why heterosexuality is natural and homosexuality a deviance

[Scholar]

3 hours ago, An young being said:

There's a reason why lust is placed at lower levels of spiritual development, close to survival. It is purely based on pleasure and instant gratification, and it's primary purpose is multiplication. Lust is a necessary part of survival, but it can also lead to and strengthen higher forms of love, such as romantic love. Romantic love is still placed at lower levels in spiritual development, compared to unconditional love. While homosexuality is no different from other kinds of romantic love, incest arising out of lust and sometimes romantic love, reduces the effects of love closer to unconditional love, created by parent,child or siblings or other close relationships, which are generally free of lust. Hence, incest is something that is naturally resisted by our soul, knowing that unconditional love is the only place where the soul can find complete peace and retain its blissful nature. Romantic love also can lead to unconditional love, but it is weaker than those created by the love for close relations.

That's amazing motivated reasoning.

 

By the way, unconditional isn't love for family. Love for family is one of the most conditional types of love that exist, considering it solely applies to these individuals because they happen to be your family. Unconditional love necessarily is universal, because if it lacks conditions, then it cannot apply to just a limited set of things.

 

 

And consider this:

By your logic, if I grow up along a person and develop a platonic love to them such that they are basically equivalent to a family member (which is what you mean by unconditional love), and I then developed romantic feelings for them, somehow this would sabotage the unconditional love?

This is just silly. While this might happen, and I agree with incestious relationships it probably would happen in most cases, it is not some sort of spiritual reality we are talking about here. Of course you could have that type of deep bond to someone and then move it to romantic love and elevate the relationship. Whether or not someone has a closer genetic code is irrelevant in that regard.

And either way, people do things that undermine unconditional love all the time, and we don't have some sort of inherent aversion to it. So the argument seems to just be an attempt to make your personal morality fit your spiritual believes.

 

I could sit here and argue for why homosexuality is anti-spiritual because our souls recognize that we undermine the greater unity of the divine by seeking relationships that will not lead to the creation of new life through pure spiritual union, that it undermines the greatest type of "unconditional" love we are capable of, the love for a child. You can do these types of mental gymnastics with anything.

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by Scholar

[Danioover9000]

@Scholar

9 hours ago, Scholar said:

He is implying that homosexuality is wrong because it is not natural or conducive to evolutionary function. This is a stupid argument, end of story. There shouldn't be a need for discussion here.

 

I don't even understand what you are asking in the second paragraph.

 

 

I don't have time to read the study, but my assumption would be that only animals who form strong bonds and community like structures will develop and aversion to incest by means of recognizing kin that they grew up along.

And by aversion I mean that they would probably prefer to have sex with animals that they did not grow up with.

 

Animals who don't have such social structures probably don't need to develop such aversions or preferences, and I suspect with humans there could be further mechanisms due to our higher social bonding. Maybe due to our more sophisticated psychological nature and mating rituals, we would more easily get attracted to our close relatives if we did not have such aversions.

I don't know how many animals that have higher social complexity are likely to engage in for example in parent-child incest, or that they are as likely to engage in that as they are in sexual activities with other animals.

So, it's a tricky question because they might just reduce everything to either being inbreeding or not, rather than having a more indepth analysis on whether or not some animals avoid it while others do not, and if certain types of relational inbreeding are avoided. With most animals I assume this isn't even relevant because they are unlikely to ever mate with offspring for multiple generations, which is what would be needed to cause any significant harm to the genetic line.

 

But humans are also special. Who knows how we would behave if we didn't have anti-incest instincts, lol. Either way, none of that is even related to whether or not incest is wrong. But thanks for the article, I adjusted my assumptions.

 

 

   So which is OP implying, that heterosexuality is wrong because it's unatural, or because it's not conducive to evolution? Why would homosexuality be not conducive to evolution and sexual reproduction?

[Scholar]

10 minutes ago, Danioover9000 said:

@Scholar

   So which is OP implying, that heterosexuality is wrong because it's unatural, or because it's not conducive to evolution? Why would homosexuality be not conducive to evolution and sexual reproduction?

You are taking OP way too seriously. And I am not sure what else to do but repeat what I said to you before.

[An young being]

29 minutes ago, Scholar said:

By the way, unconditional isn't love for family. Love for family is one of the most conditional types of love that exist, considering it solely applies to these individuals because they happen to be your family. Unconditional love necessarily is universal, because if it lacks conditions, then it cannot apply to just a limited set of things.

