aroused by a tube of toothpaste squeezed by high heels. What that says about the experimenters who thought up the experiment I’ll leave people to make up their own mind about. However the point is that we are complicated creatures. Men aren’t just hell bent on voluptuous women with big boobs and women are destined to get weak legged at the sight of a hunk. Environment is clearly a big factor.

W,

Kevin who? Why are you bringing that into this forum? ( ;

He didn’t ignore it. He just didn’t emphasize it in the way you would want him to. Is it possible that you might be a little too close to the issue?

“Rudd rightly criticises the Religious Right for promoting a view of Christian morality that emphasises, “questions of sexuality and sexual behaviour”.”

BD,
“God has spoken! (through me, his humble messenger in Oz) ; )”

LOL

mjpb for all your posturing it is what you say based on your imagination and the prejudices inherent in your formalised and institutionalised superstition. God has never spoken. It is you that is expressing a hatred of homosexuals, not god. Nobody has ever come into contact with God no matter what antique fiction such as the Bible or the Quran claims.
Both those fairytales were written by and for people interested only in power. Everybody who speaks for God is claiming they are God. If you accept the fairytale of the Bible as something more than fantasy, the Bible defines God in genesis which literally describes God as a Homosexual. Christians have to face the fact they are either worshipping homosexuality or worshipping false idols. As nobody has ever come into contact with God(s), every God is a false idol; every claim of God is a false claim. Kevin Rudd is speaking about Church politics, not nature.