Mohammed Hijab – Can You Stop Being Gay
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the struggles of finding one's way to deal with Opportunities of others and the potential consequences of social and political beliefs on one's behavior. They also touch on the issue of gayity and the link between it and the world. The speakers stress the importance of strong social stance and identifying the " harm principle" and "ITAS" to prevent further negative behavior. They also discuss the " harm principle" and the "weird" idea of "weird" and the "weird" idea of the "weird" idea of the "weird" idea of the "weird" idea of the "weird" idea of the "weird" idea of the "weird" idea of the "weird" idea of the "weird" idea of the "weird" idea of the "weird" idea of the "weird" idea of the "weird" idea of the "weird" idea of the "weird" idea
AI: Summary ©
So what how do you find that struggle to try and deal with both at the same time?
Let me
just say,
in every culture, religion has always not rejected me. Yes. So for the first time against that they didn't take me personally. Very good as some of us. Oh, if he introduced me, it's a example you made a call? Yeah. You know what? Pause?
Wait, wait, tell me. Yes. So I trust not my
benefit. No. So are you? Are you a practicing homosexual? Have you got like, I mean, would you try and fight the urge or whether or not
me like,
tell me, you
know, I think you've got a consistent
worldview, in a sense, because you what you believe is you believe in Christianity. Yeah. And but at the same time, what you're saying is, I know Christianity details, man shall not lie with other man and these things. He's kind of, you know, the Bible verses. By the same time, what you're saying is, I realize it's a sin.
But what I'm falling into that you're saying, You're falling into that scene sometimes. So you're kind of trying to fight the urge and these things? Yes, pretty much. I think everybody do I do? Yes.
Some are born with from stealing. Yeah.
So we've got a killer instinct inside of Johnny. So do go out one, send us a
series of neuro lies. But that's what keeps us hungry.
Is what kind of says,
to take away from me? This is not my grace is sufficient your weakness? To try sake, he's as humble in that mindset. We're not perfect.
Well,
you know, the senior, defensive and equal way
to the worst is His grace, his words and his actions and things to try say.
So I mean, how, for example, you fall into the sin. And now you want to come back and repent to Jesus or whatever it may be.
Why would you try them to lead a heterosexual lifestyle?
The sixth sign marriage in general? Yes. straight, gay, whatever it is, it certainly is your choice. Yeah. Or you can marry a woman in Christianity.
So you're not going down that road? out?
On the street, to say, he has no choice
is to show me as I say, you
don't necessarily have to do that if you choose.
Okay, that's what
I'm saying. Yeah. So you're saying that, even if even if you are born with that, you're saying that you're choosing tax on that impulse? Yes, it's true. Yeah. Thank you for pointing that out. Yeah. So
we need to get married. Sometimes kids don't need to get married. That's not the answer to luck to me. This is to me, God, God is God's power for me to get married. isn't his plan, and I'll do that. But this man is golden.
I think.
So I think it gets both religions. I mean, when you right? There's all these things, but anything Oh,
yeah, no, you're making perfect sense. I'm trying to, you've got a consistent worldview. I've said that in the beginning, I think you do. Because if some people what they're trying to do from either tradition, or from a Muslim, or a Muslim,
and a Christian perspective, is that they say they try and justify why they might be doing right through religion. What you're doing is you're saying that you'll say about yourself that you're homosexual, I know it's a sin, I fall into it, I try and repent. That's the most consistent extract extreme that you can take it to, as a religious person from from either a Christian or Muslim perspective. You see what I'm saying? So I think you definitely have a consistent worldview. Well, I would say to you that in psychology they have. I'm not sure if you've heard of this condition, you refer to as cognitive dissonance.
cognitive dissonance is when your actions
Your moral compass, this parrot for an extended period of time, what psychologists say happened to people, if that continues to be the case is that at the end of it, you become depressed, you have a high anxiety and acute anxiety etc. So whatever it is you want to do in life, my belief is that we should be striving as you are not taking that away from you should continually strive to make our actions in line with our beliefs. Because if your actions wherever they may be, are not in line with your beliefs, they won't necessarily happen is that it will be a slow buildup of anxiety and depression. And by the way, it's a killer the pressure you might be doing. You might be driven to
emotional if you haven't now, but you might have very hard depression.
