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Observations and Epiphanies... Choosing life. Classic liberalism. Small L libertarianism. Conserving Western Enlightenment values.
-----------------------Ok I'm out of here. I returned to the Mormon pie for a while. Now it's time to leave I can see.
Previously I had mostly moved passed the need to constantly chat about the Mo church. Then I was invited to join this group. I was attracted by the "uncensored" label, and found some joy in being in a place which I thought was truly uncensored. An open forum. And so on.
My experience here was not fully pleasant. Personal attacks - once I questioned some people's dominant paradigms. Then having to block several people who either were directly offensive, piling on, and then as a defense to block a few others who looked to me like they probably were good candidates (because they probably wouldn't like hearing from the "other side" of a given issue as per their own profiles).
Many admins are still too "new exmo," or they've landed in a place where their whole being cannot easily tolerate criticisms of where they've landed.
I have no idea why I blocked one of the admins. But at the time I probably had a good reason. Maybe it's time to search for forums outside the scope of FB again. More anonymity. More freedom. Less control, in general. But mainly more freedom to speak.
FB does have a "blocking" feature. IMO it's generally an abuse to force people to refrain from blocking "all admins" on a given forum (especially when a given forum has many admins), if some of those admins are either a.) the attacking type, or b.) engage in admin-enabled pile ons, or c.) appear to be a person who probably would engage in an attack based on their own strong positions unyielding positions on a given issue.
Ok, so we'll see you on the flip side. Enough of the Mormon pie.
Recovery from Mormonism.
Recovery from the Exmormon Foundation.
Recovery from the Unitarian Universalists.
Recovery from the "PostMormon" coffee group.
Recovery from Atheists of Utah.
Recovery from naturalist & humanist groups who are religions unto themselves.
Recovery from a temporary wade back into the deep waters of Mormonism via this forum. Time to depart...
Don't stay too long w/recovery groups - for your own well being. Move on to greener pastures... That's my advise. I have. I need to remember that. Bye.
Marriage is about children. I agree with that... Also children may well need a mommy & a daddy. Sounds good to me. 13.8 billion years. So far so good. Compared to ~20 years of denialism and knocking on the sperm bank door.
Quotes from where I found the link:
----quotes begin
Paddy Manning, who is same-sex attracted and against same-sex “marriage,” debates and explains why he opposes it:
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*5:30-8:01 “Marriage is a uniquely child-centered institution. It is the only place in our society where children can be created, reared, and socialized; and the institution exists for that. If we move to a status where we have a one-size fits all marriage (institution), we part the idea of children and having children from marriage. After that the state gets to decide what your relationship is with the child. Natural parents never require that decision.
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*Let’s be clear, nobody is blanket opposing same-sex adoption. What we want is the recognition that a child has a right PRIMARILY to a mother and father...Do u want to enshrine in law the accidental?
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*You don’t like the idea that children might have a right to a mother and father; which they do. PRIMARILY the law should recognize that. Everything else comes after that.
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*In response to the elderly couples who get married past child-bearing age: “It doesn’t affect the institution."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h6yX4dY1Qs
But this only works if every single person has the goal of making sure that life goes on in the same way it has for 13.8 billion years, as you say. "...that a child has a right PRIMARILY to a mother and father..." is a statement that just goes along with that same theory. All Children have the right to proper nutrition as well, but plenty of kids have died from malnutrition for 13.8 billion years. Only recently has the world tried to stop that. But maybe we are messing with something that was working just for for billions of years. Should we let the kids be? All I am saying is that change is okay, even if that changes the course. We have no inherent responsibility to stay the course.==============
Seculars against same sex marriage. That is pretty ironic. I don't think they actually have any good arguments... but that is just me.My response:
I doubt they have that big of a group.... most secular people are for equal rights of gays.
This idea that children deserve a biological mother and father to best succeed is not proven.
If it were, you would still have to deal with single parents, grandparents, foster parents, etc....
So if you oppose gay marriage, do you oppose these OTHER things as well?
Points raised & my responses:
Point 1: Most people believe in X.
Response:
Argumentum ad populum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
"...In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or most people believe it."
2. Ironic.
Response:
There's many ironies to life.
Explore some: http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/
3. What about equal rights?
Response:
Equal rights should be given when equality is deserved, warranted, healthy, safe, valuable, and applicable.
The right to civilly unite? Ok. Whatever.
The right to use the "marriage" term, which implies access to children, not so sure.
Doesn't matter how many naive judges are convinced, or the number of naive liberals jumping on board like lemmings.
I've acquired enough experiential knowledge & expertise on the subject at hand to change my position - change from the oh-so-predictable position of the naive left, to one more in the center or right, on this issue.
Leftists are naive about many things.
Leftists run the Salt Lake City Library.
Muslim Journeys:
http://www.slcpl.org/events/view/2945/
and this fool:
http://www.slcpl.lib.ut.us/events/view/1965/
A response to the leftist love of Tariq Ramadan:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2007/09/islamism_goes_mainstream.html
The primary Muslim journey that comes to my mind is when several adherents flew planes into buildings on 9/11. That is the preeminent "Muslim Journey" of our age.
Also, Mohamed was not an advocate for social justice.
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-new-creed-of-unitarian-universalism.html
Come to find out liberals are naive about gays as well.
Knee jerk liberals. Yes, Mr. & Mrs. Conservative, I'm starting to understand now. And I say that as a guy who's for single payer and who fully maintains that Ayn Rand was a complete & utter fool.
