Why do LGBT people exist . . .

Debating issues regarding sexuality

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Why do LGBT people exist . . .

Post #1

Post by Haven »

It seems the very existence of LGBT people (individuals who are born lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender) is strong evidence against the existence of a heterosexist and cissexist deity. Consider this argument (I'm assuming, for the sake of argument, that a God exists):


Premise 1: God exists
Premise 2: God is omniscient (having knowledge of all true propositions)
Premise 3: God is omnipotent (having the ability to bring about any logically possible state of affairs)
Premise 4: God is heterosexist (believing that heterosexuality is superior to non-heterosexuality) and cissexist (believing that cisgender is superior to transgender)
Premise 5: From Premise 2, it follows that God would know how to create a world without LGBT people
Premise 6: From Premise 3, it follows that God would have the power to create a world without LGBT people
Premise 7: From Premise 4, it follows that God would want to create a world without LGBT people
Premise 8: From Premises 5, 6, and 7, it follows that it is highly probable that LGBT people do not exist
Premise 9: LGBT people exist
Conclusion: Therefore, from Premises 8 and 9, it is highly probable that a heterosexist, cissexist, omniscient, and omnipotent God does not exist.


Debate question: Is this argument sound? Does the mere existence of LGBT people invalidate the existence of a heterosexist and cissexist (omniscient and omnipotent) deity? Why or why not?
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Re: Why do LGBT people exist . . .

Post #2

Post by Divine Insight »

Haven wrote: Debate question: Is this argument successful? Does the mere existence of LGBT people invalidate the existence of a heterosexist and cissexist (omniscient and omnipotent) deity? Why or why not?
IMHO this is a very sound argument. And, for me personally the reason is as follows:

I'm not the least bit gay. The thought of being sexually intimate with another man is extremely repugnant to me. Now at first thought you might think, "Well that should convince you that it's wrong and unnatural". But there's a problem with that line of thinking. If being gay was as repugnant to everyone as it is to me, then as Haven suggests, there would be no gay people in this world.

Surely gay people aren't simply having sexual relationship with other people of the same sex just to spite a God when they too see it as being as repugnant as it is from my perspective. That would be absolutely crazy. Therefore gay people must truly exist. And by that I mean people who are genuinely attracted to their own sex and want to become sexually intimate with someone of their same sex.

That must be true. Otherwise gay people would be people who are just doing something they feel is disgusting for some other reason. But what could that other reason possibly be? Just to spite a supposedly hetero-sexist God? Surely not. That doesn't make any sense. They must necessarily be genuinely attracted to each other on an intimate sexual level.

So naturally gay people necessarily exist.

And I agree with Haven completely. Why in the world would a God create people to be sexually attracted to their own sex and then demand that they refrain from the temptation to act on those feelings?

Gay people must be for real, and if that's true, then it would be insane for a God to demand that they resist these natural feelings lest they be condemned for committing a sin.

It's just makes no sense.
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Re: Why do LGBT people exist . . .

Post #3

Post by bluethread »

Haven wrote: It seems the very existence of LGBT people (individuals who are born lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender) is strong evidence against the existence of a heterosexist and cissexist deity. Consider this argument (I'm assuming, for the sake of argument, that a God exists):


Premise 1: God exists
Premise 2: God is omniscient (having knowledge of all true propositions)
Premise 3: God is omnipotent (having the ability to bring about any logically possible state of affairs)
Premise 4: God is heterosexist (believing that heterosexuality is superior to non-heterosexuality) and cissexist (believing that cisgender is superior to transgender)
Premise 5: From Premise 2, it follows that God would know how to create a world without LGBT people
Premise 6: From Premise 3, it follows that God would have the power to create a world without LGBT people
Premise 7: From Premise 4, it follows that God would want to create a world without LGBT people
Premise 8: From Premises 5, 6, and 7, it follows that it is highly probable that LGBT people do not exist
Premise 9: LGBT people exist
Conclusion: Therefore, from Premises 8 and 9, it is highly probable that a heterosexist, cissexist, omniscient, and omnipotent God does not exist.


Debate question: Is this argument sound? Does the mere existence of LGBT people invalidate the existence of a heterosexist and cissexist (omniscient and omnipotent) deity? Why or why not?
This is a form of positive fatalism that presumes that if something exists, it must be an absolute good. This was not stated as a premise and does not follow from the premises you present. There are many things that exist that are good in one context and not in another. There are also things that exist as negative incentives. For example, there are children who like to stick skittles up their noses. However, that does not mean that Adonai designed them for that purpose or thinks it is what is best for them. That said, I am making no direct comparisons. I am merely showing that the argument does not follow.