Have you heard that? Yeah.
Yes.
Good. That's a good place. Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. For sure. Completely.
And totally fine.
Religion nowadays,
now, because so many people tried to say that we're in the right, you know, but the truth
is,
we're here we talk about God's love. The other is to
mean something to
me. That's
right.
No, I totally take the point. I think you're absolutely right about that. And that goes back to the point. If you're, if you're compulsive. If you do something, whatever it may be, it's not just restricted to homosexuality, of course, that's anything. It's like you said, we're all sinners in our own capacity in it. In Islam, we have a Hadith,
which is a prophetic saying, which has clearly been adamant
that every human being makes mistakes. And the best of those who makes mistakes are those who repent.
You know, so we were all gonna fall into that.
definition is
retraining our minds at work. Yeah, yeah.
Yes, that is that's the same in Islam. Yes. thing like I feel, especially Christian.
Are you a Protestant or Catholic or
what made you because I find you a really interesting case study, if you don't mind me saying writing study.
Case Study is known. Right. Right.
An interesting question. Because usually what we find that the LGBT community is that they're a religious or that they are atheists, secularists agnostic. I mean, there is a minority of people who haven't done the research to prove this, of course, but there it seems to be that especially in the Western Hemisphere, a minority of the LGBT community, ascribe to a particular faith group, right. So I haven't met too many people that say, I'm gay and Muslim for Java, we are seeing them by snow, a massive population of them. And the same thing applies to, for example, Christians, practicing traditionalist Christians, who are usually kind of they go by the word.
Yes, we are. We are not strange. That's true for sure.
In the sense that you realize that that's more of a social reason for that is a pressure upon the church and the reason why people don't pay attention to the engaged. no nonsense, why?
Okay, so what's your mean? Well, the first commandment, God gave me some manuals for the most part.
It's very frustrating.
So you're saying
you're saying that if everyone wants to be gay, but to be to prove that someone can say so and not everyone's gonna be gay, right. So I'll never use that argument myself because not everyone is going to be gay. That's an argument that was that place, at least some portion of population are not going to be gay, then you can still multiply right? So I wouldn't use as a good excuse. Probably better.
Look,
I mean, I'm not saying that homosexuality is correct. In its sexual form. I'm also against it. But I'm just saying that the argument because of multiplication.
Yes, yes.
The next thing is to see.
Yeah.
Well, one argument you could make, if that's what you're trying to say, I mean, is, if we look at the harm principle, and something about harm, because to be honest with you, I've seen this statistics from the World Health Organization. And that suggests to me that homosexual men have a much highest chance. I'm not sure why you go to Nigeria. I don't know if you do this kind of hiding in government. Maybe we could. Yeah, of course, of course, I think this is something we could actually talk about. We're not talking about religion, per se. Of course, we can have your perspective on this, per se, not homosexual. This one, I think it was the World Health Organization,
is saying that homosexual men are 13 times more likely to carry AIDS. And it's not just with AIDS, it's almost all of the sexually transmitted diseases.
They're more likely. So the point is that if we want a society to be to have as much to have as little chance of the spread of AIDS as possible, you could argue from your from your logic.
To keep going, I don't want to spoil your discussion. Now. He's not
okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, no, you're right. But that's no good.
know for sure.
Yes, yes. Yes, yes.
Yes, no, you're right. No, that's not the argument. I'm saying based on what you said, because you said that,
about the multiple multiplying thesis, you said that go forth and multiply, you know, someone who made this argument, which I remember now, remember the argument and the counter argument.
Someone made the argument on Darwinian perspective, they said that says homosexual * has no Darwinian
effect, or it doesn't have any Darwinian functionality, right? Because if you're if you believe in survival, because that Darwinian evolution is two things, it's survival of the fittest, and it's also reproduction. And the argument is that homosexuality doesn't fulfill any of those two things. While the counter argument was quite intriguing, also, because the counter argument to that argument was that when there's overpopulation,
then homosexuality becomes a way of
Yes.
