Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Sculptor1
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Re: Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

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Greatest I am wrote: May 9th, 2022, 11:55 am
My DNA is definitely changed or controlled by my environment.

Put me or you in peril, and see how fast we get our DNA to produces fight or flight chemicals.

Even here and now, If I were to insult you, think of the chemicals I would produce in you as compared to if I complimented your words.

Regards
DL
No.
Whatever people may say about epigenetics, one thing is clear that whilst some specifically identified genes can be switched on or off according to the environment, the GENOME remains unchanged in a living creature and such temporary changes will not be passed to the next generation.
So, NO your DNA is not Changed by your environment, but its actions might.

Flight or flight in particular is a dual function of the genes that code for that. This is not the same as saying your DNA is changed.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

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My understanding is that recent findings support the idea that epigenetic changes do pass on to the next generation. https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content ... nheritance
Bypassing Reproductive Cells

Epigenetic marks can pass from parent to offspring in a way that completely bypasses egg or sperm, thus avoiding the epigenetic purging that happens during early development.

Most of us were taught that our traits are hard-coded in the DNA that passes from parent to offspring. Emerging information about epigenetics may lead us to a new understanding of just what inheritance is.
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Re: Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

Post by Sculptor1 »

Sy Borg wrote: May 10th, 2022, 4:35 pm My understanding is that recent findings support the idea that epigenetic changes do pass on to the next generation. https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content ... nheritance
Bypassing Reproductive Cells

Epigenetic marks can pass from parent to offspring in a way that completely bypasses egg or sperm, thus avoiding the epigenetic purging that happens during early development.

Most of us were taught that our traits are hard-coded in the DNA that passes from parent to offspring. Emerging information about epigenetics may lead us to a new understanding of just what inheritance is.
So this whole phenomenon was first identified with the daughters of mothers who had during wartime Holland having undergone serious malnutrition initiated a change in their foetuses, for their children to reflect bodily changes in the following generation
But as we call know a female's eggs are formed at the beginning of their gestation as a foetus, so that upon birth a girl has all the eggs she will have in her life time.
The epigenetic affect is a switch to a gene NOT a change to the genome since the foetuses so affected were already equipped with their eggs complete.
It is more to do with the phenotypical expression rather than a genomic change.
The epigenetic potential is already a part of the genomic set of instructions.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

Post by Sy Borg »

Sculptor1 wrote: May 10th, 2022, 4:45 pmThe epigenetic potential is already a part of the genomic set of instructions.
This seems to neatly sum up the situation. Cheers.
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Re: Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

Post by Sculptor1 »

Sy Borg wrote: May 10th, 2022, 4:35 pm My understanding is that recent findings support the idea that epigenetic changes do pass on to the next generation. https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content ... nheritance
Bypassing Reproductive Cells

Epigenetic marks can pass from parent to offspring in a way that completely bypasses egg or sperm, thus avoiding the epigenetic purging that happens during early development.

Most of us were taught that our traits are hard-coded in the DNA that passes from parent to offspring. Emerging information about epigenetics may lead us to a new understanding of just what inheritance is.
PS I think it is always helpful to remember that each and every cell in our bodies with a nucleus, whatever their functions all have exactly the same genome. Any epigenetic changes affecting different functions is not capable of changing the sperm or egg cells, but only the specific cells related to a function.
So with Twin studies, where they have had different parents, one might be fat and the other thin. This is due to fat cells being switched to a different epigenetic function due to lifestyle.
What would NOT be possible is for that life change to encode the sperm, or their eggs which were already formed when they were themselves in their mother's womb.
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Re: Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

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Sy Borg wrote: May 10th, 2022, 4:53 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: May 10th, 2022, 4:45 pmThe epigenetic potential is already a part of the genomic set of instructions.
This seems to neatly sum up the situation. Cheers.
Thanks. It is a commonly misunderstood aspect of epigenetics - like a sort of Lamarckism.
But it would take a pretty special type of intelligent mechanism to communicate from the tissues to alter specific genes on the sperm or egg cells.
Darwin imagined such a mechanism, in the early editions of Origin of Species when he still thought Lamarckism was part of the story of evolution. He called the messengers of this information "gemmules", after observations of sea barnacles with which he spent much time in study
He even spent much time lopping off the ears of rabbits with his cousin Francis Galton in the hope of making earless baby rabbits in subsequent generations. He did not fully give this up until 1871
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Re: Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

Post by Sy Borg »

The things humans have done to other species to prove a point!
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Re: Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

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Pattern-chaser wrote: May 10th, 2022, 6:26 am
Greatest I am wrote: May 9th, 2022, 11:55 am My DNA is definitely changed or controlled by my environment.

Put me or you in peril, and see how fast we get our DNA to produces fight or flight chemicals.
Is it your DNA that is changed or controlled, or is it something rather more indirect?

Are fight-or-flight chemicals produced by DNA, or are they produced by genes, or their by-products, and not by our DNA itself?
Genes are synonymous with DNA to me.

I see us and all our senses as input devices, for our organic computer program, which resides in our DNA.

Regards
DL
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Re: Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

Post by Greatest I am »

Sculptor1 wrote: May 10th, 2022, 7:05 am
Greatest I am wrote: May 9th, 2022, 11:55 am
My DNA is definitely changed or controlled by my environment.

Put me or you in peril, and see how fast we get our DNA to produces fight or flight chemicals.

Even here and now, If I were to insult you, think of the chemicals I would produce in you as compared to if I complimented your words.

Regards
DL
No.
Whatever people may say about epigenetics, one thing is clear that whilst some specifically identified genes can be switched on or off according to the environment, the GENOME remains unchanged in a living creature and such temporary changes will not be passed to the next generation.
So, NO your DNA is not Changed by your environment, but its actions might.
IOWs, our environment produces change, via our DNA controlled chemistry.

