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You can't seem to stop being coy and disingenuous. Making things illegal is HOW society coerces. Why you would ever want society to coerce others about thing you do not want to do or think your God would not approve of is a mystery to me. God has no interest whatsoever in having us humans coerce anyone for any reason. That kind of Dark Ages travesty should be well behind us. So why do YOU want it???
Quote:
Originally Posted by DRob4JC
So basically you have a problem with the framework of how laws are made in the country. Representatives are elected by society - that's how it's supposed to work. People contact their Congress people to pressure them towards certain actions. That's how it's supposed to work.
The red - I don't understand how you can make some of these statements. Sharing the gospel is an attempt at coercion - I think God is OK with that.
I have no problem with how laws are made in this country. I have a significant problem with what some people want to use laws to accomplish. I see any attempt to legislate whatever you think God's laws might be into secular law . . . if there is no secular societal purpose for them. Since God is all about our voluntary acceptance . . . using the coercive power of the state through laws actually interferes with what God wants from us. Follow your God's laws in your own life . . . do not seek to legislate it in others lives. That is what I have a significant problem with . . . so does our Constitution.
Wardendresden - You do realize that at the core, you are doing the same thing "they" are doing - which is attempting to control behavior.
You say they are trying to stop abortions and same sex marriage. You are trying to stop them from stating their views and change them into living a Mother Theresa type of Christianity.
Hmmm!!! Yes, what a tragedy it would be if all Christians lived like Mother Theresa. You know--doing the things Jesus emphasized--love and mercy. How could that possibly be Christian when we know Jesus was a finger pointer and kicked every sinner He met between the legs.
As a black fundamentalist you are truly representative of people who do not learn from history. Pat Robertson, who slams homosexuals in virtually every broadcast he makes, uses the same language used by his father, Senator Absalom Willis Robertson regarding black people. In 1956 he was one of nineteen senators who signed the Southern Manifesto which opposed racial integration in public places. The Senator was opposed to the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
The Manifesto describes "legislative tyranny," a phrase Robertson and his fundamentalist Christian colleagues use regularly more than fifty years later to expose the "new" threat to the nation." The Manifesto opens with these words:
Quote:
We regard the decision of the Supreme Court in the school cases as a clear abuse of judicial power. It climaxes a trend in the Federal judiciary undertaking to legislate, in derogation of the authority of Congress, and to encroach upon the reserved rihts of the States and the people.
102 Cong. Rec. 4515-16 (1956)
The Germans, too, in 1930 began with their attacks on homosexuals and abortion, testing just how far and to what degree they could manipulate the German people into hating. Then it went anti-Semitic and the holocaust began. Do you know that in the beginning there were even a few Jews supporting the (initially) verbal attacks on homosexuals? And then it turned on them.
Literally hundreds of pamphlets were written by Southern preachers prior to the Civil War, pointing out how God ordained slavery and black people were pre-ordained by God to serve white men. Yet here you are defending the exact kind of practice used against your own people. History has taught you nothing. And while you see primarily white America rushing to fight middle eastern crimes against humanity (spell that OIL), you don't see them trying to defend black people in Africa who are perhaps even more oppressed.
Unfortunately you are a dupe, just as those early Jews were duped by the Nazis. And religious people who are duped are ones who know the bible by heart, but don't know the heart of the Bible.
Hmmm!!! Yes, what a tragedy it would be if all Christians lived like Mother Theresa. You know--doing the things Jesus emphasized--love and mercy. How could that possibly be Christian when we know Jesus was a finger pointer and kicked every sinner He met between the legs.
As a black fundamentalist you are truly representative of people who do not learn from history. Pat Robertson, who slams homosexuals in virtually every broadcast he makes, uses the same language used by his father, Senator Absalom Willis Robertson regarding black people. In 1956 he was one of nineteen senators who signed the Southern Manifesto which opposed racial integration in public places. The Senator was opposed to the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
The Manifesto describes "legislative tyranny," a phrase Robertson and his fundamentalist Christian colleagues use regularly more than fifty years later to expose the "new" threat to the nation." The Manifesto opens with these words:
102 Cong. Rec. 4515-16 (1956)
The Germans, too, in 1930 began with their attacks on homosexuals and abortion, testing just how far and to what degree they could manipulate the German people into hating. Then it went anti-Semitic and the holocaust began. Do you know that in the beginning there were even a few Jews supporting the (initially) verbal attacks on homosexuals? And then it turned on them.
