Salem Gay Pride speaker has a lesson for atheists

Last Friday my wife and I went to a Pride gathering in Salem's Riverfront Park. I wrote about it in "Scott Hosner speaks at 2021 Salem Gay Pride event." 

The seven-minute video I made of Hosner can be viewed below. It's worth watching for several reasons.

One is that Hosner's description of what it was like to grow up queer in the last part of the previous century shows how much progress has been made in LGBTQ rights since that time. That's really encouraging given the many social problems we face now.

(My daughter graduated from South Salem high school in 1990, which could be about the time Hosner was a student there.)

Another reason is that Hosner calls on members of other minorities to "come out" as he is urging queer people to do. This is needed to show that those who are part of a minority group are regular people like everybody else.

And if enough minorities band together, they can form a majority.

Atheists like me are a decided minority. It appears that we comprise somewhere around 3% to 10% of the United States population. 

A monthly discussion group that I'm a part of is almost entirely made up of atheists. Last night we talked about the pros and cons of being open about our atheism.

A woman who lives in a fairly conservative nearby town said that she's reluctant to let people know she doesn't believe in God, since religious believers can be nasty to atheists. 

That's true, but I think there are strong reasons for doing what Hosner recommends: be proud of who you are and what you believe, and don't be shy about opening yourself up to others. 

Here's the video.

Comments

[Spence Tepper]

The right to maintain one's own views privately is a sacred right. No one should be ashamed into doing anything they are uncomfortable doing. But this rarely happens in an atmosphere where people are encouraged to discuss their life experiences without judgment, and with full acceptance that each has their own unique experience and reality.

The problem with Atheism in its more virulent forms is that it argues that belief in divinity is wrong.

Being Gay is not a denial of heterosexuality. It is a desire to be accepted for being what one actually is, not a case against heterosexuality.

Atheism, to be accepted among non - atheists, will need to find less caustic representatives who are not against religion, but who have found peace in a different system of belief about how their reality works.

[Ron Elloway]

Brian.
Its quite different here in the UK where 4o% do not believe in a deity. Over recent years where 66% identified as Christian it is now down 33%. The 'extremely non-religious' has doubled from 14% to 33% in the past two decades.
Much of Europe has seen similar declines.
Also, apparently this does not make us less law abiding, loving, charitable or moral.

[Arius D.]

What a disappointment. I read Return to the One and found it to be an excellent book on Plotinus' philosophy. You seemed to really grasp it...and then you went from that sublime knowledge to atheism and a rejection of objective morality? That's as far from Plato as you can get.

Plato taught that the end (goal) of life was "assimilation to God" . Since God is Good and Beauty and Truth we should aspired to those very things in our own lives. There is nothing good or beautiful in the abomination of homosexuality. You don't need Jesus, Mohammed or the Bible to tell you that. It violates what we would call natural law and any right-thinking person would have nothing to do with that lifestyle or "Pride" activities. In a sane, healthy society, people should be left alone to pursue their own lives and activities, but they should not be allowed to spread their errors.

[Spence Tepper]

Arius D formalized Christianity has committed so many sins, violating their own precepts, the very Sermon on The Mount given by their claimed teacher.

I do think it is a miracle Christ's teachings survive.

Christ taught that the good Samaritan, while worshipping an abomination as Samaritans did, was greater than all the priests and rabbis because he helped a stranger in need without questioning their beliefs or lifestyle. Christ used his Samaritan as an example of a good neighbor, though he was from a foreign land, when explaining we should live our neighbor as ourselves.

Christ forgave the prostitute and merely asked her not to sin anymore. He did not demand her pledge of loyalty to him. He put to shame the rabbis, scholars and priests with these words, the ten greatest words uttered by any human being in history:

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. "
John 8:7

Try to do as your Master has asked.

[umami]

The ancient Greeks were very gay...
https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-1242

So gay that sex between men and adolescent boys was an institution...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greece
Plato was against homosexuality late in his life; however, "At one time he had written that same-sex lovers were far more blessed than ordinary mortals. He even gave them a headstart in the great race to get back to heaven, their mutual love refeathering their mottled wings."

I knew a guy who surprised everyone by beginning to live as a woman in his late twenties, down to a long and painful course of electrolysis and two decades of hormone therapy. She was manly, and at work they had to learn to call her "she" and let her use the ladies room. This year she transitioned completely with surgery. You don't put yourself through all of that just because of the annual Gay Pride parade.

[Arius D.]

The "sex between men and adolescent boys was an institution" idea, in ancient Greece is believed by some scholars to be more literary than reality, an outcome of the homosocial, patriarchal society of the military and society in general in the ancient world.

Your friend is suffering from a mental disorder called gender dysphoria (see DSM-5). At one time, we tried to treat it. Now we coddle it and sacralize it. But it doesn't change the fact that some behaviors are intrinsically disordered and are incongruent with a virtuous (and therefore happy) life.

Anyway my point in the original post is not the debate homosexuality, but to express my disappointment at learning that Brian Hines does not seem to be a serious philosopher, but instead a spiritual dilettante and left-winger who appears now to be just causing confusion with his pointless ramblings and should perhaps follow the teachings of the Tao Te Ching (apparently his interest du jour); "When the work is done, and one's name is becoming distinguished, to withdraw into obscurity is the way of Heaven.”

[Spence Tepper]

Arius D, some of the most creative, hard working, kindest, patient, and strongest men and women, and a few dimensions between, I have known are gay. You claim they have disfunction, but for some strange reason, their condition or just their character, is superior. Superior to most of the people who claim to understand what it means to be human, what it means to help one another. Everyone of Jesus' male disciples loved him more than life itself.

So there you are. We are all a mixed bag. Your position against different lifestyles does not speak with integrity to your goal of a peaceful and happy life. Make peace with this creation, because all human beings, men, women and every variation between them was made by the creator, Our Father.

The DSM I and II diagnosis you cite refers to a culture bound and white male defined definition of pathology that has long since been acknowledged as wrong and harmful. It was removed from the DSM II in 1973 when I was studying psychology. We are in DSM 5 today and including DSM II and all versions since, homosexuality has been defined as a life style, not a pathology.

No psychiatrist or psychologist trained in the last forty years adheres to that out of date, obsolete and erroneous definition that you falsely claim as valid.

Please tell me where you received your training in psychology. Mine was at the University of California, Northridge, in General Experimental Psychology with my thesis on five experiments in the physiological effects of meditation, behavioral psychology and multivariate statistics.

And you?