I agree, that's why I mentioned parent's love as something closer to Unconditional love compared to romantic or sexual love. Unconditional love is not that easy to create and it's a major achievement when you achieve unconditional love within an expanded ego outside of your own body, which in this case is family. Why I mention mother's love is superior to romantic love in terms of unconditionality is solely because there is a higher chance of lust affecting the unconditional part of it. If you are able to overcome lust in entirety with your romantic partner, it can be considered similar or higher than mother's love, even according to Spirituality.

36 minutes ago, Scholar said:

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34 minutes ago, Scholar said:

 

 

37 minutes ago, Scholar said:

Of course you could have that type of deep bond to someone and then move it to romantic love and elevate the relationship. Whether or not someone has a closer genetic code is irrelevant in that regard.

The genetic code is relevant for close relationships because romantic relationships maintained without lust is very rare, atleast according to my knowledge and experience.

41 minutes ago, Scholar said:

could sit here and argue for why homosexuality is anti-spiritual because our souls recognize that we undermine the greater unity of the divine by seeking relationships that will not lead to the creation of new life through pure spiritual union, that it undermines the greatest type of "unconditional" love we are capable of, the love for a child.

Yes, you can. You can use Spirituality however you wish. But, for me, spirituality is about compassion and unconditional love, and I try to encourage those aspects in human beings. The love for a child is nowhere near being the greatest unconditional love, but it's better than love for lust, in my opinion.

[An young being]

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

And either way, people do things that undermine unconditional love all the time, and we don't have some sort of inherent aversion to it. So the argument seems to just be an attempt to make your personal morality fit your spiritual believes.

That's why I called it a soul and not people. A soul, according to me, is something which has an ego, but without all the biases we are having here. Non conditional state is the most blissful state ever, it's not about whether people wish to be blissful or not.

[An young being]

To be fair, if there is a relationship where a family member loves another family member romantically, without any sexual feelings, that would require a different set of views. 

But, we should also look into how it affects the society's stance as well, whether those individuals leads to increase in sexual feelings towards family members in the society. Those must be studied in detail before making any comments.

[Danioover9000]

@An young being

1 hour ago, An young being said:

I agree, that's why I mentioned parent's love as something closer to Unconditional love compared to romantic or sexual love. Unconditional love is not that easy to create and it's a major achievement when you achieve unconditional love within an expanded ego outside of your own body, which in this case is family. Why I mention mother's love is superior to romantic love in terms of unconditionality is solely because there is a higher chance of lust affecting the unconditional part of it. If you are able to overcome lust in entirety with your romantic partner, it can be considered similar or higher than mother's love, even according to Spirituality.

 

The genetic code is relevant for close relationships because romantic relationships maintained without lust is very rare, atleast according to my knowledge and experience.

Yes, you can. You can use Spirituality however you wish. But, for me, spirituality is about compassion and unconditional love, and I try to encourage those aspects in human beings. The love for a child is nowhere near being the greatest unconditional love, but it's better than love for lust, in my opinion.

   @Scholar can use spirituality whatever he wished? What if he did so to justify his goals of completing the Aryan race, you know, the Swastika was a peace symbol of Buddhism used by the Nazis? Shouldn't we not let him use spirituality any way he wishes for selfish gain?

[An young being]

2 minutes ago, Danioover9000 said:

@An young being

   @Scholar can use spirituality whatever he wished? What if he did so to justify his goals of completing the Aryan race, you know, the Swastika was a peace symbol of Buddhism used by the Nazis? Shouldn't we not let him use spirituality any way he wishes for selfish gain?

Ha ha!  By 'you', I meant anybody can justify their religious beliefs in forms of spirituality. True spirituality is where you are see through all the beliefs that religion and spirituality in the name of religion has imposed on us, and strive to be as unconditional as possible and be compassionate if we are not able to be so. It's close to heart rather than any ideologies.

[Princess Arabia]

6 hours ago, Merkabah Star said:

You must have a lot of cats, so do i. And yes, they all get it on with family members. 🤡

Not anymore. I adopted one cat that used to linger in the backyard. Fed her for awhile while she was still afraid. Took her awhile to warm up to me so I couldn't get her spayed. 

She got pregnant somehow and to cut a long story short one cat turned into 15. Most were outside so it got hard to control. Finally I called animal control, gave some away, to pet stores eteetc. Finally got it under control She got pregnant like 3 times and her kids would get pregnant. Oh my it was a hot mess. Down to 3 now. One stays inside with me and 2 outside but they're all spayed up. I had to get help but didn't realize cats breed so quickly. All from one frigging kitten. 

