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In my opionn the invaders love the condem status.....just ignore them just one kittens thought
Hi Dr George! (^^;
NS++ is a bit wobbly while it's being acquired by NS admin. I don't think we can do anything about it Dr George.
And why is it if someone disagrees with a minority group they are haters? If I treat someone with respect but don't agree with life style I'm a hater. Its like I am not allowed to have an opioion..I'm a Christian and believe in the Bible....don't push it on people just live my life according to what I believe. But heaven forbid I voice those opionions even respectfully ......just tired of being called a bayer just because I don't agree.....
Why do you feel the need to say this? For instance, I am gay. If you feel that is wrong in some way, who can stop you? But why insult people by telling them they - in their deepest selves - are fundamentally 'wrong', even if you do it in a 'respectful' way?
Also, when it comes to the Bible, which parts do you choose to believe? That it's wrong to be gay, or wrong to eat shellfish or pork, or wear a linen suit?
I believe in Jonah & the fish and in charging interest to non-Gentiles.
I believe you should not mix fabrics.
I said what I did because I thought that was what this region was about. Stating views....ect. I said nothing mean or hurtful as I stated before I'm not good with words so I shan't try anymore.
Kitty, your comment came out of the blue but I knew immediately what you were talking about. If I was wrong you would have told me so.
Some things may be described as a life style, i.e. going to the gym or to church, being promiscuous or monogamous, drinking alcohol or remaining teetotal. Being gay is not a life style. It is fundamentally who we are.
Things are better than they were in decades past, but young gay people are still too often bullied and despised. I am a former Catholic who after all these years am still surprised when Christians piously state their distaste and disapproval instead of listening and trying to understand.
You express yourself perfectly well. I ask you also to listen.
I'm going to try to address this a bit, perhaps against my better judgment.
I have not seen the comments of PK to which she refers, but let me assume that they were indeed respectful but disapproving. In this case, it is unfair that she be called a hater, or various other names. I believe this is obviously unfair. However, I also understand that there are very many haters out there, and that bullying, humiliation and violent attacks are part of the way that many haters behave. A gay person (I am straight, so I am not speaking here from direct experience) is as aware of the haters in the same exact way that blacks are aware of white racists or women are aware of very aggressive men. And this means that it is easy to overreact and assume that every man is a potential rapist, every Christian is a potential fag-basher, and so on.
I don't know if PK's views are religiously based or not; there seems to be an assumption here that they are, and perhaps her actual comments (which I haven't seen) make that clear. I will continue my comments assuming that her views are religiously based, even though that may not be the case.
I had a fundamentalist Christian friend who was a member of a church that took a strong anti-gay position. But they were also a church that encouraged their members to read Scripture themselves, and draw their own conclusions. She did so, reached the conclusion that gay sex was indeed sinful, and God did not approve. However, she also concluded that it is a trivial sin, on the same level as smoking. It was just one of the many ways that human beings behave that is contrary to God's preferences. She concluded that it didn't deserve all the attention and controversy it gets. No one runs around beating up smokers or suggesting that they need to be forcibly "cured" of smoking.
In short the question she raised was "why all the fuss about this particular sin?" If you want to talk about sexual sin, then adultery is clearly far worse than gay sex, because it hurts someone else. If it seems to you that gay sex is an offense that is so heinous that it deserves all the attention, much of it extremely hostile, it generates, it might be worth thinking about that and considering whether that is actually sensible.
The level of violence and humiliation directed towards these harmless sinners (and to those suspected of being gay, whether they actually are or not) seemed far worse to my friend than what they might do recreationally.
