OH MY LORD

Well, the KKK were Christian, but so was their opposition. 100 years ago, and even 50 years ago in the US, you would be hard pressed to find ANY idealistic group that wasn’t using God and Bible quotes to back what they were fighting for. That was just the nature of the country, and still is to a large degree. As far as groups on the cusp of advocating violence against gays or abortion doctors, I haven’t seen that. That still seems to be the lone whackjob not listening to his authorities. I’ll say more on that later.

I don’t know who you mean, but I would assume he would profess to be, yes. I haven’t heard of any non-religious folks that get that worked up about abortion, even if they happen to oppose.

I don't think I would advocate either extreme, my point is that "Question authority!" or "Fall into line!" are both sets of advice that attempt to change human nature, which means they are a waste of time. There will always be a few leaders, a hoard of followers, and a few rebels. I don't think any of the three can be said to be 'doing it right' inherently, without first looking at what exactly they are leading, following, or rebeling against. I can't say that the world would be better if it had more followers, more leaders, or more rebels. I think it's much more productive to analyze particular belief systems that people may choose to follow, than to analyze [i]the act of following[/i]. Make sense?

  Yes, you have a good point there- one can be accepting of homosexuals, or of sex before marraige or all sorts of things, and still fall under the broad tent that is "Christianity".  Is the Church of Christ un-Christian? I don't know enough about them, but from what you say here, I would say they are in the same boat as Young-Earth Creationists, they are Christians who happen to be wrong. I would consider the thing they are wrong about to be more important than the thing the YECs are wrong about. 

Well, I believe that (though I'm not married to the idea), and I'm not a Young Earth Creationist. 

 It depends, first, on how we view the follower. I think those sorts of labels are situational- a person may be a born leader at the office, but choose to be a follower when it comes to religion, because he doesn't have the time or interest to study the relevant information. I think there are very few people who are leaders or followers or rebels in all things.  
 In general, I think the current situation is the answer to your question- various groups who see people under the wrong leader do what they can to get their own message out, to lure people away from those wrong leaders.  The truth does have a certain appeal to it, and you can pull people away from cults and extremist groups often with a liberal application of it.

uccisore,

Matthew Trewhella (convicted abortion doctor killer)

very very true… to this day, a large majority of the US is christian. Even most democrats are christian in the USA. I think hardcore atheists (the ones that really don’t believe in god.) make up less than 10%.

On a tangent, there’s been several times in our “national” government level to shift the government towards having a bias towards religion. During the fifties, and the eighties, and the 2000’s (esp post 9/11)

The fifties mccarthy-ism, added “under god” to the pledge of allegiance, to seperate us from the “evil” atheists of communist countries. (this is but one thing it did.)

During the eighties Reagan launched campaigns in the middle east, again to stop the banner of “evil communist atheism”.

now, that communism isn’t the enemy, and terrorists believe in god, half the christian population has been trying to launch an assault on abortion and homosexuality. (and keeping under god in the pledge, etc.)

being a secular agnostic buddhist christian (I need to take the time to really figure out where I stand and pour concrete down so i can’t change my mind.) I think the government should be more neutral, and not side itself with any religion.

end of tangent>

again, you are right… it’s foolish to think you can change someone. at worst you can influence them, or make them see something from your POV.

Are they “wrong”? or just not “right”? The YEC are wrong (form both of our POV’s) about the age of the world, but who does it hurt for them to believe that? The UCC is wrong (from your perspective) about homosexuality. Who does it hurt when they think god loves homosexuals?

how does this lead into my problem? because promoting that condoms don’t work at all IS harmful. Promoting that ALL homosexuals goto hell IS harmful. I don’t believe we should tolerate harmful idealogies. Now, the level of interaction with these idealogies is the key to trying to get them to tone down their harmful idealogies.

well from your POV you consider the UCC to be more harmful in their acceptance of homosexuality. And that’s fine I think the UCC should accept criticism just as the YEC should.

well, how far do you take that idea though?

Do you think it was LITERALLY, written by god, or inspired by god?

You always take things a step further. I like that.

I think someone who is a born leader at the office, is (In my personal experience) less likely to be religious. That doesn’t mean there aren’t leaders who are very religious. That’s just a slice of my personal experience.

