Same sex marriage

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@Tim_Tex, what I was remarking on was the fact that modern Swedish and modern English appear to have a nigh identical syntax, compared to English and German. Now, the peculiar thing about the Saami people is that they appear to have a closer relationship with the Berber people than they do with most Northern Europeans, and their religion is a lot more characteristic than the ancient Norse religion to the shamanistic cultures common to the holarctic in general. This may suggest support for the Eskimo-Uralic theory. Quite frankly, I think this ties nicely into the fact that mitochondrial haplogroup CZ is found in certain Amerindian ethnicities, especially many who, like the Saami and their relatives, identify closely with "animal spirits" in their religious practices.

However, a more philosophical question is whether or not this denotes that genetics may share in the causality of how religious beliefs tend to form, or does it merely suggest that human beings are more skilled than they are given credit for in keeping their ancestral culture alive? I think that it is sharply relevant that many pagan practices have survived in modern Christianity, such as the presence of equivalents of ancient pagan gods among the Catholic "Demonic Princes." Therefore, I tend to lean toward the latter assumption, but I would also submit the caveat that it is also suggestive that the medieval Christians tended to get more lip service out of the heathens than actual heartfelt faith in their ideas.

It is noteworthy that Tengriism, which was a belief held by the Hunnish invaders of Europe and is also rife in Central Asia, holds that a shaman (their equivalent of a priest) should be identified by whether he is struck with sudden illness (probably either severe migraines or epilepsy). Now, if I understand correctly, there are stories from Medieval Christianity as late as the time of Luther of religious figures being "struck by lightning" or some other illness and coming down with religion as a result. This includes Paul the Apostle, who was himself from a part of the world where Tengriism (Gok Tanri) was once in common practice (Turkey), and it is also noteworthy that some scholars have interpreted Paul's "thorn" (which he discussed in 2 Cor. 12:7-10) to be a migraine condition.

Of course, a great deal of this rambling tirade is borne of rampant speculation. But I do think that it is worthy of discussion that very little of our religious ideas were actually born in an absolute vacuum. In fact, I think that we should be given to wonder whether certain British royals being referred to as "lions" and such (or heraldry for that matter!) may have a relationship with the Saami and Cherokee habit of identifying closely with animal spirits. Or perhaps we should wonder just how far back the British dog-fever actually goes, considering the links between ancient Celtic culture and that of India (where dogs are also common. It is perhaps no coincidence that some researchers have suggested that the Cherokee may have been responsible for bringing over the yellow dog that is indigeonous to Southeastern North America.

Okay, I'll stop. I'm getting dizzy. I think it was probably a bad idea to pop all those fish oils yesterday.

Hear, hear.

^I second that

I don't think homophobia is caused by closeted gays. I believe the central cause of homophobia is a laziness to understand the subject and/or to explain that kind of stuff to your children. It's much easier for a lot of families to just call something you can't explain bad instead of explaining the complexities of developing feelings for someone who is of the same gender as you. This is why I hate the concept of "family values" in politics. It's a term you mostly hear by conservatives and their definition is for the government is to put a "black and white" on everything to save the parents from having to do most of the work of trying to make sense of it to their children. People like them make it harder for kids to access birth control because it's easier to enforce abstinence instead of explaining the alternatives and risks in detail. In this same manner, we have TV censorship.

If "family values" has any value to families, they would let individual families to deal with such issues themselves instead of forcing the government to do all the work of enforcing the same rules on all families. Real parenting is actually explaining things to your children instead of saying "just because" or "just dont do it".