thomas malloy wrote:
However, there seems to be anKyle Mcallister wrote:
Vortexians,
OK, this is getting a little "crazy-go-nuts."
1. Margaret Sanger was responsible for some good, yes.
and Ed Storms responded
The problem is that some people would be very willing to leave you and people with your belief system alone.
unwillingness of certain religious belief systems to leave the rest of us alone.
Have you considered that G-d might want to affect the course of history, Ed?
An interesting idea. So you believe that God gives us free will then tries to get us to behave in a proper way. Occasionally, God sends a messenger who tries to get people to exercise their free will in the "correct" way. Of course, because of the free will, these messages are interpreted in different ways so that the message is distorted causing wars because each group thinks their interpretation is correct. This seems like a very odd system for a God to create.
Then there is the matter of the Islamists, who want to rule the
world.
This is no more true than to say that Christianity wants to rule the world. Both religions are trying to spread their beliefs and both belief systems have groups under whose rule I and you would not want to live. On the other hand, in a few countries now and especially in the past, Islam provided a very good religious base for civilized development.
If you think that you'd have problems with a Christian theocracy,
you'll really hate them, they make us look like liberals.
2. I am not pro-abortion for a few reasons. A: It does nothing to encourage people to stop the numerous "meet and f**k" flings.
Lack of abortion does not stop f**kings, which all the statistics and personal experience shows.
But the ability to kill people who are inconvenient does cheapen life
War is the most outrageous ability to kill inconvenient people yet it does not get the same criticism as does abortion. I expect you will say that the fetus is innocent so it should be protected while soldiers and people who start wars are not innocent. Nevertheless, innocent people are killed in war. To be consistent, any Christian who objects to abortion should object to war just as strongly.
B: I wouldn't know if I was destroying someone who might be something very important one day.
Or someone who was a mass murder. Of course, if God wanted a person available to do something considered important, why would it matter if that body were destroyed? Many more bodies would be available. Also, if God is all powerful and all knowing, why would a body that might be aborted be chosen?
Have you ever heard of free will, Ed? Well you have the right to exercise it. We believe that free will, combined with our sinful nature is the reason that the world is in such a mess today. Some of us are opposed to murder, not to be confused with justified killing.
So if I understand correctly, killing in war and as a penalty is ok because the person deserves death, but taking a potential life is murder, which is wrong. Presumably in your belief system, if a bomb or bullet kills an innocent person during war this is not murder, but an accident, hence ok.
Frankly, I do not know of a time when the world was not a mess somewhere. Even in the past when the Catholic Church ruled, things were done by the Church that, by all standards, were wrong, were a "sin", and must have been based on a distortion of God's will. Where do you draw the line between what is God's will and what the Church has believed and done during various times in history? Why do you think your particular variation on Christianity is completely correct?
C: I do not have to be pro-abortion just because you say so. So many people have tried to force me to be pro-abortion that I am now totally against it mainly in defiance of those who would control my thinking.
Why do you think you are being forced to be proabortion and how is this done? Of course, many people are being forced to be "antiabortion" just because the doctors are being driven out of business.
What doctors, the abortionists? The cry that goes up from the pro abortionists every time we attempt to restrict the practice makes me think that there is more going on here than the practice of their bloody business, IMHO, their agenda is to kill humans.
Surely Thomas you see the self serving aspects of this interpretation. Put yourself in the place of a women who is pregnant with an unwanted child. She may have too many children already, she may have been raped, she might be too young to properly raise the child, or she does not want the stigma of her actions. You would say that rather than an abortion, she should pay the price for her "sin", and live with the shame or threat to her other children. Meanwhile you project the same lack of compassion on the abortionists. The basic issue is, where should the limited amount of compassion be placed? Is it not possible to have compassion for the doctors who have to do the nasty job, for the pregnant woman, AND for the fetus. In the process, make abortion an important action requiring thought and prayer, but not impossible.
3. A religious person really really must have made you mad once, Jed? It is fine by me if you are
I know of no proposed legislation that is antireligious. However, I know that the religious right is trying to make gay marriage illegal.
We are attempting to preserve the traditional definition of the word. Have you ever heard of Sodom and Gamorrah?, do you recall what happened to those two cities?
You and I both know that what is believed about what happened in Sodom and Gamorrah is largely myth based on the Bible. In fact, homosexual interaction were commonplace in Greek and Roman times without cities being destroyed by God. Modern understanding of sexually is reveling that the gender spectrum between male and female is continuous. A few people are fully male or fully female, while most occupy a region between these extremes. Also, that a person can be moved on this spectrum simply my giving them the proper hormone. Where is the sin in this?
You know, if we are supposed to be so
pro-women-liberation in other countries, so pro-freedom, so pro-lets-all-get-along-as-equals, so pro-<insert theme of day here> then why the HELL is it ok and dandy to hate religion?
I think we need to make a distinction here between spiritually and religion. Many people, myself included, believe that a another variation of this reality exists which can be called the spiritual reality. Religion makes an effort to understand this reality and then institutionalizes the result. In the process, ideas are locked into dogma and conflict results. So when you note that I and other people are antireligious, we appear this way only because we object to the process of creating dogma when we all should be trying to understand this important aspect of out existence. I make the same objection when the same process of creating dogma is applied to science.
I did not get the impression that Jed hates religion, nor do I. However, I do hate the attitude of certain religions in their belief that their God is better than the other God.
I'm savy enough to realize that the two of you are just anti religious, Ed. However, I'm sure you can appreciate that there is, however only room for one G-d and king in the universe.