[Scholar]

3 hours ago, An young being said:

I agree, that's why I mentioned parent's love as something closer to Unconditional love compared to romantic or sexual love. Unconditional love is not that easy to create and it's a major achievement when you achieve unconditional love within an expanded ego outside of your own body, which in this case is family. Why I mention mother's love is superior to romantic love in terms of unconditionality is solely because there is a higher chance of lust affecting the unconditional part of it. If you are able to overcome lust in entirety with your romantic partner, it can be considered similar or higher than mother's love, even according to Spirituality.

 

The genetic code is relevant for close relationships because romantic relationships maintained without lust is very rare, atleast according to my knowledge and experience.

Yes, you can. You can use Spirituality however you wish. But, for me, spirituality is about compassion and unconditional love, and I try to encourage those aspects in human beings. The love for a child is nowhere near being the greatest unconditional love, but it's better than love for lust, in my opinion.

Well by your logic we shouldn't engage in sexual relations at all, as the buddhists try to do, it just detracts from achieving unconditional love, no matter towards whom it is geared. In fact, this is why spiritual traditions argue for the dissolution of all familial bonds, so that you can have a pure love for reality itself.

What you call unconditional love, meaning platonic love for family, actually prevents you from loving reality unconditionally.

 

Either way, none of that really makes incest wrong, it would just be like most things human beings do, not an act that maximizes unconditional love. Your stance hinges on whether or not lust towards parts of reality will diminish your love towards it. Which would just mean lust is bad, full stop.

[An young being]

25 minutes ago, Scholar said:

What you call unconditional love, meaning platonic love for family, actually prevents you from loving reality unconditionally.

I didn't call platonic love for family as unconditional love, but closer to it than the one due to lust. What Buddhists do and say as you say is for the ones who can't bear suffering or who wish to experience oneness at a faster rate, and it's just one of the many ways. 

27 minutes ago, Scholar said:

Either way, none of that really makes incest wrong, it would just be like most things human beings do, not an act that maximizes unconditional love. Your stance hinges on whether or not lust towards parts of reality will diminish your love towards it. Which would just mean lust is bad, full stop.

I feel that parental love is closer to unconditional love than lust-filled love. That doesn't make lust bad, unless it's not consensual. Based on my own experiences, scientific studies and biases, I believe that the society must move away from pleasure and move towards activities that increase the baseline state of happiness, and hence the assumption on how incest can push the society towards pleasure.

[Schizophonia]

Not only is homosexuality natural, but the natural/artificial dichotomy is illusory. No one would call a beaver dam “artificial.”

[Schizophonia]

7 minutes ago, An young being said:

I didn't call platonic love for family as unconditional love, but closer to it than the one due to lust. What Buddhists do and say as you say is for the ones who can't bear suffering or who wish to experience oneness at a faster rate, and it's just one of the many ways. 

I feel that parental love is closer to unconditional love than lust-filled love. That doesn't make lust bad, unless it's not consensual. Based on my own experiences, scientific studies and biases, I believe that the society must move away from pleasure and move towards activities that increase the baseline state of happiness, and hence the assumption on how incest can push the society towards pleasure.

Unconditional love does not exist. Parental love is literally conditioned by the biological bond between the two parties lol.

[An young being]

1 minute ago, Schizophonia said:

Unconditional love does not exist. Parental love is literally conditioned by the biological bond between the two parties lol.

Unconditional love begins to manifest as soon as you move away from your body or self, and expands as your circle of inclusiveness expands towards family, friends, religion,language, country, humanity and finally everything within your experience. Simply having those identities associated with you is not the same as considering them same as your self, though.

[Carl-Richard]

16 hours ago, Scholar said:

I do think it is related to cognition, our higher complexity requires the inherent aversion. And I do suspect it is inherent, because I don't remember ever being told that I ought not to be attracted to my sibling or cousins. I do not even have a taboo around incest, I could not care less, yet, I feel zero attraction to any of my family members who I have grown up with. It's complete asexuality in that regard, or rather a sexual aversion. Now, I am sure the taboo plays some role, but I doubt it is sufficient to cause something like this, because usually you can break down social constructs and your psychology might adapt, I don't see this being the case here.

