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Same here. Though I do need the bible to believe that executing 3000 people for dancing naked around a golden idol is perfectly ethical.
It will be such a wonderful day when we realize we are socially so far removed from what's actually going in the Bible that we'll shed the dogmatic baggage and replace it with something less personal.
Schools in Australia are breeding grounds for all manner of unsavory conduct. The fact that most people don't consider then "unsavory" any more is beside the point.
Or the way mentally ill people were treated? Segregation? Or are we not talking about anything specific, and it's more just 'Hey things were better'? Because I don't like that game much. It's negative and one hell of a self-fulfilling way of considering the world.How many of today's children even know what a father is in a family setting? How many know what being faithful to a mate means? Is the world a better place because we have thrown all the Bible's rules out of the window?
I'm personally not a fan of dressing up personal opinion as fact, is all. When taken to extremes, it seems so disingenuous I always figure the person doing it HAS to know, and is probably more interested in reinforcing the narrative in their own head than in adding value to the world around them.
Unlike...err...churches?
I like the concept of personal responsibility and natural consequences. This being the case, I see education part of the mitigation, not part of the problem.
News to me.
We've done this dance before, though. I'm not the one arguing that the world is either steadily improving or steadily declining. Today people will more readily accept gay couples, with me most definitely being one of those people. On the other hand, they will less readily accept racial discrimination. I'm kinda okay with that. There are other things which are less of an 'improvement' to my mind.
Which old ways, though? Actual slavery? Or Human Zoos in Belgium?
One of these things is not like the others...*sighs*
You're putting two different dichotomous view points together and drawing a single inference from it. It's too simplistic for me.
1) Bible versus non-Bible. Whilst I am aware you won't agree, the Bible is open to interpretation. People who honestly hold to it, and try their best to follow it's tenets don't all have a single view on how they should act, or how they should treat others. Not to mention that there are other philosophical and scriptural views which would lead to someone acting in what you are assuming is a 'good' way. Heck, things which probably strike you as outlandish can even lead to this (consider the straight edge punk movement). I get that you think the Bible is more than merely a guide for moral behaviour, but in terms of this particular discussion I would find an assertion that only the Bible leads to moral behaviour (even allowing for morality being defined as you wish) isn't accurate.
2) 'Good' versus 'Bad'. Much of what was 'good' behaviour was about clear guidelines and clear heirarchies of power and control. In the past this has certainly led to the veneer of 'moral' behaviour being more widespread. I'm less convinced that it actually led to moral behavior being more widespread, though. Even allowing that 'good' and 'bad' are in any way objective.
People act with personal responsibility, and with recognition and consideration of consequence to themselves and others. Some other people do not. But posts like the one I responded to are in no way helpful in promoting the one and reducing the other. People setting good examples, and investing effort in others is much better. And that is not so binary as to divide the world up into 'Bible followers' and not. Or 'good' and 'bad'. Or 'old' and 'young'. Anytime that sort of approach is taken, it's insulting to people within the group being considered unworthy.
So...in that light, consider 'wow' my restrained retort. As you know, I'm an ex-teacher, and a father, and an atheist. That puts me in quite a few of the buckets being decried here as either ineffectual or actively harmful in terms of impact on the world around me. I thoroughly reject that.
Site closed down.
2016??? Karamba! This thread is so old,I don't even remember writing that! The smilies are long gone now too.
Not sure I want to resurrect this thread.....
How are you going with the fires LNM? Are you in an affected area?
This right here is the problem. It IS socially acceptable to God for people to love who they love and for people to have a particular orientation and act on it responsibly. Gay IS normal and acceptable. You’ll expose your kids to groundless religious bigotry and call it “normal,” but you won’t expose them to normal human sexuality. What a great choice!
Apparently you do have a problem with it, or you wouldn’t call it a “genetic hiccup.”
Catholicism IS Christianity— make no mistake.
Oof Deej, how’s the air down your way? I heard on the radio that the air around the affected areas was as toxic as smoking 37 ciggies a day.Its been a rough start to the year as we were completely surrounded by fires on the South Coast of NSW...the fires joined up and cut off our escape. We couldn't go north, south or west.....east was the ocean where many took refuge. Some places burned right to the water.
