Homosexuality
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3Boys:
I will be honest in saying that I have nothing but contempt for religion though I love a lot of people who are religious so I do understand where you are coming from.
So you have then taken it upon yourself to be the morality police and ride roughshod over other folks beliefs, and condemning them yes?Joseph27:
This thread contains the usual blend of religious, homophobic and dare I say, hateful nonsense. The fact that anyone could cite the bible in denouncing a lifestyle is so far beyond me I struggle to see you as an otherwise rationale human being. I understand however that most of you on this board are only looking after the best interests of your families and are not purposely trying to hurt anyone.
I am an angmo - married with 2 kids however I have gay family members and friends and they are beautiful people... to denounce them because you believe in Jesus means you havent the slightest clue about what Jesus taught... To cite the old testament means you are causing people genuine pain. You ever wonder what impact your poisonous rhetoric has on a young persons mind - especially when they find themselves attracted by the same sex. Sure the 5 year old son is wonderful but what happens if he tells you he is gay when he is 15... do you disown him? Do you drive him to kill himself? To make that 15 year old feel so different is pure and simple evil.
So if you are right, then those who at odds with you must be wrong, yes?
Who's casting the rhetoric now?
I don't have to use hateful rhetoric, but plainly stated, I believe homosexuality is wrong. And I don't denounce or hate them either, they are free to live their lives as they wish, but I do not have to close one eye and pretend to approve (at least in this country, unlike some in the west) or pretend that I think its alright for my children to make that life-choice, and I have the right to state that in a public forum, that my and other children read, geddit?
Very simple proposition from me;
I do not discriminate against gays; I work with them the same, I buy goods and services from gay vendors, it is part of loving and not judging your fellow man.
I do draw the line at organisations and individuals trying to promote and normalise homosexual tendencies, through schools or other channels, to my children. If any of my boys end up that way, they are still my boys, and they will never lose my love, but they will never have my approval for that life-choice either (and yes, I know all about the supposed biological underpinnings).
I can agree to disagree, but I will not have a liberal position rammed down my throat like it is in the west. There is a nuance, and you have completely missed it. -
Joseph27:
That's too bad.
I will be honest in saying that I have nothing but contempt for religion though I love a lot of people who are religious so I do understand where you are coming from.
My position has less to do with religion than you think....
....nonetheless, extremist though religions can be, contempt for religion is equally extremist......and generally is not contempt for religion or God per se (if you do not believe in God, how could you hate him, yes?), but rather for some of the practitioners of religion.......so I understand where you are coming from too. -
3Boys:
I can fully appreciate a degree of discomfort at certain aspects of overt gay politics coupled with very liberal agendas expressed as cultural norms in our schools and universities. My problem comes with judging a modern lifestyle and condemning behavior through ancient superstitions.
That's too bad.Joseph27:
I will be honest in saying that I have nothing but contempt for religion though I love a lot of people who are religious so I do understand where you are coming from.
My position has less to do with religion than you think....
....nonetheless, extremist though religions can be, contempt for religion is equally extremist......and generally is not contempt for religion or God per se (if you do not believe in God, how could you hate him, yes?), but rather for some of the practitioners of religion.......so I understand where you are coming from too.
My contempt for religion is based on many people’s observance of these superstitions without regard for the existence of specific religious dogma. I don’t hate god, I don’t believe in god but I really dislike anyone teaching superstition as fact and ignoring blatant discrepancies’ in dogma for convenience. It doesn’t matter what religion you believe in, it is flawed and based on nonsense but yet we are meant to respect everyone regardless of whatever poison they sprout because its religion.
I don’t respect religion, however I am happy to say nothing until such time that the religious try to interfere and project their faith onto society, fundamentalist Christian or Muslim style. -
Joseph27:
I don’t respect religion, however I am happy to say nothing until such time that the religious try to interfere and project their faith onto society, fundamentalist Christian or Muslim style.
Well, you don't have to be irreligious to not respect religion. I am 100% certain that being religious makes some people unable to respect religion — their own or anyone else's. The evidence is everywhere.
Come to think of it, I feel the same way about economists that you feel about religionists.
