I can't get religious gay people!

[Mr-Brooding]

That is the problem with organized religion. People pick and choose what they want to believe and they don't.
Just like the hundreds of expensive road signs that are ignored or not even understood in the first place. There can be 12 signs in as many miles stating the speed limit is 60 mph but everyone chooses what they feel comfortable with like 75 or 80. However when the cop gives you a ticket for doing 75 in a 60 zone you have no defense. What is law is what is law.

1. I can do whatever in the HELL I want
2. I'm not into organized religion. I believe my relationship with the God I believe in is a personal one that other men cannot define for me, therefore, I don't belong to a church or anything. I live in religious freedom.
3. Religion is a lot more complex than speed limit signs.

 

[Ozymandias]

the Bible says the Earth is merely 6,000 years old. We know that isn't factually possible. There is far more scientific fallacies in the Bible than there are scientific discoveries.

If you use the Bible as a science text book, that's your own fault.
The Bible is man's thought about God. Not God's miraculously revealed word. And when I say "man's thought", I'm talking about a bronze-age tribe wandering around the desert, followed by an updated version (the New Testament) when the resultant society and its priesthood had become corrupt. We can see a contemporary version of this in Islamic societes. And have seen many versions of this in past Christian and Islamic societies, to different degrees. Nothing to guilt-trip over, alas, people do.

There can be 12 signs in as many miles stating the speed limit is 60 mph but everyone chooses what they feel comfortable with like 75 or 80. However when the cop gives you a ticket for doing 75 in a 60 zone you have no defense. What is law is what is law.

Are you really comparing laws established by democratically elected parliaments, accountable (in theory) to the people, to divinely ordained laws (handed down on someone's say so)?

My "belief":
The only thing humans can rationally recognise is evidence. Based on evidence, God doesn't exist.
If God exists, He is the creator of the universe and we are His thoughts.
We are limited in perceiving the universe by what human language can express (thus, think) and the capabilites of our brains. We can't *really* conceptualise what 1,000,000 years of time is like, or something like bent space-time. But those things must be true, or in case of Einstein, at least partially true, because all other evidence supports it and machines built to those theories work.
So, if God exists, he made ALL that, including gay people, genocide, love and tiramisu. If he doesn't exist, well, he doesn't. Thus, God is irrelevant to the way we conduct our lives.
What screaming preachers claim, going through contortions on stage in front of their sweating, orgasmic audiences, is of no relevance to our lives whatsoever.

If there have to be churches, I prefer one of those world-wise branches that recognises its own fallabilty.

 

[Stardreamer]

However, there is evidence that Christianity and all other major religions are completely false. I'm sure you've heard this before, but the Bible says the Earth is merely 6,000 years old. We know that isn't factually possible. There is far more scientific fallacies in the Bible than there are scientific discoveries.

The Bible does not say anything about how old the Earth is. Someone along the line made a rather unscientific shaky guess based on the number of generations listed in the Old Testament.

 

[bort138]

unsubstantiated rumors are good enough for me to base my life upon

 

[Kulindahr]

where at..?

Megiddo..?

Megiddo and possibly Jerusalem -- earthquake damage in Jerusalem caused the work to be stopped before they had any certain indication what they were looking at. But there were indications that the area the Crusaders called "Solomon's Stables" might very well have been that. Sadly, we'll probably never know -- as I recall, the concern was that further work could topple a chunk of the Wailing Wall, something definitely not politic.

 

[Kulindahr]

Are you really comparing laws established by democratically elected parliaments, accountable (in theory) to the people, to divinely ordained laws (handed down on someone's say so)?

No, he isn't.

Read it again.

 

[Kulindahr]

The Bible does not say anything about how old the Earth is. Someone along the line made a rather unscientific shaky guess based on the number of generations listed in the Old Testament.

Yeah. Trying to figure out how he did it, my sister and I once spread a roll of heavy newsprint across our floor and set to work.

We never did come up with his figure; ours was a number between 7,000 years and infinity. Using the Bible there's no way to put an upper limit on the earth's age, for such reasons as no indication is given of how long is was "without form, and void", or how long they were in the Garden. Of course that's taking Genesis 1 & 2 literally, which is a matter of ignorance in the first place.

 

[bort138]

if the bible was really the word of god why didn't he just create the bible instead of having men who are imperfect try to interpret the word of god and write it down?

 

[youfiad]

Some people can't handle the thought of not having something bigger out there so they listen to whatever dogma they are taught as a child. I have yet to meet one religious person who actually follows their religious book literally. Most just cherry pick through it to suit their needs.

 

[Kulindahr]

Some people can't handle the thought of not having something bigger out there so they listen to whatever dogma they are taught as a child. I have yet to meet one religious person who actually follows their religious book literally. Most just cherry pick through it to suit their needs.

For the Bible at least, only the ignorant take it literally -- honest people take it according the the different types of literature in which it was written.

 

[youfiad]

To choose to accept a religious truth is NOT tantamount to simply accepting dogma without evaluation, blindly following.[/B


It's the precise definition of irrational; accepting something without evidence. If you think that your evidence is valid, but is not demonstrative, then that opens the door to literally any belief. I can believe that the pen that I use to take tests has mystical powers that allow me to get good grades and all I have to claim is that I have evaluated it and have personally concluded that it is truth? What about evidence and reproducibility? Of course it's blindly accepting it.

 

[Kulindahr]

True, to be sure, but that isn't the whole story, is it?

Some CAN handle the thought, and even find it easier to accept coldly rationale thought, but CHOOSE to believe BECAUSE they see something in life beyond the empirical. Long has been the friction between those who are mystical or metaphysical, and those who are rational and cynical.

To choose to accept a religious truth is NOT tantamount to simply accepting dogma without evaluation, blindly following.

