I'm curious what religion you're of.  I know you're not christian.  I thought you were muslim, however someone else said that you were buddhist, or hindu.  So, I'm curious.  Which is it?

I think that for those of us that are not homosexual, we'll never really understand what it's like.

But in my opinion, no on gay marriage, yes on gay civil unions. Most people, gay friends that I have included, will not argue that too much.

Also, in my opinion, no on gays adopting children, JUST for the reason that there's evidence behind it that the best possible scenario is a mother and a father. Mom and Dad > Single parent/gay couple. I didn't have a dad for the early years of my life, and I needed a serious can of harden the up, cause I was raised by two women (my mom and grandma in this case). You can really screw up a kid that way (one of my girlfriend's friends has two moms...).

Anyway, I don't have any particular moral concerns with it, so don't bother flaming me. I just have those above mentioned social concerns.

There's so much to this thread, I just don't have time to get caught up right now, so I'm going to pretend that no one has responded to this comment and go from there.

I'm very much a creature of the rational. In grade and middle school, the other kids delighted in calling me Spock, not meaning it as a compliment. I have been, at various times in my life, a heartless jerk, and have even made a living out of being able to completely tune out the screams of a house full of tantruming teenagers (long story, don't ask; not in this conversation at least).

And it's been less than a year since, without a moment's hesitation, I told the doctors: yes, go ahead and take the newborn daughter I'd been dreaming of all my life off of life support and let her die. Because it was the right thing to do. So you can be sure I'm with you on the call that rationality should rule.

As for my personal sexuality, even though I'm not the least bit into machismo (don't give a whit about sports or cars or hunting or drinking or any of the usual he-man pasttimes), you have never in your life met a man more utterly enthralled with women. I basically don't have time for the he-man stuff because I'd rather spend my time obsessing over women. For exhibit A, I offer my online gallery of the pin-up beauties I've painted. For exhibit B, I'll drop another mention of Exarius' wonderful harem (it's sooo good being the Raja). And while, like most men, I've got my share of girl-on-girl fantasies, I find the thought of male homosexuality a bit creepy.

The beginning of rationality, though, is the ability to divorce myself from those gut reactions, own up to them, and move on with a productive analysis.

And a productive analysis says that trying to look at the big picture of life by reducing it to cold chemical components makes about as much sense as looking at the string of ones and zeros behind the picture on your computer desktop. It's got you standing so close that you can't see what should be bloody obvious.

If we accept your assertion that life is about the chemistry that makes it possible, why are we even bothering to have this argument? Chemistry goes on, with or without us. Will the carbon molecules in our DNA honestly care if they fail to execute their program? No. They're just bloody carbon molecules, set into a sort of perpetual motion.

The Mona Lisa is not about the pigments used to paint her. The Beatles were not about the individual notes of their music. The collected works of Shakespeare are not about the paper they're written on. And rationale to the core though I may be, I will defend to the death the notion that there is more to me than the sum of my body chemistry.

People have feelings. They don't just imagine them, they have them. And feelings can move mountains, topple empires, and build nations. In Florida a few years back, a tiny handful of people changed the entire course of world history, and they did it by expressing their feelings through the tangible power of voting. Whether or not they'll ever produce children has nothing to do with it. They changed the world forever, and we ignore that sort of power at our own peril.

So here I (virtually) stand to tell you, go take your fear-driven pseudo-rationailty and stuff it someplace it can't the bother those of us who actually care about people. Because life is good. Life matters. And the people you don't like have just as much right to breathe the air and raise families as you do, so long as they don't go around trying to convince the world that you are a useless waste of space.

i like that arguement! it made much sence and was much well put!
although, emotions are from chemistry . such as when adrenaline is released, there is emotions caused by that. and emotions were evolved for survival, so that doesn't add anything else that isn't what i'd said of there. and ants have emotions too(even plants do, too) so i don't quite see what the point of adding emotions into it is?

that last paragraph bothered me, sir. if i didn't care about people then i wouldn't believe that, for that is what i believe is the way that's best to the most amount of people. and it wasn't fear driven, i don't know where you arrived at that conclusion? and you're saying they have just as much right to breathe air, i think you're implying i'd written for them to be dead? no, i was trying to clarify and say why they shouldn't be dead, not why they should die.

and again, i do not wish to start an arguement.

