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This sounds a bit like the Catholic position. They offer (or used to offer) celibacy as the alternative, but AFAIK didnt go with reparative therapy...they said it was an "intrinsic disorder", but still a sin of sorts, but they never said you could actually change to being str8.
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I wonder how the evangelical/fundamentalist community is taking this. This disbanding is actually a very big deal.
The Catholic Catechism and the Vatican take no hard science stance on the issue of homosexuality, quite wisely, but state the causes has yet to be determined. But the Church regards homosexuality like alcoholism. Which some like to claim (which I do not agree with) that alcoholism is genetically heritable.
Science is not carried out (or not supposed to be) by the method of: "I believe X and therefore I will set out to prove X is true."
In science one is suppose to come up with a hypothesis, state that hypothesis before carrying out your experiments and the either accept or reject your hypothesis at the end based upon what you infer from your results/data. But accepting or rejecting your hypothesis does not mean as much as the lay person reads into it when they read articles about "Scientist Found..."
Great news, Exodus will not be missed. Now if they could figure out a way to reverse the countless suicides caused by their horrific "therapies" I could give them some credit......
NARTH is a religious/political advocacy group masquerading as a scientific organization. It has absolutely zero credibility. Its "research" has been thoroughly and comprehensively debunked on numerous occasions.
As I stated earlier. Catholic intellectual opposition to eugenics was "debunked" by mainstream American, British, and Nazi Germany scientists. Yet the Catholic intellectuals were proven correct. There are U.S. states providing monetary compensation this very day to living U.S. women that were forced sterilized under the eugenics programs of the United States.
NARTH produces scientific papers just as Gregor Mendel did and Georges Lemaitre did.
Gregor Johann Mendel (July 20, 1822[1] – January 6, 1884) was a German-speakingSilesian[2][3] scientist and Augustinianfriar who gained posthumous fame as the founder of the new science of genetics. Mendel demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants follows particular patterns, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance. The profound significance of Mendel's work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century, when the independent rediscovery of these laws initiated the modern science of genetics.[4]
Ian Nicholas StewartFRS (born 24 September 1945) is a professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick, England, and a widely known popular-science and science-fiction writer. He is the first recipient of the Christopher Zeeman Medal, awarded jointly by the LMS and the IMA for his work on promoting mathematics.
Geneticists Terry McGuire of Rutgers University in an influential paper concludes it is unlikely homosexuality is genetically caused but results from more nuanced factors in life.
McGuire. T. R. (1995). Is homosexuality genetic? A critical review and some suggestions. Journal of Homosexuality 28: 115-145.
That the genetic heritability of homosexuality is a hypothesis (not scientific theory), that the conjecture "No homosexual can become heterosexual," is a hypothesis (and uses deductive declarative statements rather than the preferred inductive statements in science of "likely"), yet people claim NARTH scientifically composed papers are not science because they propose different hypotheses and may accept their hypotheses at the end of a paper, just tells me as a student of science that we are right back at the era of eugenics, so to speak.
A hypothesis is not a scientific theory.
Both hypotheses and scientific theories are required to be falsifiable. Any declarative statement that is not falsifiable is not scientific but the equivalent of a dogmatic (theological) statement. That the proponents of certain conceptions of homosexuality have already raised dogmas, those they claim unfalsifiable, and raise these up to the level of scientific theories, further tells me we are right back at the era of eugenics, so to speak. And it's a blessing in disguise for the Catholic Church. For like with eugenics she'll be proven correct many decades from now. Another scientific and intellectual notch under her belt.
Just because no genetic basis for homosexuality has been found, doesn't mean it is therefore a "choice" -- which belief is the cornerstone of the entire anti-gay agenda.
Scientists don't know exactly how gravity works; does that call the existence of gravity into question?
And just because NARTH's membership includes doctors and other scientists doesn't mean its "research" is necessarily credible. Joycelyn Elders is a doctor; are her statements about masturbation therefore valid? Josef Mengele was a doctor. And so on.
NARTH is not a credible organization, and its "research" -- devoted as it is to its transparently faith-based anti-gay agenda -- is not credible either.
"Praying addiction away" was understood to be largely a failed method long ago. The 12 Steps has had more success but even that is by and large a failure, so to speak, by any scientific method looking for a cure. As of today no cure for substance addiction has been found.
Addiction--which I regard homosexuality as a part of--is not a choice. The brain responds to fast. But addictions can be arrested. If by looking at the model given in falsifiablity that all one has to do is find one non-white bird to prove the hypothesis "All birds are white hypothesis" wrong.
