I don’t know, sometimes the though of “what if all my leftist ideas are false? What if trans people are just mentally ill? What if gay people are just deviants?”
I honestly really don’t like it…
It’s good to question your beliefs I guess, it’s how you grow, but it sometimes makes me really uncomfortable. Why does this happen? Can I stop it? Should I?
The mile markers along the road to truth are ideas we used to believe were true.
Further truth can only be obtained by holding currently accepted truth to the highest standards of scrutiny.
This is good, but I’d add that you can get closer, and you can get closer faster, but truth will always be over the horizon.
For sure. Each “truth” we hold dear might be the next one we drop as we learn a new more accurate truth to replace it.
We can only hold so much knowledge, so there will always be room to improve.
And I’m even still thankful for all of the half-truths that served me well along my journey.
You seem to be obsessed with a certain area of thought, particularly with your own sexuality & that of others. You should get therapy and figure out your own sexuality before examining this any further. There’s something extremely wrong with worrying about other people and where they put their genitals.
Suggesting therapy (or any course of action) for someone based on a couple of lines the posted on the internet seems a bit hasty. You know barely anything about them. AND you’re making umsupported assumptions (they said nothing about their own sexuality).
Seconded, I’ve had that stuff figured out for a while. As I said in another comment, I used those as an example because it’s what was on my mind at the moment.
Question everything.
Why?
Why not?
Good point
No way, that’s just science, baby! (Edit: OK, and philosophy)
I think those questions need to be followed through with a chain of reasoning and questions, not denial. There’s usually lots of options.
So for that “gay people are deviants” question, a “no they aren’t” answer isn’t helpful, because it’s faith based, which leads to a shutdown of thinking and curiosity.
Another line might be: if they are, then does that mean that the tens or hundreds of other animal species with documented existence of homosexuality are also deviants? Can an animal be a deviant? Seems unlikely… Does that mean that maybe deviance is a dodgy concept? What does it actually mean? Does it mean a thing is fundamentally bad, or does it just mean that it doesn’t fit with a particular value system? If that’s the case, and I personally know a bunch of gay people who are really lovely people, is it possible that it’s the value system that’s the problem, not the gay people?
There’s usually plenty of other chains of thought that will get you to a place like this. Doing this kind of thought exploration also means that when you come up against someone making that argument in public, then you have a better idea where you stand, and you can potentially engage constructively with them, if they seem open to it.
EDIT: Fixed grammar with AI.
The word deviant doesn’t have a concrete meaning in scientific terms.
So, no—objectively speaking, gay people are not “deviant,” since morality is a human construct. (And even if it weren’t, that would be a philosophical question.)
The best way I could reframe this question is:
A. Are we evolutionarily predisposed to find people with alternative* sexual preferences distasteful or unpleasant?
B. Are alternative* sexual preferences evolutionarily harmful to society?
C. Are alternative* sexual preferences harmful to an individual’s own evolutionary success?
D. If any of the above are true, is the psychological or societal damage so detrimental—either to the individual or to society—that it would still be preferable to engage in alternative* sexual desires?
In this context, “alternative” refers to anything outside of a heterosexual relationship. However, these questions can be narrowed down to whatever specific sexual preferences you are inquiring about.
I won’t offer my own opinion on this, nor will I present any scientific evidence. But I will say this: I don’t think the issue is as black and white as some might assume.
I wasn’t suggesting anything was black and white. I was just giving an example of a chain of thought. OP is free to come up with their own chains of thought.