Video of parents refusing to go to their son's gay wedding (atheists, American)

[ImissThe90's]

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Not necessarily. I have atheist friends and whenever I see them I don't only see someone who needs to be saved. I see them as my friend. Plus if you think about it. If christains hate homosexuals then we wouldn't be telling them that they need to turn their life over. Because by telling you to turn your life over I'm saying "I want to see you in heaven with me. Please heed my warning. I don't want to see you suffer."

Am I the only one calling BS on the bold? It is like the obvious white supremacist saying he has black friends.


Maccabee, you clearly have no atheist friends. In fact, the way you talk, I would be surprised if you would even talk to an atheist if it wasn't a conversion ploy, and you certainly wouldn't see them as your friends. I am sure your god would frown upon associating with us heathens, right?

[Maccabee 2A]

Originally Posted by FredNotBob

I could point to a 'small sect' of Christianity that believes in almost anything. The Heaven's Gate suicide cult believed that God was an alien and a spacecraft was going to spirit them away after they died, for crying out loud.

You asked to be shown a Christian that hates gays, which I did (and which we've both acknowledged); retroactively changing the parameters of a request after a satisfactory answer has been given is 'moving the goalposts', whatever the intended context.

To address your points:

I can't say that any Christian that I know personally hates gay people; that said, the United Church (which my family belongs to) has issued a statement affirming that they are an inclusive community, so looking in that direction is, in all probability, pointless.

Nor can I point to anyone on this forum that hasdirectly stated that they hate gay people; I must point out, however, that CityData's ToS include a strict 'zero-tolerance' clause for hate-related speech, so again, a search in that regard would largely be futile.

When it comes to my workplace, the topic never comes up. Frankly, I and my co-workers are there to work, not debate theology. Outside of work hours, I don't associate with openly homophobic people if I have any say in the matter.

In the incredibly narrow context that you have chosen, one party has institutionally declared that they are accepting of the LGBT community , and the other does not allow hate-related speech (both of which thus make it impossible to meet your criteria).

That being said, I feel that my initial responses adequately addressed at least the letter of your post, even if I misconstrued the context.

Ok then.

[Maccabee 2A]

Originally Posted by ImissThe90's

Am I the only one calling BS on the bold? It is like the obvious white supremacist saying he has black friends.


Maccabee, you clearly have no atheist friends. In fact, the way you talk, I would be surprised if you would even talk to an atheist if it wasn't a conversion ploy, and you certainly wouldn't see them as your friends. I am sure your god would frown upon associating with us heathens, right?

Believe it or not, I do. We don't talk about God that much and when we do it's a cordial debate.

[ImissThe90's]

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Believe it or not, I do. We don't talk about God that much and when we do it's a cordial debate.

I choose not.


People like you are incapable of having friends with differing beliefs. I mean, do your "atheist friends" know that you compare them to murderers? That you think so little of them?


Yea, I don't buy it. Like I said, you are like the obvious racist guy who claims to have black friends.

[RomulusXXV]

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Not necessarily. I have atheist friends and whenever I see them I don't only see someone who needs to be saved. I see them as my friend. Plus if you think about it. If christains hate homosexuals then we wouldn't be telling them that they need to turn their life over. Because by telling you to turn your life over I'm saying "I want to see you in heaven with me. Please heed my warning. I don't want to see you suffer."

Originally Posted by ImissThe90's

Am I the only one calling BS on the bold? It is like the obvious white supremacist saying he has black friends.

Actually, I'm more tickled by the vehement anti-gay person who claims to have 'many gay friends'. How many times do we see this on the forum . . .?

Originally Posted by ImissThe90's

Maccabee, you clearly have no atheist friends. In fact, the way you talk, I would be surprised if you would even talk to an atheist if it wasn't a conversion ploy, and you certainly wouldn't see them as your friends. I am sure your god would frown upon associating with us heathens, right?

Similarly so with the "I have (many) gay friends" claimants. Imagine this ..."Even though my gay friends know that I think they are despicable and believe that they are deserving of eternal torment in hell ...we still have a good relationship."

[Shirina]

Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801

They need to be part of the "in" group, who will reap the benefits of salvation limited to only a special few, and not one of "the others", who will be left out. There is a very strong "us vs. them" mentality in humanity, and I think that like our natural propensity to take more than what we need--or what belongs to others--we have to monitor ourselves against this human tendency.

Yep, YOU get it.

People like Maccabee and Tzaphiel do NOT get it. They're so fanatical about their beliefs that they cannot see its flaws -- and that is what makes religion dangerous.

Now, add that fanatical nature to what you just said -- that desire to be a part of the "in" crowd -- and you can see how divisive religion has been for the human race.

In fact, the more the "out" crowd suffers the more it affirms, validates, and glorifies the Christian position of being a member of the "in" crowd.

After all, there's no point in even being *in* the "in" crowd if you don't get special privileges that no one else receives -- and the more obvious and public it is, the better. It's like college and belonging to a fraternity/sorority. People walk around with clothing proudly displaying their Greek letters that only *they* can wear letting *everyone* know that, "Hey, I'm a member of a special group and you're not" and hopefully that will generate envy.

