Category: Let's talk
I believe I am about to upset a lot of people, but at the moment, I really don’t care. I have seen mixed reactions on the supreme courts ruling, and while I am not expecting everyone to agree with it, I am sickened by the reactions I have seen from those who do not agree. I know a lot of fundamentalist Christians who really do not like this and my question is, why? It says in the book that you should love your Nabors as one’s self or something like that; I can’t really quote scripture that well. It also discourages discrimination of any kind. So what I do not understand is what makes this okay. People who identify as gay, lesbian, or t have every right to live a happy life with whoever they choose, regardless of race, sexual orientation, religion or lack thereof, and who are you to condemn them and accuse them of sinning. They are not hurting you, they are not pushing said orientations on you, so don’t push your beliefs on them, or condemn them to hell. I don’t claim to be the most religious person out there, but after a long talk with someone the other day; I come to view religion as a set of morals and guide lines that people should live by. Being kind, helpful, decent, you know all the things human kind should be. But the reactions I am seeing are not decent. They are hurtful, even though the ruling doesn’t affect the people in question directly. We are still dealing with racism, and as a black man, I see signs of this every day. I have a double whammy because I am blind, and black. Let me tell you it isn’t fun. So just think if something you identify as was prohibited to marry whoever you pleased. Think of if you were prohibited from joining with the love of your life. You would not like it very much would you? I beg you all to take a look in the mirror, reflect on some of the things you say, and if you decide not to change your outlook, which I don’t really expect you to, please just don’t be hurtful and keep it to yourself. #love frickin wins.
LTE, I totally understand. And I'm going out on a limb here too, speaking as an atheist myself, I can't really blame the individual Christians on this one. It's the leadership who lies to the Christians. Lies about upcoming persecution, lies about preachers being thrown in jail, lies left right and center. I know some secular people don't like it when I say this, but the manipulation of the Faithful really bothers me. I know a few Christians who are quite frankly conflicted. They know what's right in the conscience they were born with, to regard the dignity of LGBT and other people. But they have this conflict going on because of what they're being told to support by their leadership. And now being lied to about the things I mentioned. Nobody's asking a church to change its message. You could still be a church and not do interracial marriages if you want. I saw several in Florida, and you can read all about these on Stormfront.org.
They haven't lost any tax-exempt status. You won't lose yours.
The amount of lies that groups like RightWingWatch or personalities like Glen Beck are putting out is absolutely appalling. If you're a Christian, you have a right in my opinion to hate those liars for using your faith and your convictions. Even if you personally see homosexuality ( and atheism / apostasy among other sins) as wrong. They're using you, playing on fears that they gave you to begin with, and I for one think it's disgusting.
I'll personally offer myself up here to any Christian who has questions about what they're being told on this issue. In terms of political implications. I'm not going to try and deconvert you or change your thinking about gays. Just answer questions you have about what you're being told are the political implications. Basic civucs stuff or what have you. No matter what you believe about us the gay people and their right to marry, or us atheists, or any other group that your faith has strong feelings about, you don't deserve to be manipulated. There's no excuse for them lying to you, and playing on the fears they superimposed upon you to begin with. This silliness of the Black Robe Regiment and everything would be just silly, if it was not clearly set up to manipulate the vulnerable.
That conflict, I believe, is the fault of "the church" as a whole. Tut tut. Look, you have every right not to like something. However, shouting about in the streets is just...well...stupid.
I agree about your views on how religion should be.
