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To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?[W:107]

Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?

CriticalThought said:
How exactly do you enable the sin? I do not recall the word "enable" being in the Bible. It sounds more like a personal view.
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Enable isn't -the discussion that would include what we would consider to be enabling would be that around "causing others to stumble" or "leading astray".

Example: Joe is cheating on his wife. I want to love Joe. I tell him therefore that cheating on his wife is not a big deal and that really, given his marital problems, it's kind of understandable. I am not actually loving Joe, I am using my influence to help him stumble, to lead him astray. I am enabling his sinful behavior.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?


And how would you want to hold "religion" responsible if not to punish collectively the believers. Faith without followers can do nothing good or bad, so how would you want to punish believers for believing?
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?

it's just me said:
With all due respect (and you do have my respect), there is nothing we can do to enable or disable the sin.
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If you give a drunk a drink, you are enabling their sin. If you lend your wisdom or position to the moral defense of sinful behavior, you are enabling sin. If you put in place a block to cause another to stumble.... well, you get it .

Men have free will, and God does not work through compulsion, He works through persuasion. So I guess the question should be, how do we show love without appearing to give consent?
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I think you are describing the same thing that I am.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?

X Factor said:
And how would you want to hold "religion" responsible if not to punish collectively the believers. Faith without followers can do nothing good or bad, so how would you want to punish believers for believing?
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Rejection of God often necessitates active, ongoing rebellion.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?

X Factor said:
And how would you want to hold "religion" responsible if not to punish collectively the believers. Faith without followers can do nothing good or bad, so how would you want to punish believers for believing?
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I would have believers clean house. Honestly, I would prefer if you all collectively wake up, realize that your religion is nonsense, and let it die its long overdue death. But I don't actually expect that to happen. So, realistically, I want you to clean house. Excise the evil from your faith. Take some whiteout to the bible. Collectively stand up and expel the bigots from your faith. Preach from every church that it is not alright to oppress gays, to oppress women, to oppress anyone. The answer is most certainly not for us to come down on the faithful who do evil. You do that. Have millions of devout Christians protest outside the Westboro Baptist Church and proclaim that it is not representative of your faith. Shut down the mega churches that preach hatred and bigotry. Get the holy war rhetoric out of the mouths of preachers and devout politicians alike. If you could clean up your religion, you'd have nothing but support from those of us who currently oppose it. But I also don't expect that to happen, either. Because you still say that faith is a virtue and that it shouldn't be criticized. Because you still hold religion blameless for the horrors that people do because of it.

I don't want to punish anyone for believing anything. That's what religions do. I want religions to stop doing that, and to cleanse themselves of evil beliefs.

CriticalThought said:
Over 90% of the people who support gay rights are Christian. Do not let the anti religious zealots in the movement dictate your views.
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This is not even a little bit true. Between 20% and 30% of the US does not adhere to any religion and the non-religious are almost entirely in favor of gay rights. It would be accurate to say that over 90% of the people who oppose gay rights are Christian. That is true.

cpwill said:
Rejection of God often necessitates active, ongoing rebellion.
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Sadly, rejection of humanity can be done extremely passively. And of course, it's not god that we're rebelling against. Gods aren't real. We're rebelling against you.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?


Even assuming for the sake of argument that you're actually even capable of supporting anything a Christian does ever, why would the support of someone who thinks I'm a "worse person" for being a believer and wants my faith to die, matter to me at all. What value would I or should I place on that? If I have your support knowing that your highest desire is the destruction of my faith that would cause me to rethink whatever I was doing. I know that you cannot bargain with someone who wants your destruction.
 
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Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?


I can support any good deed by anyone. I want you to be better, just like I want everyone to be. I know that you don't need my support. Christians and Christianity dominate our culture and country and have almost all the power. I do want your faith gone, just like we both want people who think the Earth is flat to stop thinking such nonsense that so obviously untrue. I do not at all want your destruction. My support doesn't provide any tangible benefit for you. But earning it by doing the things I'm talking about will make a far better world for us all to live in.