The same happened during the Holocaust -- part of the reason why so many normal, decent German citizens didn't object to the horrific treatment of the Jews, Slavs, Russians, Romani, and Poles was because, to be blunt, it made them feel good that they were *not* Jewish, Slavic, Russian, Romani, or Polish. The Holocaust set Aryans apart, made them feel superior whether they *wanted* to feel that way or not. And ... it's always better when the bully is attacking *them* and not *you* so it's best to either ignore the bully or even join in in the bullying.

Yep, you have grasped very easily what SOME people can't obviously understand even if I supplied them with the most tediously laid-out instructions, a hunting dog, a ouija board, a map, Google Earth, and 5 bush trackers from the Australian Outback.

[Shirina]

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Again, where's your evidence?

Ahaha! My evidence? Seriously?

Okay, here is some of my evidence taken from this very thread:

Originally Posted by scgraham

After reading some of these posts, I see why God made a hell for its rightful and worthy inhabitants.

LOL! Did you read the above quote from "scgraham"? In fact, have you even been paying attention to what others have been saying on this thread? Or have you simply been plowing through it with a myopic view that keeps you from noticing?

Right here on this very thread there are multitudes of people exclaiming how people like this "scgraham" character is turning Christianity into a hateful religion. There he is, seemingly gleeful that people will roast in Hell -- mainly due *only* because people disagree with his religious beliefs. Not because they molest kids, murder people, steal from orphanages, lie constantly, or live lives of complete debauchery. Nope. Apparently "scgraham" believes that people should be tortured forever due to their bloody forum posts!

So there you go, there is some evidence right there in your face -- and apparently it's been there for hours and yet you still have the temerity to ask for evidence. *snicker*

The hate is staring back at you and yet you just refuse to see it. Which is why I said in my last post to you that you'll never accept any evidence I give to you no matter *how* conclusive, decisive, and irrefutable it is. That's the nature of religion. It is always unimpeachable regardless of its often horrific shortcomings.

Originally Posted by scgraham

You also see young people rioting in the streets and saying that there's more than two genders even though science says otherwise.

Oh really? Is THAT what science is saying?

Sex redefined : Nature News & Comment

Think again ... and stay current. This is what happens when you cling too tightly to outdated traditions -- especially traditions that cause so much hatred, bigotry, and idiotic discomfort when those traditions aren't strictly and rigidly adhered to. (And Nature is one of the most respected scientific journals so don't even bother trying to attack the source.)

This is truly the one aspect of religion that I still (and most likely never will) understand. Why the hell are religious people so obsessed with gender and sexuality issues? It's the only thing that seems to get them riled up. Poverty, war, crime, abuse, even pedophilia can't get the religious up in arms the way someone daring to shirk gender/sexual tradition seems to do.

And yet -- gender/sexuality issues do no harm to you or anyone else. What difference does it make to you whether someone else is gay or transgender? Why does it bother you so much? Hmm?

Because I'm just not convinced it's merely religion; as I said there are MANY religious rules that people break all the time and I'm not seeing angry mobs trying to force people to obey them. It's only these stupid and irrelevant gender/sexuality issues that have you people grabbing torches and pitchforks and hitting the streets in anger.

You need to get your damn priorities straight or the cross will end up becoming another symbol of hate.

By the way, young people rioting in the streets is completely irrelevant. Nice job pulling that out of thin air and thinking that actually has some bearing on this discussion. I have news: It doesn't.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Just because people are leaving doesn't mean the place that they left was bad.

When someone asks, "Hey, why did you leave that place," and the response is, "Because that place is bad," guess what. Yep. It probably means the place they left was bad.

Ergo, when young people leaving religion specifically state that Christianity is becoming a message of hate, bigotry, and intolerance -- it usually means that Christianity is, well, becoming a message of hate, bigotry, and intolerance.

It's not as though those young people are lying about it. You might want to ascribe some made-up, fantasyland ulterior motive to make yourself feel better, but that's like claiming the noises you hear in your house at night is "only the wind" as a burglar robs you blind.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

In the art world people are leaving traditional art for modern art which in some cases the art they portray is literally (and I do mean that word) garbage.

Art is highly subjective and given to fads. Oppressing, marginalizing, attacking, vilifying, and denying rights to minorities on the basis of, "They're breaking a rule in the Bible!" or "They violate my comfort zone" is not "highly subjective" -- unless, of course, you want to travel down the road of trying to justify any atrocity no matter how horrific it is.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Not as bad as the homosexual marriages.

Where is YOUR evidence, hmm?

WHY is ANY insane hetero marriage better than even the best loving homosexual marriage?

Please, by all means, explain this to me because I'm *really* curious how you justify your statement.

(Let's see if you actually answer this or ignore it like most Christians do.)

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

The problem is that gay marriages are at a lower standard than heterosexual marriages. It's not that I'm holding them at a higher standard, it's just that gay marriages fail at keeping an equal standard.

EVIDENCE! WHERE'S YOUR EVIDENCE!?

Yep, I can play that game, too.

So ... where is it?

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Again, where's your evidence.

Oh please, stop with the annoying ad nauseum fallacy. If you can't refute anything I've said, man-up and admit it.

By the way, where's YOUR evidence?

You've provided ZERO evidence thus far that YOUR opinions on homosexuality are accurate or correct.

So cough it up, bub. Let's see your evidence. You know, the same evidence that has been consistently laughed out of every courtroom in America? Yep, let's see it. Again.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Then why don't you?