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Re: Why do LGBT people exist . . .

Post #4

Post by 99percentatheism »

[Replying to post 1 by Haven]

"Why are babies born blind?"

That's what the gay agenda is moving to next?

That God is at fault for the sins chosen to be committed by mankind, (er, um, would that be "personkind? "gender-neutralkind?) is an age old atheist tactic. It just doesn't hold water.

If God makes people homosexual, then we can now run our countries as theocracies and classify people in categories they are born into and move them into communities of same created individuals. No justification for diversity.

But, that is exactly what evolution does isn't it? There is diversity in nature but it exists in its own categories.

So we are back to what is natural and what isn't right? If homosexuality, which is the desire or actual engaged behavior of engaging in same sex sex acts, is natural, then it would be natural to separate these homosexual individuals from the heterosexual individuals to avoid any coerced or trickery for homosexual couplings from ever happening. But then again, coercing, bribing, trickery, lying towards UN-likeminded others also does exist.

Unless of course "Why does coercing, trickery, manipulation, broken or false promises, dis-ingenuousness statements exist" is also something God also creates.

So if we are to assign category condition to human beings we either have God or nature creating people into separate categories they should live in, either "naturally" or in God ordained structure shouldn't we?

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Re: Why do LGBT people exist . . .

Post #5

Post by Wordleymaster1 »

Haven wrote: It seems the very existence of LGBT people (individuals who are born lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender) is strong evidence against the existence of a heterosexist and cissexist deity. Consider this argument (I'm assuming, for the sake of argument, that a God exists):


Premise 1: God exists
Premise 2: God is omniscient (having knowledge of all true propositions)
Premise 3: God is omnipotent (having the ability to bring about any logically possible state of affairs)
Premise 4: God is heterosexist (believing that heterosexuality is superior to non-heterosexuality) and cissexist (believing that cisgender is superior to transgender)
Premise 5: From Premise 2, it follows that God would know how to create a world without LGBT people
Premise 6: From Premise 3, it follows that God would have the power to create a world without LGBT people
Premise 7: From Premise 4, it follows that God would want to create a world without LGBT people
Premise 8: From Premises 5, 6, and 7, it follows that it is highly probable that LGBT people do not exist
Premise 9: LGBT people exist
Conclusion: Therefore, from Premises 8 and 9, it is highly probable that a heterosexist, cissexist, omniscient, and omnipotent God does not exist.


Debate question: Is this argument sound? Does the mere existence of LGBT people invalidate the existence of a heterosexist and cissexist (omniscient and omnipotent) deity? Why or why not?
I think you make a lot of assumptions here. Not that it's wrong to do so since we don't know much about the Christian God.
My God wouldn't care if two girls liked each other or two guys liked each other. He would be more concerned with their lives and maybe even their eternity. And their eternity wouldn't be dependent on which gender they sleep with.
Why on earth would God, or ANY god, care who someone sleeps with? That seems to be a very little 'thing' to worry about in the grand scheme of things to me.

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Re: Why do LGBT people exist . . .

Post #6

Post by Divine Insight »

99percentatheism wrote: [Replying to post 1 by Haven]

"Why are babies born blind?"

That's what the gay agenda is moving to next?

That God is at fault for the sins chosen to be committed by mankind, (er, um, would that be "personkind? "gender-neutralkind?) is an age old atheist tactic. It just doesn't hold water.

If God makes people homosexual, then we can now run our countries as theocracies and classify people in categories they are born into and move them into communities of same created individuals. No justification for diversity.

But, that is exactly what evolution does isn't it? There is diversity in nature but it exists in its own categories.

So we are back to what is natural and what isn't right? If homosexuality, which is the desire or actual engaged behavior of engaging in same sex sex acts, is natural, then it would be natural to separate these homosexual individuals from the heterosexual individuals to avoid any coerced or trickery for homosexual couplings from ever happening. But then again, coercing, bribing, trickery, lying towards UN-likeminded others also does exist.

Unless of course "Why does coercing, trickery, manipulation, broken or false promises, dis-ingenuousness statements exist" is also something God also creates.

So if we are to assign category condition to human beings we either have God or nature creating people into separate categories they should live in, either "naturally" or in God ordained structure shouldn't we?
I think there is a fundamental flaw in your comparison between an intentional creator God and natural evolution. They really can't be compared.

A creator God who had designed people on purpose would be totally responsible for what he has designed. Therefore if these things should be categorized or placed into isolated groups the designer God should have taken care of that as well.

On the other hand natural evolution does not create categories. We do. Natural evolution is just the natural evolution of things. Nothing is responsible for what has evolved, including the things that have evolved.

