The Subject of Homosexuality

OK, let's put a few things into place before going "Oh my god he's talking about Homosexuality, he must be GAY!!! D:", firstly I am not homosexual, gay or whatever you want to call it, I prefer women, plain and simple. But this blog post is simply here to put my views about homosexuality and why it's not a bad thing...

With the internet being the internet, a tool for communication across countries and cultures, it's great to know that it's used to get along with like-minded people, however my experience with the internet for the last 5 or 6 years has been a bit of a shaky one. Back in 1994 when the internet started, it was believed that the internet would be a haven of free speech to many people, including those of countries that might not have as much as the western world has, unless you're from China were Twitter is banned and blocked, but during the rise of Youtube I started to notice the rise in hatred towards others, be cultural differences or something petty like not agreeing in someone's opinion. But there was a trend where people accuse others of homosexuality because of ridiculous reasons; that or racist remarks towards Jewish and Muslim people. But one subject that appears on Youtube, and the internet in general is homosexuality of other people and how it's either OK or a bad thing. If it's an article, a video, or a recording that against the subject it gets bad, and fundamental religion rears it's ugly face into the scene and spews hatred towards homosexuality.

The hatred is pretty much towards the idea that said religion says that since homosexuality is bad, the people think they need to protest the idea and make sure that people are heterosexual, to confirm to their beliefs. The best example to pick here is the Phelp's Family Westboro Church, a group of people who have gone as far as turning homophobia into misanthropy, I won't delve into the misanthropic part too much, but the family go around and picket funerals of homosexuals and try to stop events that have homosexuality in it. The problem being is that they go a bit too far in the sense that they send letters to families saying that their son/daughter is going to hell because of their homosexuality. Which is incredibly crass and not forgiveable at all.

Thing is, there needs to be a reason for why these people would think like this, and cause the hatred. It's pretty simple if you think to yourself as if you are a god. Lets take 4 people, 3 of which are men, and there's 1 women, all 4 of these people are over 18, virgin, clean, sexually active, and in love. One man picks the woman, and the remaining men pick each other in a moment of love and romance through their sexuality, fast forward to 9 months later, to heterosexual couple have a child, but the homosexual couple don't, now if you're a God, you'd want more people to worship you, so why allow homosexuality to happen when it doesn't reproduce? This is why most religions detest to homosexuality, because it doesn't increase the population for said religion, which back in ancient days made sense since it's guranteed the human race to continue with a low population and high chances of getting diseases, but in the modern world? This becomes a little flawed...

First off, the 20th century brought a lot of medical advances into the world, the child death rate dramatically reduced in the western world and life expectancy increased higher and higher. In 1900, it was recorded the the world population was 1 billion people, but 100 years later in 2000, it blew up 6 times to 6 billion! And yet somehow homophobia still exists...

The chances of homosexuality dropping the human population is pretty much non exist, and even to this day the world population still growing, if maybe it's too much, but I'll talk about that some other time. Just because homosexual people exist it doesn't mean that the population is going to drop. However that's not always the reason for why people are homophobic. From what I've observed in life, people don't really think about "God's need of population", more that people believe that it's "filthy" because of the act of homosexual sex between men. I mean yes, thinking about it does cause issues such as hygiene and disease, the irony is that what can be "filthy" about homosexual sex, heterosexual sex can be just as "filthy". I have heard plenty of men describing about how they have anal sex with their girlfriends; the funny thing about this is that a typical man believes that it's "filthy" for 2 men to enjoy anal sex, but somehow it's totally fine if it's between a man and a woman, despite the fact that it's the SAME ACT. I personally think it's hypocritical that men can think like that, sure not all men do, but I have witnessed males boasting about it and being tempted to call them a hypocrite.

In general, homosexuality isn't something to be scared of. It's not going to kill the world, and can be done in loving in clean ways just like how a heterosexual relationships can be. As long as we can prevent religion kicking in and/or spewing hatred towards others, we can realise that it's no different at all. I've met homosexual people and they're nothing different as a person, just their sexuality, they don't all dress up like the Village people, they're not all into cottaging, and they're not all into being campy. You might found out that they act pretty much the way you expect others to act and may even share interests with you, you don't need to worry about them trying to hit on you, they already know that you're straight, so they won't. Simple as that!

Just adding this in here because it's funny! heh!

The Subject of Religion...

Ok, before I throw myself in a the internal pit of internet flame wars and begrudging. I am a liberal agnostic, what this means is that even though I do not find religions, Gods and Deities the solution to everything in my life, I respect other people's religious ways and needs. What does this mean? Well, I have friends and family that are parts of religions, the American side of my family are mostly Lutheran, friends a part of the Church of England, and friends that are Muslim, or a part of the Muslim culture. And even through our differences, we respect each other because we're friends as social humans, nothing more, nothing less...