Because if I had the ability to invent a time machine ... the last thing I'd do with it is go back in time to copy/paste all of the stupid posts made by Christians about anal sex.

Ya know?

I can't even believe you asked such an inane question.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

For one I'm a Christian Jew. Meaning that take the old and New Testament as something to be observed.

So what. If you want to observe the Bible, go right ahead. You just don't have the right to force anyone else to observe them.

I'm so SICK of those who think they somehow *have* that right -- that they have the moral authority to legislate laws based on the Bible as if religious freedom doesn't exist in this country. And don't even bother going into some stupid tirade about how allowing gay marriage violates *your* religious freedom because it doesn't.

Not unless your idea of "freedom" is the freedom to take away other people's freedom. Yeah, it's all well and good to impose religious fascism upon OTHER people, isn't it.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Secondly Christians do deal with other topics. It's this one in particular that makes the headlines. That'll be like asking if constitutionalists want us to go by what the founding fathers meant then why aren't they talking about the third amendment?

The gay marriage issue made headlines because fundamentalist Christians MADE it a newsworthy issue. If not for their holy crusade *against* gay marriage, the entire event would have been a media sideshow, an "Oh yeah, by the way, gays can now legally get married" kind of story.

It were the fundamentalists who turned it into a media circus because of their hopeless intolerance and Christo-fascism, using the Bible as a weapon to oppress others. Gee, as if religion isn't rife with such things. The United States is the laughing stock of the Western world with our moronically high degree of religiosity. I don't mean having a belief in God, I mean the high degree in which Americans still believe in religion as if this were still the 18th Century. Everything else modernized, but our religious beliefs stayed rooted in a bygone era. Now we look like utter rubes to everyone else -- and rightly we should with the kind of idiocy the fundevangelists force upon the rest of us.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Again, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If you want to see christains engage in other controversies then make those controversies more prevalent.

Christians decide for themselves which controversies should receive the "grease" so to speak. Which is really the point. Instead of focusing on REAL issues that actually affect people, they spend hundreds of millions of dollars fighting gay marriage when that money could have built low-cost housing for the homeless, given people with no insurance the medical treatment and operations they otherwise couldn't afford, sent thousands of poor and unskilled people to college, etc. etc.

Instead, they wasted all those resources on a losing battle ... instead of helping, they spent hundreds of millions (the Mormons spent almost $50 million alone fighting one singular bill) trying to oppress and deny other people their de facto rights. And then you wonder why, as the youth of this county watched this "culture war" play out, watched as gay classmates committed suicide, they decided Christianity was a message of hate.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Where in the Bible does it say to charge interest to the poor?

I said that the Bible says that interest should NOT be charged to the poor. Yet in Christian America, we do the exact opposite: The poorer you are, the higher your interest rate will be on any loan you take out.

You're not supposed to charge interest on loans made to family members, either, by the way.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Because if the God of the Bibke is true then his rules apply to everybody. Just like if the constitution is the law of the land then everybody who lives in America are subject to it.

I bolded this entire quote -- because this is precisely why I have become not just an athiest but also an anti-theist.

There you go. Thanks for putting that out there for everyone to see.

Because it is precisely this kind of belief that causes so much violence and bloodshed, so much oppression and subjugation, so much fear and terrorism, so much intolerance and bigotry.

Yep, my God exists and therefore EVERYONE must bow down to it and obey it's rules and I don't give a flying flip about the freedom of others. My religion's rules apply to them because My God rules over everyone even if the worship "false gods" or no gods at all.

Of course, every other religion is saying the same thing about THEIR god -- while the atheists and non-believers just want to be left the HELL ALONE and be able to make their own choices without the interferance of theocratic fascists.

At any rate, you've pretty much summed up a goodly chunk of what's currently wrong in the world -- what has *always* been wrong: My God is better than your god. Nuh uh. My God is better. Oh yeah? Yeah! Let's fight! What followed was two thousand years of war, violance, death, atrocity, terrorism, persecution, and entire civilizations living in abject fear. It's still going on today -- nearly every hotspot of violence is the result of religious differences. Most of the divisive issues in America have a religious component to them, as well.

Strange, isn't it, that the most peaceful nations in the world -- the happiest, the most successful in today's world are non-religious nations. Hmm, coincidence? I think not.

Thanks, religion!

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Plus if you think about it. If christains hate homosexuals then we wouldn't be telling them that they need to turn their life over. Because by telling you to turn your life over I'm saying "I want to see you in heaven with me. Please heed my warning. I don't want to see you suffer."

First of all, there are *a lot* of Christians who aren't saying that. For instance, there was the *huge* rally, attended by three presidential candidates, held by pastor Kevin Swanson -- a man who says that ALL homosexuals should be put to death by the courts as per the rules in the Bible. Many pastors across the nation have been stirring up abject hatred against gays saying they should be killed at worst, rounded up and put in concentration camps at best.

Are all Christians doing that? No ... but enough of them are. When it gets to the point where Christians even oppose giving homosexuals equal employment opportunities, oppose ALL anti-discrimination bills, boycot businesses that refuse to discriminate against gays, and essentially move well beyond the scope of gay marriage, well, guess what: That looks suspiciously like full-on hatred to many of us. It looks like fundavangelism is declaring war against the LGBT community. I personally think it is STILL at war.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

How I'm being dismissive?

