People do some strange things with inanimate objects. And nothing you say or do is likely to change that. But if we are talking marriage specifically - Then it's a legal requirement that both parties consent is it not?
Yes, I see your point. And I have said before that I support the legal right to same sex marriage.
Can a car consent to marriage?
Thats not the point. The point is the behavior. Perhaps the question should be framed as this: Should society have a right to suggest appropriate behavior?
Would I be bigoted if I informed an amorous car lover that their behavior was harmful?
As far as the rift between some chapters of Club Christian (as jar likes to put it ) and secular society is this:
What do we tell our children about human behavior and why do we tell them what we tell/teach them?
This goes so far as to include heterosexual behavior as well.
I think one of the main beefs that secular society has against much of the church is the idea that morality should be legislated...and I have said before that I agree that it should not. I am what political ideologists would call a moderate to far left Christian.
I suppose the bottom line here is that whilst you are free to believe whatever you damn well please it is quite another thing to in anyway impose such subjective beliefs on others.
Wiith regard to homosexuality specifically it seems in very large part a matter of interpretation and priority as to whether even the most devout Christian should have any more against homosexuality than the eating of prawns or working on the Sabbath and suchlike...
I agree that morality should not be legislated since we live in a pluralistic society and consensus demands equality.
Personally, I think humans are too wicked for a theocratic government anyway. We simply cant play God, since we obviously fall far short of the mark.
And I also agree that you have a valid point in claiming that Christians spend too much time attempting to police societal morality.
But if the church isn't salt and light, where will we become well seasoned mature individuals? Where will we become loving without knowing the One who is love? Does not the church...within its own doors...have a right to encourage conformity among its members without being hated upon by society for suggesting conformity?
But if the church isn't salt and light, where will we become well seasoned mature individuals?
From our personal experiences and empathy. No church needed.
Phat writes:
Where will we become loving without knowing the One who is love?
From our parents, friends, lovers; our experiences and empathy. No church needed.
Phat writes:
Does not the church...within its own doors...have a right to encourage conformity among its members without being hated upon by society for suggesting conformity?
No one hates a church for what it does to its congregation. People may rightly ridicule some behaviors but no church is significant enough to be worth of hate for its internal practices.
But when some church decides that it should mandate the behavior of those who are NOT members of that particular Chapter of Club Christian, then sanctioning that church is not just reasonable but appropriate.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
No one hates a church for what it does to its congregation. People may rightly ridicule some behaviors but no church is significant enough to be worth of hate for its internal practices.
I respectfully disagree. People can rightly hate churches for things they do to their own congregations. I despise what Jim Jones did to his congregation. I don't find what he did merely ridiculous. I also don't find any trouble hating churches that kill children by convincing parents not to give their children medical treatment.
That stuff is not the least bit funny. Ridicule isn't they way reasonable people ought to respond to that kind of crap.
People have lots of superstitions and have emotional needs that churches can take advantage of for evil purposes. It's as reasonable to hate such churches as it is to hate any con man.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
quote:
Thats not the point. The point is the behavior. Perhaps the question should be framed as this: Should society have a right to suggest appropriate behavior?
Is it ? I think that there's far more to it than that. What do you mean by "suggest" ? What do you propose as an appropriate response to people who do not follow the suggestion ? Do you recognise any limits to the right of society to "suggest" in this manner ? Indeed, how does this idea apply to gay marriage? would seem a rather important point that your question doesn't address.
Here's a question that I think better reflects the issue. In a just society, should minorities be entitled to fair treatment ?
I say YES. And for that reason gay marriage should be legal.
But if the church isn't salt and light, where will we become well seasoned mature individuals? Where will we become loving without knowing the One who is love?
Quite so. Without the church, where will we learn that ...
Without religious instruction, this little girl would not be carrying this placard.
Does not the church...within its own doors...have a right to encourage conformity among its members without being hated upon by society for suggesting conformity?