Now the one’s who are religious followers, I think will tend not to ask the important questions at work. “why do we do things this way”. Being one of them. I agree he probably doesn’t have the time or interest to study the relevant information. Probably a side effect of the society we live in occupying ourselves so much with gizmos, gadgets that we drown out the question of why and wherefore.

I think you’re right, I think that after awhile it’s hard to hide the truth from your followers, and that unless they are completely inebrated by the leader, they will find the truth on their own gumption and leave (this ties into not being able to change people, they’ve got to do it on their own will.)

sycthekain

I disagree with this assessment, for the following reason: Until recently, abortion and homosexuality have always been seen as highly unacceptable in this country. I do not see the Christians as launching the assault, I see them as reacting to pushes for acceptance. Especially in the case of homosexuality, Christians are trying only to maintain the status quo, not tear down anything that has been established. I am firmly convinced that it is the liberals who started these two fights- regardless of which side is correct.

Oh, I believe you can change someone. I just don’t think you can change mankind- at least, not in any good way.

 I think it's a common understanding that truth is good and falsehood bad. I think it's nearly universal to the human experience that we want the things we believe to be [i]true[/i]. So there's a value judgement there. Believing something false is harmful merely by the fact that it's false. Propogating false beliefs is harmful to people whom you convince to believe them. As evidenced by the comic, the position of most Christians (not just the UCC) is that God loves homosexuals, so I won't comment further on that.

I don’t disagree with anything you say here. Rooting out harmful ideologies is probably the most important work for a philosopher to do. However, I think that the most harmful ideologies will also be the factually incorrect ones. Perhaps that’s an article of faith on my part.

I think the Bible says what God intended for it to say, and that He made sure it included everything a person needs to live in a right relationship with Him. Far be it from me to speculate on specifically how He brought it about.  It is apparent to me that people have the ability to corrupt the message, so I would never say that this or that translation is infallible, but only that througout history, the proper message will always exist [i]somewhere[/i].  

Where I’m at, I’d say it’s an even spread.

Is your religious community mainly Catholic or Protestant? I know we’re mostly Protestant here, and I would say that the very religious folks tend to tbe the mouthiest, and the most likely to tell anyone who will listen when something doesn’t seem right about what happens at the office. The people who don’t question things seem to me to be the people that don’t have any strong political or religious beliefs at all- they tend to express mild contempt towards authority and institutions if you press them, perhaps because they think that’s the popular thing to say, but they really don’t have views on anything other than NASCAR or who got voted off some island.

The most successful pushers of lies don’t need to hide anything- they sell something more pleasent than the truth, and the followers hide the truth from themselves. Bleh, I hate it when I sound like I’m writing a witticism, but that’s really how it is.
Also, this seems to me to be a weakness of what we might call the ‘free-thinkers’. I think a ‘free-thinker’ is more likely to fall prey to a self-gratifying lie, because their rationalizing contains a lot of ego-they take great pride in rising above the herd, so the things they discover will usually reinforce that elitism. Honestly, I think a great deal of “We the elite thinkers vs. the masses of sheep” attitudes come from this kind of ego, which I why you and I have fought about that sort of thing in the past.
By contrast, a follower is more likely to accept harsh realities- they are used to having beliefs pushed upon them, and when a fact belittles or intimidates them, there isn’t as much of an ego screaming ‘No!’.
I acknowledge that if I were an atheist, I may take the opposite angle, though.

I only read the first page of what all you guys said.

Just something I noticed… in every one that I read (homosexuality, safe sex, pornography, rock music, evolution) it was always a black kid pointing a white kid in the “right” direction. Not that I mind, of course. lol. And the comics really made the non-Christians seem almost… satanic… in the way that they drew them.

Unnicsore,

Yes, the Bible Belters condone the killing of abortion doctors and support the Rudolphs of the world.

Tend to agree with this claim.

Could not agree more.

and until recently all of america agreed with this assesment.

I don’t think the liberals started the fight, as much as provoked it, I think they are trying to push for something that the religious right may very well never accept.

If you can change someone for the good, you can change mankind for good right? or else you can only change someone for the worse.

I think we go a step further. We MAKE the things we believe true.