Wha, seriously? You even have to ask that?

You answer everything with a one-sentence response, mostly just "Where's your evidence?" and nothing more. Even if I'm giving an opinion, those opinions can still be discussed. Instead, you're dismissing *everything* with short little dismissive comments.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

What are you talking about?

It's too hard to explain -- and even if I took the time to better put it all to words, it would be dismissed with a response more appropriate to Twitter than a full-on debate forum. So really, why bother? Even the rest of this post was probably a colossal waste of time.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

I think you went off on a tangent.

No, I was giving an example of the tactic you were using, but obviously I didn't explain it well enough with it being somewhat late when I wrote the post. I'm not bothering to reiterate. I can see that I'm dealing with a Twitter debate, not a *real* debate here.

One thing I will give Jeffbase credit for -- he could really infuriate me, but he actually gave a good accounting of himself.

Ah well.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

This has to do with what we're talking about how?

You asked me how you were being dismissive and then just two points later you answer me with something like this.



Like I said in that response that you just didn't get for some obtuse reason: I've been doing this long enough to understand, at this point in the conversation, that no amount of evidence will ever suffice to change your mind, so why bother trying to supply it?

In other words, your insistence on my supplying evidence is just a way of weaseling out of actually confronting anything I've been saying. You're not actually interested in evidence because I understand that can't change religious views with evidence, logic, or well-reasoned arguments. I don't think for a nanosecond that you'd be prepared to say, "Oh wow, she's right!" even if I supplied you enough evidence for one of my points to fill an entire set of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

There ... that's what it has to do with what we're talking about. You've answered roughly 1/3rd of my points with "Where's your evidence?" without a shard of discussion. In my view, you're ducking and dodging because, as I said, you're not *really* interested in evidence. If I gave you the evidence you sought, you would merely ignore that entire point and not mention it again in subsequent posts. That's how it always works.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

You're the one assuming that God punishes gays because he hates them. It's up to you to prove it.

Now that's a hoot. It's up to YOU to prove that God even exists in the first place much less up to ME to prove that God hates gays.

Even so, given that everything said about God is made-up, I can say whatever I want to about God because not one word of the Bible regarding God has been proven.

The certititude of your particular belief is not withstanding.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

He's trying to save you from punishment by telling you not to do it. If he hated you then he would've just kept his mouth shut or better yet tell you that you're not going to hell when in fact you are.

Or he could just not make people gay, right? Wow, there's a thought, but no ... I guess God gets his kicks from creating gay people and then telling them not to be gay or they'll burn. LOL!

And until you've lived with a gay couple for four years and been around the gay culture as I have, I don't even want to hear your OPINION on how being gay is a choice. I happen to know differently from my immersion in the LGBT community for half a decade.

At any rate, you're missing my point entirely. The whole concept of Hell is not only immoral, it is hateful. Period. Nothing you can possibly say will ever convince me otherwise so don't even bother trying. Eternal torture is completely unnecessary and utterly beyond the pale -- an infinite punishment for a finite crime is hardly fair and just, especially for a God that is supposed to be, well ... fair and just.

Your deity is so full of contradictions that he couldn't possibly exist. Even an omnipotent god can't be two diametrically opposite things simultaneously.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Again, if he hated you then he would've kept his mouth shut. It's not him that sends you to hell. It's your own actions.

This is one of the biggest lines of utter bovine excrement trash in all of Christendom. All this does is justify the biggest atrocity ever committed anywhere by anyone ever.

It also demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of the Christian religion. You said you have an atheist friend, right? The fact that you can actually interact with him, be friends with him, laugh and cry with him, confide in him, share memories together -- and look that friend in the eye, all the while believing, really believing, that he deserves to be tortured forever, is one of the most disgusting, despicable, duplicitous, backbiting, belief systems ever foisted upon humanity in the history of our species.

Oh, you might think that you're doing everyone a favor by warning people, but I can tell you from experience that a person like me will *never* be convinced that your God exists because of some ridiculous ancient holy book from the Bronze Age or because someone I know keeps insisting that I'm damned to Hell -- not when *everything* points to there being no God at all. Even the Bible itself does a better job coinvincing me God *doesn't* exist than doing the opposite.

How fair is that? Even assuming God does exist, apparently he created me, created my mind to work as it does. I can't change that. Just like gays can't change who they are. Nor can transgenders.

That whole raunchy "you send yourself to hell" is like fingernails on a chalkboard to those of us who try to be *truly* moral -- instead of trying so desperately to justify gross immorality that, on some level, even you probably know is wrong.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Not believing in trucks doesn't affect the eighteen wheeler that turned you into hamburger meat.

Well, as soon as there is as much evidence for the existence of your God as there is for the existence of eighteen wheelers, let me know.

Until then, your analogy has no merit.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

My point is that their are moral standards much higher than what man thinks is right or wrong.

Actually, there isn't. Morality doesn't exist independently out there in the universe. Without the human mind and consciousness to interpret things as being good and bad, moral or immoral, there are no moral standards.

Yeah, I know. You're going to point to your God -- the absolute worst arbiter of what ought to be considered moral. Yeah, your God who did nothing in the Old Testament except murder people. Never once did your God do anything except kill hundreds of millions of innocents -- even for petty reasons like, say, a bet with Satan or, for instance, sending bears to tear apart 42 children because they called a prophet "old bald head."