(I should note, in fairness, that I am paraphrasing my friend. I am not a Christian, and so any opinions I might have about the meaning of Scripture are not going to be particularly relevant to someone who does believe.)
hi guys :3
Once again, I typed out a long, thoughtful, BRILLIANT (ha!) response and NS ate it and I'm too tired to retrace the whole thing. We're simply seeing permutations of opinions here; I haven't seen any hate. Hate is the only thing that makes one a hater, not holding to any one particular set of beliefs. I believe people can honestly approach the same scriptures and come away from them with opposing opinions. For the record, I myself don't see anything morally wrong or inferior about homosexuality, even as I don't see anything wrong with being left-handed. (Christians and others persecuted lefties in the Middle Ages.) It's just a variation on a theme.
It's hard working listening to opposing points of view and discussing passionately-held beliefs with a serious dose of rationality, for all of us as philosophers and those among us who also hold to religious faith. I don't know that people really want to have a serious, in-depth discussion on this or not. I'll check back in a few hours, tomorrow morning. For those of us who are Christians, remember that J.C. himself is not recorded as ever saying anything about it (although he had plenty to say about those who judged others). Instead, Jesus summarized God's intentions for us as [paraphrased] "Love the LORD your God with all your heart, mind, and strength; and love your neighbour as yourself. The rest is commentary."
NW Hell Rehab Center and Dr George have put the discussion into proportion.
"Love the LORD your God, with all your heart, mind and strength; and love your neighbour as yourself. The rest is commentary." If only Christians could agree on that.
When it comes to homosexuality, I am weary of dealing with reminders from Christians that they don't accept us. It is not just a 'respectful' difference of opinion. Whatever the friend may say, homosexuality isn't like smoking. We are being attacked not for our habits, but for our very being.
For instance, some would consider me boringly virtuous. I don't smoke, drink alcohol, do drugs or 'cheat' on my civil partner. A Christian might still feel the need to tell me that I am 'fundamentally disordered'.
Some Christians used the Bible to justify slavery, others to argue against it. The Bible was used in the southern United States and white South Africa to justify strict racial segregation.
If Christians are going to use the Bible as a source of discussion amongst themselves, it would help if they read it thoroughly, looked at the contradictions and realised the horrors that have been committed in the Bible's name.
If Christians are going to use the Bible as a source of discussion amongst themselves, it would help if they read it thoroughly, looked at the contradictions and realised the horrors that have been committed in the Bible's name
That sort of generality could be used for any faith or ideology.
Possibly, but we're talking about Christians and the Bible.
I understand that, though she may not have. I never discussed the issue at this level of detail with her.
But I understand that in Catholic theology, homosexual orientation is not considered sinful, only homosexual acts. Which means that your identity is not under direct attack by that Church, only your expression of it. Probably this seems like a pointless distinction to you (and in practical terms I agree), but it makes theological sense that sin is a voluntary act - whatever you are (and I note that this extends to conditions like sexual attraction to young children) is not sinful in and of itself, it merely increase one's level of temptation.
Irrelevant to my friend's opinions (whatever they might have been), as she was most definitely not Catholic, but the thing about Catholic theology is that it is so well-developed and universally accepted throughout the Church that it is possible for a unbeliever like myself to come to grips with it. I've never heard of an intellectually rigorous Methodist or Baptist theology and, if one turns up, I bet that it is far from accepted within those respective churches. Probably, this is because Catholicism is basically an authoritarian faith, and Protestantism less so. This is after all one of the great thrusts of the Reformation - that people should read the Bible and develop their own theology, not just blindly accept what the clergy tells them.
And yes, that whole paragraph was a boring diversion from the topic of interest, but I decided to say it anyway. Sorry about that.
"But I understand that in Catholic theology, homosexual orientation is not considered sinful, only homosexual acts. Which means that your identity is not under direct attack by that Church, only your expression of it."
You are right, though being gay without the sex is a fundamental inconvenience.
Anyway, I enjoyed your reply.
