These Truths I Hold: part 3

These truths I hold to be self-evident, in no particular order: Part 3:

50.  Atheism rocks.
51.  Believing in something just because it "feels" good or right or comfortable is not enough of a reason to believe.
52.  Believing in something just because others believe in it is not enough of a reason to believe.
53.  Evidence, evidence, evidence.
54.  Which god?
55.  Which collection of literature?
56.  Rewriting history does not change what actually happened.
57.  Science saves lives.
58.  Funny how I didn't spot the unicorn in Isaiah when I was a fundy.  I was willing to deal with a talking snake and a talking donkey.  I don't know what I would have done with a unicorn.
59.  Evolution is not something to believe in.  It is something that you accept or reject totally or in part.  There is a common misuse of the word "theory" as in "only a theory" when the word "theorem" might be better suited.

60.  Homosexuality does occur in nature.  Ask any farmer who has had experience with a bull that turned out to be homosexual.
61.  Strawberry plants, blue-green lizards in Arizona.
62.  Adults can be heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or asexual.  Sexuality is fluid, not static.
63.  Insisting that "we are born that way" cheapens the fight for civil rights for all civilians.  Some folks may have been "born that way" but we do not really know yet what makes people straight or not straight.  It's a science thang, not a morality/sinner thang.
64.  Adults can identify as male, female, androgenous.  It's called gender identification and it too is not a morality/sinner thang.
65.  Some babies are born with an intersexed state-- which means they may have the genitalia of both sexes present at birth.  
66.  Babies who have A.I.S. [Androgen Insufficiency Syndrome] are genetically male.  Because their bodies do not respond to androgen, they are by necessity raised as female.  100% of A.I.S. female adults are either bisexual or lesbian.
67.  Transfolks who take hormones in the process of correcting their gender to correlate with their perceived gender will sometimes have an un-looked for change in sexual orientation.  The basis for wanting what is referred to as a "sex change" in the vernacular is NOT sexual orientation, as was commonly supposed in the sixties and is still supposed in some circles now.  A genetically male transfolk who is attracted to women may find that she is attracted to men, or both women and men after she begins hormone treatments. 
68.  The majority of cross-dressers [who are not interested in "correcting their gender"] are heterosexual males.
69.  I am not interested in being "tolerated," "toleration", or "tolerance."  If you cannot celebrate me for who I am and I cannot celebrate you for who you are, then it might be wiser for each of us to not engage each other.  Celebrate Diversity.

sapphoq itching for a coffee says:  Whether or not the United States was started as a Christian nation, we are now multi-cultural.  As a nation of many peoples and cultures and backgrounds, we are not all fundamentalist Christians.  Religion ought not dictate politics.  The public arena should remain secular-- including city, state, county, and national government; public schools [if you want your kids to pray in school then please send them to a religious school of your choosing...]; federal lands; courtrooms; any place that accepts public funding should be bound by secular public laws.  The laws that govern us all should not enslave us.  Not all of us are believers.  Even among believers there are differences.  Please get out of my vagina.  Don't dictate to me who I love or what I do and I will have the courtesy and respect to allow you to love who you love and do what you do.

              

ON VARIATIONS IN HUMANS

The fossil record indicates that five digits has been the norm for vertebrates for over two hundred million years. Occasionally some species (dinosaurs, including birds) have reduced their complement to three, and snakes did away with them completely, but the fossil record of our particular genus indicates a norm of five in all cases. Extra digits have always been an abnormality for genus homo. As far as skin color is concerned, how much variation do you want? Because we've got it, all the way from jet black to albinism. By the way there are four major races(which is a nonscientific word for subspecies), and dozens of populations which are difficult to classify. Are Indians (Asian indians) Negroid because of their skin color? Nope, they're Caucasian by heritage, bone structure and every other way. Skin color is constrained by the pigment melanin, and there is no way we could have developed green or purple subspecies. As far as giantism or dwarfism, we could not be very much larger than we are. Those of our species who exceed the average height of the Tutsis, who are the tallest normal human population, at up to 7 feet, have extreme physical problems because of their height. As for dwarfism, there is homo florensis, and we still have the African pygmies. The major area of "culling" in human population has been in the area in which there has been notable increase over the millennia--BRAIN POWER. The smart ones, like the ones who accept evolution, live, and the dolts who insist in the face of all evidence that the world is only 6,000 years old, die. Quit reading the Bible for your answers to science questions, because they ARE NOT THERE!!!!!