Homosexuality and Religion

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@Gnarfflinger

No offense, Gnarf, but are you utterly incompetent or do you just have trouble remembering what you wrote? If I may quote:

Now WHO was the one that called other opinions ridiculous again? Gnarf, it's awfully hard to take you seriously when you continously (falsely) accuse others of things that you yourself are guilty of. Your dubious methods of debate aside, perhaps you should consider the fact that many of the Church's teachings are outdated and in need of change. Masturbation's healthy, fasting's never a good idea, and evolution is gaining more credibility with each passing day. Change isn't always a bad thing, you know.

 

As a black homosexual I am very much concerned about the issue of REligion and homosexuality, as i was raised in baptist mississippi. Did you know jesus was black and possibly a homosexual himself?

[ November 29, 2006, 08:22: Message edited by: negro stan ]

 

Actually the precident is to tell these minorities to act like normal people and f*** off with your unique crap if I remember what happened to the Native Americans correctly. The precident is to make all kinds of promises pacify them then herd them into "reservations" and force them to be Americans. America has always been resistant to change, and if they don't want to make certain accommodations, they simply won't do it.

I simply ask thaty they respect the seperation of Church and State and reflect this by using different words.

a soubriquet : The questions regarding Transgender and sex change are ones that I'm not qualified to answer.

They were also taught from their expulsion from the Garden of Eden that Jesus Christ would come, and thus any religion that recognizes the Old Testament could have legitimate claim to the word. For broader purposes, it would extend to any formalized heterosexual union.

AS soon as you try to use that against religion, you've got a fight on your hands that may prevent that from happenning. Either allow the Church and State to be seperated or leave the country that doesn't give you those rights in favour of a different country.

Have you been paying attention to this whole thread? That's been happenning for 20 pages now...

And who ios to say that your ideas are any better? When you point your finger at me to call me a bigot, the other three (barring an accident that you haven't mentioned) point right back at you. I have encountered as much bigotry against my beliefs for standing up for what I believe and more than what I stand accused of. You are making a worse case for your ideas than I make for mine...

I know that, I change my socks daily (or twice if I forget about the leak in my one boot...)

I just don't agree with the changes you want me to make.

Skin colour for Jesus was irrelevent. It was more relevent that he Died for our sins. He was not homosexual. He lived a perfect, sinless life. Since Homosexuality is a sin, he did not indulge. Actually, as a Mormon, I have heard that he was married, but nothing mroe than speculation as to the identity of his bride.

[ November 29, 2006, 08:23: Message edited by: Gnarfflinger ]

 

I dont know..... thats not what i heard...

 

well he was certainly androgenous...

Jesus and David Bowie are two sides of the same coin

 

yes im sure thats what congress ment, lets stay stiff and ultra conservative. and force all who dosn't fit in to our criteria to change or die. former great leaders like adolf hitler has tried this and it never fails.

but that is the very dangeour of any religion, that gnarff while not intended nicely points out. Do to religous laws allways being based on devine right and presedence, all organised religions using such metodes will end up conservative in vearius degrees, which puts it up against science and general change of societies. Since religion tends to become stagnent on certain areas, do to the nature of it.
So even when religion is proven wrong by science beyond all doubt, it has to either deny scientific facts or try to incoporate them without actually changing its own view.
A good example of this is the Christian Churchs newly try to incoperate the theory of evolution, into the genesis, where the churche earlier oppossed the theory, it now tries to incopporate it, because the Theory of evolution gets more and more credibility.

 

Wait, what? you've been incompetent for the last 20 pages?

 

Ah - the truth at last. A better Freudian slip I've never seen.

 

Hehe. You beat me to my own point, Clixby...

 

First, If God does not change, then why should his followers change? If you employed a chef, and he consistently served meals that you disliked, how long before you fire his ass? You're the boss, your chef cooks the food you want. Likewise, in religion, God is the boss, and would we, who seek to please Him, suceed if we were to preach things taht offended him?

Secondly, How do we know that some of these social or moral changes are positive?