If natural evolution is the true nature of reality then we just need to accept that we live in a diverse world and stop trying to categorize it, especially in terms of trying to control it. Categorizing things can certainly be helpful in better understanding them, but trying to isolate non-compatible things could be a futile task.

Of course, we certainly try to isolate, or even destroy things that have evolved that are extremely dangerous to us (like say the Ebola virus). We even incarcerate criminals to protect the public at large precisely because we have become civil and we have created civilizations. But the very civilizations that we have created were created by us, not by any God.

It's true, that we as a species could label homosexuality as a behavior that we choose to remove from our midst, or even exterminate as the Bible would have us do. But in our wisdom we recognize that homosexuality is really no threat to us. So there's no reason to bother trying to eliminate it or even control it.

The existence of homosexuality poses absolutely no threat at all to heterosexuals. None whatsoever. To be concerned about homosexuality is an unjustified fear. It's simply not a threat to anyone.

There are real problems in the world that do pose threats. Like Ebola, and terrorist groups like ISIS, etc. Spending time and effort fighting against non-violent and non-threatening behaviors such as homosexuality is nothing short of a total waste of time. Why create a problem where there is none?

The only thing that people can point to in an effort to try to make homosexuality a problem is that some ancient fables claim that some jealous egotistical God would become upset if people engaged in homosexual activities. And so they rush to defend this God from having his feelings hurt because some people prefer homosexuality over heterosexuality. And supposedly this God created these people to begin with. That doesn't even make any sense at all.
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Re: Why do LGBT people exist . . .

Post #7

Post by Wootah »

[Replying to post 1 by Haven]

Premises 4-7 dont apply to the Christian God because pre fall there were no flaws and all the flaws are post fall.

What sort of god would create us to not be what we were created for?

It would mean either that god can't create what it intends or is evil in deliberately denying a created thing it's purpose.
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Re: Why do LGBT people exist . . .

Post #8

Post by Wootah »

[Replying to post 6 by Divine Insight]
If natural evolution is the true nature of reality then we just need to accept that we live in a diverse world and stop trying to categorize it, especially in terms of trying to control it. Categorizing things can certainly be helpful in better understanding them, but trying to isolate non-compatible things could be a futile task.
The ability to identify and categorise is probably the main function of language and the basis for all civilisation.
The existence of homosexuality poses absolutely no threat at all to heterosexuals. None whatsoever. To be concerned about homosexuality is an unjustified fear. It's simply not a threat to anyone.
I agree.

The threat is that to some extent homosexuality is a choice. And I don't want my children to be influenced into making that choice.

The issue for me, both from a created world or evolutionary world view, is that it is a disability to be overcome or managed.

Heterosexuality at least has a reproductive service.

It's the same really with heterosexuality - our society acts as if sex is the meaning of life and that our biology determines us.

I would rather acknowledge that there are biological and social factors that influence our decisions.
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Re: Why do LGBT people exist . . .

Post #9

Post by Suzy »

Wootah wrote: [Replying to post 1 by Haven]

Premises 4-7 dont apply to the Christian God because pre fall there were no flaws and all the flaws are post fall.

What sort of god would create us to not be what we were created for?

It would mean either that god can't create what it intends or is evil in deliberately denying a created thing it's purpose.
Your comment here forces us to expand this debate out to the larger picture because taken on its own your comment makes perfect sense and can not be refuted.
So to agree with you we have to accept the whole Christian teaching on original sin as explained in Geneses.
That’s O.K. if you are a Christian but not so good if you are an atheist.
Me? I am an atheist. :)

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It's natural

Post #10

Post by TheThinWhiteDuke »

This topic is very personal for me.

Me growing up with a 2 year older brother and a 2 year younger brother, have seen this happen very closely.
Myself and my older brother always used to play war games, cowboys and indians, or whatever sport we could do. But my younger brother never liked any boy stuff. He was 3 years old and wanted barbies instead of GI Joes. He never played with boys his own age, he played only with girls. He wanted for christmas a make up doll when he was 6 years old. And he never changed his ways, even having 2 older brothers teasing him.
Now, he is married with another male. He is very happy, and both very success full.
I found out, he never wanted to be with a girl, and never tried it. Just thinking about that for him, makes him feel disgusted. ( Just like people who feel disgusted by homosexuals )
Seeing him from that young of age, already being gay, seems very natural to me, and not by choice.
Being gay is not sexual, it's a natural process and feelings, just like heterosexuals.

Now, when looking back, i hate with the teasing i have done towards him. But also at the same time, very proud of him.

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