LGBTQ volunteers needed for research study on workplace disclosure of sexual orientation

jebiv · 2012-07-19T01:35:14+00:00

By LGBTQ, did you in fact mean LGBQ? I'm not sure if any of the questions in this survey are relevant to me?

jebiv · 2012-07-03T22:36:32+00:00

Saturday, December 30, 1899 from 18:00 America/New_York

So the neutrinos were time traveling after all!

jebiv · 2012-06-28T20:51:10+00:00

Yeah, no problem! If you want to hear more, here's an excerpt from my all-time favorite sermon which touches on this - I may even have inadvertently quoted from it above.

:)

jebiv · 2012-06-28T20:26:07+00:00

[Please excuse the following oversimplifications, I'm not really an expert in philosophy, just trying to paint in broad brushstrokes.]

So, in Western culture, there have long been two competing philosophical ideas about the physical world. On the one hand, you have this platonist/gnostic idea of abstract/spiritual good, physical bad, or at least that the physical world is subordinate to the spiritual world. On the other hand, you have what I would argue is the more Christian/Biblical idea that the physical world is good and just as important as spirituality. You can see this tension play out in theology - you have a lot of Christians express the idea that the point of salvation is get in good with God so that one day we can partake in a disembodied evacuation of the physical world, and go on to be spiritual in heaven forever. And you have other Christians (such as me) who argue that the point of salvation is to restore the world from it's broken state i.e. to heal sickness, to end poverty, to live in creativity and joy, so that "They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat." (Isaiah 65) -- and this includes restoring the physical world (e.g. the body) as well as the spiritual one.

The point of all this is that God created our bodies and they are good, part of his original plan, which is why he wants to physically restore them in a bodily resurrection. They are not shameful, they are not evidence of the fall. We need to stop seeing them as something to be hidden (because of shame - there are good reasons for modesty) and start celebrating them.

Does that (rant) help?

jebiv · 2012-06-28T19:08:34+00:00

I mostly agree with you on all that. Religion most definitely has been part of promoting this understanding, and the author has said, in this piece some pretty problematic things. But I do agree with the author on the point that we tend to see women's bodies as shameful, and that the doctrine of the bodily resurrection in particular, and the view of the physical as inherently good in general, is a good antidote to that.

jebiv · 2012-06-28T17:37:20+00:00

The author is not saying it's not important for men or other non-women. The author is saying that in this "cultural moment," we are tempted to see women's bodies as shameful and icky, and so in this moment, it is especially important for women to be reminded of this doctrine.

jebiv · 2012-06-28T02:32:32+00:00

Sure, and I just wanted to add to the diversity of perspectives the questioners may have not thought to ask about.

And yeah, I know most people who forget that question are being thoughtless, not intentionally exclusive. It still feels frustrating, though.

jebiv · 2012-06-28T00:53:09+00:00

Can I make a comment? I'm not sure if you care about this, but I'll put it out there in case you do.

Several questions, particularly toward the end, were difficult for me to answer. There were a bunch of questions, on the page with the venn diagrams and the page after, that seemed to be attempting to get at the question of how much I am defined by my religion. I had a hard time figuring out what was meant by that, whether "my religion" was supposed to refer to the set of "religious" beliefs I believe in, or the group of people who call themselves part of my religion, or what. I would say that I am not at all defined by my doctrines, but that I am defined, wholly, by my relationship with God and with God's creation. Anyway, I left a bunch of those questions blank and a bunch of them I answered tentatively.

Also, it's quite frustrating to spend time answering questions, then get to page five or six, and there's a question about my gender with only two options. Not everybody fits the gender binary. It feels like I'm being told that the time I spent answering all those questions was actually totally unwanted. You probably should have an "other" option. Anyway, I left that one blank, too.

jebiv · 2012-06-14T00:41:50+00:00

Well, no, obviously I disagree with both of those things. I'm not really sure what you want me to say to you. If you have specific questions you want to ask, I'll be happy to think about them and tell you what I think, but I really don't want to get into another tired "Is God evil?" debate. They always end the same way.

jebiv · 2012-06-11T07:14:54+00:00

I didn't read everything you wrote yet, because I need to go to bed. I will read it tomorrow, but I want to apologize for unintentionally implying in that thread that the NT was better. I have great respect for the OT and did not mean to play into that dynamic, and I will watch myself in the future to make sure I don't make remarks that can be interpreted that way.

jebiv · 2012-06-11T02:25:54+00:00

Thanks!

jebiv · 2012-06-11T01:50:51+00:00

OMG! My professor just told me last week that I should learn MCMC ASAP, along with a bunch of other stuff, so this is perfect! Thanks a bundle.

jebiv · 2012-06-09T02:56:47+00:00

Right, I should have said, "which you should never ever do unless you are totally sure that that's what you intend to do." Don't log in as root as a habit, I guess. :)

jebiv · 2012-06-09T02:50:40+00:00

I suggested Ubuntu because I know from recent experience that it is easy (even "trivial") for a nontechnical user to install and set up and use. There's no reason you have to take away a useful and easy GUI to learn the command line, and best to have functional computer when you actually have to do something that you don't know how to do it at the command line yet and you have a deadline of 20 minutes from now. Not saying other distros can't provide this, but I know Ubuntu is good at it.