Third, What if there really IS a God, and what I'm sayinf is basically true, if imperfectly written? Does this mean that you would confess that I was indeed right?

First, It's been stated here in the AoDA that Genesis 1 is oversimplified. It could be that those facts have less spiritual relevence (remember that Religion is more concerned with spirituality than science). If the Theory of Evolution provides some details that were not given in the book of Genesis, that's well and good for the curious or the Scientific community, but it doesn't matter much as to the spiritual side of religious doctrine. Secondly, with Science assuming that religion is false, or that God does not exist, it may have some extrapolations wrong when it goes outside the direct observations to examine what it considers evidence. Mormon theology teaches that these questions will be answered definitively during the Millenial reign of Jesus Christ. Perhaps Science loses accuracy in it's impatience...

No, people here calling my opinions ridiculous because they didn't like them. That's been happenning ever since I've been here actually. Now I'm not a great debator, or a master of polemics, but I write from the gut and the heart. I know that it is not words that sway people, but the Spirit of God. I knew that when I started posting here in the AoDA, and I'd be surprised if I ever did see one of you credit me with changing your minds...

Yeah, it does look like I shot myself in the foot on that one, but I thought that Freudian slips had to be either sexual or have a reference to the speaker's mother or something. These were the words I wanted, but in hindsight, I could have elaborated more...

 

But we don't like them because they're ridiculous.

Okay, now I'm confused. You said earlier that Adam and Eve were married by God, and that gives Christians claim to the word "marriage". But when it's pointed out that two humans would be incapable of breeding the entire human race, you say that Genesis is over-simplified; isn't this a contradiction?

 

pricisly my point, religion cant change. because all what it consider facts is from a devine source that cant be wrong. so even everything points against religion, the religous people has to defend its standpoints and has to say they are right or try to find some excuses for how the new knowledge can be incoporated without changing the devine law.

i meen up to recent days the catholic and christian church and the jews claimed the earth was no older then a little under 6000years, we now know that is completely wrong. we know that both the adam and eva myht cant be true. we know the Noah myth cant be true. neither the ship, the flooding or the repopulation of earth ot from 6humans and 2 of each animal.
several of the other myths has been busted too.

Luckely the church has lost more and more power over the last 500years. Becuase religion stagnates society and goes against scientific change particulary.

 

Human ideas of God, and the range of human relationships to God, have done nothing BUT change over the full course of history. It is you who wishes to stop that process and ground God in the mud of the 19th century. Why should God put up with being limited by the narrowmindedness of one small set of followers?

 

Adam and Eve were married in Chapter 2. I only said that Chapter 1 was oversimplified. A process that has resulted in something as huge and diverse as the earth could not be fully explained in one single chapter of a book. I believe that this was deliberate, as God wants us to put less emphasis on how he made the world and more on how to live in it.

And what's wrong with that? I suspect that your arguements hinge on all of this being BS. If it turns out that I am right after all, then were does that leave your arguements...

This was more the relevent part of the bible. It picks up after Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden (about 6000 years ago).

Has it ever occured to you that the Creator od the World and everything on it would know all the tricks to manipulate it? It's like using Windows but not believing in Bill Gates, or only reviling his name when something crashes...

Only the abuse of religious authority causes the problems you claim. Persecuting people that think differently or stagnating Europe in a series of ill advised wars against an implacable foe is what stagnated Society.

Well, the first 4000 years there were more prophets who continued to teach more doctrine, then for the next 2000 years, there's been trouble with one religion that abused its authority and enforced it's view of God. The last 500 years or so, people have sought their own answers. In the abscence of any clear cut answers, the idea that it's all BS has flourished...

It's not a complete rejection of the 20th and now 21st centuries, but a selective acceptance. We like some things, like cars, electricity, computers and the internet, but we disapprove of pornography and the changes in social acceptance of sexual behaviour. It's not that we want to roll back the clock, but that we want society to be more like Zion, or the City of Enoch (which was so good that the people there were taken straight to Heaven before the great flood) as opposed to Sodom and Gamorrah...

