You should include a link.
In response to
Rationality Quotes February 2012
Title should read: "Making Stuff Up Is Easy, Overcoming Cognitive Biases and Discovering How Things Really Work Is Difficult: An Exercise in the Obvious"
Reddit user sciencecomic, in response to a headline reading "'Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not'. Emory philosopher Robert McCauley suggests that science is more fragile than we think while religion more resilient – all for reasons coming back to humans' cognitive processes."
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Well, the particular example I'm thinking of is when she invited a Catholic friend as a guest blogger to discuss what he considered to be the strongest arguments against same-sex marriage. He ended up arguing that not only same-sex marriage, but the normalization and even existence of same-sex attraction itself needs to be combated so as to prevent the possibility that romantic attraction would complicate same-sex friendships. Homosexuals shouldn't publicly express their desires, as this results in "sexualizing" public spaces. Strong suggestions that the state should participate in the enforcement of such non-expression.
If you want to say this "isn't bigotry," or that I'm being too loose with the concept, that's fine. I have no strong attachment to some particular understanding of the term. My substantive point was that these views struck me as so outlandish that to host a whole debate about them and repeatedly defend the author as honest and well-intentioned seemed surprising.
I also noticed her persistent engagement with arguments against homosexuality itself, for a duration that seemed far out of proportion to the strength of these arguments and the attention they should merit. Given that the most she now says about Catholic teachings on homosexuality is that she's "confused" by them, I almost have to wonder if her extended search for any plausible arguments against homosexuality was actually just a way to make the open leap to Catholicism feel more palatable from her perspective.