Your God, who didn't even care about anyone but the Hebrews. Of course, you say you're Jewish so maybe that matters to you ... but I'm of Asian Indian/Filippino/English descent. Why should a tribal god of the Hebrews interest me? Why should I care what rules Yahweh gave to Hebrews?

It's amazing to me how Christians can so easily ignore that glitch in their religious history. Even Jesus is supposed to be the Jewish messiah yet -- everyone BUT the Jews thinks he's the savior. *blink* I dunnae.

Yeah, I'd rather take morality lessons from Hitler and Stalin.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Where is the wanton violence in the Bible?

What the HELL?

Have you even READ the Bible?

There's more violence in the Bible than there is in any 10 action movies combined.

How can you even ask me, "Where's the wanton violence in the Bible" ... I mean, seriously, I'm starting to think you really don't know diddly squat about your own religion.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

By who's morals are we basing on what's right or wrong?

LOL! The only morality that matters -- ours.

Do you know WHY ours is the only morality that counts?

Because if God's morality is unknowable or completely independent of our own, than there is absolutely NO way that God can be trusted.

There *must* be a common thread between our morality and God's morality else we would have nothing to relate to and God's rules and commands would be like gibberish.

In addition, if God has a completely separate morality from our own, then there is absolutely no way we can possibly claim that he is the wellspring of goodness. We cannot claim that he is just, fair, compassionate, forgiving, wonderful, perfect, etc. etc. because we wouldn't even know what those words mean in relation to God's morality.

Considering the long, long, very long list of atrocities commited directly by or ordered by God in the Old Testament up to, and including, the blood sacrifice of his own son to himself, the only option we would have is to assume that we have morality ALL wrong. That, in fact, being horrible, nasty, bloodthirsty, lunatics is actually the moral way to live whilst the good, just, kind, and fair approach is what God does NOT want from us.

Of course, since you apparently have no idea that there's violence in the Bible (LOL!) then it becomes clear why you're missing so many things in my posts.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

Just because I haven't given any evidence for God's existence in this thread doesn't mean I don't have any.

You don't have any *good* evidence; you don't have any evidence that can't be easily explained as something non-divine.

If you did, then the debate would be over for the entire world and everyone but the mentally addled would become a Christian. Yet, here we are, still debating.

So I'm not falling for the "I have evidence but I'm not sharing it" trick. What that signifies to me is that you have something you *want* to believe is evidence and you don't want that belief shattered by mean old atheists who might be able to tear apart your evidence and explain why it has nothing to do with God.

Originally Posted by Maccabee 2A

I would like to address each point of your rant but that will take too long.

Do you know why responding to my "rant" would take too long Mr. Twitter? It's because I actually produce arguments, not one-sentence fluff responses. It's not my fault you haven't the wherewithall to go toe-to-toe with me.

[GldnRule]

Originally Posted by Shirina

Ahaha! My evidence? Seriously?

Okay, here is some of my evidence taken from this very thread:

LOL! Did you read the above quote from "scgraham"? In fact, have you even been paying attention to what others have been saying on this thread? Or have you simply been plowing through it with a myopic view that keeps you from noticing?

Right here on this very thread there are multitudes of people exclaiming how people like this "scgraham" character is turning Christianity into a hateful religion. There he is, seemingly gleeful that people will roast in Hell -- mainly due *only* because people disagree with his religious beliefs. Not because they molest kids, murder people, steal from orphanages, lie constantly, or live lives of complete debauchery. Nope. Apparently "scgraham" believes that people should be tortured forever due to their bloody forum posts!

So there you go, there is some evidence right there in your face -- and apparently it's been there for hours and yet you still have the temerity to ask for evidence. *snicker*

The hate is staring back at you and yet you just refuse to see it. Which is why I said in my last post to you that you'll never accept any evidence I give to you no matter *how* conclusive, decisive, and irrefutable it is. That's the nature of religion. It is always unimpeachable regardless of its often horrific shortcomings.



Oh really? Is THAT what science is saying?

Sex redefined : Nature News & Comment

Think again ... and stay current. This is what happens when you cling too tightly to outdated traditions -- especially traditions that cause so much hatred, bigotry, and idiotic discomfort when those traditions aren't strictly and rigidly adhered to. (And Nature is one of the most respected scientific journals so don't even bother trying to attack the source.)

This is truly the one aspect of religion that I still (and most likely never will) understand. Why the hell are religious people so obsessed with gender and sexuality issues? It's the only thing that seems to get them riled up. Poverty, war, crime, abuse, even pedophilia can't get the religious up in arms the way someone daring to shirk gender/sexual tradition seems to do.

And yet -- gender/sexuality issues do no harm to you or anyone else. What difference does it make to you whether someone else is gay or transgender? Why does it bother you so much? Hmm?

Because I'm just not convinced it's merely religion; as I said there are MANY religious rules that people break all the time and I'm not seeing angry mobs trying to force people to obey them. It's only these stupid and irrelevant gender/sexuality issues that have you people grabbing torches and pitchforks and hitting the streets in anger.

You need to get your damn priorities straight or the cross will end up becoming another symbol of hate.