And the suggestion that the faithful SHOULD accept every printed word of a writ is to imply one has to be a simple-minded dogmatic believer, or a hypocrite. Humans make selective choices about all sorts of things every day. We ignore financial advice, relationship counseling, career guidance. The assumption is never that one should accept every guidance given. To suggest that religion is somehow different is to accept the Fundamentalist or literalist as the only valid follower, which obviously isn't true.

The implication that religion is the crutch of the weak is not something that I would conclude after having worshipped among many different sects in my 50 years.

I would find it insulting if any claimed deity expected to do all our thinking for us. Giving us brains and planning for us to ignore that we have them is silly.

 

[Kulindahr]

To choose to accept a religious truth is NOT tantamount to simply accepting dogma without evaluation, blindly following.[/B


It's the precise definition of irrational; accepting something without evidence. If you think that your evidence is valid, but is not demonstrative, then that opens the door to literally any belief. I can believe that the pen that I use to take tests has mystical powers that allow me to get good grades and all I have to claim is that I have evaluated it and have personally concluded that it is truth? What about evidence and reproducibility? Of course it's blindly accepting it.

Three cheers for a straw man argument.

 

[youfiad]

Three cheers for a straw man argument.

Doesn't qualify as straw man ^^ Sad all you want, I won't address your comments. We've been down this road and I had many people message me saying that they aggreed with me and thought that you were on crack. Well they didn't say you were on crack, but they very much disagreed in your views. So I won't be speaking to you on this thread, so if you have any respect, refrain from talking about me, or talking to me. We can talk about anything else on any other thread, but not about religion or God.

 

[DigitalFudge]

Trying to snatch a hit thread I see

God =/= Religion

 

[SuperNatural]

I'm not overly religious (basically meaning that I don't go to church, I don't participate in church functions, or things of the sort). My friends, when I first told them of my sexual orientation, told me that God "would send me to Hell." I don't know if they were acting out of shock, spite, or being honest.

My views on it are pretty simple. If you believe God is there, then he will accept you. I don't believe I have to go sit in a church, donate money, and listen to someone tell me to read certain things in an agenda he created to recite.

So, with that being say, I'm perfectly fine with my sexual orientation and my religious views. Some of my family hates it, and others are inspired by it. I just put very little thought into it, the semantics that is. It's all 'he said, she said' in the end when you boil it down.

Enjoy the life you want to, and stop letting others tell you how to run it. If you don't believe in God, I wholeheartedly respect that. I would never shove my beliefs down your throat. But don't condemn me for what I believe... because I'll shove more than my words back at you.

Nicely put!!! I agree with this

 

[bankside]

Three cheers for a straw man argument.

If youfiad argues religion is irrational because it has no evidence…
…and you assert this is a straw man argument….
…it implies that you also would assert that religion has good evidence in favour of it…


Of course one of the properties of "evidence" is that it can be noted and described and reviewed and then be found to be more or less convincing, and confirmed or discarded.

So what is it?

You've certainly made it plain that religions are supported by testimony. I'd like to hear your view as to why this testimony constitutes evidence as opposed to hearsay and a catalogue of superstitions and misunderstandings.

Other than that, what can you point to as evidence?

 

[Kulindahr]

Doesn't qualify as straw man ^^ Sad all you want, I won't address your comments. We've been down this road and I had many people message me saying that they aggreed with me and thought that you were on crack. Well they didn't say you were on crack, but they very much disagreed in your views. So I won't be speaking to you on this thread, so if you have any respect, refrain from talking about me, or talking to me. We can talk about anything else on any other thread, but not about religion or God.

I'm being asked to have respect for a position that maintains it's okay to ambush people with insults about their religion, makes accusations of fallacies without backing them up, demand that religion measure up to science while showing an ignorance of science?

Where there's no respect for people because they don't hold to the faith position that science is the measure of all things, why should those thus disrespected give any respect back?

So when someone says something ignorant or fallacious with respect to religion, I'll continue to respond.

 

[Kulindahr]

God =/= Religion

True -- and worth remembering. By the last couple of definitions I've seen posted around here, I'm not religious.

I'm not sure what the chick is supposed to represent, though. An attempt at hypnosis?

If youfiad argues religion is irrational because it has no evidence…
…and you assert this is a straw man argument….
…it implies that you also would assert that religion has good evidence in favour of it…

I don't believe you're interested in evidence any more than he is. So far his tactics have been to insult, to fail to back up his claims, and to assert that only science can be used to know things (while denying it).

And his argument is a straw man because he invents some cheap materialistic trick to compare with something nowhere near cheap, definitely not materialistic, and hardly a trick. At least, last time I checked, people didn't preach something they knew to be a lie and willingly face death for that lie.

Of course one of the properties of "evidence" is that it can be noted and described and reviewed and then be found to be more or less convincing, and confirmed or discarded.

So what is it?

You've certainly made it plain that religions are supported by testimony. I'd like to hear your view as to why this testimony constitutes evidence as opposed to hearsay and a catalogue of superstitions and misunderstandings.

Other than that, what can you point to as evidence?

Do you mean scientific evidence? If so, you're doing the same thing youfiad does: asserting that someone else's faith position is invalid because it doesn't conform to his faith position.

That's the root failure of almost all atheists who zealously attack religion: they're attacking people for having faith, but that's the very thing they're operating on when they insist that science is the only valid measure of things.

Because of that no evidence anyone brings is going to be accepted: you're all already determined not to accept anything that's not scientific. That's a position of faith just as fanatic as that of the young earth Creationists.

 

[fetaby]

Evidence. I don't think it means what you think it means...

But this is entertaining.

The existence or nonexistence of a god is the least of this worlds worries.