This is actually a very good point. Thank you for making it.

You're quite welcome! :)

How do I fav journals?

Bitch endlessly to the admins until they relent and add that function. :)

I been doin that for awhile ;-;

it starts in the education system. i grew up in a town called lubbock, tx, and they taught some really fucked up values there. now that i think about it, the school was run like the ussr. we were encouraged to taddle on our schoolmates who did bad things, and were rewarded for it. segregation was discouraged but accepted. and fucking everyone taught that fags were disgusting terrible people.

I wish I could aim a ray at Texas that would teleport all the sensible people out, then drop the entire fucking state into the molten core of the planet. The more I hear about Texas the more I am severely fucking scared of it.

The majority of Texas is filled with Glenn-Beck-worshiping idiots. The very center of Texas, however, Austin, is INCREDIBLY FUCKING LIBERAL HOLY SHIT. I love living here in Austin, but I'm afraid of going to another state because i have to drive through the Texas part of Texas and I'm afraid of being lynched or something. I guess I'm probably being a little too harsh. I mean, like 90% of the people in this state are fucking crazy, but at the same time they're really nice people. Another 5% are the crazy... Glenbeckians. Still a lot of people, though.

Man invented planes for this reason.

I have heard good things about Austin. Maybe we can get a giant knife and carve it out of the rest of Texas and make it a little island, and we'll turn what was Texas into Lake Mexico. ;)

NO! the gulf of austin

That works too!

Molten Core?

Oh no... that means Ragnaros is the amalgamation of all Texans...

I agree completely. I think it's sad that we even have to let this stuff go to court. I was actually just talking about something similar to this the other day, in the context of a cop talking about how he can only let so many white people off with a warning because they check to see the ratio of white to black offenders police let off the hook. I was saying that it's really sad when that has to be done. We have to resort back to segregation just to prevent people from being ignorant racists? That's pretty fucked up. Sometimes I feel like people will never be able to see in anything but "us and them", and I really do think the fact that Christian religions are being taught to young children is not helping that fact. The bible pretty much encourages that way of thinking, especially the way a lot of church's teach it. They break it down into "we are right, and everyone else is going to hell". Not exactly a good way of teaching that "peace and love" they talk about so much. I also realize the irony of me talking about intolerance and then saying how much I despise Christianity, but I don't hate (most) of the people who follow it. Most of them are just taught it from an early age, and many Christians I met (and am friends with) don't really buy into all the garbage that makes it such a terrible religion. What I truly hate is the message it teaches, the hypocrisy, and the people who use it to justify inhuman and intolerant acts.

Also, I seriously wish I could +fav journals as well.

>I was actually just talking about something similar to this the other day, in the context of a cop talking about how he can only let so many white people off with a warning because they check to see the ratio of white to black offenders police let off the hook. I was saying that it's really sad when that has to be done.

I dunno. I've heard a lot about how cops (of any race) arrest and harass black people a ridiculously disproportionate amount. This doesn't sound like a 'good' solution, but it's better than nothing.

>I really do think the fact that Christian religions are being taught to young children is not helping that fact. The bible pretty much encourages that way of thinking, especially the way a lot of church's teach it. They break it down into "we are right, and everyone else is going to hell". Not exactly a good way of teaching that "peace and love" they talk about so much.

Exactly. We still have segregated schools and no one ever thinks for a second about whether it's mentally harmful or not. Segregating by race is bad, but self-segregation by religion is just fine, apparently.

>I also realize the irony of me talking about intolerance and then saying how much I despise Christianity, but I don't hate (most) of the people who follow it.

Don't worry; there's a hell of a lot of difference between hating a skin color and hating an idea. One of them is something people choose to have, and therefore fair game.

Also, I forgot to mention, I thought the "I hate Fred" was referring to that annoying kid on Youtube at first. I remembered when I saw it again listed from this response.

I actually thought that as I was typing it and thought, "Ehh, why not. I hate that screechy-voiced fuck too." ;)

> I dunno. I've heard a lot about how cops (of any race) arrest and harass black people a ridiculously disproportionate amount. This doesn't sound like a 'good' solution, but it's better than nothing.

It sounds to me a lot like "affirmative action", treating the symptom without solving the problem.

Exactly, that's how I feel about it, too.

Exactly why I said it's not a good solution. But at least it shows they're aware the problem exists. Maybe it can lead to better solutions.

"As a society, we still call it 'The Good Book'"

I only refer to it as that using - as GLaDOS would say - MASSIVE irony quotes.

There is very little in that tome that is of very much moral value. And what little there is - that isn't butchered by broken-telephone-style multiple translations from ancient Hebrew to Latin back to Hebrew back to Latin then into modern languages - is really just a collection of very sensible "Do the right thing" fare.