Liquid, I absolutely agree. As a Christian myself I am apawled by the amount of mindless hatred and misunderstanding. I spoke about this in the other topic - and naturally got accused of pandering to atheists - but essentially I honestly don't get why it's any concern of anyone's aside from the people involved who someone loves. Whether Homosexuality is or isn't a "sin" whether or not it is "natural", it is our responsibility as Christians, as athists, as human beings to support the rights of the individual in so much as they are not causing active harm to others. One doesn't have to approve of the practice of homosexuality - I don't, but we all have a right to love, and to understanding. As I said before, I'll bet a vast majority of the people who have a problem with homosexuality have absolutely no idea what people in that situation are going through. There are far too many circumstances to cast blanket judgement on anyone. I absolutely can't stand people who just put a blanket on a coollective based on their experiences with a few of its members. As for me, I don't know what it's like to be gay. I've never even had an inkling, and in fact the idea of an intimate relationship with a man makes me scratch my head. But I'll still be quite happy to associate with, be friends with support and defend any homosexual who's company I enjoy, just as I would with any heterosexual. Because when you get right down to it, people are people and pickles are pickles, and if anyone gets that reference, good on you.
Also, as I said before, given how much negativity there is surrounding the idea of marriage and the family unit, I'll happily support anything that makes more people able to be married. And I'll take having children being raised with two stable parents whethere they are gay or straight. As in all families, it is up to the parents ti instill diverse thinking, questioning and understanding in their children as much as they are able.
It's really really hurt me. :(
sorry, but when your religion is based on a book which specifically says that
gays should be stoned to death, and that they will never enter into the kingdom
of heaven, you don't get to blame the dislike of gays on the leadership of your
church. They didn't write the book, they said, "Here's a book" and you said,
"Meh, looks good to me, now where are the hot virgin christian girls." Its not
their fault you didn't read the book first before deciding to believe in it. They're
just doing what the book says, or claiming too. I'll have more respect for them
when they actually get around to stoning a gay person, but for now, they just
claim to follow the book.
The problem is that a lot of christians, like the ones on this board post, are
saying, "whoa, you want me to hate who now"? And there morals are going,
"Well that just ain't right. I don't want to hate people." So they back away from
the teachings of the religion. They start to cherry pick, because cherry picking
the verses you like is a lot easier than accepting the ones you don't. So you pick
more and more cherries, and then you pick over the cherries you've picked, and
pick over the cherries you picked from the pick of the cherries. And then pick of
the cherries you picked from picking over the pick of the cherries. And sooner or
later, you're left with, "well, religion is just a guide line of how to live a good life.
Its just loving your neighbor."
Well, riddle me this, if that's all religion is, why did God, whom you apparently
still believe in if you're calling yourself a christian, put all the bad stuff you're
now conveniently ignoring in the book in the first place? Why not just write a
single page book that said, "Hey, see all those people around you? Yeah, don't
treat them like shit." That would have made a lot more sense. Why put verses
about slavery, and baby killing, and killing in general, and executing entire
towns and civilizations, and sacrificing every animal known to mankind, and
instructions on how to mix a magic potion to see if your wife cheated on you,
and human sacrifice, and weird poems about a girls tits, and stories about
shepherds and goatherds and a talking donkey and a talking snake and a big
boat with far too many animals on it, and water being turned to wine, and blind
men seeing again, and pigs running off cliffs, and a whole host of other things I
can't even think of,all of which you're actually meant to entirely disregard
because religion just means not treating your neighbor like shit?
What? Weird poems about a girl's tits? lol
And don't forget Ezekiel 4:12 to 15.
Sorceress, the book known as the Song of Solomon is a poem written about
two lovers having some really kinky sex. It doesn't come straight out and say
that its about sex, but the metaphors are perfectly clear. It has everything from
blow jobs to money shots in that poem, and people teach it in church.
Again, I wonder if you all sit around and actually read the **book** or just read what others have found in it and posted to be bad?
Seems if I were Atheist, I'd have more time better spent if I actually did put the time in reading something I am only reading to find fault with.
Remember, all our leaders aren't Christians.
Well, Cody grew up as a Christian, and I'm finding that atheists have reasons why they aren't religious anymore. I'm not all that religious because I don't care. I found that you can't be a Christian and not judge people or you have to run from people because they belong to the devil or whatever goes through their robotic heads.
wayne, I've read several different versions of the book. I'm currently listening
to a podcast that reads the book of mormon. I'm making slow progress with
that one because I keep having to stop to calm down, but that's a matter for a
different board. The point is, yes, I read the book. I'd be willing to bet I've read
it more than you and that I know it better than you.