A cultural taboo doesn't have to be explictly taught from parent to child to be effective (although I was personally taught that way about incest many times). That is the thing about taboos, they're rarely talked about explicitly, but the feelings and general moral atmosphere around it is ubiquitous. Also, you might have learned about it very early but just not remember it, as is the case with most concepts you learn. For example, you probably don't remember the first time you learned about the concept "soda", but you sure as hell know what it means. That also means you could possibly have internalized the aversive feelings about it in a way that might seem less obvious from quickly introspecting into your conscious mind (the most surface level part of your mind), hence you might think you're not impacted by the taboo when you actually were molded by it.

 

16 hours ago, Scholar said:

I don't think there is that much harm genetically speaking of an animal procreates with a sibling, or probably even parent, every other generation or so.

It's hard to find easily digestible numbers on it, but here are at least some numbers:

"Survival and inbreeding coefficient (F) of offspring of 71 marriages from the Habsburg royal dynasty" - https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Survival-and-inbreeding-coefficient-F-of-offspring-of-71-marriages-from-the-Habsburg_fig1_221920028

For reference, a first generation offspring of a sibling-sibling union produces an Inbreeding Coefficient (F) of 0.250. In the graph, you'll see that 0.250 F corresponds to a 20% chance of survival to 10 years, compared to 80% chance for 0.000 F. Of course, you have to factor in that the sample is not of people living in modern society, so that could have an impact, but the drop-off still seems pretty severe even for that. And this is just humans (animals of course don't really live in modern society, at least wild ones).

 

16 hours ago, Scholar said:

I do think they are instincts, but with humans it's complicated. We are so adaptive, I think even if there is an instinct, you could raise someone to get attracted to their family members, all of them, if you just raise them that way. So there might be a tendency, but it's obviously not a static thing.

Back to when you generalized earlier to social bonding and thus implicating other social animals, the first study I provided says this:

 

Quote

[...], we found no difference in kin avoidance between males and females, choice and no-choice experiments, mated and virgin animals or between humans and animals. [...]

So there were no differences between humans and animals period (and they presumably studied a large variety of animals with varying degrees of sociality), so the "more social bonding produces more incest avoidance" hypothesis seems to not be supported in this case.

 

16 hours ago, Scholar said:

Sure, but the question is whether it is wrong or not, not why we think it is wrong.

Ok. Is incest wrong?

Edited December 9, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Porphyry Fedotov]

I think OP has a very shallow notion of what normal is. The following quote by Yuval Noah Harari elaborates on it way better: "Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behavior, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist, so it would need no prohibition"

[An young being]

13 hours ago, Scholar said:

Well by your logic we shouldn't engage in sexual relations at all, as the buddhists try to do, it just detracts from achieving unconditional love, no matter towards whom it is geared. In fact, this is why spiritual traditions argue for the dissolution of all familial bonds, so that you can have a pure love for reality itself.

I thought of this again, and yes, in my opinion, the world should move away from lust and similiar pleasure inducing experiences and move towards higher forms of love. Now, it's not possible to move away since lust plays a major role in creating love between two unrelated people, providing some relief during periods of intense suffering and also babies. But when society reaches a point where a person can love an unrelated person with the same love as sexual partners have, ( which some even now are doing), but without the condition of sexual pleasure, quality of life improves to drastic levels, and we have alternative methods to produce babies, lust is needed no more. It's the same for families and other bonds that are conditional, but it has to be one step at a time and automatic and not forced. 

Edited December 10, 2023 by An young being

[Merkabah Star]

19 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

Not anymore. I adopted one cat that used to linger in the backyard. Fed her for awhile while she was still afraid. Took her awhile to warm up to me so I couldn't get her spayed. 

She got pregnant somehow and to cut a long story short one cat turned into 15. Most were outside so it got hard to control. Finally I called animal control, gave some away, to pet stores eteetc. Finally got it under control She got pregnant like 3 times and her kids would get pregnant. Oh my it was a hot mess. Down to 3 now. One stays inside with me and 2 outside but they're all spayed up. I had to get help but didn't realize cats breed so quickly. All from one frigging kitten. 

Yes, the mothers go into heat again when they are still breast feeding the babies. We have a huge, feral cat problem in Australia. Feral camels too.. living the life. 🤡

[Merkabah Star]

OP has abandoned the thread.

*Last seen doing research on the topic at his local gay bar. 🤠*

 

[lostingenosmaze]

On 12/8/2023 at 2:35 PM, Osaid said:

OP after posting his "contemplations" and then not elaborating further

And on top of that, not clarifying in the OP (but later in the thread) that's he bisexual and didn't mean any bother on the gays 💀

Edited December 10, 2023 by lostingenosmaze