Yeah.
That's that's the thing. So it's
really what you're saying it? Was it in a way, but in the wall, I'm saying is I'll take a step back from the whole multiplication thing. I wouldn't say it's because the rep reproduction thing, I see flaws on both sides of the argument. That's why I know I know these arguments, why never make those arguments? You know, what the arguments I could make I could see being made is that which relates to disease, because you'll say you're right, and saying that the SE is not. If you get rid of all homosexuals in the world, STDs are not going to be
Yes, of course. Yeah, I agree with that. But to take your point, I will say this a stronger argument, because we're not arguing on that basis, we're saying that homosexuality exacerbates the spread of HIV, because by necessity, if someone has more likelihood of getting HIV because of homosexuality, then they're more likely to spread that as well.
There's more than one reason, there's more than one reason why HIV will spread. Like you said, in developing countries, Sub Saharan Africa, for example, you have a lot of HIV spreading. And when you could, you could you could easily say is majority heterosexual societies. There's no doubt about that. But what I'm saying is that, in a sense, that's an uncontrollable variable, because it's economic. So economic variables, unless you're able to enrich a society with economic phenomena are unlikely to change in the short term. And the same thing would bother when I was saying that an action, which people in the developed world that they're doing continually exacerbates the process
of HIV, HIV spreading so you could make the argument. Well, what I'm saying is that
It's neither here nor there.
The original reason why you said
it's not a good reason, I believe is the best reason. I'll tell you what I mean by that. But from an Islamic perspective, when the Quran says, for example, in chapter seven of the Quran, it says, in the
Bible Bell, and Tim commerce reform, that you guys people have lots because it's the same story as the one in the Old Testament. Yes. I mean, it's true.
Story.
No, no, no, no, of course, of course. The general belief is something that was destroyed
from sexuality, hence the term Suddenly, the truth is three independent scripture Genesis.
That's who my dad is. Yeah. They weren't given a school yesterday. Yes.
Yes. Yes, yes.
No, I take that point. And the same thing applies in the prom because
no, no, no, no, I agree the point. But both in the Bible and the Quran, the statements, which seemingly condemned the act of homosexual *, the acts of homes so for example, man shall shall not lie with another man that's in the Bible. That's an injunction, right? And if we're saying the Bible is timeless, in fact, you'll test because you could say it's the Old Testament. Well, the Old Testament is, if we take a Trinitarian view the words of Jesus because Jesus was God, and God is the one who revealed the Old Testament, right? But what I'm saying to you is that in both scriptures, you find the verse in chapter seven of the bride, it says, it's really interesting because the way I
was thinking and contemplating over it for some time,
it says, that verily you guys in the community, toner, Regina shadow works, I've been doing this app that certain you guys approach men with desire, ie sexual desire, instead of women. Well, and some comb was reformed, that certainly you are extravagant people. Their software that's being referred to, it's really interesting is when you go over and above that, which is necessary. So for example, going back to kind of like the aesthetic
image like against material, materialism, outlook of life, we only need a few things to live, to go back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We need food, *, shelter, etc. It seems to me what the Quran is saying is that having the impulse and practicing the impulse is not, by the way, in Islam, having having a desire is not a sin. Yes, it's only when you accident. So having the input and then carrying out the the act of sexual health a man that is, it's not necessary. It's going above and beyond what was actually necessary for your existence is going above and beyond that was you need in the world to survive and to function and to be psychologically in a good state of mind. So you don't
need to do it.
The response of it was, well, my Kennedy lover como Ilan, don't call it that it wasn't
his people, ie those are that group of people that were lots of people. They said to him,
get rid of them.
In the home.
