I spoke to a Christian friend, more than once about choice and sexuality. Despite repeatedly telling him that I never choose to be gay, he always seems to insist that it is a choose even when I give logical reasoning to the contrary.

I had a somewhat interesting debate with another friend about this, again another Christian. He told me that we can choice to change anything about our reality if we had the will power to do so. During the debate I noticed that it felt quite familiar, and without much surprise the conversation began to take the path of all of the typical arguments that seem to come up in these conversations.

What I can never understand is why people choose to ignore reason and bliss themselves in their own ignorance despite obvious evidence to the contrary of their statements. How are we meant to argue against ignorance?

It sometimes seems to me that the bible inculcates people into a thinking method that limits their ability to think beyond their doctrine. What do you think?

Pray for them.

:D

Such people are brainwashed from a young age.

Indeed, I am coming to the conclusion that religion is a form of child abuse.

Religion is not all bad, but it discourages questioning.

I agree with you, Paper: arguing with ignorants can be a real pain in the ass... Those who say that homosexuality is a choice have absolutely no proof, while there are several proofs that it is natural. It has been observed in animals; for example in swans and penguins. Can swans choose to be gay? The idea is just laughable.

I once read somewhere: "Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience."

The question here, is what is the difference between religion and ideology? And when we say "ignorance" we mean a contrary view that we don't believe has a rational, experience based or practical basis.

Many systems of values, have built in barriers that keep one's consciousness from considering ideas outside that system, or questioning the system itself. For example, in certain Christian sects, when followers encounter un-christian ideas, they would say that its the devil trying to sway them from their path of virtues. When communists and some other radicals encounter ideas unlike their own, they might call them "counter-revolutionary,"or bourgeois. Consider other ideological barriers built into value systems...

This is not necessarily always a bad thing, for example a communist might consider, that the capitalist ideology is highly pervasive, and the barriers don't limit the ideas, but give individuals cognitive dissonance. Christians and other religions have similar arguments.

When system of thought have these kinds of mental barriers, philosopher Arthur Koestler calls that a "Closed Hierarchy of Beliefs." He argues in favor "Open Hierarchical systems," for instance Science is not completely "closed" because it uses data to self-correct its theories. Non-structural belief systems, might also be considered "open" such as Post-Modernism, Existentialism.

I can neither argue for or with ignorance. :) So yeah, I could possibly argue against allowing it happen. Put another way, to support education. People that are uneducated have a less likely chance to live longer, fuller lives. They won't try to educate themselves or seek to learn on issues they feel is unimportant. They may already have pre-conceived ideas that it is wrong or unethical.

The closer people are to the problem, the more they realize that remaining ignorant will simply mean others will be prejudiced against them for staying that way. If a person doesn't believe homosexuality should be permitted on any level or acknowledged... then they feel the civil rights of those "guilty" aren't important... and they rarely will see how that could work against them in the future course of events. That people might wish to "stone the ignorant fools to death".

So being right or wrong isn't what it is about... and trying to argue the merits of remaining righteous might be good for their soul but doesn't mean they should try to save the world or become anyone's Messiah. I've had people that couldn't relate to how it was a violation of their freedom of expression, speech, sexual practices, etc. if someone discriminated against them just because they had blue eyes or wore glasses or failed to get a high-school diploma.