Great news! Over 20 dead in Orlando Night Club!

[Tristan Scott]

How do you know this? Are you saying the root cause of all homophobia is because of religion? Or are you just saying that it is the root cause of homophobia among Muslims? There is no homophobia among atheists?

Unreasonable prejudice against harmless behaviour would exist with or without religion. There was a time when left-handed schoolchildren were discouraged from writing with their left hand, and I don't recall proscriptions against left-handedness in the Bible (although possibly there are: it's really long, boring, and inconsistent).

But nobody ever threw a left-hander off a building, or hanged one, or stoned one, or sent them to prison with hard labour just because they were left-handed. Religion is not necessary for homophobia, but it does seem to be necessary for the kind of homophobia that would lead to governments, mobs, and individuals to kill homosexuals just for being homosexuals.

Children have to be taught hate, and nothing teaches hate better than religion. Some atheists might hate homosexuals as a remainder of a religious culture, or they have some incoherent concept about it being 'unnatural', or some other nonsense reason, but if none of the holy books had described homosexuality as an affront to God, and if none of the holy books had prescribed death for it, no, Omar Mateen would not have been taught to hate himself and all homosexuals so much that he decided to kill 50 of us.

So, if you are saying he used Islam to rationalize his actions, then I would agree, that appears to be the case. Isn't that what I said in my original post that you cited?

Or maybe we're not going to play the sounds of a man trying to use his religion as an excuse for the fact that he's a miserable excuse for a human being.

 

[Metaphor]

Unreasonable prejudice against harmless behaviour would exist with or without religion. There was a time when left-handed schoolchildren were discouraged from writing with their left hand, and I don't recall proscriptions against left-handedness in the Bible (although possibly there are: it's really long, boring, and inconsistent).

But nobody ever threw a left-hander off a building, or hanged one, or stoned one, or sent them to prison with hard labour just because they were left-handed. Religion is not necessary for homophobia, but it does seem to be necessary for the kind of homophobia that would lead to governments, mobs, and individuals to kill homosexuals just for being homosexuals.

Children have to be taught hate, and nothing teaches hate better than religion. Some atheists might hate homosexuals as a remainder of a religious culture, or they have some incoherent concept about it being 'unnatural', or some other nonsense reason, but if none of the holy books had described homosexuality as an affront to God, and if none of the holy books had prescribed death for it, no, Omar Mateen would not have been taught to hate himself and all homosexuals so much that he decided to kill 50 of us.

So, if you are saying he used Islam to rationalize his actions, then I would agree, that appears to be the case. Isn't that what I said in my original post that you cited?

Or maybe we're not going to play the sounds of a man trying to use his religion as an excuse for the fact that he's a miserable excuse for a human being.

No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that it took religion to parlay a prejudice into a murderous hatred. Islam's proscriptions on homosexuality were not Mateen's 'rationalisation' of his murderous behaviour, Islam's proscriptions shaped Mateen to have murderous behaviour.

 

[repoman]

If this we're someone in the Phelps (God Hates Fags) clan who murdered gay people like this, many of us here would blame on the interpretation/narrow version of the religion. Granted, what really probably happened was that the late Fred Phelps was a wacko who used real verses to buttress his insanity and give his clan a religious reason (not a personal one as for Fred) reason to hate gays. These verses and suras and hadiths are like loaded guns laying around.

But we would also say that fearing most christians in america because of it would be going overboard.

Anyway for everyone who is trying to be nice to muslims by comparing them to redneck intolerant Christians, please remember how much shit we rightfully talk about our homegrown christian bigots and talk the same shit about bigoted muslims.

 

[Tristan Scott]

So, if you are saying he used Islam to rationalize his actions, then I would agree, that appears to be the case. Isn't that what I said in my original post that you cited?

Or maybe we're not going to play the sounds of a man trying to use his religion as an excuse for the fact that he's a miserable excuse for a human being.

No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that it took religion to parlay a prejudice into a murderous hatred. Islam's proscriptions on homosexuality were not Mateen's 'rationalisation' of his murderous behaviour, Islam's proscriptions shaped Mateen to have murderous behaviour.

Ok, then my original question stands. How do you know this?

 

[Tristan Scott]

If this we're someone in the Phelps (God Hates Fags) clan who murdered gay people like this, many of us here would blame on the interpretation/narrow version of the religion. Granted, what really probably happened was that the late Fred Phelps was a wacko who used real verses to buttress his insanity and give his clan a religious reason (not a personal one as for Fred) reason to hate gays. These verses and suras and hadiths are like loaded guns laying around.

But we would also say that fearing most christians in america because of it would be going overboard.

Anyway for everyone who is trying to be nice to muslims by comparing them to redneck intolerant Christians, please remember how much shit we rightfully talk about our homegrown christian bigots and talk the same shit about bigoted muslims.

