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I would absolutely refuse to go to a gay wedding and I wouldn't go to a wedding of two heterosexuals who are living together before the wedding because I honor the God of the Bible.
Yay! Yet another example of why religion is the most divisive force ever constructed by the human imagination!
It's *so* divisive, in fact, that even in a small town where everyone worships the same God under the same general religious banner (i.e. Christianity), internacine squabbling and judging and fighting occurs between various factions. You should worship like this. No, you should worship like that. And I'm going to nitpick this particular rule and make it important. Oh yeah? Well, I'm going to harp to high heaven about this particular rule because your rule isn't all that important!
You have entire regions in the Middle East still living in the Stone Age because of this fluff and nonsense. Other regions are up to their necks in terror bombings and suicide attacks because three or four different factions within the same religion simply cannot live together side-by-side. Of course, we don't even need to delve into the religiously motivated acts of violence we're all too aware of like 9/11, the Madrid subway bombing, the Paris attack, and even the shootings in San Bernardino. These religious nutjobs even think they can rewrite history by dynamiting every ancient ruin belonging to another religion as if they can erase the past and pretend that Islam was the only religion that had ever existed -- once they conquer the world and ram their own fairy tale down everyone's throats just like Charlamagne once did with Christianity as he conquered pagan tribes one after the other. And of course that brings me to the Western world ...
Oh, but the Western world, the world of Christendom, is more civilized, you might be inclined to say. Sure, I would have to agree with you. But only to a point. There was a time not so very long ago when Christian factions were just as violent, bloody, and intolerant as the radical Muslims are right now. They just didn't have vests laden with explosives, car bombs, improvised explosive devices, or jet aircraft to hijack and fly into buildings in those days. But they had their own form of terror and most Christian conquerors after the fall of Rome demanded every last member of a subjugated pagan tribe kneel before an altar and convert on the spot or die on the spot.
This isn't a lecture on how Christians are just as bad as Muslims. No. My point is to illustrate the extreme intolerance of religion -- how it simply cannot coexist with other beliefs, non-belief, or even differing beliefs within the *same* religion. They must always be stamped out in some way because, well, religion only brings those of the exact same faith and denomination together while practically shoving everyone else away even with the force of violence. Don't think for a nanosecond that Trump, for instance, isn't going to turn this war on ISIS into a Christian vs. Muslim war of belief because he will -- people won't always fight for king and country but, for some ignorant, silly reason, people are always more than willing to kill and be killed by the millions in the name of their petty little gods.
In other words, people will sit on their duffs and do nothing when action is truly needed, but the one thing they will invariably get up away from their televisions and iPads to fight over is the one thing that brings about the least tangible good -- and that, of course, is religion. After all the fighting and dying, the only outcome is that one religion and one god ends up dominant thus instead of praying to and praising one non-existent being, everyone is praying to and praising a different non-existent being. Fewer human endeavors in the history of humanity have been more uttlerly pointless than that.
But wait! What in the *hell* does any of this have to do with one guy refusing to attend a gay wedding or the wedding of two heterosexuals who lived together before the marriage ceremony?!?
I'm sure the more adept know already what I'm about to say -- as do those who are more familiar with my posts.
In the United States -- as in the rest of the civilized world -- we simply can't use suicide vests, car bombs, IEDs, and other acts of terror to express our disapproval with someone else's beliefs. Instead, we commit little acts of domestic terrorism by puffing out our chests, mounting our high horses, and proclaiming such nonsense as, "I won't attend the marriage of a gay couple or a cohabitating couple because I [insert sanctimonious, proud look at this point] honor the God of the Bible!"
As if the God of the Bible is going to send you directly to Hell because you dared to attend one of those weddings. Yep ... says it right there in the Bible: There are two, count 'em, TWO unforgiveable sins. One is blasphemy and the other is attending the wedding of a homosexual or cohabitating couple! Of course, someone will have to quote chapter and verse concerning the latter, but surely it MUST be in there if this scgraham person is willing to muck up his family with such holier-than-thou rubbish.
