It doesn't mean it is either. </font>[/QUOTE]Yes it does. It means your subconscious is deciding. It's still you however (no-one else), and though you're aware of it or not, your conscious dictates what your subconsious does.

Look, people previously unaware of how their head works, become aware. How do you think addictions are overcome?

Why are you advocating perpetuation of powerlessness?

Again, if you can choose love, then choose to hate your relatives.

Wrong. They're choosing commitment, not love. There's a big difference.

Again, a big difference between love and commitment. Just because I commit myself to a monogamous relationship doesn't mean I'm in love with the person. Many other people have proved that in dating.

Yet you still haven't proved me wrong. If you can choose love then choose to hate your parents, brothers and sisters, and your woman. Commitment isn't love.

[quote]Not all of us find it easy to love our parents Jerr. Any relationship, for it to weather storms and troubles, needs commitment or it breaks down. I love my parents because I have chosen to move past offenses, move beyond issues in my childhood for example. Choice. It would be easy to dwell on the negative. Dwell on the offense and have no love whatsoever. Love involves choice.[quote]

So can you hate your parents with a simple choice? I sure can't! I didn't choose to love my parents, and like I said even when I'm mad at them there is no hate.

At least that's what I seem to be getting from your point of view.

Never felt the pressure to perform. Quite the opposite, I wanted to perform because I wanted to be straight. Yet nothing ever happened.

Fair enough. However, I still wouldn't define a person by who they sleep with. There's so much more that defines them.

Sure didn't require any work for some people I know, other than just being in love.

Not true. What we are missing here is two big things:
(1) the fact that the human heart/mind has the capacity to love more than one person at once, and
(2) the fact that loving someone (or being attracted to them) and choosing to ACT on that love are two different things.

The fact that you do not act on an attraction and have an affair, thereby jeapordizing your marriage, does not mean you are not attracted to that person. It is not the "love" that is being chosen, but rather whether or not to act on it.

Not true. What we are missing here is two big things:
(1) the fact that the human heart/mind has the capacity to love more than one person at once, and
(2) the fact that loving someone (or being attracted to them) and choosing to ACT on that love are two different things.

The fact that you do not act on an attraction and have an affair, thereby jeapordizing your marriage, does not mean you are not attracted to that person. It is not the "love" that is being chosen, but rather whether or not to act on it. </font>[/QUOTE]That's exactly what I'm trying to say. :D

Not true. What we are missing here is two big things:
(1) the fact that the human heart/mind has the capacity to love more than one person at once, and </font>[/QUOTE]I wouldn't say it's at once. It's more of an oscillation between two. Feeling at one moment for one, and then for the other. Have you ever been in that situation? It's like some wierd schitsophrenia. Granted we can feel love for many people "at once", but the all consuming overwhelming life-partner desire for a person is preclusive, and thus, when felt for more than one, posesses the "swinging" element.

Commitment is to decide, and then move towards that choice at the exclusion of the other.

Not true. What we are missing here is two big things:
(1) the fact that the human heart/mind has the capacity to love more than one person at once, and
(2) the fact that loving someone (or being attracted to them) and choosing to ACT on that love are two different things.

The fact that you do not act on an attraction and have an affair, thereby jeapordizing your marriage, does not mean you are not attracted to that person. It is not the "love" that is being chosen, but rather whether or not to act on it. </font>[/QUOTE]And you can also choose to NOT be attracted to a person, by self emphasising negative associations. Not a nice experience , but attainable. Most taste is association.

Again, if you can choose love, then choose to hate your relatives.</font>[/QUOTE]Why? To prove a point on the internet? Seems like a silly reason if you ask me. I'm not that insecure. ;) Besides, I am my own proof. I am not the one complaining about being unable to choose things. I am suggesting empowerment for yourself and you want me to prove it to you? There are more than enough books which support what I am suggesting. Try it on yourself. Don't expect me to sabotage my families happiness just to prove a point to you.

Wrong. They're choosing commitment, not love. There's a big difference.</font>[/QUOTE]Commitment in a relationship IS deciding to love. Don't know what else to say. Was commited to a woman for 10 years including 7 of marriage. Then divorced. I know what long term commitment is and isn't based on both success and failure.