Huh?

 

[repoman]

you know the "god hates fags" people right?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

you know the "god hates fags" people right?

Just because they say they hate fags because their God tells them to doesn't man you can infer some sort of religious motivation for their hatred of gays. That's racist.

 

[repoman]

Trying to find Phelp's golden (as in most terrible) rants. From around 2000. Turning up blank. So much insanity. He was really at the top (bottom) of his game then.

Ah, this is a Phelps sermon only a few days after the 911 attacks. When a teenage Omar Mateen was said (this may not be true) to have been happy as well for the attacks. Two peas in a pod.

 

[Metaphor]

So, if you are saying he used Islam to rationalize his actions, then I would agree, that appears to be the case. Isn't that what I said in my original post that you cited?

Or maybe we're not going to play the sounds of a man trying to use his religion as an excuse for the fact that he's a miserable excuse for a human being.

No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that it took religion to parlay a prejudice into a murderous hatred. Islam's proscriptions on homosexuality were not Mateen's 'rationalisation' of his murderous behaviour, Islam's proscriptions shaped Mateen to have murderous behaviour.

Ok, then my original question stands. How do you know this?

I really thought I had explained it at length. What part of my logic did you not follow, or did you not agree with?

i) Religion is indoctrinated into young minds before they have the skills to understand or oppose what they taught.
ii) Religion taught Mateen to hate homosexuals. People do not spring into the world, fully formed, hating homosexuals.
iii) Religion also says homosexuality is an affront to God, and that homosexuals deserve death, and that to challenge this notion is to challenge God.
iv) Islam is particularly psychotic in its hatred of gays. Christian-majority nations debate allowing gays to marry. Muslim-majority nations debate whether throwing gays off buildings or hanging from a crane is Allah's preferred method of execution.

Religion made the belief, religion made the belief a matter of life or death, and religion gets indoctrinated before any chance of defence.

Homophobes do not seek out a religion to justify their homophobia. Religion turns people into homophobes.

It beggars belief that people would understand the cause and effect any other way.

 

[abaddon]

It beggars belief that people would understand the cause and effect any other way.

Your description of homophobia’s cause/effect is incomplete. Generally things don’t boil down to such simple formulas as 'it’s cuz religion'. Religion historically shaped some societal conventions but also is shaped by them.

Left-handers never got the same hate as gays, even if they were viewed as "unnatural", because left-handedness doesn’t threaten societal order the way that changing marital customs does. Marriage arrangements once decided who belongs in which strata of society; they determined inheritances of power and land and possessions. They affect the fate of families and their possessions, the relative powers of the genders, and probably other aspects of societal order. People keep saying what happens in the bedroom is very private, but that's too simple too: people eventually come out of the bedroom and want family and societal structure to change.

And we all know how conservative conservatives (both secular and religious) can be. They don’t want things to change, they don’t want their possessions fucked with, and the order of society has everything to do with that. The very threat of a remote possibility of that unleashes imaginations of all hell breaking loose upon the whole nation or even the whole world. The religious story is that God ordered how the world is supposed to be, but they (and many others) are unconscious of how civilization ordered how God did all that ordering.

I think what “liberals” are concerned with is what sort of xenophobic hate wrecks the hope for greater liberty and happiness among even deluded people with stupid religions. And just as Phelps never caused a wholesale demonization of all Christians, we’re not seeing the need for it with Muslims.

 

[Tristan Scott]

you know the "god hates fags" people right?

Yeah, this guy...



....he was a Baptist preacher who used religion to justify his homophobia.

 

[abaddon]

....he was a Baptist preacher who used religion to justify his homophobia.

More specifically he used a dozen or so quotes about God “abhorring” certain sinners (most esp. “fags”) to justify him doing the same.

 

[Tristan Scott]

[
Homophobes do not seek out a religion to justify their homophobia. Religion turns people into homophobes.

It beggars belief that people would understand the cause and effect any other way.

Well, beggar belief then, because I completely disagree with you. I've known plenty of homophobic atheists.

 

[repoman]

It beggars belief that people would understand the cause and effect any other way.

Your description of homophobia’s cause/effect is incomplete. Generally things don’t boil down to such simple formulas as 'it’s cuz religion'. Religion historically shaped some societal conventions but also is shaped by them.

Left-handers never got the same hate as gays, even if they were viewed as "unnatural", because left-handedness doesn’t threaten societal order the way that changing marital customs does. Marriage arrangements once decided who belongs in which strata of society. They affect the fate of families and their possessions, the relative powers of the genders, and probably other aspects of societal order. People keep saying what happens in the bedroom is very private, but that's too simple too: people eventually come out of the bedroom and want family and societal structure to change.