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Joseph27:
I think I see where you are coming from, given your dual religious background. Religion can be more trouble than its worth, if people keep on projecting their views on others.
I don’t respect religion, however I am happy to say nothing until such time that the religious try to interfere and project their faith onto society, fundamentalist Christian or Muslim style.
There are too many religious people out there who like to proclaim \"If you're not with me on this issue, you're not on my side, and therefore you are potentially my enemy\".
It's annoying when people come around and say things like \"You're wrong to believe in this, or you should be doing more\". In Singapore, people really need to learn to agree to disagree.
Perhaps it's just the practitioners of the various religions that you are truly disgusted with, and not the religions themselves. -
Well,
I think there is a certain arrogance if one chooses to dismiss God and religion as hocus-pocus and superstition, when one does not have a full understanding, and when there are far greater intellects in society who do believe in God.
If that is not a projection of beliefs, I don’t know what is.
Nonetheless, I am happy to stay quiet too, until a certain point of view is put forth as incontrovertible ‘truth’. -
autolycus:
What on earth is a religionist?? I've never heard anyone describe himself as such....Joseph27:
I don’t respect religion, however I am happy to say nothing until such time that the religious try to interfere and project their faith onto society, fundamentalist Christian or Muslim style.
Well, you don't have to be irreligious to not respect religion. I am 100% certain that being religious makes some people unable to respect religion — their own or anyone else's. The evidence is everywhere.
Come to think of it, I feel the same way about economists that you feel about religionists. -
3Boys:
What does it mean to have a full understanding? If you are a strict Muslim and believe fully in the Quran and Hadith as taught to you by your parents and religious teachers then your understanding of the truth is very subjective and reliant on dubuious sources. If you believe what you are taught 100% and don't question it for a minute then why should I respect your beliefs especially if they don't reconcile with historical facts?Well,
I think there is a certain arrogance if one chooses to dismiss God and religion as hocus-pocus and superstition, when one does not have a full understanding, and when there are far greater intellects in society who do believe in God.
To state that there are far greater intellects in society who do believe in God than don't is pure fiction and disrespects the legacy of some of humanties greatest thinkers. Even today this ascertion is flawed and the band of atheists are more than a match for their religious contemporaries. Personally I am happy to be a rationalist pathenist though I am all too aware of what Freud would have to say about that. -
Joseph27:
I did not say that, merely greater intellects than those propounding a position on this forum.
To state that there are far greater intellects in society who do believe in God than don't is pure fictionJoseph27:
Well, show me. That's how atheists have always tried to pitch it. I was a rabid atheist myself. The question one needs to ask is, if the atheistic position is so clear, logical and appealing, why are there so many prominent figures in science, business, political leadership that DO believe in a personal God. Have THEY missed something, or have YOU?Even today this ascertion is flawed and the band of atheists are more than a match for their religious contemporaries.
Your position is coloured by your personal experience, that's too bad. Its the human expression of religion that is at fault, as has always been, not religion itself.
I took the reverse journey from you. I am a firm believer of evolution and evolutionary biology, of thermodynamics and the Big Bang and the age of the universe being multi-billion years old. I wrote a personal thesis to 'disprove' God to my friends based on these. For the longest time I believed that to believe in God was to disbelieve in these scientific facts......it does not. I have read Stephen Hawking's books, which are entertaining (as can be for the nature of the topics he covers) and illuminating. In his latest (The Grand Design), he does a pretty good job again in explaining the construct of the universe. A few things to note, is that he does effectively reverse his position that he propounded in the 'Brief History of Time' that we were at the cusp of the 'Theory of Everything', and the second is that he over-reaches himself and claims 'God is not necessary to explain the origin of the universe'. Really? I did not see anything in his book that supports that assertion in the least.
Read here an opinion from a greater authority than myself here --> http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3141
and here -->
http://physicsworld.com/blog/2010/09/by_hamish_johnstonstephen_hawk.html
Stephen Hawking may be a genius, but he is no theologian, and has been amply demonstrated, he does not have infinite wisdom either. Its merely hubris and perhaps he needs to say it to scratch the itch of his bias. But such is how the atheistic position tends to be, there is actually no way to definitively exclude God. But there is enough coincidence and narrowness of conditions in the basic construct of the universe that could lend us to believe that there is a good possibility of a creative force.