Right? RIGHT!?
Or is your God too damn small to forgive you for granting an act of kindness by lending your presence to such an important ceremony involving someone you actually give a couple of F's about?
If you feel that you can't go to a wedding because of what your God thinks, then what does that say about your god? Yeah, note the small 'g' because any God who would be so selfish -- not to mention bigoted and hateful -- as to punish you for an act of kindness doesn't deserve a capital letter.
If God doesn't like their marriage, well, he doesn't have to bless it -- not that any couple will ever notice the difference between a blessed and unblessed marriage anyway, so who cares.
But any religion or belief system that demands that a god be placed first ahead of the human beings we love and cherish, you're in a cult. Yes, a very big and very old cult to be sure, but still a cult.
Yes, everyone, this post got up and ran away with me just like most of my posts do; what was supposed to be a rather short quip against this scgraham character who so eloquently displays what I consider to be emotional terrorism based on religion turned into a rather lengthy attack on the divisiveness of religion.
So I will end this post with perhaps one of the most crucial paradigms I hold dear when it comes to my own personal view of atheism -- and for my reasons for a wholesale rejection of the Abrahamic religions specifically:
Any belief system, religious or otherwise, that tells you to place a god before the love and caring you have for even the least of we mortals here on earth is toxic, corrupted, and borderline evil. No true God who would truly be the wellspring of love and forgiveness would ask, much less demand, that we always put God first in our lives regardless of the damage it would do to our families, friends, communities, and nations. A God who is truly good would not be so vain, selfish, and full of his own ego.
Unfortunately, there are still way too many people who are all too willing to allow some ancient god of the Hebrews to dictate their actions -- a god who, if he actually existed, is just too lazy or too apathetic to send us a revised and updated set of rules more attuned to the modern world. You know, one that doesn't include such stupidity as not boiling a goat in its own mother's milk, insisting that your cloak have tassels on all four corners, declaring women who are menstruating as spiritually "unclean," and the ridiculous lists of dietary restrictions. Instead, these Bible-worshiping Christians have to follow an incomplete book that has been translated too many times; a book that was written with rules custom designed for the Hebrews who were living in a very specific place in a very specific time in history.
Funny how I always hear people say that, "I put God first" or "I honor the God of the Bible." What I almost *never* hear is someone say "I put Jesus first" or "I honor the teachings of Jesus."
Because it's easy to be like scgraham whom I quoted (way) above. It's easy to demonstrate one's Christianity by refusing to attend a gay wedding, refusing to bake a cake for said gay wedding, to stand in protest against transgender rights, to throw fits over cashiers saying 'happy holidays' instead of 'merry Christmas,' to go on some kind of crusade against Harry Potter, or some other ridiculous, mean-spirited, compassionless rant. It's easy to sit in judgment of your neighbors and point out how they're all sinning but following Jesus, well ... that's hard.
Because putting Jesus first and honoring his teachings means you really *do* have to be tolerant, forgiving, compassionate toward the poor and needy, generous and giving of oneself, and certainly more selective in which rules are important to follow -- because everyone knows you can't follow them all. For instance, I'm more than willing to bet that this scgraham person has done his/her share of work on the Sabbath, and even if he/she hasn't, I'm still willing to bet that he's at least once lent a hand to someone else who *was* working, even if it was for just a single task.
What you do *not* see is scgraham telling that person, "I refuse to help you carry that couch into your house because it's the Sabbath and people who work on Sunday ought to be put to death!" No, because scgraham has willfully decided to ignore that rule -- and equally willfully decided *not* to ignore the rule against homosexuality even though not working on the Sabbath actually made it into the 10 Commandments whereas the prohibition against homosexuality did not.
Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. scgraham really needs to reevaluate what's actually important when it comes to his/her faith -- and if tearing apart his/her family or even just making his/her loved one feel like crap via scgraham's absence is how he/she thinks the world should work, it only reinforces what I've been saying about religion throughout this entire post.