There are people that wish to purify, like they're imposing religion upon us get rid of them. And what's really interesting about that narrative is as applicable today. Now, if someone talks about homosexuality as a as a thing to do, rather than the people because man, you can have a discussion, we can agree on those things. And we can find each other very, very nice company, right? We have no problem with each other, not trying to fight each other, kill each other discriminate against each other, while the idea of challenging a sexual act, wherever it may be, whether it be heterosexual *, homosexual *, bisexual *, that's become a social taboo in and of itself. You see, so now
people say, if anyone makes an argument, a rational argument against this act of man having * with other men, for example, now society wants to get rid of that person. They're in liberal. They're on the irrational
going along with the general narrative.
Yes, social classes.
Same farmers who code for studio build six parts without touching darker at the start. Of course, things are so wide. There is a tendency because
yes, if you had
to also said yes, look for our
absolute
best as far as the same time Why don't you go there?
His way out? Well, this is my solution, I think absolutely right. Let me give you a solution, right? I'm not saying that you've identified what you feel as a problem, not because I didn't think for you, right. So I would say if you've identified it as a problem in and of yourself is the solution. Number one, you must know full well, that you are in control of your body.
Now what I mean by that, I think people, there is this,
there is almost a ultra deterministic outlook of our own abilities to do things, refrain from things, suppress things, and control ourselves. Self mastery is what the theme is here that I'm bringing to you how I feel psychologic my psychological disposition can be manipulated, either by others, or by my own self. If I choose to, if I choose to, I can decide to do things feel things hate someone loves someone, based on my own self conditioning. And if we have the outlet for life, if you're a homosexual, like yourself, who wants to leave homosexuality, and not become a homosexual anymore? Then you have to convince yourself with this underlying premise, which is, which is that
you can you can control yourself?
Yes, a homosexual can become a heterosexual. It's possible, just like, I believe it's possible, then I'm gonna tell you something, just like I'm gonna say this, just like a heterosexual can become a homosexual. I believe both things are possible. Now, let me tell you what I mean by that. social conditioning. I believe that psychological conditioning is such a powerful thing.
You're telling me Yes, yes.
It's possible. I'm in love. No, no.
No, no, honestly. No, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying what I'm saying is, is it in my is it in someone's ability to change sexuality? That's my question.
Yes, absolutely. No, but that's the question.
Know what I guess what I'm trying to say to you is?
No, I'm not saying it's not why but why I'm saying is this. Why I'm saying is that I do believe,
just as we can condition ourselves to like certain things, aesthetically, dislike certain things. Aesthetically, whether you're a homosexual or heterosexual or bisexual, I believe you can manipulate your sexuality, that the sort of the extraneous social cultural variables, and
without, without the help of drugs, I want my belief, the fact because we have to see where I'm coming from. And
what I'm saying is, first and foremost, we have to establish, is it psychologically plausible or not? If we say it's not possible that we will make no effort to try and try and do whatever you're trying to do? What I'm saying is that is sexuality. Is it something which you can manipulate? to white? And even a question? To what extent is the better question to what extent can you manipulate your own sexuality? Now, let me give you this, obviously, if we look
at the man, yes.
A guy who,
who are struggling, I'm
sorry, I don't need to
finish the world without any assistance.
No, I see what you're saying for sure. But what I wanted to say to you is this No, no, I can see what you're saying. But let me take a step back because I think it depends on the psychological school of thought you come from right. Well, you believe in like, for example, Freud, Freud, Sigmund Freud, who, who kind of established what is referred to now as psychoanalysis. Yeah. He believes in the unconscious mind. He made that, that terminology popular in the psychological field. And he also believed in what he called the ego and the super ego.
very famously, he believed in as well, is that toddlers have something called an Oedipus complex. Most of you've heard of this. All right, I'll tell you what he says. So he believes that toddlers, young people, at the age of say 4567 young, he had a case study with someone called Hans. He went to his house. his thesis, which is very controversial debate now is that they go through something called the Oedipus complex. Oedipus was an ancient Greek guy who killed his father and slept with his mother. Yeah. So why is this Oedipus complex? The Oedipus complex is the idea that
You desire your opposite gender parent.