Has nothing to do with addiction. Rationalize all you want, to justify your hatred. It's no different than trying to turn a left handed person into a right handed person.
What is true, is that no homosexual has turned heterosexual through any kind of therapy. If you want to read on genetic theory, be sure to check out the works of Simon LeVay, but then you won't look at that research objectively either.
Just because no genetic basis for homosexuality has been found, doesn't mean it is therefore a "choice" -- which belief is the cornerstone of the entire anti-gay agenda.
No it's not.
As I pointed out. Homosexuality is not a choice. And I submit to you that neither is pedophilia. This is going back to neuroscience and matters of "choice" and "free will."
What I'm stating here by "choice"--though I'm no neuroscientist--is that the brain responses, as signals travel down nerve cells, happen too quickly for a "choice" to be made.
But human behavior is more complex, and those that are non-religious get around the lack of "free will" issue by stating with practice (and perhaps therapy) a person can change the pathways (ergo results) their thoughts travel through in their brain. This is one of the scientific beliefs about how drug addicts can reform their behavior and not constantly obsess over their drug of choice or always be prone to certain "triggers."
This can be applied to a gay man as he looks at the sight of a man's a___. Similar to an alcoholic seeing advertisements for beer or whiskey on billboard and TV.
Catholicism is the largest (perhaps 40% or 50% of all Christianity globally) Christian body on earth and it could give a squat if homosexuality is genetically heritable. It states the same for homosexuality as it does for alcoholism and people born crack babies.
One can actually be atheist, believe homosexuality is not genetically heritable, yet believe homosexuality is an amoral issue.
Or one might be atheist, believe is genetically heritable, and believe its an undesirable heritable trait. And eugenics was about eliminating undesirable traits from the gene pool of populations.
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Scientists don't know exactly how gravity works; does that call the existence of gravity into question?
Gravity is a law and not merely a hypothesis because it can be explained mathematically and it's predictability has yet to be proven false. You throw a basketball up in the air and 100% of the time it will fall back down. What predictions does homosexuality linked to genes offer other than to say something to the effect "30% of homosexuals [meaning 70% of homosexual weren't] were found to have B gene."
It's hard to argue something does not cause something when 100% of the time it's correlated with effects Y.
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And just because NARTH's membership includes doctors and other scientists doesn't mean its "research" is necessarily credible. Joycelyn Elders is a doctor; are her statements about masturbation therefore valid? Josef Mengele was a doctor. And so on.
NARTH is not a credible organization, and its "research" -- devoted as it is to its transparently faith-based anti-gay agenda -- is not credible either.
NARTH is credible. They are credible because they follow the rubrics of scientific writing and research.
The problem is the general lay public has no idea what the h__ science is. They think it this "magic thing" that simply figures out all this stuff in one swoop. A lot of sciencve is actually finding out your ideas or conjectures are wrong. So, a lot of rejecting your hypothesis. And a lot of science is revolves around working with inaccurate paradigms that everyone thinks is correct until centuries later someone or some teams discovers that whole paradigm was inaccurate all along.
Basically, doing science is simply following a rational method to investigating the physical world. That's all it really is. And like crime investigators and whole police departments, sometimes scientists get a lot of facts right but get the picture as a whole or the "culprit" wrong.
Addendum to my point about Catholic opposition to eugenics historically: EugenicsArchive
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Opposition to eugenics began even as the movement was being organized into a scientific discipline. By 1910, the equilibrium model developed by Godfrey N. Hardy and Wilhelm Weinberg disproved the claim that degenerate families were increasing the societal load of dysgenic genes. The Hardy-Weinberg equation also showed that sterilization of affected individuals would never appreciably reduce the percentage of mental defectives in society. At the same time, George Shull, at the Carnegie Station for Experimental Evolution, showed that hybrid corn plants are more vigorous than pure-bred ones. This refuted the notion that racial purity offers any biological advantage or that race mixing destroys "good" racial types.
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Work by a number of scientists countered the simplistic assertion that complex behavioral traits are determined by single genes. Herman Muller's survey of mutations in Drosophila and other organisms, from 1914-1923, showed variation in the "gene to character" relation...
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It is much harder to understand why eugenic social programs continued unabated in the United States — until they were directly discredited by association with the Nazi eugenic program, whose "final solution" led to the Holocaust.
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Many sophisticated geneticists — including some who provided refuting evidence — supported some form of eugenic program at one point or another. Although he denounced the negative eugenics of the American movement, Herman Muller remained committed to a personal brand of positive eugenics based on individual worth.