So shirina we get that you blame religion for all the world's problems.
So poof religion disappears. And lo and behold all those same problems still exist.
And you find something else to blame for all the world's problems. Government, politicians, healthcare system, whatever.
And then what? Where is this going?
But religion DOES exist and the unfortunate results that religion creates as spoken of by Shirina ALSO exist. Shirina's post was very well constructed and, though a tad lengthy for many today who have the attention span of a goldfish, I would recommend it to anyone for the very good read that it is.
Only one objection to what was otherwise quite a masterpiece, the Sabbath command referred to in the 4th-commandment is Saturday and not Sunday . . .
Yay! Yet another example of why religion is the most divisive force ever constructed by the human imagination!
It's *so* divisive, in fact, that even in a small town where everyone worships the same God under the same general religious banner (i.e. Christianity), internecine squabbling and judging and fighting occurs between various factions. You should worship like this. No, you should worship like that. And I'm going to nitpick this particular rule and make it important. Oh yeah? Well, I'm going to harp to high heaven about this particular rule because your rule isn't all that important!
You have entire regions in the Middle East still living in the Stone Age because of this fluff and nonsense. Other regions are up to their necks in terror bombings and suicide attacks because three or four different factions within the same religion simply cannot live together side-by-side. Of course, we don't even need to delve into the religiously motivated acts of violence we're all too aware of like 9/11, the Madrid subway bombing, the Paris attack, and even the shootings in San Bernardino. These religious nutjobs even think they can rewrite history by dynamiting every ancient ruin belonging to another religion as if they can erase the past and pretend that Islam was the only religion that had ever existed -- once they conquer the world and ram their own fairy tale down everyone's throats just like Charlemagne once did with Christianity as he conquered pagan tribes one after the other. And of course that brings me to the Western world ...
Oh, but the Western world, the world of Christendom, is more civilized, you might be inclined to say. Sure, I would have to agree with you. But only to a point. There was a time not so very long ago when Christian factions were just as violent, bloody, and intolerant as the radical Muslims are right now. They just didn't have vests laden with explosives, car bombs, improvised explosive devices, or jet aircraft to hijack and fly into buildings in those days. But they had their own form of terror and most Christian conquerors after the fall of Rome demanded every last member of a subjugated pagan tribe kneel before an altar and convert on the spot or die on the spot.
This isn't a lecture on how Christians are just as bad as Muslims. No. My point is to illustrate the extreme intolerance of religion -- how it simply cannot coexist with other beliefs, non-belief, or even differing beliefs within the *same* religion. They must always be stamped out in some way because, well, religion only brings those of the exact same faith and denomination together while practically shoving everyone else away even with the force of violence. Don't think for a nanosecond that Trump, for instance, isn't going to turn this war on ISIS into a Christian vs. Muslim war of belief because he will -- people won't always fight for king and country but, for some ignorant, silly reason, people are always more than willing to kill and be killed by the millions in the name of their petty little gods.
In other words, people will sit on their duffs and do nothing when action is truly needed, but the one thing they will invariably get up away from their televisions and iPads to fight over is the one thing that brings about the least tangible good -- and that, of course, is religion. After all the fighting and dying, the only outcome is that one religion and one god ends up dominant thus instead of praying to and praising one non-existent being, everyone is praying to and praising a different non-existent being. Fewer human endeavors in the history of humanity have been more utterly pointless than that.
But wait! What in the *hell* does any of this have to do with one guy refusing to attend a gay wedding or the wedding of two heterosexuals who lived together before the marriage ceremony?!?
I'm sure the more adept know already what I'm about to say -- as do those who are more familiar with my posts.
In the United States -- as in the rest of the civilized world -- we simply can't use suicide vests, car bombs, IEDs, and other acts of terror to express our disapproval with someone else's beliefs. Instead, we commit little acts of domestic terrorism by puffing out our chests, mounting our high horses, and proclaiming such nonsense as, "I won't attend the marriage of a gay couple or a cohabitating couple because I [insert sanctimonious, proud look at this point] honor the God of the Bible!"