What makes it false though? Like the homosexuality value, what makes that false is that you MAKE it false… or rather you make homosexuality immoral.

what standard do we have but our own in determining what is true and false?

How much can we trust our own standard?

perhaps it is. I think most “factually” incorrect philosophies is all a matter of perspective. You view christ as the savior, I view him as a great teacher. Same man, different perspective.

I’ve thought about this one alot. I think the bible includes things for the society of the time to have a relationship with god, but our society has changed but our standard for a relationship with god hasn’t and it needs to.

I think this is too vague. (esp for you)

pretty interesting mix of all religions here. From the buddhist temple, you drive north past the UCC (liberal) large catholic church, mormon church, hindu church, and then several protestant churches.

so mostly, I’d say the religious organizations here are probably protestant or evangelical.

Now that you mention, it that is true, there are several catholics here at work, and they aren’t nearly as “mouthy” as the protestants.

Yes the goats vs sheep mentality.

I acknowledge if I were more of a theist, I would probably think differently about alot of things. it’s that thought, that keeps me in check.

Discussion is better than confrontation, don’t you think?

well as crazy as this might sound christianity only tries to deplete natural parts of life like homosexuality and drugs it’s a community only with less reasoning and points for why we shouldn’t be ourselves to “sin” is to be yourself but by going against it your only causing yourself more problems right?
besides it’s a odd kind of religion plus jewish and catholics as well all they do is state facts that lead pressure onto yourself you have no reason to worry about being gay it’s a part of life and when your done with it you have freedom to move on with it as well.

that is why i debate christians.

TC says

Is that what you call it? Anytime you want to debate matters of Christianity, I’m available, provided you learn how to type correctly. Anyways, I will say that however ‘natural’ things like homosexuality and drug use are, the urge to repress them through ethics and religious teaching is every bit as natural.

Scythekain

I don’t see the difference, really. I agree they are trying to push for something the religious right will (hopefully) never accept.

No, I don’t think so, unless you really think the ends justify any means. I think that in order to change human nature, you would have to do something so oppressive and tyrannical, you wouldn’t be making any positive difference.

We may or may not have that power depending on the circumstance. I can’t make “Mr Rushmore is in Vermont” true.

 I don't get into this debate with you again if I can help it, but what I will say is the mere fact that you are typing words in English to me using common sentence structure, and implictly expecting me to understand them, means you accept an external definition of truth to some degree. If I told you that homosexuality was wrong because the aliens that live on the Moon decreed it to be so, you would probably ask me for evidence that there are aliens on the moon.  I would suggest we really agree about the nature of truth and how it is found [i]in practice[/i], even if we have different ideals of it. 
Now, I don't mean to say that any one's views on homosexuality are right or wrong at this point. What I'm saying is that [i]there is a correct view[/i], whatever it may be, and teaching in conflict with that view is wrong just because truth = good and falsehood = bad. For example, if there are no such things as objective moral truths, then there's nothing wrong with homosexuality, and no reason to make laws regarding it. That is one possibly correct view, and note that it is based on denial of objectivity. I just want to point out to you that saying "the morality of homosexuality depends on the individual" is not a position outside of absolute truths, rather it leads to certain absolute truths just as any other claim will. 

Well, we have the world. If my standard in determining what is true leads me to constant failure, strife, and confusion, then it’s probably not working. It’s not as though we exist in a vacuum, making up the world around us, unless you want to argue for solipsism. We have certain inflexible input to deal with.

Yes, and as I recall, Dr. Satanical views Him as someone who never existed in the first place.  At most, [i]one[/i] of us is right. 

 That perspective makes a lot of sense. As a rule, I think the things in the Bible (especially the New Testament) are general enough to apply to all times and societies, as long as we're talking about societies made up of human beings. If I had to pick apart what you say above, it would be that you seem to be assuming that all or most of the ways society has changed are [i]for the better[/i], such that the standard for a relationship with God must come into line. Rather, I see it as the other way around- societies are[i] bound to change[/i], there's no way around that. However, God doesn't change, and basic human nature doesn't change much if at all, so the way to be in a proper relationship with God isn't likely to change that much.  In other words, if right-living by God and right-living by societal standards seem to have grown apart, odds are it's because society has deviated from where it is supposed to be. All of this makes a great deal of sense if you believe in a literal God, and very little if you don't. 