Try me before my morning coffee and see what I mean.

Regards
DL
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Re: Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

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Sy Borg wrote: May 10th, 2022, 5:11 pm The things humans have done to other species to prove a point!
Bubonic plague, Spanish flue, Polio, T B, etc. etc.

All like is toxic to other life. To nature, we are no better than rat lice.

Nature cannot tell that we are intelligent and the best it has created in the universe.

Regards
DL
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Re: Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

Post by Sculptor1 »

Greatest I am wrote: May 12th, 2022, 2:44 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: May 10th, 2022, 7:05 am
Greatest I am wrote: May 9th, 2022, 11:55 am
My DNA is definitely changed or controlled by my environment.

Put me or you in peril, and see how fast we get our DNA to produces fight or flight chemicals.

Even here and now, If I were to insult you, think of the chemicals I would produce in you as compared to if I complimented your words.

Regards
DL
No.
Whatever people may say about epigenetics, one thing is clear that whilst some specifically identified genes can be switched on or off according to the environment, the GENOME remains unchanged in a living creature and such temporary changes will not be passed to the next generation.
So, NO your DNA is not Changed by your environment, but its actions might.
IOWs, our environment produces change, via our DNA controlled chemistry.

Try me before my morning coffee and see what I mean.

Regards
DL
This is not clear.
Are you objecting to my post, or supporting it?
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Re: Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

Post by Greatest I am »

Sculptor1 wrote: May 12th, 2022, 5:35 pm
Greatest I am wrote: May 12th, 2022, 2:44 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: May 10th, 2022, 7:05 am
Greatest I am wrote: May 9th, 2022, 11:55 am
My DNA is definitely changed or controlled by my environment.

Put me or you in peril, and see how fast we get our DNA to produces fight or flight chemicals.

Even here and now, If I were to insult you, think of the chemicals I would produce in you as compared to if I complimented your words.

Regards
DL
No.
Whatever people may say about epigenetics, one thing is clear that whilst some specifically identified genes can be switched on or off according to the environment, the GENOME remains unchanged in a living creature and such temporary changes will not be passed to the next generation.
So, NO your DNA is not Changed by your environment, but its actions might.
IOWs, our environment produces change, via our DNA controlled chemistry.

Try me before my morning coffee and see what I mean.

Regards
DL
This is not clear.
Are you objecting to my post, or supporting it?
I think we are on the same page.

Regards
DL
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Re: Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

Post by Astro Cat »

Greatest I am wrote: January 18th, 2022, 5:58 pm Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

I think the answer is is quite important as it would show us the cause/source of homosexuality.

If God, as believers think, then why is God creating gays?

God seem s to be the worst choice for Christians.

Regards
DL
Sexual attraction seems to me a lot like the question of doxastic voluntarism (do we will our beliefs into being simply by willing it?)

I can't just will myself to believe there's a yeti outside my window, not even if I tried in earnest. I wouldn't be able to help but to simply doubt it. I don't have a choice in whether I'm skeptical of that claim or not, I just am.

Likewise with preferences. Why do I like this color more than that one, all else being equal? I didn't will that preference into existence; I just have the preference. There may be some explanation (perhaps I like this color more because of a pleasant experience in my past, or whatever), but it's still the case that I'm not consciously willing the preference into existence causa sui.

Sexual preference seems to be the same. Anecdotally, I've never been able to feel a sexual attraction to men. I can think men are attractive in an aesthetic way (but this is because the human body is aesthetically pleasing in general), but I can't just will myself to think sexually about masculine bodies. It registers as a big neutral to me. On the reverse, I can't help but to find my attraction to women both aesthetic and sexual. I didn't sit down and decide to do that any more than I decided I like the colors or flavors that I like.
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."
--Richard Feynman
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Re: Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

Post by Greatest I am »

Astro Cat wrote: June 18th, 2022, 12:50 am
Greatest I am wrote: January 18th, 2022, 5:58 pm Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

I think the answer is is quite important as it would show us the cause/source of homosexuality.

If God, as believers think, then why is God creating gays?

God seem s to be the worst choice for Christians.

Regards
DL
Sexual attraction seems to me a lot like the question of doxastic voluntarism (do we will our beliefs into being simply by willing it?)

I can't just will myself to believe there's a yeti outside my window, not even if I tried in earnest. I wouldn't be able to help but to simply doubt it. I don't have a choice in whether I'm skeptical of that claim or not, I just am.

Likewise with preferences. Why do I like this color more than that one, all else being equal? I didn't will that preference into existence; I just have the preference. There may be some explanation (perhaps I like this color more because of a pleasant experience in my past, or whatever), but it's still the case that I'm not consciously willing the preference into existence causa sui.

Sexual preference seems to be the same. Anecdotally, I've never been able to feel a sexual attraction to men. I can think men are attractive in an aesthetic way (but this is because the human body is aesthetically pleasing in general), but I can't just will myself to think sexually about masculine bodies. It registers as a big neutral to me. On the reverse, I can't help but to find my attraction to women both aesthetic and sexual. I didn't sit down and decide to do that any more than I decided I like the colors or flavors that I like.
You are a realist.

You also seem to know of the limits to our choices and free will.

Kudos.

Do your moral beliefs lead you to engage against theists who oppress with homophobia and misogyny?

Regards
DL


Regards
DL
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Re: Are homosexual natures created by nurture, nature, or God?

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Greatest I am wrote: June 18th, 2022, 12:08 pm Do your moral beliefs lead you to engage against theists who oppress with homophobia and misogyny?

Regards
DL


Regards
DL
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