Literally hundreds of pamphlets were written by Southern preachers prior to the Civil War, pointing out how God ordained slavery and black people were pre-ordained by God to serve white men. Yet here you are defending the exact kind of practice used against your own people. History has taught you nothing. And while you see primarily white America rushing to fight middle eastern crimes against humanity (spell that OIL), you don't see them trying to defend black people in Africa who are perhaps even more oppressed.
Unfortunately you are a dupe, just as those early Jews were duped by the Nazis. And religious people who are duped are ones who know the bible by heart, but don't know the heart of the Bible.
Your "Christianity" is very horizontal... probably too horizontal.
I don't learn from history... are you telling me I should hate white people?
Your "Christianity" is very horizontal... probably too horizontal.
I don't learn from history... are you telling me I should hate white people?
I'm telling you that you should not treat homosexuals like your people were treated by some whites. You use the same arguments against them that Senator Robertson used against black people.
And there is great danger in that. Even if YOU would never kill or mistreat a homosexual, when you TALK about them as if they are "evil" or less than human, you empower other people who will say, "Hey, God wants THEM to be slaves," or "God wants them to be treated differently from others," or even, "Let's go kick that homo's azz." And to that extent you, yourself become complicit in whatever atrocities occur to them.
Fundamentalists aren't solely literalists. Literalists are understandable. Fundamentalists seek to enforce their own beliefs on everyone else and see all differing opinions as anti-God and/or anti-Christ.
John D. Crossan is a New Testament professor and author of a number of Christian books.
Wardendresden - Let me explain something to you...
I can do nothing about my race. This is what God gave me, and others like me - and for that many were persecuted.
Homosexuality activity is a choice to sin. People may be born with tendencies in that area - but the activity is still sin. All people have a tendency towards one or more categories of sin. There is always the choice to act on it.
To try and link race and homosexuality, which is described as an abomination by the Lord, is total bs and offensive.
Let me give you some experience... I can't hide being black. It's just there. People see me and react. If homosexuals chose not to act in sin, and chose not to broadcast it to others - nobody would know, and they could blend in and be safe. Not me.
Homosexuals can keep it quiet and make a living and not suffer any persecution. I can't do that. My ancestors couldn't do that.
More importantly - my blackness does not offend God. Can't say the same for homosexual activity.
Don't try and equate the two - I ain't buying it. I don't want anyone to suffer violence, but please - give me a break.
Wardendresden - Let me explain something to you...
I can do nothing about my race. This is what God gave me, and others like me - and for that many were persecuted.
Homosexuality activity is a choice to sin. People may be born with tendencies in that area - but the activity is still sin. All people have a tendency towards one or more categories of sin. There is always the choice to act on it.
To try and link race and homosexuality, which is described as an abomination by the Lord, is total bs and offensive.
Let me give you some experience... I can't hide being black. It's just there. People see me and react. If homosexuals chose not to act in sin, and chose not to broadcast it to others - nobody would know, and they could blend in and be safe. Not me.
Homosexuals can keep it quiet and make a living and not suffer any persecution. I can't do that. My ancestors couldn't do that.
More importantly - my blackness does not offend God. Can't say the same for homosexual activity.
Don't try and equate the two - I ain't buying it. I don't want anyone to suffer violence, but please - give me a break.
Amen, DRob4JC !! Nor should it in anyway, shape or form offend the Christian, amen ?
I'm so sick and tired (a righteous indignation) of hearing this garbage, especially equating our race to homosexuality. Homosexuality is a disposition of the flesh (sin), whereas being born Black, White, Purple, whatever color God has given us to be in this life to live, we are too rejoice in Him, bringing Him all the glory no matter what.