And we all know how conservative conservatives (both secular and religious) can be. They don’t want things to change, they don’t want their possessions fucked with, and the order of society has everything to do with that. The very threat of a remote possibility of that unleashes imaginations of all hell breaking loose upon the whole nation or even the whole world. The religious story is that God ordered how the world is supposed to be, but they (and many others) are unconscious of how civilization ordered how God did all that ordering.

I think what “liberals” are concerned with is what sort of xenophobic hate wrecks the hope for greater liberty and happiness among even deluded people with stupid religions. And just as Phelps never caused a wholesale demonization of all Christians, we’re not seeing the need for it with Muslims.

Great post. They say "we don't want to threaten the social order" but actually they do, often for the better overall. But some people will have to lose some power and wealth in the transition. Some men lost power with women's suffrage, their can be no doubt.

I wish I could agree about muslims, they as a whole on the globe have earned a worse reputation for anti-gay attitudes than christian. But we don't want the irony of judging all of them make them say "screw it, if you think all of us are homophobic bigots I may as well be a strident one".

 

[repoman]

When other muslims can safely call anti-gay muslims bigoted pieces of shit then we will be in a better place.

Not half measures like, "well, he is misguided". No, call them out and put them in the spotlight. Make them marginalized.

 

[Tristan Scott]

When other muslims can safely call anti-gay muslims bigoted pieces of shit then we will be in a better place.

Not half measures like, "well, he is misguided". No, call them out and put them in the spotlight. Make them marginalized.

What about Christians? Westboro Baptist was picketing the funerals in Orlando, or didn't you know that?

 

[Metaphor]

[
Homophobes do not seek out a religion to justify their homophobia. Religion turns people into homophobes.

It beggars belief that people would understand the cause and effect any other way.

Well, beggar belief then, because I completely disagree with you. I've known plenty of homophobic atheists.

Oy vey. I'd say you were deliberately trolling me, but probably you are not. Nobody who had read my argument and understood it would claim that I claimed there were no homophobic atheists. Homophobic atheists have nothing to do with it.

I said religion turned people into homophobes (it does) and it makes homophobia a life and death situation. One can hate a lot of things without killing them, but when you believe God wants you to kill them, some people are going to be motivated to do so.

People have all kinds of unexamined prejudices, including atheists. The fact that some atheists are homophobic is simply irrelevant. Homophobic atheists do not believe that God hates homosexuals and that God has authorised their destruction. It takes religion for someone to believe that.

 

[Metaphor]

It beggars belief that people would understand the cause and effect any other way.

Your description of homophobia’s cause/effect is incomplete. Generally things don’t boil down to such simple formulas as 'it’s cuz religion'. Religion historically shaped some societal conventions but also is shaped by them.

Left-handers never got the same hate as gays, even if they were viewed as "unnatural", because left-handedness doesn’t threaten societal order the way that changing marital customs does. Marriage arrangements once decided who belongs in which strata of society; they determined inheritances of power and land and possessions. They affect the fate of families and their possessions, the relative powers of the genders, and probably other aspects of societal order. People keep saying what happens in the bedroom is very private, but that's too simple too: people eventually come out of the bedroom and want family and societal structure to change.

And we all know how conservative conservatives (both secular and religious) can be. They don’t want things to change, they don’t want their possessions fucked with, and the order of society has everything to do with that. The very threat of a remote possibility of that unleashes imaginations of all hell breaking loose upon the whole nation or even the whole world. The religious story is that God ordered how the world is supposed to be, but they (and many others) are unconscious of how civilization ordered how God did all that ordering.

I think what “liberals” are concerned with is what sort of xenophobic hate wrecks the hope for greater liberty and happiness among even deluded people with stupid religions. And just as Phelps never caused a wholesale demonization of all Christians, we’re not seeing the need for it with Muslims.

My description of homophobia is incomplete because I never meant to construct a complete one. I explained Mateen's attitudes and behaviour as a result of the evident and overwhelming homophobia of the religion he was raised in. Homosexuality may have been proscribed by religion because Bronze-age goat herders believed it (homosexuality) would wreck the social order, but children do not have good or bad feelings about 'social order', nor do they have good or bad feelings about homosexuality, until they are taught them.

Indeed, if Mateen had been an atheist who had internalised homophobia and was risking physical danger and social ruination because his family and religious community were homophobes, then it's still the fault of religion!

 

[Derec]

....he was a Baptist preacher who used religion to justify his homophobia.

In other words, false equivalence.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

....he was a Baptist preacher who used religion to justify his homophobia.

In other words, false equivalence.

Regardless, there are still similarities. They want gays to die and they're completely fine with ISIS killing gays. Sure they're less shitty because they don't actually kill, but they're still high on the shit-o-meter, and saying "well they don't kill people" ignores that important point.