Child abuse

I think too much, I was a weird kid but hey studying religion and history led me to atheism too.

If you dig into history, most cultures condemned homosexuality. The fact so many disparate cultures separately evolved to condemn homosexuality, especially gay men, says there was some utility tens of thousands of years ago or whenever those social mores evolved.

This is just my pet theory, I've never heard anyone advocate for it, but I've also had some smart, educated people think and criticize this.

If your society is barely getting by, then you need to breed as much as possible. Gay men who don't want to pass on their genes are just evil, who cares if they like other men....gotta get those 15 year old girls pregnant.

Women's consent doesn't matter much, heck we can just capture random girls and get them pregnant. Plus we'll create another social more where women get their validity from popping out a dozen children. Which might be why rape was fairly common in many cultures.

Obviously this is an abbreviated version, but I think one can see how uneducated people who mostly look ahead a few weeks but don't want their society to be extinct evolved these social mores. Obviously explaining how these things may have evolved doesn't excuse them, sometimes figuring out HOW a problem came to be helps negate the problem.

Unless I'm WAYYYY off base, humans aren't going to be extinct from lack of popping out kids soon, so the utility in these social mores is totally gone.

A hundred thousand years ago, rigidity in fairy tales had some utility, heck "social glue" is still high utility and humanity needs to figure out getting millions of people moving in the same direction without the threat of hellfire.

One of my favorite mental health sayings is, what you once did for survival is now hurting or limiting you. I think religion falls into that category. I'm not even sure if this makes sense to people, but it has made sense to several highly educated GLBTQ supporters

I called my mother this weekend of course who raised her children as devout Catholics. I am one of two who no longer believes. She talked about how good she was with us as little ones, but she was not very good with us as teenagers. The problem is she like this meme I am attaching thought we should believe what she believed because of the authority of the Catholic Church. Which is bullshit.

Hi. My dad raised me to be homophobic. I got over that though, still it took longer than I feel it should have.
Perhaps the biggest contribution to beating my indoctrination was that as a shy young adult I never had a girlfriend, never spoke about girls to my family, mostly just kept to myself. Then I met my future wife, took her to meet the family and all was well. Month's later they spoke to me to say how glad and surprised they were that I wasn't gay. I took this in for a few weeks before I spoke to my wife about it.
Those fuckers, my family, the people I did everything I could to help and make happy, those shitbags thought they'd left me in the closet!! Me. Their son, grandson, nephew or brother. I wasn't in the closet but they thought I was. Made me feel for people who do come out. Changed my perspective of my family as well.

You should perhaps have asked her when she "decided" she was straight.
You might point out also the vast majority of paedophiles are straight and usually incestuous, so you are three for three in the negative there I assume.
The wilful ignorance of religious bigots is something to be educated out of people by persuasion, gentle kindness and a good example, if all that fails consider them an evil fuckwit and leave them out of your life.

Oh I agree with you totally. Families of origin and other do-gooders are often very damaging. That is why it is so important for people who are open minded to share their beliefs as openly as those narrow minded religious and homophobe people who spews their poison.

Religion is brainwashing & indoctrination, faith is a construct to keep the masses in check & ever fearful of their betters fearing any change to the status quo would bring chaos

I'm going to be honest here - I don't understand bisexuality and while I'm not going to get into the reasons why - I do have this other view and that is - it's none of my damn business - it's not my place to judge and it's not my place to offer an opinion either way and I carry that into the voting booth. However, when someone feels the need to go public with private matters - they open themselves up to all kinds of opinions - why? You came out for a reason - likely because you wanted approval, a hug or more contacts. I don't wear my sexuality on my sleeve - it doesn't define me - my character does. And so if I were gay - I wouldn't feel the need to make a grand announcement I'd just go about living my life and if I'm seen holding my boyfriend's hand - well, it's really not necessary for me to come out with anything. I would also understand my audience and as a result wouldn't expose my partner or myself to unnecessary BS. I would simply avoid the jerks (that includes family) and not lose a night's sleep over it. I don't need others to accept me to feel validated - they don't screw 'em.

I am a person who believes that God does not necessarily exist, but in response to this, I still have to say that people hold prejudice against certain groups because they don't grasp the following things about their own beliefs:

1. They can't actually know who God hates or loves without appealing to authority ( aka "We know this because the Bible/clergy says it" )

2. They tend to view other groups in terms of impressions

3. They tend to also be impressionistic about everything

4. To practice a religion effectively, you have to kind of study the subject matter in an academic context, and gain an understanding of it, otherwise scripture is basically just a bunch of statements.

5. Just because some of their opposition doesn't have necessary counter-arguments or corrections, it doesn't make them correct

6. They largely follow their religion out of their own incapability of mind. It shows in their culture, and tastes in political policy

I have never understood the alleged connection between any disapproved sexual orientation / behavior and pedophilia. Judging from the story you related, the connection was never established by your interlocutor, either. It is just a telling attempt to make disapproved behavior seem worse by association with something that is truly consequentially harmful. Which exposes the intellectual barrenness and bankruptcy of their non-arguments. There is no objective discussion of actual harms (because there aren't any); rather, it's pure ginned-up "yuck factor".

Of course there are campfire stories of people who "prayed away the gay" or what have you, that is to be expected and some of them may even be true in the shallow sense that they tried and for a time succeeded in denying their true feelings and desires in exchange for the temporary relief from denial of social reciprocity and acceptance. Good for you that you did not succumb to that particular losing gambit.

My ex wife is the same as your friend's mother, my daughter is gay and getting married next year.
You can guess how things have gone down in recent years.
Of course, me being the atheist obviously caused my daughter to be gay according to my ex and all her friends and family.
My daughter is awesome, happy and loving, so proud of her in every way.
Just be you, ignore the ignorant.

Reason #842 why religion is harmful!

That sort of approach to any reasonable therapeutic goal is terrifying, let alone such nonsense deconversion ideas. The only thing needed there is dogmatic DEconversion, since we're all born atheists to start.

People like that are what give religion it’s shitty image. Well, one of the reasons I’m fairly certain that if there is an omniscient being out there, he doesn’t care who we love. Because, by their own story (the Bible), we are all committing incest.

But good for you for being able to get away from those small minded morons. Follow what you believe in. I’ve always preached (pun intended) that I don’t care who/what people are attracted to. Unless it’s kids or people who aren’t able to give consent. And you being open to both men and women, you double your chance for finding love and someone who will appreciate you for who you are. So keep kicking ass!

They are the broken ones. They are the ones suffering internal turmoil because their faith has dragged them so far away from knowing what it is to be human that they cannot function they way humans are meant to function.

You should never have had to hear that. Ignorance is rampant.