Blessing's to you, DRob4JC ! May God continue to give you His Spirit of preservation, enduring through all this accusing of the Brethren that so many have chosen to do. They will answer to our Lord God for every careless words they have spoken unto God's creation, especially His Children, amen !!
Wardendresden - Let me explain something to you...
I can do nothing about my race. This is what God gave me, and others like me - and for that many were persecuted.
Homosexuality activity is a choice to sin. People may be born with tendencies in that area - but the activity is still sin. All people have a tendency towards one or more categories of sin. There is always the choice to act on it.
To try and link race and homosexuality, which is described as an abomination by the Lord, is total bs and offensive.
Let me give you some experience... I can't hide being black. It's just there. People see me and react. If homosexuals chose not to act in sin, and chose not to broadcast it to others - nobody would know, and they could blend in and be safe. Not me.
Homosexuals can keep it quiet and make a living and not suffer any persecution. I can't do that. My ancestors couldn't do that.
More importantly - my blackness does not offend God. Can't say the same for homosexual activity.
Don't try and equate the two - I ain't buying it. I don't want anyone to suffer violence, but please - give me a break.
I'm going to provide you with EVIDENCE that gay people are BORN that way--like you were born black. Now, because you are a fundamentalist through and through you will not accept the evidence. That in itself is characteristic of religious fundamentalists. It would make their idol, the Bible (or Quran or Torah) appear incorrect or the holy God as the creator of what HE, Himself deems evil--that is the problem with not understanding the Word as infallible in terms of faith and practice but quite fallible in terms of science, psychology, sociology, and culture.
From an article in 2008:
Quote:
Brain scans have provided the most compelling evidence yet that being gay or straight is a biologically fixed trait.
The scans reveal that in gay people, key structures of the brain governing emotion, mood, anxiety and aggressiveness resemble those in straight people of the opposite sex.
To get round this, Savic and her colleague, Per Lindström, chose to measure brain parameters likely to have been fixed at birth. "That was the whole point of the study, to show parameters that differ, but which couldn't be altered by learning or cognitive processes," says Savic.
First they used MRI scans to find out the overall volume and shapes of brains in a group of 90 volunteers consisting of 25 heterosexuals and 20 homosexuals of each gender.
The results showed that straight men had asymmetric brains, with the right hemisphere slightly larger - and the gay women also had this asymmetry. Gay men, meanwhile, had symmetrical brains like those of straight women.
The team next used PET scans to measure blood flow to the amygdala, part of the brain that governs fear and aggression. The images revealed how the amygdala connected to other parts of the brain, giving clues to how this might influence behaviour.
They found that the patterns of connectivity in gay men matched those of straight women, and vice versa. In straight women and gay men, the connections were mainly into regions of the brain that manifest fear as intense anxiety. "The regions involved in phobia, anxiety and depression overlap with the pattern we see from the amygdala," says Savic.
What does science tell us about sexual preference?
Genes
We know, from many twin and adoption studies, that sexual preference has a genetic component. A gay man is more likely than a straight man to have a (biological) gay brother; lesbians are more likely than straight women to have gay sisters.
In 1993, a study published in the journal Science showed that families with two homosexual brothers were very likely to have certain genetic markers on a region of the X chromosome known as Xq28. This led to media headlines about the possibility of the existence of a “gay gene” and discussions about the ethics of aborting a “gay” fetus.-------
The structure of the brain might influence sexual preference.
In 1991, a study published in the journal Science seemed to show that the hypothalamus, which controls the release of sex hormones from the pituitary gland, in gay men differs from the hypothalamus in straight men. The third interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus (INAH3) was found to be more than twice as large in heterosexual men as in homosexual men.
This study was criticized because it used brain tissue obtained at autopsies, and all of the homosexual subjects in the study were believed to have died of AIDS.
A later study, which was performed in 2001, showed that HIV status has no significant effect on the INAH3. This study, which also used brain tissue from autopsies, did not reveal any significant difference between the size of the INAH3 in gay men and straight men. It did, however, show that in gay men, neurons in the INAH3 are packed more closely together than in straight men.