What I mean is, it is obvious that mankind has the ability to print Bibles full of lies if they so wish. However, I don’t believe (and I believe history will back me on this) that mankind will ever replace God’s word with such corrupted versions.

Protestant Church services tend to be more interactive that Catholic ones ( a good thing) and Protestant laymen tend to be more active in Church politics than Catholic laymen (a bad thing), so I suppose that’s mostly why.

Depends. It’s a fine line, a lot of the time.

skythakain,

How can you be both a Buddhist and a Christian?? The Christian God is a jealous god. Buddhists can be both, bot not a true Christian. Just curious.

Yes, I tend to agree with this assessment. Also, why would any person choose to be homosexual considering the discrimination and possibly death from a nut case.

God in heaven help me!

Homosexuality, if it’s not genetic, would be a state of being that people get conditioned to. It’s the same as why a person likes tall women, short women, blondes, red heads, and so forth. You may not have a direct explanation for why you like certain types of things and that’s because envirnomental forces acted on you in a very subtle way.

So, people do not choose to be gay. That is way to simple, rather they are made gay by X number of things. So, from a religious perspective what would that mean?

 Well, not a whole lot from what I can tell. People are made liars, made theives, made perverts by certain elements in their environment, sure. However, in justice as in religion, that doesn't stop us from condemning any particular act of dishonesty, theft, or perversion. A homosexual has a cross to bear in that there is a particular type of sin that is more tempting for them than it is for others. We can all claim that to varying degrees.

Many homosexuals have straight parents and are often ostracized from their families after coming out. Hence, I tend to believe it is genetic and not conditioned.

Don’t ask me why, but I do not find Cruise attractive, but find Pitt attractive. I tend to prefer blonds. Please do not pull the race card, I am short and have dark hair and eyes. My other half is blond and blue eyed.

Again, this is why IMO, I tend to believe it is genetic.

Hey, if you disagree, this is fine, and frankly, I do not give a hoot what any religion claims.

aspacia,

Perhaps I am doomed to repeat myself, but we had this conversation. It would be straight parents that condition the kids to be gay. The concept is that an obnoxious or distant member of the opposite sex causes the kid to at once hate them and become entranced by the perceived power of their gender. So, the kid becomes just like who they hate. There are other variations as well.

Also, if you are in a gene pool where everyone looks roughly the same, then how is it possible that your “genes” would allow you to be attracted to someone so different? The answer is that your genes have nothing to do with it. Your mind is the most profound sexual organ in your body (an unoriginal but true statement there).

I totally agree, ergo I agree with the site, if only in the sense that it depicts the actual stance of the Church and the Bible for young Christian writers who need guidance.

Jon F

Then how does logic explain the numerous straight children with obnoxious parent of the opposite sex. Many fathers often are obnoxious to their daughters, and the daughters do not turn out to be homosexual. Many mothers are obnoxious to their sons, and the sons do not become homsexual. The point is that a small percentage of the population is homosexual, and a much larger percent has been abused and not become homosexual.

I disagree with this claim, unless you can provide valid scientific or academic research links regarding your stance.

I am not following your logic. Are we still discussing homosexuals? If so, they are attracted to members similar to themselves. Many of the Chippendale male dancers are gorgeous homosexual men, with very similar physical characteristics.

We can agree to disagree, but I am simply not following your logic.

it was tongue in cheek.

I’m actually neither buddhist or christian, I think both religions are wrought with problems. I know “buddhism” is officially a “philosophy” and not a religion per say, but official buddhism (the zen variety is more to my liking if I was going to go buddhist) is still a dogmatic bag of worms.

christians do need guidance:

thegodmovie.com

of course, this doesn’t mean I’m not clearing the path for atheism. Atheism and satanism are filled with idiotic dogma as well.

we tend to overlook the problems in our own belief structure when criticizing other beliefs. I.E. you find a lie or half truth that is doctrine for another religion, but you only find the “truths” to support your own belief.

is it because there are no lies or half truths in your own religion? no. It’s because you don’t look at them, you don’t seek to find them.

if that were true adlerian it’d be a simple matter of reverse engineering them… the fact is reparative therapies are 0.04% successful AT BEST.