Again, a big difference between love and commitment. Just because I commit myself to a monogamous relationship doesn't mean I'm in love with the person. Many other people have proved that in dating.</font>[/QUOTE]Without commitment you won't have ture love. You may have "infatuation" and other feel goods, but love is dependent on commitment. Forgiveness being the primary example. Relationships increase in worth with INVESTMENT. Investment of time, money, emotional energy. The commitment to invest creates the love/result.


</font>[/QUOTE]If you believe you have no choice but to love your parents, then that love hasn't been tested yet. When and if you are confronted with issues that leave you at crossroads over the continuation of that relationship, you'll understand what I'm talking about. The ones we love hurt us the most precisely because we love them.

I choose to love my parents. I certainly don't hate them, and that is through a series of choices, starting with a decision to maintain relationship.

Never felt the pressure to perform. Quite the opposite, I wanted to perform because I wanted to be straight. Yet nothing ever happened.</font>[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]Which is my point exactly. Check what I'm saying again. Your desire for staightness is what created the pressure I'm speaking about. It's not about a simple physical response in your case, but overwhelmed with a pressure on self perception.


Fair enough. However, I still wouldn't define a person by who they sleep with. There's so much more that defines them.</font>[/QUOTE]Then why change laws giving people rights depending on their sexual preferences? It is homosexual people who define themselves - simply by creating delineation - by their sexual preference.

I agree with you, which is why I advocate laws encouraging procreating heterosexual couples, based on a desire for a healthy perpetuation of the human race.

Sure didn't require any work for some people I know, other than just being in love. </font>[/QUOTE]That flies in the face of so much wisdom it's not funny. "Sure didn't require any work other than just being in love". Being in love for 50 odd years requires work Jerr. Perhaps you'd care to list your own sucessful relationships seeing as you're so prepared to contradict generations of sucessful relationship testimonies with your statement. Would love to know the secret based on your personal revelations. Care to share?

[ 06-03-2004, 02:57 PM: Message edited by: Yorick ]

Called Burden of Proof. You make a statement, back it up. At least I tried to back up my statements.

If you don't want to prove a point, fine. But you make the world out like it's black and white when it's not.

Sometimes it's simple, sometimes it's not.

Then what about those people who are not in love who commit in a relationship so they lessen a risk of STDs? Are they still 'deciding' to be in love?

Making a decision to commit is just that, to commit.

That's a pretty big assumption to make about a person you don't even know at all.

And yes I have had lots of tests with my love for my parents. We barely get along, yet we still love each other.

Again, you're making it black and white when it's not.

Well even now there's no pressure on my self-perception, yet I can't find women sexually attractive.

We're not trying to change laws based on sexual preference/orientation. We're trying to get equality. Besides, those benefits can already be said to be based soley off of sexual preference since right now they only recognize a man and a woman in a marriage. So your point is kind of moot.

And what about those gay men and women that adopt? Do their families even matter in your estimation? Why should they miss out on benefits and be forced to pay more than someone because they are straight?

Reread what I said. I said some people I know. Two couples. Though I've lost touch with one.

I knew two people in college who had been seeing each other for almost seven years before I lost contact with them, and they said they never really had to work to fall in love with each other other than just dating.

The other couple would be online, about ten years they've been married. But they could be just generalizing themselves.

So as I said, some people, not me. I haven't been in a relationship for six years.

[ 06-04-2004, 06:37 PM: Message edited by: Jerr Conner ]

I want to know where this nonsense all came from... I didn't intend this to become a debate on the nature of homosexuality, but rather, is it right for Virginia to make such a law? Have you issued a Stance on that yet, Yorick, in case I missed it?

And it never occured to you, that possibly, God's way of saying "Keep the damned population down before the Earth ends up overflowing" is by creating gay and bisexual people?

edited to be less "religiony" so that illumina's thread doesnt get closed. If a moderator disagrees with my careful wording let me know and i'll cut the whole thing out and replace it with something else that fits here.

first, theres an indefinate moratorium on religion so i'm not going to engage in a religious debate. i will answer your question with the understanding that i speak from only one perspective and will not discuss it further on this thread. no, that is not possible... in some forms of christianity it is deemed impossible to believe that God would create someone whos nature would compel them to do something which is doctrinally defined in their interpretation of the bible as wrong. but, that turning into a debate is opening a can of worms that isnt allowed, so i'm going to leave it at that.

[ 06-04-2004, 06:49 PM: Message edited by: promethius9594 ]