But the reason for why I bring this up a few things that happened today, nothing major, nothing terrible, just a few things that sparked me to write this blog post. First off was a pair of Mormons that tried to talk to me as I was trying to get home, I didn't want to look mean to them, I really wanted to go home, but it was a bit pointless that they'd pick me just because I wouldn't pick a religion just because they had a chat with me. It's fine that they're Mormon, even though I think the way that Mormonism was created is a little concluded with the whole "I'm going to read things out of a hat through a looking glass that came from God and Jesus!" thing. As I got home there was an article of Destructoid about a Religious American TV Channel called Watchman Broadcasts  as they describe how Pokemon are "Oriental Daemons", and yes, I did spell "Demons" "Daemon", I just think it looks cooler, and is how "Demons" was spelt a very long time ago, that and it's in my spell check as being right, so HAH! lol :P. Still, the man on this show, named Henry Lewis, describes how Pokemon is evil because of how when Pokemon evolve, they become more daemonic, and have been named after daemons. Issue is, this guy looks like he's in his late 50s, early 60s, and isn't really the kind of person who'd be interested in Pokemon, or playing games in general, but the man clearly haven't got a clue. Now, back in 2000 when the first Pokemon craze was going on, I was playing the game. And yes maybe the Pokemon when they evolve look a bit more sinister and gruesome, but named after daemons!? Sure...  "Blastoise" is some tortoise biblical daemon that shot water at high pressure at people...  See where this becomes flawed? Plus not all Pokemon have the ability the evolve, and some evolutions don't even look menacing, some keep the cute look of it's previous form. Pikachu for example, evolves into a creature called Raichu, a taller, yet stouter version of the Pikachu, and is mostly coloured orange rather than it's iconic yellow, but it still possesses a cute face that's no where near sinister. Again, what this man said is flawed, and proves that he has only glanced at what Pokemon is, rather than see it in detail, if he was 40 years younger and actually played the game, he'd have a better idea.

But before I turn this into yet another blog about video games, I need to show out my own opinions towards how religion is right, and when religion is wrong, I'm not saying that people of a religion are right and wrong, but there are slight flaws in each religion that should be addressed, and as long as we can admit that maybe that it is wrong, the better we understand about each other rather than the whole "I'm in this religion, and you're not, so I'm better than you, because you're going to hell!".

Firstly, what I find hypocritical in Christianity, is how in the old testament celebrate slavery, and seriously, it is in there, I can't tell you what book and chapter, but it describes something on the lines that's slavery is fine as long as you don't buy slaves from the town you live in, or from the town you were born in. Again, I can't remember huge amounts of details about the whole, but considering that the United States of America are all about freedom and such, since it's been in the Thirteenth Amendment that Slavery is abolished in America, I find it funny how people still praise the bible as if it's their complete way of life, when it has something in the old Testament that's against the Thirteenth Amendment of the country. I don't want to sound mean and horrible, but I'm just pointing this out since the pride of the country is all about it's freedom, when the bible itself says it fine to enslave people.

As for Islam, the whole Sharai Law is a little misrepresented, and changes a lot between different countries, yet at the same time people use Sharai Law as the law of Allah himself, even though the Sharai Law changes between different Islamic states. Thing is, I thought the whole Sharai law was primarily based on the 5 Islamic pillars of life, Prayer, Charity, Pilgrimage, Fasting and pleading allegianceto Mohammed and Allah. Thing is over the course to time they added things such as misogynistic behaviour, beating woman for simply talking to another man is simply outrageous. A lot of Muslims have "modernised" themselves and accept western laws and cultures, yet haven't been differed from their religion, this is the kind of thing that I wish the middle east can see, the better Muslims are the ones that adapt with other cultures rather than object them. OK there are middle eastern countries that are already doing it such as parts of India and the United Arab Emirates. But there's still quite a way to go, I just wish some middle eastern countries would get out of the Dark ages and come into the 21st century!

I could go into more stuff like the Phelps family, but I've written too much at this point, heh. In general, I believe that it doesn't matter if we believe, or not believe in religion, that we can respect our differences and get on with our lives happily. As long we don't allow our differences become the problem, or try to prove that a person's way of living is better than others, we can live in a better place. Fundamental Religious types, regardless of the religion, need to go and see the world for themselves, and see why the world is different, and see how people work, live and play, and accept the fact not absolutely everyone around you needs to believe in every belief you have. After all, as Humans, we have flaws, and so do religions too, people arn't perfect, same with religion, as long as we can except that and allow ourselves to go our own ways and depict our own destinies, the become man itself becomes.