While I admit this is true, history shows that there is room for more than one interpretation of what this God wants us to do. Although the correct answer has been frequently given, most people have a hard time understanding the message. I do not presume to have a correct understanding, hence I do not believe I have the right to force you to adopt my particular understanding by law. For example, in my ideal world, you would have the right to deny an abortion to your family members and would have the right to talk friends out of using abortion. However, you would not be allowed to prevent my family or anyone else from using this method. The same approach would apply to homosexual marriage. You would have the compassion and acceptance to allow me to go to Hell, if that is the result of my actions. Meanwhile, you could be confident that you would go to Heaven. We could then compare notes when we met in the spiritual reality and see who was right.
If you think I am
overreacting, then re-read your posts. They were pretty damned irritating to me at least, and I am sure others. Not for your opinion, that is fine. Do what you want. But do not ever try to force it on anyone else. By legislation or otherwise. This statement (the last part anyways) is not directly aimed at anyone.
I would also like religious people not to force their beliefs using legislation, which is the common approach.
The way we see it, there is a religion called Secular Humanism, which is being promoted by the Liberals. For all their protestations of separation of religion and government, the followers of this religion are anxious to use the levers of power which the government provides to promote it.
Allowing freedom of belief and action is not promoting Secular Humanism. The problem comes when certain people want to deny freedom and force other people to adopt actions they are sure are God's will. In other words, they want to deny free will, the very freedom God gave to man according to your belief. Don't you see the contradiction here. Thomas?
Did you notice Parksie's reaction to the challenge to his orthodoxy? Intelligent Design just points out the absurdity of spontaneous biogenesis, but Parksie couldn't stand even that small incursion on his pet paradigm.
Bob Park is a small minded person who enjoys his own cleverness. He is not a spokesman for a liberal approach, although he is frequently right about the stupidity of the government.
A major tenet of Secular Humanism is an attempt to promote sexuality immorality and make murder socially acceptable, and we are obligated to stop it. The Secular Humanists will come out in mass to attempt to stop the justified killing of a convicted murderer, but seem to feel that the murder of an inconvenient infant is just fine. They give lip service to free speech, but when they are authority, which they are in the educational establishment, are quite intolerant of dissenting speech. They claim to support the rights of women, but blindly support the most anti woman religion on Earth, Islam. Their agenda is as simple as ABC, anything but Christianity.
You must be living in a different world than I am, Thomas. I see no such actions or intent on the part of what you call Secular Humanists. All most people want is the freedom to find their own way in this world without some group who thinks they have God on their side telling us what to think and what to do within our own life or family. You want the same, except you do not want the Moslems telling you what to believe. In this sense, we are on the same side. The difference is that I don't want Christians forcing me to adopt their value system either.
4. Contraception? Sure, why not. I have no problem with this. But please, if anyone out there wants to force the use of them on people who do NOT want to use them, kindly take a hike. This statement is not directly aimed at anyone.
As far I know, no one is forced to use contraception. However, for awhile in this country and even now in some other countries, condoms were not easily available because the Catholic Church was opposed.
The contraception issue makes me glad that I'm not a Catholic.
5. Are you guys actually reading this? I don't get many replies........
Does this quantify?
6. You know, the Pope just died. He meant alot to many people. (I am not catholic, by the way, but I damn sure respect them and am not going to say they are 400 years behind!) If this form of lack of respect for the dearly departed is implicit in your atheistic-utopia vision, then count me completely out.
I think you miss the difference between respect and agreement with opinion and policy. I respect the pope, but I think, for what its worth, his policy is harmful to humanity. I respect you but I do not share your beliefs.
7. If this continued anti-religious bias is to be embraced and accepted, then do not EVER ask me to show compassion towards some special interest group of to feel sorry for Muslims who might have been discriminated against in the days to follow September 11th. Why should one group be discriminated against and not another?
Why indeed? I agree, we should be equal opportunity discriminators. :-)
You finally said something that I agree with!
8. DISCLAIMER!!! This is aimed at no one in particular! (so don't take it as being aimed at you, the cost of some contraceptives or an abortion is much more than the cost of the gunpowder it took you to blow yourself to hell.
I bit of over reaction. don't you think?
Someone is clearly feeling quite frustrated!
There are more, but for the moment I am too pissed off to handle them clearly. I am sorry if the tone is
We all suffer from our past experiences and are sensitive to criticism. That is why no laws should be passed for behavior that does not harm another person. However, religion seems to think that an absolute behavior exists, which is determined by God. Hence, they want to force everyone to have that behavior. That is the problem, not the reverse, which causes you heart burn.
Religion sets out a morality which outlines the standards of behavior. At this time we all have free will, and compliance is optional.
Here, we agree. Now if we can get the so called religious right to agree, we both would be happy.
Jed, you believe science and religion cannot coexist. This isn't a belief, you are stating something as
I think Jed was making the general observation that logic based on science has a hard time with faith based on religion. If you can, as many people do, occupy both worlds without conflict, you are very much like most people.
Including Isaac Newton and many others who laid the foundations of scientific logic that you admire so much.
Sorry if this offended anyone. But maybe it is time those people who quietly keep getting offended themselves say something.
No offense taken.
and I hope you will excuse my religious zealotry too.
Enthusiasm by a person about his beliefs is to be admired, as long as it is confined to discussion. We all learn something from such an effort.
Regards, Ed
Regards, Ed
Regards, --Kyle
Thomas