As if the God of the Bible is going to send you directly to Hell because you dared to attend one of those weddings. Yep ... says it right there in the Bible: There are two, count 'em, TWO unforgivable sins. One is blasphemy and the other is attending the wedding of a homosexual or cohabitating couple! Of course, someone will have to quote chapter and verse concerning the latter, but surely it MUST be in there if this scgraham person is willing to muck up his family with such holier-than-thou rubbish.
Right? RIGHT!?
Or is your God too damn small to forgive you for granting an act of kindness by lending your presence to such an important ceremony involving someone you actually give a couple of F's about?
If you feel that you can't go to a wedding because of what your God thinks, then what does that say about your god? Yeah, note the small 'g' because any God who would be so selfish -- not to mention bigoted and hateful -- as to punish you for an act of kindness doesn't deserve a capital letter.
If God doesn't like their marriage, well, he doesn't have to bless it -- not that any couple will ever notice the difference between a blessed and unblessed marriage anyway, so who cares.
But any religion or belief system that demands that a god be placed first ahead of the human beings we love and cherish, you're in a cult. Yes, a very big and very old cult to be sure, but still a cult.
Yes, everyone, this post got up and ran away with me just like most of my posts do; what was supposed to be a rather short quip against this scgraham character who so eloquently displays what I consider to be emotional terrorism based on religion turned into a rather lengthy attack on the divisiveness of religion.
So I will end this post with perhaps one of the most crucial paradigms I hold dear when it comes to my own personal view of atheism -- and for my reasons for a wholesale rejection of the Abrahamic religions specifically:
Any belief system, religious or otherwise, that tells you to place a god before the love and caring you have for even the least of we mortals here on earth is toxic, corrupted, and borderline evil. No true God who would truly be the wellspring of love and forgiveness would ask, much less demand, that we always put God first in our lives regardless of the damage it would do to our families, friends, communities, and nations. A God who is truly good would not be so vain, selfish, and full of his own ego.
Unfortunately, there are still way too many people who are all too willing to allow some ancient god of the Hebrews to dictate their actions -- a god who, if he actually existed, is just too lazy or too apathetic to send us a revised and updated set of rules more attuned to the modern world. You know, one that doesn't include such stupidity as not boiling a goat in its own mother's milk, insisting that your cloak have tassels on all four corners, declaring women who are menstruating as spiritually "unclean," and the ridiculous lists of dietary restrictions. Instead, these Bible-worshiping Christians have to follow an incomplete book that has been translated too many times; a book that was written with rules custom designed for the Hebrews who were living in a very specific place in a very specific time in history.
Funny how I always hear people say that, "I put God first" or "I honor the God of the Bible." What I almost *never* hear is someone say "I put Jesus first" or "I honor the teachings of Jesus."
Because it's easy to be like scgraham whom I quoted (way) above. It's easy to demonstrate one's Christianity by refusing to attend a gay wedding, refusing to bake a cake for said gay wedding, to stand in protest against transgender rights, to throw fits over cashiers saying 'happy holidays' instead of 'merry Christmas,' to go on some kind of crusade against Harry Potter, or some other ridiculous, mean-spirited, compassionless rant. It's easy to sit in judgment of your neighbors and point out how they're all sinning but following Jesus, well ... that's hard.
Because putting Jesus first and honoring his teachings means you really *do* have to be tolerant, forgiving, compassionate toward the poor and needy, generous and giving of oneself, and certainly more selective in which rules are important to follow -- because everyone knows you can't follow them all. For instance, I'm more than willing to bet that this scgraham person has done his/her share of work on the Sabbath, and even if he/she hasn't, I'm still willing to bet that he's at least once lent a hand to someone else who *was* working, even if it was for just a single task.