From Jesse Bering: "...Even in societies where homosexuality was tolerated, such as in Ancient Greece, men tended to engage in pederasty with adolescent boys while maintaining wives and families at home..."
from http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/2011/08/01/the-end-of-gays-gay-marriage-and-the-decline-of-the-homosexual-population/
Yet another connection between homosexuality & pedophilia. My goodness. Not so good of an environment for kids.
Are Mormonism & Catholicism homosexual & pedophile generators? | Connections between homosexuality & pedophilia
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/05/are-mormonism-catholicism-homosexual_24.html
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/search/label/pedophilia
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/search/label/homosexuality
Also Bering has written the book "Perv: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us."
I guess he'd know, as per even his direct stated connection between homos and pedos (my apologies to liberal sensibility for using the short word homo, but it seemed apt given what's being discussed) listed above - and since he's a homosexual.
Don't fuck animals. Hey, the Bible was right! Don't put your dick in an asshole! Damn, how'd they figure that one out?
Even non-Biblical cultures have figured these key truths out. Why is your average liberal in denial?
4. Noted annoyance at discovering that there are "seculars against same sex marriage."
Response:
Bursting the bubble of the liberal meme set is unpleasant also, for the liberal.
"There's people who disagree." Hmmm. Honest scientists may not be surprised. But "skeptics," no, they should never be presented with evidence counter to their suppositions.
5. Children deserve a mother & father, ideally is not proven.
Response:
The left cannot be trusted to provide an unbiased response on the matter.
Hey, maybe a kid ideally needs a mommy & a daddy. Damn, that's a hard one. We need to go to the lab to study that one.
Lame retrograde denialism.
The simplest, & most healthy, ideas from religion, discounted too soon & too quickly by your average secularist.
Do we need to prove that children need air? Water? Food?
How departed from our natural history, examining what all cultures do & advocate for, and what all people think on the matter, do we have to be?
I'm skeptical of anything but the default position: male & female raising children, for several reasons. One reason is what the child may need. Another reason is what I've observed first hand - observed things which most secularists / liberals have not observed.
Even if we want to test: It is unethical to "test," even though de facto tests are going on right now. I have a cousin lesbian conducting such a test right now. The daughter of my uncle from Manti who died of AIDS. Of course she turned gay. No problem there.
updated religious and political views... an atheist moderate / conservative
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2013/08/updated-religious-and-political-views.html
We can gather relevant evidence by a.) examining our own long standing natural history, and b.) examining what all cultures do in this regard - not just the ones that happen to agree with the leftist relativist hippie position, and c.) examining what other animals do, and d.) asking the children of gays what they think, and e.) making note of the probably-inherantly-abusive nature of "gay" culture.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/not-all-children-raised-by-gay-parents-support-gay-marriage-i-should-know-i/
A very high level of skepticism regarding anything but the default natural position. Gathering evidence from all sides & all tribes. Personal experiential evidence. All this has led me to conclude that children need a mommy & a daddy, and should not be placed in gay, nor single parent, households, period.
6. Single parents.
Less than ideal situation. Most everyone agrees with this.
Grandparents. At least it's usually a male & female, and they're grandparents after all.
Foster parents. Male & female.
7. If you oppose gay marriage, do you oppose these OTHER things as well?
Response: I'm highly skeptical of gay "marriage," based on first hand experiential knowledge of gay culture, plus what I've learned from others about the issue, plus what I know about biology & evolutionary history.
I oppose any use of sperm banks, except for male & female couples.
I believe abortion after viability should be illegal, and before viability discouraged.
I believe birth control should be legal, but discouraged.
I believe that the entirety of liberalism is, in part, a death cult - engaging in advocacy for slow motion suicide for everyone.
I have observed that liberals are denialists about human nature & natural history just as much as conservatives have been.
8. Do you also oppose people that cannot have children getting married? Why not?
Response: Adoption is ok, with a male & female adopting.
I oppose single female, lesbian couple, and gay male couple, use of the sperm bank or adoption.
The courts have decided trivially that tomatoes are vegetables.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/12/26/256586055/when-the-supreme-court-decided-tomatoes-were-vegetables
Putting on robes and being a pompous know-it-all doesn't mean you know anything.
The destructive memetic infection has reached conservatives & libertarians, passed on to them from persistent liberals.
Denial of human nature. Ignoring our natural history. Toying with the lives of children. Ignoring huge problems with gay "culture."
What are the facts? What do people observe? Do you listen to what they say? What do cultures do who don't agree with your suppositions? Do we want to toy with the lives of children?
It's not my fault that atheism does not imply skepticism, and that skepticism does not imply free thought, and that free thought does not imply honesty - when it comes to groups who use these words as part of their names.
I'm not a libertarian, but Shermer has a point:
Michael Shermer on confirmation bias, on the left:
http://www.michaelshermer.com/tag/confirmation-bias/
The Political Brain
A recent brain-imaging study shows that our political predilections are a product of unconscious confirmation bias
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-political-brain/
People are born dumbshits. That's why god invented Christopher Hitchens, Steven Pinker, and Daniel Dennett. All of those dudes may be more accepting of so-called gay, butt fuck, marriage than I am. But I've gathered more direct data than probably ALL of them combined - except for Hitchens possibly.
In any case I'm satisfied & generally happy with my transition to the skeptical-of-gay-marriage-and-adoption meme set / camp. And I have one advantage that many others do not: I've already been through the pain of leaving an abusive meme set (eg: Mormonism). Thus social cajoling, pressure, and attacks are far less able to affect me.
I'm interested in the truth and in honesty, even if that means that my previous liberal suppositions are overturned in part.