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The Catholic Church opposed eugenics from the outset, and helped to ward off eugenic social legislation in much of Europe. However, the Catholic viewpoint held little sway in Protestant America. With Buck vs. Bell providing the full approval of the U.S. Supreme Court, state legislatures continued to enact new eugenic sterilization laws up until WWII.
The Catholic Catechism and the Vatican take no hard science stance on the issue of homosexuality, quite wisely, but state the causes has yet to be determined. But the Church regards homosexuality like alcoholism. Which some like to claim (which I do not agree with) that alcoholism is genetically heritable. And a hypothesis is not a theory.
An hypothesis is nothing more than an educated guess, but it is made with objectivity.
The Catholic position on homosexuality is that it is in fact an organic phenomenon, and expect homosexuals to live a life of celibacy. The Catholic church however, has nothing to do with science, but since you insist, and have an obsession with gay related posts, as well as race related posts, also consider:
The bible also has reference to race:
Book of Genesis: Concerns Noah's drunkenness and the accompanying shameful act committed by his son Ham, the father of Canaan. Having seen his father naked caused punishment, with God striking down burning his son black. The story's original objective was to justify the subjection of the Canaanites to the Israelites, but in later centuries, the narrative was interpreted by some Jews, Christians and Muslims as a curse of, and an explanation for black skin. Other references, with Shem and Japheth covering their father with a cloak while averting their eyes, suggest that the words are taken literally.
It has been pointed out that in 1st millennium Babylonia, looking at another person's genitals was indeed regarded as a serious matter. Other ancient commentators suggested that Ham was guilty of more than what the Bible says, an Aramaic translation of the Bible dating from the first few centuries AD and several other sources had Ham gossiping about his father's drunken disgrace "in the street" (a reading which has a basis in the original Hebrew), so that being held up to public mockery was what had angered Noah; as the Cave of the Centuries (4th century) puts it, "Ham laughed at his father's shame and did not cover it, but laughed aloud and mocked.
Isn't it great being able to rationalize and justify your ignorance and bigotry through religion?
Has nothing to do with addiction. Rationalize all you want...
Yeah, that's what science is supposed to do, "think rationally."
As I said, it's my view homosexuality falls under an addiction. I think pedophilia does too.
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...to justify your hatred. It's no different than trying to turn a left handed person into a right handed person.
A person can learn to use their left hand I'm quite sure, if they're right handed. I would hope so if the person lost their right arm. Otherwise it will be a problem when the person has to wipe themselves after using the toilet to do the "#2."
I think sex is a little more intimate and involves more moral issues than simply being right handed or left handed. If that were not the case we would not get worked up over pedophilia and heterosexual rape. Sex comes with a number of issues, from STDs to pregnancies. Being right handed or left handed does not involve those same issues and considerations.
Plus, I don't know where you get this idea I hate gay people or people with addictions from anyways? You should read my posts on one of the threads about legalizing drugs and treating drug addicts.
Just as in a different thread about homosexuality I've stated my position is if a person wants to seek help for their own self mastery or happiness to overcome their homosexuality then they should be allowed to do tht and given that space. If a person doesn't then that should be their right and people should respect their space and let them lives as they wish.
I don't in anyway call for the arrest and incarceration of homosexuals nor forcing them into treatment. The same can not be said for both liberal and conservatives about crack and heroin addicts.
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What is true, is that no homosexual has turned heterosexual through any kind of therapy. If you want to read on genetic theory, be sure to check out the works of Simon LeVay, but then you won't look at that research objectively either.
I don't think you can make such an absolute statement. For one, the only most accurate statistic can only come from a sample size of 100%. So, you'd have to inquire of every single gay person on earth that has ever undergone therapy for the homosexuality.
So far as I can tell there are plenty of individuals that claim to have once been active homosexuals and reformed their lives to live exclusively, and active, heterosexual lives.
Now, how long that lasts for the individual? who knows...
That's a serious problem statistics and research on sobriety among drug addicts has. Especially given people 20 years clean have been known to relapse. So, how long down the line does one look to gauge therapeutic "success." It's a difficult question.
Really... I'm not eugenicist or biologist. But I have enough education in biology thus far to know that not a single study has been able to really find a genetic cause to homosexuality. And if such a study did believe me it would not just be all over the media it would be preached from one university science hall to the next.
But "correlation does not equal causation." A maxim in science.
The holy grail is to find a gene or combination of genes that all people, everywhere, develop homosexuality if they have them. Not a 30% or 50% correlation.
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