 

They should've went with two chapters

 

whats wrong with is, that this form of conservatism the religion brings has led to stagnation and corruption of society time and time again. where new knowledge is disregarded, for age old practise, even when the practise is proven wrong.
Secondly instead of letting humans evolve, it stagnates them on a gamble that thier religion is right even though they can present no proof. Funnely enough if the churche had ruled europe for all these years, cars , plains, electricity and so forth wouldn't have been invented. Because during the dark age, where the church ruled, such men with thier dangerous new ideas would be burned.
and thats my third problem, with that kind of conservatism, it fears new knowledge and it lets fear drive them. fear of freedom of speech and thinking, si what drove the inquisition, because with new ideas people might start to question believe.

 

This still doesn't explain the existence of fossils, or how two humans were capable of creating a genetically diverse species occupying all corners of the Earth.

"If" is the key word here. What IF you're wrong, and it turns out you were persecuting a minority for no real reason?

Oh, wow. "So, how do you explain all of this stuff which doesn't make any sense?" "God did it." Ultimate comeback.

And for what reason were these people persecuted for having different beliefs? Oh, yeah, maybe the same reason you're advocating the suppression of homosexuals? yeah, I think so.

Wrong. Society's advancement means a growth in rational thought and reason as science becomes more prevalent and mythology loses significance. Eventually, religion loses all significance, as it's function as a social stabiliser and collective conscience becomes unnecessary. To put it blunt, religion is a society's stabiliser wheels. When it gets big and strong enough, the wheels come off. However, some people are behind the curve and desperately want to keep themselves in the comfort of blind faith to an invisible, intangible God. Trust me, I'm a sociologist.

What was that you were saying about a kind, loving God? Obliterates whole cities, innocents and all, floods the Earth, leaving one family to inbreed their way to repopulation, and rains curses onto ancient Egypt because their pharoh is an ass. Good going, there, champ. Really love that "omnibenevolence" shtick.

 

Have to side with the religious side on your last point, Clixby. God was said to have done these things because the people did something to displease him, which treads upon the lines of "evil." And about your point of where Science will eventually disprove religion, so to speak, I believe that it would do nothing but replace it. Is it really so hard to think of Science as the next major "religion?"

 

To be evil one must harm another and often with intent and gaining pleasure out of it. Totally eradicating a city of people that statistically must have had at least some people there who were innocent of any divine 'crime' is a blatent disreguard for the good and just path. Just because somebody pisses you off doesn't give you any moral high ground to break into their house and slaughter their family.

Considering how a religion means people being united according to FAITH then, yes, it is impossible to think of science becoming a religion. There is no scientific law based on faith. Everything must be proven, in repeat circumstances, before it can hold the title of law. Not to mention I don't think I've ever seen a scientist have to perform some type of ceremony before they use their microscope or in order to become a professor one must swear a life of abstaining from sexual relations.

 

Have you ever heard of a theory? It's something that you might believe in that has not been proven. Faith is another term for not being proven, therefore to believe in a theory is to have faith in a theory. And for the record, scientific laws cannot be proven either, they must merely be heavily supported. Nice try, though.

Since when are fancy ceremonies and a life of abstinance the requirements of a religion? (Doh!)

So what you're implying is that people cannot be united in the name of Science, the opposing force of religion, simply because of "too much evidence," or lack of faith? Hmm, yes, I TOTALLY agree! It's not like people are uniting on this VERY THREAD in the name of Science to support the rights of homosexuals! Oh yes, people could NEVER be united under Science, because, wait for it...they favor PROOF OVER THE UNKNOWN! Rock solid logic here. Think about what I'm saying. In all likelihood, everywhelming evidence will disprove most, if not all major religions sometime in the future. Now, it should be noted that most people prefer to group together in their beliefs. And if religion has suddenly become a ludicrous notion of the past, doesn't it seem logical that people should find their calling in Science, the next best thing? Just a thought...