James-Lange Theory

The James-Lange theory of emotion argues that an event causes physiological arousal first and then we interpret this arousal.  Only after our interpretation of the arousal can we experience emotion.  If the arousal is not noticed or is not given any thought, then we will not experience any emotion based on this event.


EXAMPLE: You are walking down a dark alley late at night.  You hear footsteps behind you and you begin to tremble, your heart beats faster, and your breathing deepens.  You notice these physiological changes and interpret them as your body's preparation for a fearful situation.  You then experience fear.

I disagree with this statement as a would-be physiologist (I graduate officially in May). The mainstream definition of emotion a feeling state involving thoughts, physiological changes, and an outward expression or behavior. There are many models that try and theorize how this works such as the James-Lange Theory (note, I personally don't like this model, but it works for this situation):
Adrenaline in this instance would elicit the responses noted as "you begin to tremble," "your heart beats faster," "your breathing deepens." It does not, however, elicit fear by itself. Adrenaline causes the arousal. The arousal is then perceived as fear, excitement, etc... all those other emotions.

As for ants and and plants have emotions, I disagree. Emotion is something that so far as science understands derives from a higher brain center. Ants and Plants lack these. A plant cannot feel sad. It cannot feel happy. Humans and other animals can.

well, i've not training in the subject as you, but i'll attempt to rebute;
how does that disprove what i was trying to say? if anything, i think that that strengthens my arguement, for the chemical adrenaline being the cause of the reactions that collectivly are seen as fear. but i think i am probably misunderstanding what you said? well, let's test it, might you provide an example of anything of life that isn't caused by a reaction of some sort? i don't think that sentance describes exactly what i'm asking, i guess the more appropriate question would be what happends to life that doesn't happen to non-life?

plants can sleep(there's an arguement over weather or not that is really sleeping or just dormant/non-dormant phases, though(just saying this because sleep is sometimes tied into emotions, i'm not shure how but i have a friend of mine that's studying neurology and sleep in my science research class and he says emotions are. and i'm studying botany(taxonomy of bambusa, in particular) so that's where i've read the journal articles about sleeping plants.), and can react to different things in their surrounds. by the theory you've just put, then, the collective of those reactions is considered the emotion, so they would have an emotion?

Reaction is instinct - emotion, as Narsrim said, is of a higher brain center.  Plants grow towards light because of the will and need to survive - Darwin's Theory of Evolution, if you will.  This has nothing to do with love, fear, hate, anger, happiness - it is the simple concept of survival.  Plants will go into hibernation because of cold weather, or the time of year - this is, again, survival, not it being afraid of getting snow on it's leaves. 

As to plants sleeping - there is a strong difference between dormancy in plants and animals, and sleep in humans - when a plant goes into hibernation, or other stages of "sleep", it would be better compared to that of Terri Schiavo than an emotional twelve year old crying.

When sleep becomes tied to emotion is when sleep, in the form of dreams, arouses emotions, be they fear (nightmares), sexual pleasure (often in "wet" dreams), or simply happiness (running, playing, laughing) or any variation thereof.

I highly doubt this concept of 'sleep' for plants is in any way linked to human's sleeping, and sleep linked to emotions.  When two things (sleep, emotions) take place within closed perameters, they are bound to interact.

What makes the human any better than the blade of grass other than you being human you wish for your species to fluirish?

Honestly? Nothing.

Unfortunately, it seems there is always going to be some form of prejudice, and people working to continue that prejudice while oppressing whatever group is the current flavour of the day.

A hundred years from now, who knows? Perhaps an arguement about how anyone over the age of 60 doesn't deserve to be allowed to live.

People seem to need to hate something . I really don't understand why. I know all the lines about fearing what is different, resisting change, supressed and repressed thoughts and feelings, but none of those answer the real 'why' that I'm after.

What makes a heterosexual any better than me?

To Shiri...

A gay man can get married to any woman , just as a black man or white man can get married to any woman he wants.  There is no difference between a black man and a white man, but there is a difference between a man and a woman.