LOL. I'm agin' it! Seting aside the fact that I disagree with this gent (seems I don't have any sense), His reasoning is flawed. The gay men and lesbians in his hypothetical death camp could still reproduce if they wanted to. I can't believe I'm dignifying this video with a response, but it gave me a good gut laugh.
I do not think it is a mental disorder. I am arguing against that position based on the reasoning that this psychiatrist has stepped beyond the bounds of his expertise and is rendering values judgements rather than psychological assessments.
A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity — as liberals do.
This is a quote you put at the top of the page. Here, he is appealing to the values of freedom, free will, and moral integrity and claiming that liberals dismiss these things and are therefore irrational and mentally ill. Claiming that someone does not adhere to a set of values and is therefore mentally ill is, any way you slice it, a values judgement.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. You've raised some of the legitimate criticisms I mentioned of cultural relativism. However, I am willing to bite the bullet and say that I accept the implications of cultural relativism that we can't accurately judge the moral status of those on an alien planet or if the government legalized murder (heck, according to some people, it already has -think of war, capital punishment, abortion as some contentious examples). Still, I feel the need to reiterate that even if certain values systems are deteriorating in the way you have defined the term, values are also changing and being reconstituted to reflect changed circumstances. This is not a feature unique to "today's" society as you have framed it. Values have been changing since day one.
In the name of decency, please stop posting this hate speech video. It does nothing to advance the discussion on this issue, but instead adds only potentially hurtful invective. Again I remind you to keep in mind the suicide statistics among gay teens. Even if you don't agree with the message of the video, spreading it around heedlessly is just too risky--human lives are at stake. Please read the phrase again and keep it in mind before you post here again.
Alright, you got me. After this laughable post I'm convinced you are conducting a very clever and convincing satire here. I refuse to believe a thinking being with the capacity to use a computer would honestly believe that gay marriage means Christians will be forced to marry gay people, or that Christians won't be able to marry legally.
The truth is most homosexuals are rapists and pedophiles and commit acts such as sex with animals
Where are you getting your facts, dude? Most rapes and instances of pedophilia are committed by straight White men. It is absolutely false that most homosexuals are rapists or pedophiles. Sex with animals is called zoophilia, and is distinct category of fetishism. Incest? Where are you getting incest from in all of this?
It is hard to know where to start with this one. First of all, hateful videos like that are one the reasons the suicide rate among gay teens is so high. Regardless of your views, I hope you have the humanity to recognize that telling us here at CD that you "partly agree" with a video of a kid saying "fuck you," to gay people is promoting hate speech. I know you said that you don't hate gay people, but please, for the sake of young people who might frequent this board, have the sensitivity and class to debate without resorting to this kind of trash.
You are incorrect, because this is not his "professional" opinion. He is trying to apply his psychiatric expertise to an area outside the domain it is intended to apply to. A professional opinion is not just an opinion expressed by a professional, but his opinion within his domain of expertise.
I'll say it again, because you keep spreading this notion of "professional medical opinion" around like dog shit that's stuck to your shoe. A medical professional background is neither a necessary nor sufficient qualification to lay a values judgement across a group of people. Now please wipe off your shoe.
Being a professional psychiatrist does not give him automatic credibility, and his statements do not reflect anything germane to the science or practice of psychiatry. One foundational tenet of the ethical practice of psychotherapy is the suspension of judgement with regards to worldviews. A worldview cannot be bifurcated into healthy or pathological categories without introducing a biased values judgement on the part of the clinician. What I as a practitioner would judge to be a pathological world view could differ greatly from that of another equally qualified and respected practitioner. Either way, the practitioner has an ethical responsibility to treat patients with respect and dignity, and to refrain from imposing values onto them. To convince someone to perceive the world the same way that you do is not to heal them, but rather to strip them of freedom and autonomy.