Honestly, if this is what you got from what I have to say, then I don't think you can possibly understand my perspective.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?

Amadeus said:
You lecturing me on bigotry is pretty amusing, since you've called people with innate, immutable qualities sick degenerates. People like you make others commit suicide for being who they are.
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Once again, your own contradiction and irony is invisible to you.

You are trying to blame me for the results of evil behavior and bad choices made by others. I am not responsible for those behaviors and choices, only for my own.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?

Bob Blaylock said:
You are trying to blame me for the results of evil behavior and bad choices made by others. I am not responsible for those behaviors and choices, only for my own.
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Spoken like a Westboro Baptist.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?

Amadeus said:
Spoken like a Westboro Baptist.
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That statement makes no sense at all. I am no more responsible for the WBC and their contemptible antics than I am for homosexuals and their sick perversions.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?

Bob Blaylock said:
That statement makes no sense at all. I am no more responsible for the WBC and their contemptible antics than I am for homosexuals and their sick perversions.
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It makes perfect sense. You are not far removed from those who think that bad things happen to those who support homosexuals. Because it is evil and sick. When I think of you, I think of WBC. Just saying.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?

Amadeus said:
It makes perfect sense. You are not far removed from those who think that bad things happen to those who support homosexuals. Because it is evil and sick. When I think of you, I think of WBC. Just saying.
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The point is that you are attributing evil to me that is not mine.

I am not a homosexual, nor am I a member or supporter of the Westboro Baptist Church. I do not defend, support, or endorse either of these great evils, and I will not willingly have any part in either of them.

I think your efforts to connect me with either of these evils amounts to a slanderous personal attack, and a violation of the rules of this forum. Please cease to do so at once.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?


You overestimate the number of nonreligious who support marriage equality and underestimate the number of religious people who support it.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?


Interesting. So supporting same-sex marriage is leading people astray in your eyes?
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?


I think it is a fair comparison given your views. I would like to know what rule it breaks.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?

CriticalThought said:
You overestimate the number of nonreligious who support marriage equality and underestimate the number of religious people who support it.
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Show me some data, then. I also made no mention of the support from religious people. I only said that your assertion that more than 90% of the people who support equality are Christian, meaning that the remaining less than 10% of the country's population accounts for all of the non-religious, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and practitioners of other faiths who support gay rights, despite that group making up around 30% of the country's population. You assert that less than a third of non-Christians support equality for gays? You're nuts. Almost all the non-religious do, the largest denomination of Judaism explicitly does as doctrine, and many non-Abrahamic faiths like Wicca or Jainism do, too.

But the vast majority of opposition to gay rights comes from Christians citing their Christianity. This is a fact.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?


I do not disagree with the notion that most who oppose same-sex marriage in the US are Christian. However, the fact remains that most that support it are also Christian. How do I know? Simple demographics. About 77% of the country identifies as Christian and over half the country now supports same-sex marriage. Only 15% of the country has no religion so it is a good thing gays do not rely exclusively on them, and about 20% of that 15% do not support same-sex marriage if you believe PEW polls.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?

Paschendale said:
Which almost always comes from religious influence. If you dig a little deeper, almost all homophobia has religious roots.
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In your opinion. Not from my experience.

I never said there weren't.
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Your omission of this fact tends to dismiss it.

This notion is why religious extremism has a safe place to flourish. Because the impetus for that evil is never held responsible.
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Your position is the problem and why religious extremism continues. Instead of addressing the real problem, the people involved, people attack religion in general, lumping everyone in the same category. Focus on those who bring about religious extremism. Religion itself is not the problem.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?


Even your own numbers don't support your math.

CaptainCourtesy said:
In your opinion. Not from my experience.
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Do some research. Do it from any perspective other than attempting to exonerate your religion. You'll find that I'm right.

Your omission of this fact tends to dismiss it.
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I omit a lot of facts that have nothing to do with the point I'm making.