What you do *not* see is scgraham telling that person, "I refuse to help you carry that couch into your house because it's the Sabbath and people who work on Sunday ought to be put to death!" No, because scgraham has willfully decided to ignore that rule -- and equally willfully decided *not* to ignore the rule against homosexuality even though not working on the Sabbath actually made it into the 10 Commandments whereas the prohibition against homosexuality did not.
Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. scgraham really needs to reevaluate what's actually important when it comes to his/her faith -- and if tearing apart his/her family or even just making his/her loved one feel like crap via scgraham's absence is how he/she thinks the world should work, it only reinforces what I've been saying about religion throughout this entire post.
So shirina we get that you blame religion for all the world's problems. So poof religion disappears. And lo and behold all those same problems still exist. And you find something else to blame for all the world's problems. Government, politicians, healthcare system, whatever. And then what? Where is this going?
I do not think we should be viewing it as a case of "poof religion is gone" however. Firstly because I do not even remotely believe that is going to happen......... the death of the religion will be a slow decline over many generations......... and secondly because even the most vocal of atheists do not tend to WANT that to happen. And thirdly because history has seen the effects of any attempt to force religion out of a society to replace it with some other political dogma or state religion.
Most atheists appear to celebrate pluralism and diversity and color and culture. Few of them wish religion to simply go away. They simply want to keep it out of our halls of power, education and science...... and out of the moral discourse that we would presume to hold others accountable to.
"All the world's problems" are not going to be solved by religion OR lack of religion. If they are ever solved I expect they will be solved by the only tool I think we actually have to solve it with. Human Discourse. There simply is nothing I can envision that is going to get us there from here other than that.
The issue with religion therefore is not that removing it will suddenly solve all the world's problems........ but keeping it in it's place will allow us to have the discourse we need to have without being hampered by the nonsense it generates.
As I often do, although I am not any real huge fan of the man himself in any significant way, I am compelled to quote the Keynote speech that Obama offered us in 2006 on the subject. It illuminates EXACTLY what I mean here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OBAMA
This brings me to my second point. Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise.
Not there how it does NOT suggest religion should go away, NOR does it suggest there is a problem with the religious being "religiously motivated". It just demands that their motivations can be translated into a real world human discourse not couched in fantasy or unsubstantiated nonsense. And THAT is the world most atheists and secularists fight for. Not a world free of personal faith or religion......... but a world influenced by it in the right ways.
So shirina we get that you blame religion for all the world's problems.
So poof religion disappears. And lo and behold all those same problems still exist.
And you find something else to blame for all the world's problems. Government, politicians, healthcare system, whatever.
And then what? Where is this going?
The simple fact is that religion is used as a tool by the unscrupulous to control others. All that needs to "poof" is the ability to do so in politics.
The simple fact is that religion is used as a tool by the unscrupulous to control others. All that needs to "poof" is the ability to do so in politics.
We are working on that.... quite well I'd say.
What's the measuring stick? The last election or a C-D conscientious?
Comfort yourself with the MT quote: "So there you have it: Heaven for climate, Hell for society." He had just told the story of a young man who tried diligently to attain Heaven and when he got there the first person he saw was one he had hoped the whole time had gone to another destination. He was so outraged that he inquired the way to Hell, picked up his satchel and left." Some people affect me that way I'm sorry to say.
Yes, I hate to say it, but if Heaven were to be filled with people like scgraham, then I hope I don't go there. Most of my friends and family probably wouldn't be there anyways. I don't care what the alternative is, that is as much a hell to me as anything else. I may not be religious, but I don't discount that there may be something more. I just don't think it is the Heaven and Hell as imagined by small minded (Read: Not all) theists.
No, there are just many on here who want to treat them as lesser, keep them from having equal rights, etc. No, there are just many on here who constantly tell them how horrible they are, and that God hates who they are and will send them to hell for being themselves.
So sure, there aren't many (Don't know about "any") Christians on here saying to hate gays, they are simply telling everyone how much they and their God dislike them, and how they aren't to be treated as equals....
Then again, I am not seeing much difference in the two....
What's the measuring stick? The last election or a C-D conscientious?
How much ---- sticks after court review.
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