If a medical professional tells me what sort of charcoal I should use to grill the ideal steak, I may appreciate his advice but I don't give it more credence simply because he is a medical professional. The same is true in the arena of politics. As a mental health professional myself, I want to point out that political argument is not part of a psychiatrist's scope of practice. His authority does not extend to this domain, at least not by virtue of his professional title.
The only necessary condition is that something be perceived as music. Not even sound is necessary, as even silence has been officially sanctioned as music, as in the case of John Cage's 4'33": https://www.youtube.com/
As Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation says: https://www.youtube.com/
Check out this list on wikipedia of violent acts committeed against LGBT people. Many of these occurred in the South, and not so long ago as you may imagine. A few examples:
-November 17, 2010 – 18-year-old Joshua Wilkerson was found dead in a field in Pearland, Texas, after being beaten to death and set on fire by a friend of 5 years, Hermilio Moralez. This was supposedly a retaliation to unwanted sexual advances
-April 2011 – Kevin Pennington, a gay 28-year-old male, was kidnapped and severely beaten in a Kentucky park by two men shouting anti gay epithets. David Jason Jenkins and Anthony Ray Jenkins face possible life sentences for anti gay hate crime
-June 12, 2002 – Philip Walsted, a gay man, was fatally beaten with a baseball bat.
Values as a category cannot "disintegrate." They can only change over time. The premise of this debate assumes the position that there is one ultimate and universal set of values which is breaking down over time. This seems to me unlikely because of the many values systems which operate independently and are held simultaneously across various cultures and subcultures (I'll grant that this position admits of some good criticisms). Even where individual values systems change however, this does not mean that people no longer hold values. Rather, they now hold different values. Even when changes are deemed to be negative or maladaptive, this does not imply a disintegration of the category known as "values."
First, let's pick apart a few of your confused facts. Transexuality is not the same as homosexuality. Homosexuality does not cause cross-dressing. Second, the Batman series portrays all sorts of diverse people. Where is your outrage that children will be influenced to become mass-murderers or evil clowns? Is transexuality or homsexuality more threatening to you than murder?
It certainly does not "literally" mean this. I will grant that it is a popular theory that some (not all) mental illnesses are caused by irrational thinking. This is not the same as inability to think. Nor is irrational thinking exclusive to the mentally ill.
Yes! As soon as one utters that word today, the character that comes to mind is a condescending, sneering, pretentious, and fragile being who puts down thesists as a way of feeling better about him/herself. The internet is replete with these types, specifically because anonymity affords one the freedom to be vile and cruel. Even worse, these folks usually lack basic thinking skills. Rather than defeating their opponents on rational grounds, they usually rely on the same appeals to authority and ad hominem attacks typical theists use when they discuss religion. Their poster-boy is the late Christopher Hitchens, whose demeaning tone they adopt while abandoning his redeeming wit and brilliance. My biggest problem with "New Atheists" of his ilk, by the way, is their tendency to attack religion only on literalist grounds, ignoring any social, psychological or spiritual value of religion that might be retained or even improved upon. This video is a great example where Hitchens and Harris go up against some actually sophisticated religious thinkers. Rabbi Bradley Artson Shavit states several times that he agrees with every attack Harris and Hitchens make, but presents some interesting and unconventional counterpoints. Predictably, his perspective is drowned in vicious point-scoring rhetoric.
My position on the true nature of "God" is that it is a name for a feature of human consciousness which is usually projected outward onto mythology. Specifically, it is a construct representing the highest part of our being, that becomes manifest when a person becomes psychologically whole. It is a metaphorical, psychological reality which has often been mistaken for an ontological reality. Therefore I am an atheist in the literal sense, but I think the concept of God arises inevitably in the human mind and serves an adaptive function.
I am curious to try this out. I am not sure what is meant by the term "naive atheism," but I am an atheist who finds most other atheists to be equally irrational as those they vigorously (but unskillfully) criticize. I want to submit myself to your scrutiny. First, a clarifying question. Can you help me understand what you mean by "acceptable" in your first question?