So the Oedipus complex is the idea that you desire, your opposite gender, parent, okay? Now, according to Freud, as far as my reading of him goes, what happens is we internalize or otherwise suppress that desire for the opposite gender parent when we're younger. So that that goes into the unconscious mind. So we all have an incestuous, according to Freud, will have an incestuous
impetus or impulse in the beginning. And then that transforms across time with the ego taking control. Okay, of, of the it, there is the animalistic side, the bcl side, that headedness within us, right. So what Freud to say and through the of psychoanalysis is that we move away from the incestuous impulse into just normal heterosexual impulse. But with that, what we find is that if you take this kind of belief, on face value, that according to this school of thought psychoanalytic school thought it's conceivable to suppress
whatever desire may be, whether it be an incestuous one, and you could potentially generalize that to a homosexual or heterosexual bisexual one as well.
For something for a long time, but in the end, it's gonna happen.
It's gonna happen.
Well, that's the thing. That's, that's why I would want to take a step back again, but he wrote a book called civilizations and its discontents. Yeah. So Freud wrote a book called civilizations. And its discontents, his thesis is that really, the ego and the super ego act like a father figure. So in other words,
society traps your, your feelings, your emotions, how you really want you want to really enact, okay, what you really want to enact. And so what, why I was saying was, society Trump's what you really want to enact, he sees that as a negative thing. And actually, we should free those things up so that we can live a freer lifestyle, you see what I'm saying?
Obviously, people like Plato, ancient philosophers, and others, would disagree with him, it's actually that's what's required, that if you let your emotions take control of you, it's like letting horses literally like a pack of horses guide you in whatever direction you want. So suppression, according to Freud is negative, according to maybe old school religious values, like Christianity and Islam, according to make more ancient people, others, it's a positive thing. So it really depends on how you define suppression. Now, from a third perspective, suppression is very positive at times. That's why God Almighty, we believe he praises those who suppress their
aggressive urges. He says, Well, casamino voice those who suppress the anger, so anger is a positive thing to suppress.
Yes,
yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Absolutely. So what I'm saying now is what you have to do, is you have to identify what to you, yeah, is positive and negative emotion. Now, I, from a Muslim perspective, identify that the act of having * with another man is a negative thing, not a positive thing, I'm sure my Christian perspective
is there is an impulse there, right. It's a sexual impulse, just as the aggressive urge is also an impulse, right. And suppressible, if you like, just like aggression, because actually Freud going back to him, he identified two things, he identified the sexual and aggressive urges, and through his talking of the ego and the super ego, he highlighted a section in aggressive of why because they're the most erratic, if you like, when you're angry, and when you're sexually aroused, you're most likely to do something which is irrational, whether that be homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual however you want. But the idea of being sexually aroused or being angry, puts you in a state where
you you're not in control of yourself and in an optimal way, your emotions are more control of you done anything else, right. So we know that society cannot function. If human beings do not suppress some of those urges, you have to identify that, for example, if you're very angry with your wife, or with your husband, or your boyfriend or your son, whatever it may be, right. And they get angry with you got angry with them.
But you hit them. Yeah.
So it's about identifying what you what you can see what you perceive.
Yes.
It's putting
your mind to that. There's no suppressive person then
from there, but in my opinion when you work, it's all in your favor.
Yes.
That's exactly what he says. Yes, yes, yes.
I feel guilty for what they're doing, and all that they feel like religion is wrong for this reason.
Because
of religion?
The truth is,
yes.
No doubt, no doubt. You know, I made it I had discussion with homosexuals in a park before and you know, I always say to them, I say to them on what epistemological method, or what what basis, do you
justify your homosexuality, right? So a lot of them say we're liberals. So okay, we go back to john Stuart Mill, because he's one of the most famous new liberals and he has been set to be like, you know, the, he crystallized modern day liberalism. And there's something he said called the harm principle, you can do whatever you want, so long as you don't harm anyone else. And the argument I put to them, is that what do you think of *? Because forgot a brother and a sister above the age, we're in contraception. There was no deformed babies that have sexual * with each other, you know, isn't not part of your thing. Most.
Yeah, so
all we said was contraception.