A whole lot of people do a lot of terrible things and say that their religion compels them to do it. If we're talking about Jihadists, of course it's their religion. If we're talking about American Christians oppressing gays, it's just some bad apples and has nothing to do with their religion. Religion itself brings about religious extremism. Religious extremists are violent and hateful because they magnify the violence and hate in the religion. You could kill every single religious extremist in the world, and more will spring up so long as the religion is still there to be extremist about.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?


Okay then. I will conservatively say that over 70% of those in the US who support same-sex marriage are Christian. Better?
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?

Paschendale said:
Do some research. Do it from any perspective other than attempting to exonerate your religion. You'll find that I'm right.
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That does not address what I said or the point that I made.

I omit a lot of facts that have nothing to do with the point I'm making.
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Good. And I pointed out something that you omitted. Glad to see you agree with it.


Who are you talking to? With Jihadists, it's NOT their religion, but the individuals who pervert the religion. That's what extremists do. Extremism is a learned behavior, either from others or from experiences. If you killed all religions extremists, more would pop up because they would learn their extremism from other sources or from experiences. They would just use religion as an excuse. Not all who are religious are extremists. The issue is not religion but those individuals who use religion in specific ways.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?

Bob Blaylock said:
The point is that you are attributing evil to me that is not mine.
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You are blaming homosexuals for self-harm because people LIKE YOU attack them. Then you attribute self-harm as a consequence of being gay. Then you say that being gay is a sick evil.

I am not a homosexual, nor am I a member or supporter of the Westboro Baptist Church.
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I didn't make either of those claims.

I think your efforts to connect me with either of these evils amounts to a slanderous personal attack, and a violation of the rules of this forum. Please cease to do so at once.
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I don't think you're a member of WBC, I said that your behavior reminds me of them.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?

CriticalThought said:
Interesting. So supporting same-sex marriage is leading people astray in your eyes?
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From a religious point of view, I think so, yes. That does not necessarily bleed over into a political point of view; it is not inconsistent for someone to think that the state should expand it's definition of marriage to include SS couples while maintaining that it would be wrong for the Church to bless/perform/enable their unions.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?


I actually don't care if someone is a flat earther, so long as there's a sufficient number of sane people i have access to and can live among, and in an environment that encourages scientific pursuit. Consider that almost all scientists are atheists, then you should view those who are not as no threat to entering a STEM career. It's less competition, in that regard.

People believe all kinds of crazy **** that has nothing to do with religion. They believe in UFOs, bigfoot, tarot cards, palm reading. Why should we care? Diversity, including of beliefs, makes life more interesting. So long as it doesn't go overboard, like in the middle east today or medieval europe, and palm readers start burning alive or otherwise oppressing non believers, i don't see the problem.

I am not so certain either that if modern Christianity were to disappear, it would make for a better world, even from your view. You act like there was never oppression in pre-christian era, like socrates being killed for denying the greek gods, or that another religion couldn't take its place. Going forward, we don't even know what 'super AI' will bring, but if it isn't controlled, it won't be religion that unleashed such destructive technology on us.
 
Re: To Be a Supporter of Gay Rights and SSM, What Must Your View of Religion Be?[W:10


I'm sorry x, but this is a platitude. Many people attempt to hold your salvation hostage in order to brow best you into supporting their political agenda.

I would advise you regard all other people the way Christ commanded us to, with love. Believers or otherwise.

I have had much difficulty with how I view religious people. It's so easy to lump everybody into one group and judge them all based on one aspect such as religion, political affiliation and so forth. I have one said religion is a way to control people and it certainly is in some cases but not in all. Though I am Christian, I don't hold membership with any particular organized religion.

I try to view my fellow man with love, though I fail on that in some cases it is the effort that gains results.

It is up to you and you alone. If there are some that will ostracize you because of your beliefs, I wouldn't concern myself with them on more than a trivial level. Only Christ can say whether you are saved or not. Unless they speak for Christ I wouldn't put much stock in their words.

I apologize if I have wrongly assumed you to be Christian.
 
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