By the way, young people rioting in the streets is completely irrelevant. Nice job pulling that out of thin air and thinking that actually has some bearing on this discussion. I have news: It doesn't.



When someone asks, "Hey, why did you leave that place," and the response is, "Because that place is bad," guess what. Yep. It probably means the place they left was bad.

Ergo, when young people leaving religion specifically state that Christianity is becoming a message of hate, bigotry, and intolerance -- it usually means that Christianity is, well, becoming a message of hate, bigotry, and intolerance.

It's not as though those young people are lying about it. You might want to ascribe some made-up, fantasyland ulterior motive to make yourself feel better, but that's like claiming the noises you hear in your house at night is "only the wind" as a burglar robs you blind.



Art is highly subjective and given to fads. Oppressing, marginalizing, attacking, vilifying, and denying rights to minorities on the basis of, "They're breaking a rule in the Bible!" or "They violate my comfort zone" is not "highly subjective" -- unless, of course, you want to travel down the road of trying to justify any atrocity no matter how horrific it is.



Where is YOUR evidence, hmm?

WHY is ANY insane hetero marriage better than even the best loving homosexual marriage?

Please, by all means, explain this to me because I'm *really* curious how you justify your statement.

(Let's see if you actually answer this or ignore it like most Christians do.)



EVIDENCE! WHERE'S YOUR EVIDENCE!?

Yep, I can play that game, too.

So ... where is it?



Oh please, stop with the annoying ad nauseum fallacy. If you can't refute anything I've said, man-up and admit it.

By the way, where's YOUR evidence?

You've provided ZERO evidence thus far that YOUR opinions on homosexuality are accurate or correct.

So cough it up, bub. Let's see your evidence. You know, the same evidence that has been consistently laughed out of every courtroom in America? Yep, let's see it. Again.



Because if I had the ability to invent a time machine ... the last thing I'd do with it is go back in time to copy/paste all of the stupid posts made by Christians about anal sex.

Ya know?

I can't even believe you asked such an inane question.



So what. If you want to observe the Bible, go right ahead. You just don't have the right to force anyone else to observe them.

I'm so SICK of those who think they somehow *have* that right -- that they have the moral authority to legislate laws based on the Bible as if religious freedom doesn't exist in this country. And don't even bother going into some stupid tirade about how allowing gay marriage violates *your* religious freedom because it doesn't.

Not unless your idea of "freedom" is the freedom to take away other people's freedom. Yeah, it's all well and good to impose religious fascism upon OTHER people, isn't it.



The gay marriage issue made headlines because fundamentalist Christians MADE it a newsworthy issue. If not for their holy crusade *against* gay marriage, the entire event would have been a media sideshow, an "Oh yeah, by the way, gays can now legally get married" kind of story.

It were the fundamentalists who turned it into a media circus because of their hopeless intolerance and Christo-fascism, using the Bible as a weapon to oppress others. Gee, as if religion isn't rife with such things. The United States is the laughing stock of the Western world with our moronically high degree of religiosity. I don't mean having a belief in God, I mean the high degree in which Americans still believe in religion as if this were still the 18th Century. Everything else modernized, but our religious beliefs stayed rooted in a bygone era. Now we look like utter rubes to everyone else -- and rightly we should with the kind of idiocy the fundevangelists force upon the rest of us.



Christians decide for themselves which controversies should receive the "grease" so to speak. Which is really the point. Instead of focusing on REAL issues that actually affect people, they spend hundreds of millions of dollars fighting gay marriage when that money could have built low-cost housing for the homeless, given people with no insurance the medical treatment and operations they otherwise couldn't afford, sent thousands of poor and unskilled people to college, etc. etc.

Instead, they wasted all those resources on a losing battle ... instead of helping, they spent hundreds of millions (the Mormons spent almost $50 million alone fighting one singular bill) trying to oppress and deny other people their de facto rights. And then you wonder why, as the youth of this county watched this "culture war" play out, watched as gay classmates committed suicide, they decided Christianity was a message of hate.



I said that the Bible says that interest should NOT be charged to the poor. Yet in Christian America, we do the exact opposite: The poorer you are, the higher your interest rate will be on any loan you take out.

You're not supposed to charge interest on loans made to family members, either, by the way.




I bolded this entire quote -- because this is precisely why I have become not just an athiest but also an anti-theist.

There you go. Thanks for putting that out there for everyone to see.

Because it is precisely this kind of belief that causes so much violence and bloodshed, so much oppression and subjugation, so much fear and terrorism, so much intolerance and bigotry.

Yep, my God exists and therefore EVERYONE must bow down to it and obey it's rules and I don't give a flying flip about the freedom of others. My religion's rules apply to them because My God rules over everyone even if the worship "false gods" or no gods at all.

Of course, every other religion is saying the same thing about THEIR god -- while the atheists and non-believers just want to be left the HELL ALONE and be able to make their own choices without the interferance of theocratic fascists.

At any rate, you've pretty much summed up a goodly chunk of what's currently wrong in the world -- what has *always* been wrong: My God is better than your god. Nuh uh. My God is better. Oh yeah? Yeah! Let's fight! What followed was two thousand years of war, violance, death, atrocity, terrorism, persecution, and entire civilizations living in abject fear. It's still going on today -- nearly every hotspot of violence is the result of religious differences. Most of the divisive issues in America have a religious component to them, as well.