Yeah, yeah. So usually, some of them say it's wrong. So then I would go back to them say, well, the same reason why you're saying it's wrong. They say it's naturalistically wrong. So with us, okay, it's naturalistic, you know, can someone make the same argument, homosexuality? Whatever argument they make, it would, would would necessarily insist would have to be included in the harm principle. It just so happens that society has seen the act of a man having * with another man as okay. And brother having * with her sister as taboo. But really, it's there's no philosophical basis for for that. If one is okay, the other one should be okay, as well, according to the harm principle. So
what was you is you've already identified that that transition to close is, is no, right. So from that perspective, was more easy. Because why don't have to go through this kind of philosophizing with you. I just tell you straight that, if you believe that these are the steps, the steps are to recognize that change is possible. And I believe that human beings can master themselves and more, we have the power.
Now, but you've got to buy this because we can't change.
Case.
Let me put, let me put, yeah, let me put it this way. Right. Let me give you an extreme example. Whether it be your homosexual or heterosexual or bisexual, okay? I'm not gonna ask you to do a thought experiment and to imagine the last time this happened to me, but what I was gonna say was this, right? Imagine now you're about to you're you're in a state, where you're, you're at the height of your sexual arousal, and you're about to perform the act, wherever the act is.
someone knocks on the door before you perform the act. And you know, who is it's just someone who's got a gun in their hand, and they're pointing the gun right.
Now, how quickly were your sexual arousal disappear? Very quickly, because
no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Trust me, I know, okay.
Okay. Elian comes in.
Whoever is, you know, someone stabs you, you're not gonna feel scared, you're gonna have a problem. So the idea is, this is why the reason why is because the the feeling of fear has overpowered the feeling of sexual arousal. And that's, that's the reality, you can that's why I'm saying the extraneous variable can determine your outlook and your disposition. So if someone puts a gun to your head, and you're about to have *, and so you feel completely sexually aroused, when they put a gun in your head, their arousal will probably go, I'm telling you, you understand what I'm saying. Now, what that suggests to me, what I suggest to me is that you're in control. Just what
I'm saying. Because if you're able to if you're able to get your fear up, by intrinsically by yourself,
why not? What I'm saying is
not for example, from our perspective in Islam, Christianity and Judaism,
homosexuality, sorry, these religions were, especially in Christianity in Islam, we believe in Heaven and * yeah. Now if you truly believe in health, like to a high degree that the higher the more you believe in *, the more you can see it in front of you when you're doing your actions. I mean, are you gonna do it's like the gun pointing at your head. Really. And now I secular person might not ever understand this. My never ever understand this. But
a religious person will. And that's why we have a beautiful Hadith of the Prophet Mohammed, he said that there are seven people that will be shaded by the throne of God, and the day where there is no shade except for his shade. And you know what he said, one of them is when a woman comes to him, and she seduces him. And he says, In the other half Allah, I forgot. So look at the wording that's being used.
So the fear of God's punishment in this case, supersedes the fear of supersedes arousal, or the desire that that person has what someone has reached that level of spiritual awareness, and self mastery. In that case, they can decide to do things which are intrinsically against their psychological dispositions, they can do things which are against their desires, they can do things which are against their person. You see what I'm saying? And that's why people will take their life so this way for religion, you can ask yourself the question, why would people kill themselves? You don't think it's right. But the suicide bomber, we disagree with them? Right? We completely I mean,
just because no one you know, we disagree with a suicide bomb. Well, why is that? Why is the mindfulness? I mean, they're willing to put everything I mean, you put on the sun, or knowing the suicide of the Crusaders? Anybody? Anyone can decide. They've decided now anyone? Yeah.
That their life is less important than the rewards that they will get as a result of it. So whatever is
what we disagree with those guys.
No, I agree with you. But I'm just saying that they've put themselves in a frame of mind, just what I'm saying. So what I'm saying is that you can put yourself in that frame of mind saying that that frame
works.
Absolutely. That's that's a really, really good point. Yes, I didn't know what you mean. Yes.
No, no, no, I know. You're right. You're right. It's not just about you. It's about having faith in God. I like that. on that. bombshell. Thank you very much.