by infomatique
Question by Diane Martell: Atheists: Does giving loose rein to your animal passions make you less of an intellectual being?
I believe so. Sexuality is ideologically and institutionally constructed and is foisted on us by society. When humans engage in sexual activity (or self-indulgence), they leave behind their thinking caps and are reduced to wild animals. Don’t try to masquerade this animal behavior with “the candle lights were on, we were in the bedroom, everything was magical.” How can those who profess to be intellectuals place their primitive instinct above the intellect?
Best answer:
Answer by Bunz!
You need to get laid worse than I do! WOW!
Add your own answer in the comments!
where do you get your ideas from?
‘I believe so’
Like every thing else – no proof, just belief.
Sexuality is ideologically constructed ?!
I’m going out on a limb and saying that you don’t get a lot of action.
And it is not the only activity that I engage in that I also don’t to do a lot of intellectual thinking during.
And I can’t tell if you should do more thinking (since it seems you do very little) or relax more (since you seem rather …)
loose rein…animal passions…wild animals…bedroom…magical….primitive….
I feel like grunting and knocking my hooves against an old tree trunk while howling at a full moon.
Please keep asking questions. I think we’re getting somewhere.
No.
First of all, what does ones belief or lack of belief in a god have to do with being an intellectual, and why does being an intellectual rule out being sexual? You may need to learn how to think a little more clearly.
PARTS of sexuality may be ideologically constructed, but it’s a pretty basic need, after all. People need to eat, drink, excrete and be sexual. Intellectual stuff most people can take or leave, but sex, in some form or other, is pretty much necessary.
And we are animals — absolutely no different from other animals except for our capacity to know we’re going to die and screw things up royally.
no matter how advanced of a species we become, we will always have animal like qualities at one time or another. I don’t know why you see sex as something that degrades intelligence. Without sex, our slow advancement of average intellect will obviously be destroyed. And back when we were as primitive as animals themselves, what do you think helped us survive? Primitive instinct.
Because these intelligent people are aware that they evolved, and humans are but animals. We are just self-aware, intelligent animals. And at the root of all animals (and provably so) is sexuality. The core of the brain is *literally* for sexuality. Sex, aside from eating and drugs intended to do so, is the only thing that can release the pleasure chemical in our brains, and it’s the most addictive chemical in the world – for any animals, humans not excluded. Just because you’re having sex does not mean you’re not being logical. Sexuality is not a construction. It is innate in *every* animal on this planet, excluding those that reproduce asexuality – but those never managed to reach a level of sentience.
I think you’re going off track by someone aligning sexuality with immorality. Sex doesn’t make you stupid, it doesn’t make you immoral, and it certainly isn’t a divinely immoral. Just because you’re intelligent doesn’t mean you can’t indulge, especially in healthy behaviors. Eating yourself to death is possible. Having sex to death is not. The only unintelligent thing that can come of sex is an unplanned pregnancy, and intelligent people are very good at using protection. It’s the lesser intelligent ones that manage to knock up their partners in the throws of passion.
In short, intelligence evolved *after* sexuality. If it weren’t for sexuality, there wouldn’t be intelligence. So I’m not seeing why you would expect someone to abstain from sex, when it actually makes you healthier – both mentally and physically – because the body rewards the animals that reproduce (or that it thinks are reproducing). It’s simple evolution.
What nonsense is this? First, being an atheist is to deny the existence of God. You don’t need to be an intellectual to do that.
Second, I think you got the last question backwards :”How can those who profess to be intellectuals place their primitive instinct above the intellect?”.
Surely someone professing to be an intellectual would place intellect above their primitive instinct?
I think that you are thinking too hard about something that you don’t actually understand and as others have said, need to get laid.
I’ll get back to you on that if it ever happens.
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Regards,
John Popelish
You are assuming that atheists are more likely to give in to “animal passions” than theists. I don’t think there is an evidence that supports this assumption.
“Sexuality is ideologically and institutionally constructed and is foisted on us by society. ”
Huh??? Sexuality is what perpetuates the species. It would have to exist with or without social structure.
“When humans engage in sexual activity (or self-indulgence), they leave behind their thinking caps and are reduced to wild animals.”
The same argument could be made about eating. Wild animals eat, and we eat. Wild animal hump, and we hump. The only difference is we make deeper emotional connections to our partners than most animals.
Lets try to at least be dignified enough to engage in your choice of non restraint behind the bushes instead of in the middle of the street with oncoming traffic without any regard or caring who you act as an animal in front of. Don’t forget that human beings are higher up intellectually with knowing the difference of being a human and acting like a stray dog on the street. If you have a lower value for your place of existence in this world, it doesn’t mean that everyone should follow you. Especially to the middle of the street like an animal.
On the contrary, to be in touch with your “primitive” side and let it out when the time is right, requires a superior intellect. Of course, there are also the nonintellectual who cannot control his impulses and unleashes them at inappropriate times.
See, the thing is, I am NOT an intellectual being…I am an intellectual PERSON.
The person part covers the instincts, the emotions, the animal drives, everything which makes life colorful and exciting.
Intellect is useful, and a wonderful tool with which to process what our instincts and emotions are telling us.
For instance: my sex drive, maternal instincts, and senses all tell me that my husband’s best friend would be a better suited mate for me.
My intellect tells me that it’s wrong to abandon a long term relationship for the sake of someone who may or may not live up to my expectations.
I can tell your a very analytical person, but think about it this way, those primitive instincts are the whole reason that we’re here. Our instincts drive the rest of our body. Your implying that letting loose to those pure natural pleasures makes us less intellectual, but isn’t the equilibrium between these two aspects the only way our minds can truly grasp the rest of the world without missing its true value? Sometimes knowing when and where you should draw the line is more intellectual then simply deciding that doing something makes you a lesser being.
Also have you considered that all intellect has to come from experience in one form or another? Exploring and understanding your primitive being can bring your more intellectual side to a more mature and experienced state.
I will admit that intellect is extremely important and is the cornerstone to life as we know it, but truly it is a waist of intellect to not take advantage of every aspect that we are given, this including our wild and untamed sides that we tend to keep locked away deep inside ourselves.
You really need to do some research before you ask such silly questions. I hope that you are not trying to imply that atheism necessarily leads to an exaggerated sexuality. Sexual flamboyance has occurred in every era whether the dominant morality of the time was puritanical or whether it was open and permissive. Try reading something about what eminent Victorian Sir Arthur Sullivan was up to in his private hours, when he wasn’t writing the music to operettas or to Onward Christian Soldiers.
Intellectuality and prodigious sexuality can and do go together. Mozart was a musical genius who had a lust for the ladies. Lord Byron wrote like an angel and loved like a devil. Einstein is said to have enjoyed his sexuality and I won’t even get started about the the great physicist, Richard Feynman. You set up a false dichotomy when you try to put sex and thought in opposition. For many people the energy of sexual expression and intellectual creativity are closely allied.
No!! It means atheists are living in the real world!!
They can experience real love and passion rather than the passionless cavorting believers in religious constraint suffer!!
i’m like, so totally a mosquito
Repression, never led us anywhere positive.