But it does not in fact stop "within its own doors". If people got together in a church, or a closet, to hate gay people, and then outside that closet treated them as human beings, then we wouldn't be having this discussion --- because we wouldn't even know of the existence of religious homophobes. But since they put their opinions out in the public political sphere and say how God hates gays, then I have a perfect right to say: "No he doesn't".
What consenting adults do behind closed doors is of course their own business. When they do it in public, then I can criticize them for doing so.
It would behoove you to go listen to the song the article is talking about. I am unable to even see the article you are talking about, but given that it's about homosexuality and Macklemore, I guarantee it is talking about his amazing song Same Love:
It would do you well to hear and be exposed to a positive message for once instead of the vile bullshit you continue to spew.
Edited by hooah212002, : it would behoove me to spell behoove correctly
"Science is interesting, and if you don't agree you can fuck off." -Dawkins
I am what political ideologists would call a moderate to far left Christian.
You're no where near the left, Phat - certainly not far left. Anyone calling you that has no clue as to what being left or right actually means. You might fall some where around moderate to right leaning from what I have gathered.
Thats not the point. The point is the behavior. Perhaps the question should be framed as this: Should society have a right to suggest appropriate behavior?
Thats not the point. The point is the behavior. Perhaps the question should be framed as this: Should society have a right to suggest appropriate behavior?
Then the issue is no longer a legal one. The issue is what we teach our children and how we present it to them.
I can imagine that children would have lots of questions. We are responsible for providing good answers.
The marriage controversy is not so much about whom one has a legal right to unify with as it is about the sociological issues raised by same sex couples raising healthy families and how the definition of a family is presented.
Then the issue is no longer a legal one. The issue is what we teach our children and how we present it to them.
I can imagine that children would have lots of questions. We are responsible for providing good answers.
You could just try teaching kids about reality, that sometimes boys are attracted to boys and sometimes girls are attracted to girls, and it's okay and nothing to be ashamed of or make fun of someone for.
THen your kids won't grow up as bigots and you also won;t be responsible for psychologically damaging gay kids with shame, self-hatred, and fear of parental abandonment.
You know. Being a decent human being, instead of a bigot.
There really isn't a major controversy here, Phat. The facts of reality show us that gay families are just as healthy as heterosexual families. Attaching social stigma to otherwise healthy families is nothing but pure bigotry.
Say the same, exact things about interracial marriage and families. You might start to see the problem here.
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995.
Does not the church...within its own doors...have a right to encourage conformity among its members without being hated upon by society for suggesting conformity?
Do not consenting adults..within their own doors..have a right to engage in physical acts with each other without the church concerning itself with who is doing what to who?
Phat writes:
Does not the church...within its own doors...have a right to encourage conformity....
Only if it accepts that when these "encouragements" are taken outside it's doors the things being objected to can similarly be undertaken outside of closed doors...
So the next time you see someone preaching that "God hates fags" or whatever you are duty bound to start engaging in anal and oral sex in front of them.
Or we could just keep both preaching conformity and the practices themselves behind closed doors.
Perhaps the question should be framed as this: Should society have a right to suggest appropriate behavior?
Society will inevitably do exactly that. The question is how individual rights and societal consensus are balanced.
Phat writes:
Would I be bigoted if I informed an amorous car lover that their behavior was harmful?
Harmful to whom?
If it were demonstrably harmful and you had the facts on your side it wouldn't be bigoted to present the facts. But what the person in question does with those facts is largely up to them. If you start selecting facts to push an agenda then it may well qualify as bigotry on your part.
Phat writes:
What do we tell our children about human behavior and why do we tell them what we tell/teach them?
Well the actualities of human behaviour might be worth considering - No?
Phat writes:
This goes so far as to include heterosexual behavior as well.
Heterosexuals can get up some pretty unbiblical shit dude. If you gonna preach "conformity" you gonna have your work cut out with the heteros before you even need to consider anyone else.
Blessed are those who do not urinate in each others nostrils....etc.
) and secular society is this:
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