I started a thread about it....
Australia is on Fire!!
Everywhere we looked, Australia was on fire! We were evacuated twice but the second time we waited for the road to open and headed north to Sydney to take refuge at my nephew's place. Fires were still burning on both sides of the hwy.
Then we heard about Mallacoota.....
I have a 95 yr old mother that I care for and she was extremely traumatized by the whole thing. Summer isn't over yet and we are getting a little rain, but there is not much left to burn....it is extremely heartbreaking for all those who lost everything...and for all the creatures who perished.
Glad you were not in harm's way.
I don’t know what you’re trying to intimate here, unless you’re suggesting that I’m gay and in the closet. it won’t work; I’m not gay. But yes, this is personal because these people whom you are calling “wrong” and “detestable” and a “genetic hiccup” are my sisters and brothers.
No need to chuck out the Bible. But there is a great need to understand what the Bible is saying. Which you’re clearly neither doing nor are interested in.
There you go again. It’s not “abnormal.” Check out the DSM IV. Homosexuality is considered by the medical community to be normal and healthy.
And Jesus promoted that we should love. And that all the rest were corollary to love. Love comes first and foremost. your bigotry is not loving.
What part of Leviticus 18:22 do YOU not understand?
Look up the cultural norms for that time and place. Do you know why the law says that it’s “detestable?” Do you? I bet you don’t. You’re going to throw back “because God said.” Which is a cop out. In that culture, honor and shame were embedded in sexuality. Men embodied honor; women embodied shame. For a man to “bend over and take it like a woman” wasn’t an act of immorality, it was an act of cultural — cultural — shame. and for an honorable man to treat a social equal — another man — with shame was likewise an act of cultural shame. it had nothing whatsoever to do with sexual immorality.
Culturally they do. That law simply does not apply to our culture.
God didn’t make the law; God can change God’s mind all God wants to.
Yup. You with your bigotry. Public shaming is an awfully big stick.
It does, actually, because the truth is, it’s is normal, and you ought to teach your children the truth. God didn’t make that law.
But you are harassing them, dear.
God doesn’t find it detestable.
Because human beings wrote that law out of their own cultural understanding.
Because you’re discriminating against them using God as the excuse.
Christianity is morally objectionable to me, but I don't run round winging about the Christian agenda.
If you mean do we teach children to be understanding and sympathetic in the UK, the answer is yes.
Oof Deej, how’s the air down your way? I heard on the radio that the air around the affected areas was as toxic as smoking 37 ciggies a day.
Stay safe, mate
1) You “believe.” This is nothing more than your opinion, so you don’t get to speak for God in that regard.
Ever read Song of Solomon? Sex isn’t just for making babies.
That’s not a universal criterion of gay sex, though. Your argument fails here.
They’re not “God’s laws.” And the justification I offered is well-researched by sociological standards.
It matters because you are a human being in the majority, so your voice is automatically louder than theirs. It matters because it’s up to the majority to accept the minority. It matters because your contempt is one voice in a very loud chorus that keeps these people beat down. It matters because “your permission” gives them, in part, their full humanity.
You just made it your business, dear.
So now you’re calling them “abusive.” That’s nice. Unfounded bigotry is abusive, and that, my dear, is why, as you asked above, it matters. Because it’s abusive not to make allowances for those differences. If you can’t understand that, perhaps you should consider going back to “What Do I Gotta Do To Be A Good Christian? School.”
Dang!We have had a little rain and the smoke this morning is lifting, thankfully. Hopefully the rain will continue and douse the fires and give all of Australia a break. (Some are getting floods now!) That’s Oz.
The air quality has been so bad.....with long term consequences by the sounds. It was reported that water quality is being affected too with ash being washed into the waterways and killing the fish!
What next?!
Who knew such a thing was possible? No one expected a national holocaust! The big boys have been warned for decades about this possibility evidently, but failed to address it in any real way. Complacency is a killer.