Strange, isn't it, that the most peaceful nations in the world -- the happiest, the most successful in today's world are non-religious nations. Hmm, coincidence? I think not.

Thanks, religion!



First of all, there are *a lot* of Christians who aren't saying that. For instance, there was the *huge* rally, attended by three presidential candidates, held by pastor Kevin Swanson -- a man who says that ALL homosexuals should be put to death by the courts as per the rules in the Bible. Many pastors across the nation have been stirring up abject hatred against gays saying they should be killed at worst, rounded up and put in concentration camps at best.

Are all Christians doing that? No ... but enough of them are. When it gets to the point where Christians even oppose giving homosexuals equal employment opportunities, oppose ALL anti-discrimination bills, boycot businesses that refuse to discriminate against gays, and essentially move well beyond the scope of gay marriage, well, guess what: That looks suspiciously like full-on hatred to many of us. It looks like fundavangelism is declaring war against the LGBT community. I personally think it is STILL at war.




Wha, seriously? You even have to ask that?

You answer everything with a one-sentence response, mostly just "Where's your evidence?" and nothing more. Even if I'm giving an opinion, those opinions can still be discussed. Instead, you're dismissing *everything* with short little dismissive comments.



It's too hard to explain -- and even if I took the time to better put it all to words, it would be dismissed with a response more appropriate to Twitter than a full-on debate forum. So really, why bother? Even the rest of this post was probably a colossal waste of time.



No, I was giving an example of the tactic you were using, but obviously I didn't explain it well enough with it being somewhat late when I wrote the post. I'm not bothering to reiterate. I can see that I'm dealing with a Twitter debate, not a *real* debate here.

One thing I will give Jeffbase credit for -- he could really infuriate me, but he actually gave a good accounting of himself.

Ah well.



You asked me how you were being dismissive and then just two points later you answer me with something like this.



Like I said in that response that you just didn't get for some obtuse reason: I've been doing this long enough to understand, at this point in the conversation, that no amount of evidence will ever suffice to change your mind, so why bother trying to supply it?

In other words, your insistence on my supplying evidence is just a way of weaseling out of actually confronting anything I've been saying. You're not actually interested in evidence because I understand that can't change religious views with evidence, logic, or well-reasoned arguments. I don't think for a nanosecond that you'd be prepared to say, "Oh wow, she's right!" even if I supplied you enough evidence for one of my points to fill an entire set of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

There ... that's what it has to do with what we're talking about. You've answered roughly 1/3rd of my points with "Where's your evidence?" without a shard of discussion. In my view, you're ducking and dodging because, as I said, you're not *really* interested in evidence. If I gave you the evidence you sought, you would merely ignore that entire point and not mention it again in subsequent posts. That's how it always works.



Now that's a hoot. It's up to YOU to prove that God even exists in the first place much less up to ME to prove that God hates gays.

Even so, given that everything said about God is made-up, I can say whatever I want to about God because not one word of the Bible regarding God has been proven.

The certititude of your particular belief is not withstanding.



Or he could just not make people gay, right? Wow, there's a thought, but no ... I guess God gets his kicks from creating gay people and then telling them not to be gay or they'll burn. LOL!

And until you've lived with a gay couple for four years and been around the gay culture as I have, I don't even want to hear your OPINION on how being gay is a choice. I happen to know differently from my immersion in the LGBT community for half a decade.

At any rate, you're missing my point entirely. The whole concept of Hell is not only immoral, it is hateful. Period. Nothing you can possibly say will ever convince me otherwise so don't even bother trying. Eternal torture is completely unnecessary and utterly beyond the pale -- an infinite punishment for a finite crime is hardly fair and just, especially for a God that is supposed to be, well ... fair and just.

Your deity is so full of contradictions that he couldn't possibly exist. Even an omnipotent god can't be two diametrically opposite things simultaneously.



This is one of the biggest lines of utter bovine excrement trash in all of Christendom. All this does is justify the biggest atrocity ever committed anywhere by anyone ever.

It also demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of the Christian religion. You said you have an atheist friend, right? The fact that you can actually interact with him, be friends with him, laugh and cry with him, confide in him, share memories together -- and look that friend in the eye, all the while believing, really believing, that he deserves to be tortured forever, is one of the most disgusting, despicable, duplicitous, backbiting, belief systems ever foisted upon humanity in the history of our species.

Oh, you might think that you're doing everyone a favor by warning people, but I can tell you from experience that a person like me will *never* be convinced that your God exists because of some ridiculous ancient holy book from the Bronze Age or because someone I know keeps insisting that I'm damned to Hell -- not when *everything* points to there being no God at all. Even the Bible itself does a better job coinvincing me God *doesn't* exist than doing the opposite.

How fair is that? Even assuming God does exist, apparently he created me, created my mind to work as it does. I can't change that. Just like gays can't change who they are. Nor can transgenders.

That whole raunchy "you send yourself to hell" is like fingernails on a chalkboard to those of us who try to be *truly* moral -- instead of trying so desperately to justify gross immorality that, on some level, even you probably know is wrong.



Well, as soon as there is as much evidence for the existence of your God as there is for the existence of eighteen wheelers, let me know.

Until then, your analogy has no merit.



Actually, there isn't. Morality doesn't exist independently out there in the universe. Without the human mind and consciousness to interpret things as being good and bad, moral or immoral, there are no moral standards.

