Quote from: af_newbie on May 21, 2018, 09:16:53 PM

Tell it to the 10% of sheep. You are lost aren't you? Animal homosexual behaviors are well documented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals

From your Wikipedia link above.

Quote from: Wikipedia

"although homosexual behavior is very common in the animal world, it seems to be very uncommon that individual animals have a long-lasting predisposition to engage in such behavior to the exclusion of heterosexual activities. Thus, a homosexual orientation, if one can speak of such thing in animals, seems to be a rarity."[8] One species in which exclusive homosexual orientation occurs, however, is that of domesticated sheep (Ovis aries).[9][10] "About 10% of rams (males), refuse to mate with ewes (females) but do readily mate with other rams."[10]

So the one known example of large scale exclusive homosexual behavior occurs in domesticated sheep? Ovis aries has been artificially selected by humans for at least 12,000 years.

Thousands of years of artificial inbreeding, linebreeding, and outcrossing makes for a bad example when discussing nature and natural law.

Or are you trying to say that humans are like domesticated sheep? I agree that there are certain similarities.

Quote from: CoinCube on October 06, 2017, 07:47:34 PM

Sheep Logic - This Is The Age Of The High-Functioning Sociopath

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-06/sheep-logic-age-high-functioning-sociopath

Quote from: Ben Hunt

These are baby-doll Southdowns, and yes, theyre exactly as cute as they look in this picture. We only have four today on our farm, as sheep have a knack for killing themselves in what would almost be comical fashion if it werent so sad. We keep them for their so-so wool, which we clean and card and spin and knit. Its so-so wool because the Southdowns were bred for their meat, not their fleece, and I cant bring myself to raise an animal for its meat. Well, I could definitely raise birds for meat. Or fish. But not a charismatic mammal like a baby-doll Southdown.

Heres the thing Ive learned about sheep over the years. They are never out of sight of each other, and their decision making is entirely driven by what they see happening to others, not to themselves. They are extremely intelligent in this other-regarding way. My sheep roam freely on the farm, and I never worry about them so long as they stay together, which they always do. But if I only count three in the flock, then I immediately go see whats wrong. Because something is definitely wrong.

Thats the difference between a flock and a pack. A flock is a social structure designed to promote other-awareness. It has no goals, no coordinating purpose other than communication. A flock simply IS. A pack, on the other hand, is a social structure designed to harness self-aware animals in service to some goal requiring joint action the raising of cubs, the hunting of meat, etc. Both the flock and the pack are extremely effective social structures, but they operate by entirely different logics.

We think we are wolves, living by the logic of the pack.

In truth we are sheep, living by the logic of the flock.

* * *

Theres no domesticated animal species that has had more of a reputational fall from grace than the sheep. To call someone a sheep today is just about the worst insult there is. To call someone a sheep is to call them stupid and more pointedly stupidly obedient and in thrall to some bad shepherd.

It wasnt always this way. Jesus isnt insulting you when He calls you a sheep. The point of all those Biblical allegories isnt that sheep are stupidly obedient or easily led, but that the healthy life of a willful sheep requires a good shepherd.

Ask anyone who actually keeps sheep. Sheep are weird. Sheep are evolved to have a very different intelligence than humans. But sheep are not stupid. Sheep are not obedient. And sheep are definitely not easily led.

Of course, no one except a dilettante farmer like me keeps sheep today, so all of the Old Stories about sheep and shepherds have lost their punch. Theyve all been diminished through the modern lens of sheep-as-idiot-followers...

Sheep are evolved to have a specific type of intelligence which has the following hallmarks.

Enormous capacity for other-regarding behaviors. Sheep are unbelievably sensitive to what other sheep are doing and their emotional states. If another sheep is happy i.e., its found a good source of food, which is the only thing that makes a sheep happy then every other sheep in the flock is filled with jealousy (theres really no other word for it) and will move in on that good thing. If another sheep is alarmed which can be from almost anything, as bravery is not exactly a trait that tends to be naturally selected in a prey species then every other sheep in the flock is immediately aware of whats going on. Sometimes that means that they get alarmed, too. As often, though, its just an opportunity to keep going with your own grazing without worrying about the alarmed sheep bumping into your happy place.