I'm kinda curious about your last line though. Not all our leaders are
christians. So not all the christian leaders are christian? Or are you saying that
you belong to some other group that also dislikes gays for some other reason/
If so, please tell me the reason, I have yet to find a single reason for disliking
gays that doesn't revolve entirely around religion. I invite you to enlighten me.
I'm sure we'll all find it interesting.
To answer the question I was focusing on
I am sure you know the book better if you put that much time in to it.
I've read them as well, but I am not interested in changing people's minds to the point I am getting a PHD in it.
I'm just saying, it seems a waste of time to be reading all this, when you don't believe in it, or care.
Seems I'd use my time better by learning a language, a skill, or something I did believe in.
That is all.
Wayne, if you're raised a certain way and then reject it, you can still have a great deal of background. Cody has more Christian knowledge than I do, but I was raised in a nonreligious household. It doesn't make him a better atheist or anything, but it does mean he's more well-informed on the specifics.
Also, just as a note, it is often a good idea to "know your enemy", to use an old and previously coined phrase. I personally don't view religion as an enemy, by the way, not in the traditional sense, but one of the easiest ways to get steamrolled in a debate is to not know your opponent. As such, it's often good to know what exactly someone is saying, because then you'll know how they're formulating their platforms.
Cody, you probably know full well that your question, posed a few posts ago, is a dead end, a rhetorical argument. God didn't put those words in the book; people of the day put those words in the book. As such, it is possible, albeit rather unlikely, that there is a god out there, and originally all he really wanted us to do is get along; and it is equally likely that, given the need to get others to believe in said god, one or more people decided to make a bunch of rules to govern behavior. And it worked. That's the sad part. It worked.
I am pretty firmly convinced that, if I'm wrong and there is some sort of god, he's either insane or far more tolerant than the Bible or Quran or whatnot could ever make him. Or her, for that matter; hell, does gender even matter to an omnipotent being? When you have to cherry-pick the picked cherries ad infinitum to come up with an even halfway reasonable version of a group of tenets worth living by, it suggests there's a huge problem.
You and I realize that Greg. For us its an easy question. But we don't believe
in God, or that God wrote the bible. If one does believe that God wrote the
bible, one has to have answers to these questions
I didn't mean my statement to target anyone. It was open.
I also was raised in the church, worked in it for years, but I'm not Christian.
You all know I do believe in God however, just not as a person that sits in heaven ruling.
She travels. Smile.
I have had much happen to cause me to believe in God, or the concept of God, but that is a different topic.
I'd agree that due to man writing the books, because we have several, they are flawed, but the basics are strong, and the lessons have credit depending on how you take them.
I think even most Christians agree that the Bible is the inspired word of God, Cody, which is to say it's not as if he sat down one day and wrote it out. there are too many conflicts, errors, contradictions and outdated ideals to suggest God wrote the book; and what's more, there are historical records that directly prove that man wrote these books, and no evidence to suggest God had any hand in it. Most Christians I know seem to believe that the Bible has been inspired by God, but was worked by man, and that it's the reason for all the problems with the holy book...since man is imperfect and all.
As such, they can easily dismiss all the biblical issues by saying that it isn't necessarily what God intended. Allows them more freedom to cherry-pick, anyway.
But there's multiple problems with even that if one has the time and
inclination to point them out. But that's a topic for another place I think.
Needless to say, its easy to defeat the arguments of any christian, because
christianity is illogical. logic always beats illogic, just like rock always beats
scissors.
As for wayne, since I'm not sure where you get your basis for believing in a
God, ther's not much I can say to it. Honestly, I find your beliefs rather silly, but
they're your beliefs, not mine. Until they effect me, I don't really care what you
believe god is or isn't. But, if you were to disagree with homosexuality, I would
want to know your reasons for it just like any christian, muslim or what have
you.