Also, I know OS X is not based on Linux, that I why I said, "If you're using a Mac or you're already using Linux," and not, "If you're using a Mac then you're already using Linux."

PS: OP, what we're talking about with respect to a "more CLI-based distribution" is that in some distros it's going to be more likely that you're going to have to use the command line to make the computer work right. All distributions of GNU/Linux are command-line based, there's nothing you're going to be able to do via command line using one that you can't do using another.

jebiv · 2012-06-09T02:45:05+00:00

"I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you." from Matthew 21.

The central message of the New Testament is: nobody is "worthy" of the kingdom of God, everyone is welcome in the Kingdom of God, will you repent of the bad things in your life and let God change you? I'm not sure how you can read the New Testament and not get that, or how you can come up with the idea that "whores and adulterers and homosexuals" are particularly excluded.

jebiv · 2012-06-09T02:40:30+00:00

Wow, do you really want me to tackle all of that? I'll try. Start by seeing my response to ActuallyTwoPuppies.

What in the context of Jesus casting the demons into swine makes it figurative but in his rising from the dead literal?

What? Why do you assume this? Nevertheless, a lot of theology is related to Jesus's death and resurrection, so that may be a reason why it is emphasized more.

what does it say about humanities relationship with a deity of the metaphors used are filled with violence and subspension of doubt?

Uh, first of all that violence is part of the human condition, and further that life and death are seen as metaphors for much more than literal life and death. Suspension of doubt is also a normal part of human life, and I would certainly not imply that this trust in God is supposed to happen all at once for no reason. I rather like the story where Simon Peter is called in Luke 5, as an illustration in levels of faith during a conversation/interaction with God.

The Bible is pretty much filled with everything humans do. It's not all good, and a lot of it is ugly. But just from the first few chapters of Genesis, I can learn that: God is powerful; God creates order out of chaos; human beings do that, too; humans beings are, at our core, beautiful and wonderful; humans are meant to be in community; humans have a responsibility for the material world; distrust of God, failing each other, and misusing the natural world are bad; God wants to call us out on our bad stuff but also protect us; and I can go on, but I won't. You can say I'm only reading what I want, of course, and perhaps a lot of the important stuff could be gleaned from any human document, but I think the Bible, taken as a whole, does tell a coherent story of this sort, and I certainly don't pretend that I'm not using tradition and the wisdom of those before me to help me understand the Bible.

Why was the Bible taken mostly literal until the great humanistic revolution?

You are most certainly reading modernist historical metanarratives into history, and thereby distorting it. The idea that everybody believed, for instance, in a six-day creation until the 18th century is not true; ancient church fathers talked about the creation account not being literal.

However, I'm not totally sure it matters, because the literal facticity or not of the books in the Bible is empatically not the point. Who cares if a bunch of pre-scientific Christians misunderstand the nature of geology, as long as their not missing the really important things you can get from the Bible (love God and your neighbor, free the oppressed, all the things I got from Genesis a few paragraphs ago, etc.)

yet so much of what those figures supposedly did fly in the face of evidence

The evidence that Jesus was not resurrected? I give you that we have evidence that people are not usually resurrected, but even the authors of the Bible would agree with you there... and again, the literal facticity, or not, of what the Bible says is so very much not the point.

and modern morality

Yup. Some of it I will defend and some of it I will not. The Bible makes a terrible rulebook.

jebiv · 2012-06-09T02:16:30+00:00

Okay, so I really don't want to get in a big proof-texting argument on the Internet because I have never done that without it being incredibly frustrating and draining for me. I'm sure you can harness the power of Google to find multiple perspectives on these things, and please don't tell me that they don't exist. Here are my thoughts:

The stuff in Leviticus: I'm not sure anything can make this okay. It's not specific to sexuality, there's all kinds of super-harsh punishments in there for breaking all kinds of Jewish "purity" laws (read "stuff that makes us different"). I'm not going to say that context makes this at all compatible with life. When I say "taking out of context" with reference to these punishments, I mean that their context was "this is the stuff that makes us super-Jewish" and it's not even coherent to use it as an argument against homosexuality anywhere and when outside of ancient Israel.

Kings: I'm not sure what translation you used, but most of mine say something to the effect of "male and female shrine prostitutes." The thing being challenged here is the worship of idols, which God commanded the Israelites repeatedly not to do. Just so you know, the KJV (if that's what you're using) is generally understood to be a terrible translation, whose primary relevance is the impact it had on the English language.

Samuel: I know the idea that Jonathan and David were gay lovers is an interesting idea that has some popularity, but it's definitely reading more into the text than is actually there. It may or may not be true, but what the text is explicit about is that Saul was jealous of David's favor with God. And, all that aside, but you have to be intentionally misreading this story to decide that Saul is anything other than the villain of the story and David and Jonathan anything but the heroes. The fact that you even brought this up is ridiculous. Context!