Dr Qazi Rahman, a lecturer in cognitive biology at Queen Mary, University of London, said that he believed that these brain differences were laid down early in foetal development.
“As far as I’m concerned there is no argument any more – if you are gay, you are born gay,” he said.
The amygdala, he said, was important because of its role in “orientating”, or directing, the rest of the brain in response to an emotional stimulus – be it during the “fight or flight” response, or the presence of a potential mate. “In other words, the brain network which determines what sexual orientation actually ‘orients’ towards is similar between gay men and straight women, and between gay women and straight men.
“This makes sense given that gay men have a sexual preference which is like that of women in general, that is, preferring men, and vice versa for lesbian women.”w
Now you will KNOW that YOU have a religiously prejudiced brain when you reject scientific study for the guesses of men 2800 years ago. So how is being born with a different brain makeup any different than being born with a certain skin pigmentation?
The only contrary source to any of this is from a discredited psychologist by the name of Paul Cameron who is himself a fundamentalist. He was dropped from the American Psychological Association because he held himself out to be a sociologist as well as a psychologist, and was kicked out of the Nebraska Psychological Society for basically lying and misrepresenting the views of that distinguished group.
His lies go back to 1984 and are STILL being repeated by fundamentalists despite all sorts of contrary evidence and witness. And therein is the basic problem of fundamentalists. As proclaimed by 460 fundamentalist Christian leaders on July 4, 1986--
"The Bible is the only absolute, objective, final test...for all philosophies, books, values, actions, and plans-----" and
"The Bible States Reality for all Areas of Life and Thought...in the spheres of law, government, economics, business, education, arts and communication, medicine, psychology and science."
"All theories and practices of these spheres of life are only true, right, and realistic to the degree that they agree with the Bible."
And that is what makes "Bible believers" as defined by fundamentalists so dangerous to freedom loving people everywhere. If one substituted the Quran for the Bible in the above statements from the Manifesto for the Christian Church, they would still perfectly apply.
In 2005, Dr. Fritz Stern, a refugee from Hitler's Germany and a leading scholar in European history explained his passion for history to reporter Christ Hedges in a New York Times article. Dr. Stern wanted to grasp how democracies should heed the seductiveness of authoritarian movements. At an award ceremony honoring Dr. Stern, a professor emeritus at Columbia University, he compared the mood in Germany that welcomed Hitler into power with the current mood in America.
Quote:
"Hitler saw himself as the instrument of providence and fused his racial dogma with a Germanic Christianity....Some people recognized the moral perils of mixing religion and politics, but many more were seduced by it. It was the pseudo-religious transfiguration of politics that largely ensured Hitler's success, notably in Protestant areas....There was a longing in Europe for fascism before the name was ever invented. There was a longing for a new authoritarianism with some kind of religious orientation and above all a greater communal belongingness. There are some similarities in the mood then and the mood now...."
"Public Lives: Warning from a Student of Democracy's Collapse," by Christ Hedges, New York Times, January 6, 2005, Metropolitan Desk, Late Edition---Final, section B, p.2.
Don't think for a moment you are not a part of the same thing. Wake up before it is too late. God still loves you.
But guess what, whether you wake up or not, those of us who know the Jesus of the Bible will not allow you to define the term "Bible believer." If you really believed that Bible, you would practice it like Jesus did. I value my religious freedom and YOURS AS WELL. Therefore I will resist all efforts to make this a "Christian nation."
President Washington began negotiating the Treaty of Peace and Friendship with the Muslim nation of Tripoli that was signed on November 4, 1796 and placed into law by President John Adams in 1797. Article 11 of that treaty gives some succinct early evidence that this nation is not and never has been a Christian nation.
Quote:
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, --- as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims],--and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan [Islamic] nation, it is declared by the parties
that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
The Avalon Project at Yale Law School, "The Barbary Treaties: Treaty of Peace and Friendship Signed at Tripoli," November 4, 1796
Last edited by Wardendresden; 02-21-2015 at 02:12 PM..
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Message from a "recovering fundamentalist"