At the of the day, one may read it as they wish. I am not here to pooh-pooh an atheistic world view, I've been there and I understand it. However, for anyone to come out and proclaim as 'FACT' that somehow God and religion has been disproved, is in my view, hogwash. It is but one view and cannot be presented in any other way but such. -
3Boys:
I did not say that, merely greater intellects than those propounding a position on this forum.
I wouldn’t ever purport to be a great intellect, I am well educated in a classical sense and spend a lot of time actively trying to learn more however I understand that there many vastly more intelligent than I am; some are atheist some are religious. I always think of two people in particular, one is a Franciscan brother and possibly one of the smartest people I have ever met – a great intellect and so successful outside of religious life; yet he felt compelled to dedicate his life to his beliefs. I couldn’t win a debate with this guy since he spends his life researching and debating, he does a good job for the community and I respect that though I believe that his dedication to the life of Jesus is bollocks.
The other person is a Muslim and very conservative – he works as a researcher and engineer with a big company and has one of the most logical brains and is brilliant at science. Yet he believes that the Quran is the unalterable word of god – he believes that the Hadith must be adhered to strictly and that women must cover up, that he can have 4 wives, and all those other really messed up parts of Islam.
At the very least one of these guys is wrong, and both certainly are a lot more academically intelligent than I am. Regardless I don’t let their academic credentials affect my confidence in my ability to reason and understand an issue. History has presented us with a myriad of great thinkers who have advanced the belief in a personal god though I only have to reference others who counter their arguments with, I believe, far more convincing logic.3Boys:
Again I cannot speak for others however all too often scholars can spend a life time defending a belief and simply reinforcing this belief over and over. Yes a lot of religious leaders purport to believe in a very personal god – one only has to listen to the ramblings of America’s political right to hear this (I would advise holding a bucket close by when you do chose to listen because it is often hard to stop yourself from being sick). Belief in God is comforting – a lot more so than belief in nothing but you cannot logically defend a personal god at least not the god propagated by the monotheistic religions. I teach my children about god – that is god that is everything, in everyone – a god that is the natural universe but not a god who stands by your side and listens to your personal prayers.Well, show me. That's how atheists have always tried to pitch it. I was a rabid atheist myself. The question one needs to ask is, if the atheistic position is so clear, logical and appealing, why are there so many prominent figures in science, business, political leadership that DO believe in a personal God. Have THEY missed something, or have YOU?
3Boys:
I would have thought the opposite is almost the case - religion is a sympton of humanities inability to answer complex questions at darker times in our history. The old testament, the new testatment and the Quran are all such flawed documents - to say convincingly that a god 'wrote' them is to deny the history behind them.Your position is coloured by your personal experience, that's too bad. Its the human expression of religion that is at fault, as has always been, not religion itself.
Again i take the quran - it was 120 years after the death of Mohammed that the pages of the book came together - lets not mention the satantic versus, or the pages lost, either deliberately or accidently yet this is meant to be the unalterable word of god and is worshipped as such. Then the hadith comes along which took even longer to be codified and is now used to ensure that woman are stoned to death for adultery or that dogs are dirty or whatever lame historical particularity is inforced across the muslim world.
The guy I mentioned before believes that with 100% conviction and is very smart, so does that make it true or is his brain somehow defective and unable to take such an obvious flaw in his logic? We are told to respect a persons faith but do you respect it if he believes that god told us to cover women up or that eating a particular type of meat is enough to land us in an eternity of torment? Can you respect a religion when its normative values are painted by such distorted images that only by denouncing these twisted elements are the majority able to fit in with modernity? Of course not all can and those are the delightful people martyring themselves outside of nightclubs and help curb the activities of the non religious.
All I say is that I doubt everything and believe in nothing but the beauty this planet possesses, in the intrinsic goodness of people who share a civilised view of the world, and in the love I share with my family.
So getting back to where this began - I cannot believe that any historical document written in much darker times should serve as an example on why a particular lifestyle is morally wrong.
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