Zero altruism and overwhelming selfishness. The most popular misconception about sheep is that they are obedient followers. Its true that theyre not leaders. Its true that they are incredibly sensitive to other sheep. But its also true that they are the most selfish mammal Ive ever encountered. They dont lead other sheep or form leadership structures like a pack because they dont care about other sheep. Every sheep lives in a universe of One, which makes them just about the most non-obedient creature around.

The determination to pursue any behavior that meets Hallmark #1 and #2 to absurd ends, even unto death. My worst sheep suicide story? The first year we kept sheep, we thought it would make sense to set up a hay net in their pen, which keeps the hay off the ground and lets the sheep feed themselves by pulling hay through the very loose loops of the net. Turned out, though, that the loops were so loose that a determined sheep could put her entire head inside the net, and if one sheep could do that, then two sheep could do that. And given how the hay net was hung and how these sheep were sensing each other, they started to move clockwise in unison, each trying to get an advantage over the other, still with their heads stuck in the net. At which point the net starts to tighten. And tighten. And tighten. My daughter found them the next morning, having strangled each other to death, unable to stop gorging themselves or seeking an advantage from the behavior of others. The other sheep were crowded around, stepping around the dead bodies, pulling hay for themselves out of the net. That was a bad day.

In both markets and in politics, our human intelligences are being trained to be sheep intelligences. That doesnt make us sheep in the modern vernacular.

We are not becoming docile, stupid, and blindly obedient. On the contrary, we are becoming sheep as the Old Stories understood sheep intensely selfish, intensely intelligent (but only in an other-regarding way) and intensely dogmatic, willing to pursue a myopic behavior even unto death.
...
We need a lot more shame in the world. The loss of our sense of shame is, I think, the greatest loss of our modern world... to put it in sheep logic terms: the tragedy of the flock is that everything is instrumental, including our relationship to others. Including our relationship to ourselves.

Why do we need shame? Because with no sense of shame there is no sense of honor. There is no mercy. There is no charity. There is no forgiveness. There is no loyalty. There is no courage. There is no service. There is no Code. There are no ties that bind us as citizens, as fellow pack members seeking to achieve something bigger and more important than our ability to graze on as much grass as we can. Something like, you know, liberty and justice for all...

This is the Age of the High-Functioning Sociopath. This is the Age of Sheep Logic. We have to survive it, but we dont have to succumb to it. How do we Resist?
...
We resist by changing the System from below, by carving out local spheres of action where we are relentlessly honorable and charitable, relentlessly un-sheeplike. We resist by Making America Good Again, one pack at a time, which is a hell of a lot harder than making America great ever was.
...

Quote from: af_newbie on May 21, 2018, 09:16:53 PM

...
I think your IQ is below average
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'sin' only applies to homo sapiens? You are digging deeper and deeper hole for yourself.
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You are fan of Mormons, what is your view of polygamy? You support it? I bet you do.

Sin my ass, I don't even know what 'sin' suppose to be.
...

Random topics here but you were better off with the insanity argument. There is a reason my second citation in this thread was from Mensa magazine.

Sin by definition requires knowledge of good and evil so yes it is uniquely human. No one thinks that a lion who eats a man sinned.

Polygamy is harmful to society under most but not all circumstances. Thus it is illegal which is reasonable. Here is an interesting article on the topic.

The link between polygamy and war
Plural marriage, bred of inequality, begets violence
https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2017/12/19/the-link-between-polygamy-and-war

Quote from: Astargath on May 21, 2018, 08:49:23 PM

...thus homosexuality is not a sin, you failed again.

Unfortunately I have a significant project coming up so I must bow out of the conversation for a couple of weeks.

For the record I do not believe male homosexuality prevents one from being an amazing person. Nor does it prevent one from being a force for good in the world. However, it is clearly a tragic condition that is biologically quite harmful to those unlucky enough to suffer from it. Female homosexuality is a separate issue and appears to be much less biologically harmful.

We have both articulated our positions and appear unlikely to reach consensus.