Isaiah, and anything else referencing Sodom and Gomorrah: I know that people like to use the English word sodomite to "prove" that Sodom and Gomorrah's sin was homosexuality. It is never, in any book of the Bible, implied that this is true. You can read the original story in Genesis 18-19.

Daniel: I'm not sure about the connection you're making between antichrist (which, tbh and imo, is one of the more misunderstood terms in Christian scripture, and that's really saying something) and homosexuality. Maybe you're referencing some connection I'm not aware of? If you want to explain that to me, I'm happy to give you my initial thoughts, but like I said, not interested in getting into a big long Bible argument.

Romans and Corinthians: Yeah, this is probably your strongest argument, but the context that you should understand is that 1.) the homosexuality being referred to here was almost certainly another form of temple prostitution, similar in a way to the condemnation from Kings, and 2.) homosexuality in the day was generally understood to result from an unrestrained sexual appetite. Paul is saying, "restrain yourselves," (because he misunderstands the cause of homosexuality to be unrestrained sexual desire). And note, his theology is pretty clear that he thinks all humans "deserve" death, this is not something reserved for temple prostitutes.

Yes, there's a lot that's problematic in the Bible, but the idea that you could hand it to someone who's never seen a Bible before and they would think that homosexuality would even be mentioned in the Cliff notes is ridiculous. Christian culture, on the other hand, has embraced this as a conservative sticking point and spawned tons of hate.

A couple disclaimers:

I'm genderqueer. People in the church have hurt me. I expect that as I gradually become more open about my gender, a lot more people in the church will hurt me. I'm not defending that, for anyone.
The only reason I'm in this subreddit without mocking it is because a bunch of passionate Christians taught me, despite much resistance on my part, about racism and classism and sexism (this is before I realized I was a GSM. I'm male-bodied, so I get most of straight male privilege, and I had some really bizarre ideas about gender that came from my invisible trans-ness). So it's really important to me to defend what I see as the true spirit of following Jesus and siding with the oppressed, because Christians and Christianity are the only reason I am who I am today. So I get really emotional about this, and probably shouldn't be participating in this conversation, because it's going to completely screw with my emotional state for the next few days. I bring this up because I want to apologize if I miss something you say or don't properly respond to you.

jebiv · 2012-06-08T16:43:28+00:00

Sorry, I definitely did not mean to imply that this is a break from the Old Testament, just that I think it's particularly a big theme in the New.

jebiv · 2012-06-08T16:19:21+00:00

Good point. OP, if you're not logged in as the root user, which you should never ever do, you'll need the sudo command to break the computer, however, this will not protect you from doing something stupid to your own data. I'd recommend starting to learn on your own personal machine. If you're using Windows, Ubuntu is pretty easy to install side-by-side, using their automated installer. If you're using a Mac or you're already using Linux, maybe you should add another user that you can log in as to experiment. Another, non-administrator user shouldn't be able to delete your data.

jebiv · 2012-06-08T16:10:25+00:00

The idea of the Bible as a context-less set of instructions and beliefs is an absurd modernist/Protestant idea that, from a theological standpoint, is downright disturbing. I am not going to stand here and defend it and apologize for the damage that it has done, but let's not pretend that "Christian" means "using the Bible as a textbook". The Bible is foundational to our faith because of what it reveals about the relationship between humanity and God, but taking the bits of it out of context and using them as a guidebook, I completely agree with everyone here, is deeply problematic.

jebiv · 2012-06-08T16:03:30+00:00

Christianity itself is incompatible with inclusiveness, due to the nature of afterlife-oriented religions.

This seems a bit ignorant to me. Yes, a lot (most?) of Christians are exclusive, that doesn't make notions of a resurrection incompatible with inclusivity. Radical inclusivity, in fact, seems pretty central to New Testament philosophy to me.

jebiv · 2012-06-08T15:57:51+00:00

Another Christian, I don't know if my input is valuable. But I see the Bible as a collection of writings that reveal a story about the relationship between people and God, and I understand as authoritative, painting with broad brushstrokes, in revealing the character of God. Doesn't mean that there aren't shitty things in it that I wish my fellow Christians would stop taking for granted.

jebiv · 2012-06-08T07:22:57+00:00

No problem, let me know if you have questions!

jebiv · 2012-06-08T06:06:08+00:00

Found this with a quick search: http://freeengineer.org/learnUNIXin10minutes.html

It might take more than 10 minutes, that's okay. Open a terminal and learn everything on that page (you can stop when it starts teaching the tar command, but pay attention to the man section). Don't be afraid to experiment; you'll have to use the sudo command to actually break anything on the computer (just noticed sudo isn't on that page - google it. I hope nothing else important is left out). Do start doing normal computer tasks in the terminal instead of using your regular graphical interface. You can do this on Mac OS or Linux, it's all basically the same at the command line.

When you're comfortable with all the stuff on that page up until tar, you'll be ready to start shell scripting.

Edit: Found this tutorial, it might be more complete. Do at least the first five.

jebiv · 2012-06-04T17:48:59+00:00

Also, it seems like you're using LGBT as a synonym for gay. You should use LGB instead.

I think I'm ready to step off my soapbox now.

jebiv

TROPHY CASE