Yeah, I know. You're going to point to your God -- the absolute worst arbiter of what ought to be considered moral. Yeah, your God who did nothing in the Old Testament except murder people. Never once did your God do anything except kill hundreds of millions of innocents -- even for petty reasons like, say, a bet with Satan or, for instance, sending bears to tear apart 42 children because they called a prophet "old bald head."

Your God, who didn't even care about anyone but the Hebrews. Of course, you say you're Jewish so maybe that matters to you ... but I'm of Asian Indian/Filippino/English descent. Why should a tribal god of the Hebrews interest me? Why should I care what rules Yahweh gave to Hebrews?

It's amazing to me how Christians can so easily ignore that glitch in their religious history. Even Jesus is supposed to be the Jewish messiah yet -- everyone BUT the Jews thinks he's the savior. *blink* I dunnae.

Yeah, I'd rather take morality lessons from Hitler and Stalin.



What the HELL?

Have you even READ the Bible?

There's more violence in the Bible than there is in any 10 action movies combined.

How can you even ask me, "Where's the wanton violence in the Bible" ... I mean, seriously, I'm starting to think you really don't know diddly squat about your own religion.



LOL! The only morality that matters -- ours.

Do you know WHY ours is the only morality that counts?

Because if God's morality is unknowable or completely independent of our own, than there is absolutely NO way that God can be trusted.

There *must* be a common thread between our morality and God's morality else we would have nothing to relate to and God's rules and commands would be like gibberish.

In addition, if God has a completely separate morality from our own, then there is absolutely no way we can possibly claim that he is the wellspring of goodness. We cannot claim that he is just, fair, compassionate, forgiving, wonderful, perfect, etc. etc. because we wouldn't even know what those words mean in relation to God's morality.

Considering the long, long, very long list of atrocities commited directly by or ordered by God in the Old Testament up to, and including, the blood sacrifice of his own son to himself, the only option we would have is to assume that we have morality ALL wrong. That, in fact, being horrible, nasty, bloodthirsty, lunatics is actually the moral way to live whilst the good, just, kind, and fair approach is what God does NOT want from us.

Of course, since you apparently have no idea that there's violence in the Bible (LOL!) then it becomes clear why you're missing so many things in my posts.



You don't have any *good* evidence; you don't have any evidence that can't be easily explained as something non-divine.

If you did, then the debate would be over for the entire world and everyone but the mentally addled would become a Christian. Yet, here we are, still debating.

So I'm not falling for the "I have evidence but I'm not sharing it" trick. What that signifies to me is that you have something you *want* to believe is evidence and you don't want that belief shattered by mean old atheists who might be able to tear apart your evidence and explain why it has nothing to do with God.


Do you know why responding to my "rant" would take too long Mr. Twitter? It's because I actually produce arguments, not one-sentence fluff responses. It's not my fault you haven't the wherewithall to go toe-to-toe with me.

Some really great contributions to the board over the last few days Shirina. I hope this is indicative of you feeling better and able to do more.

I have always said that the fact that most of the Religious focus on just a couple "sins", while giving most other sins a partial or complete pass...is evidence that theological doctrine is not the main factor behind their attitude on these issues.
It is not coincidental that I know many NonReligious that focus special attention on much of the same things the Religious do, and let slide many of the same issues the Religious do.
I see it the same way I see the "disease model" of so-called addictive behaviors. You get to claim something other than your own attitude and conduct as the blame or reason for why you act the messed up way you act. You don't have to "own it".
Years ago, there was a comedian named Flip Wilson that had a shtick where he dressed up as a female character named "Geraldine"...who would always claim, "The Devil made me do it!!", for anything that she did that was viewed as bad by others. Funny stuff...check it out...lots of it on YouTube.

Religion is just something these people use to pass off the "reason" for being cruel, judgemental, jerks. So they don't have to take personal responsibility for what they know is viewed by many as not a nice way to be. They haven't got the guts to put their attitude and conduct out as completely self-motivated and self-directed. They use it to shield themselves from that personal responsibility. They hide behind it like cowards....and evoke the supposed directive of some God character in a book. A character that is just a metaphorical entity in some jillion year old writings...but it serves its purpose as something to point to for why they are how they are.

[nateswift]

^True enough, but we are ALSO accountable for recognizing the "disease" (and people who claim it MUST recognize it) and working out how to deal with it. It is NOT an excuse, it is a direction to go for solutions.

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by GldnRule

Some really great contributions to the board over the last few days Shirina. I hope this is indicative of you feeling better and able to do more.

<snip>
Religion is just something these people use to pass off the "reason" for being cruel, judgemental, jerks. So they don't have to take personal responsibility for what they know is viewed by many as not a nice way to be. They haven't got the guts to put their attitude and conduct out as completely self-motivated and self-directed. They use it to shield themselves from that personal responsibility. They hide behind it like cowards....and evoke the supposed directive of some God character in a book. A character that is just a metaphorical entity in some jillion year old writings...but it serves its purpose as something to point to for why they are how they are.

Amen!

Originally Posted by nateswift

^True enough, but we are ALSO accountable for recognizing the "disease" (and people who claim it MUST recognize it) and working out how to deal with it. It is NOT an excuse, it is a direction to go for solutions.

Amen!