That's exactly the point, T-T. Faith is not rational, by definition or it wouldn't be faith. Perhaps you've heard the old sermon illustration about the high wire performer. Not only could he walk across the high wire, he could dance, do handsprings, flips, and other outrageous things without falling, as seen by the audience. For his final act, he brought out a wheelbarrow and offered to take anyone in the audience across the wire in it. Everyone believed he could do it, but no one would volunteer to get into the wheelbarrow because they did not have faith in him. Faith resists an easy definition. Faith is somehow related to trust, confidence, belief, and grace. Faith is when you climb the mountain of Belief, but feel the call of God to go further. So, abandoning the relative safety of rational belief, one makes that leap into the unknown, trusting that God will catch the person and bring him/her into a new relationship, rather than letting him or her plunge to the epistemic ground. Thus theology goes places that philosophy can't. We CAN rationally evaluate the fruits of faith as a proxy for a person's faith, but I don't think any language on Earth can describe the inner mechanics of faith. Fred Phelps may have been in many respects a fine person, but what has made him a fixture in American culture is his blanket condemnation of LGBTQ folks and anyone else who did not subscribe to his specific belief system (he was a Primitive Baptist, a calvinistic and fundamentalist Protestant denomination).
NW Hell, actually most major families of denominations have or could have a systematic theology, but you would likely have to go to a seminary to learn the specifics. For instance, Methodists (my denomination) do a lot of moral reasoning based on John Wesley's quadrilateral. The quadrilateral has four sides: reason, experience, scripture, and tradition. For simple moral questions, generally all four sources of religious authority will agree: it makes sense, that's the way I have experienced it, it has been affirmed biblically, and it is specifically practiced in one's ecclesiastical history. The rub comes on hot-button topics when the sides of the quadilateral don't agree with one another, as is the case with Gay Liberation. Scripture provides a muted voice against (I say muted because there are only 7 verses in the Bible that are traditionally linked to homosexuality--that's another topic, if all of you would like to go there, we can), Christian tradition has nearly universally condemned homosexuality in modern times (although there have been intriguing liturgies found from antiquity that appear to be same-sex wedding ceremonies), but my reason and experience point to a fundamental equality of persons before God. The far fringes of Christianity claim the Bible as their only source of religious authority and are fideistic (that is, when confronted with a contradiction between faith and reason, will knowingly reject reason to proclaim that faith is far superior to reason). You can't reason with fideists, as they have largely shut the door on rational discourse and might say something like, "those are just words" or "God said it, I believe it, and that settles it."
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The foundations of rational beliefs rest upon the shoulders of those deemed irrational by their contemporaries. At least to my observations. Besides the term rational itself can be quite subjective in the hands of those with what one might term as loose morals. Sort of a chicken-egg thingy.
I am not sure how rational our society would seem to our descendants ,or ancestors.
Ask the average Catholic about the Bible and you won't get an informed response, whereas Protestants appear to cleave to the Bible as the answer to everything. Because of my Catholic background I'm still surprised when people put forward arguments based solely on what it says in the Bible - as if that's going to convince anyone.
In Catholicism, Dogmatic Decrees of the Vatican Council are all you need to know, but who pays much attention these days? Maybe in Poland. Elsewhere in Europe the majority have abandoned the church and those who are left use their discretion, i.e. condoms - you bet!
With all the rules stacked against them it remains a mystery why women and gay men stay around to be the day-to-day backbone of the church.
The analogy between homosexuality and paedophilia is interesting, but the former allows for mutual consent, whereas the latter usually does not - exceptions being in movies by Pedro Almodóvar.
Say more about that, please, T-T.
Especially for those of you who are relatively new to P115, note that I am using the term "rational" in the philosophic sense of a life characterized by logic and thoughtfulness, not as a common cognate for "reasonable" or the opposite of "hysterical." I'm not aware that Socrates, Plato, Descartes, Pascal, or other titans of philosophy were "deemed irrational" by their peers. Even were that true, are such things decided by majority vote?
Dammit. There seems to have been an interesting debate(s) going on and I have missed it. Keep going with it so I can chip in tomorrow when I have time :) ha.
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