Most of the rest of it sounds like it was written in an opium den. I refer specifically to a part in Revelation 12. Here it is:

"Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads."

RETARDED. He's going to come down and eat some woman's baby. What does she do?

"...the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days."

...

As a former work associate of mine has said on numerous occasions: "It's not much of a coincidence that mankind discovered 'religion' at about they same time as psychoactive substances."

> There is very little in that tome that is of very much moral value. And what little there is - that isn't butchered by broken-telephone-style multiple translations from ancient Hebrew to Latin back to Hebrew back to Latin then into modern languages - is really just a collection of very sensible "Do the right thing" fare.

This is an entirely incorrect description of the transmission of the text of the Bible. Modern Bibles are translated directly from the languages in which the books were composed by their authors. There are a couple of books for which this is lightly disputed (e.g. Matthew, which is sometimes thought to be based on a sayings gospel or other written tradition in Aramaic). The Old Latin versions are sometimes considered by textual critics, and the Latin Vulgate lies behind some very early English translations, but even in that case it's Hebrew->Latin->English. The Hebrew text is readily available, so going Hebrew->Latin->Hebrew->Latin->English would be inconceivably stupid. Most of those undertaking to translate or copy the Bible have done so contentiously, although of course some have allowed their doctrinal bias to influence them - see the book "The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture." And yes, translational difficulties do lie behind some controversies. Are we not supposed to allow a "witch" to live, or a "poisoner?" (Denominations who only accept older translations can be very persistent about these things.)

> Most of the rest of it sounds like it was written in an opium den.
That's mostly just Revelation and other "apocalyptic" literature, e.g. Daniel, which represents only a small fraction of the total Bible. Often it's obscure partly because our cultural milieu and the symbols we use are so different. Also, the English language has changed so much since the ever-popular King James Version was written that it can be difficult for modern readers for the same reason Shakespeare is. Try the New American Bible for example.

I was giving that book the benefit of the doubt by assuming it was translated multiple times. Since that is (apparently) not the case, there's even less value to that rag then I thought. It doesn't try to be culturally relevant; all it does is basically relay the ideas of several people, all probably in an opium den, saying that things they like are okay and things they do not like are evil. It takes something that should be discussed - morality - and tries to set in absolute, black or white terms. Sometimes, there is some "do the right things" fare. Other times, it is "condemn people for being different" or "women are objects" or "other religions are wrong" or "everything about human nature is evil and you should deny yourself every bit of pleasure at every opportunity because it's the right thing to do."

I've never been one to follow the beat of someone else's drum. Just because a book says something doesn't make it so, especially if it's largely metaphor whose meaning is hotly contested the world over. To me, that book has absolutely no meaning or value. It's great comedic material. And, of course, weak-minded people hide behind it to justify their inability to make moral decisions for themselves.

Religion has been and ever will be a crutch at the side of humanity. Crutches make you hobble, whether you need them or not. I think we'd discover pretty fast if we discarded them that mankind can walk fine on our own without it.

>It doesn't try to be culturally relevant; all it does is basically relay the ideas of several people, all probably in an opium den, saying that things they like are okay and things they do not like are evil.

I think, firstly, that you need to actually read the Bible before making blanket statements. It is inadvisable for one to have such firm, dogmatic opinions about topics about which one is so ill-informed. One of the mistakes you're making - which, ironically, is one of the same mistakes most Fundamentalists make vis-a-vis understanding the Bible in its own cultural context - is looking at the whole anthology of sixty-six books as one monolithic rulebook. But still, what you're saying isn't even true of the Pentateuch, much less the whole Christian Bible, written over the course of a thousand-odd years by dozens of people and shaped by many different traditions and cultures. I'm not saying you should go quit what you're doing and study religion for a few years for the sake of having an informed opinion, but try doing as the ancient Skeptics did and "suspend judgment" on complex issues.

Having said that, here's a few specific issues you mention.
> "condemn people for being different"
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. It's true that the Israelites fought plenty of rival tribes because they were in their way and not worshiping the same God. However, in the context of their time, this was a typical reason and the standard way to fight a war, and is not remarkable in the slightest. Condemning them for not upholding our modern laws of war, or for applying capital punishment to a wide range of offenses, is simply anachronistic.

In any case, cultural relativism is a cardinal virtue of the open-minded and educated person in our own era; not in the Near East thousands of years ago. A modern person must be able to put aside his own culture to fairly examine a work from a different time and place. Are you willing to do that, or are you just as unable to transcend the boundaries of your own culture as a the ancient Israelite who kills worshipers of foreign gods?

> "women are objects"
Not true! And, if anything, the Bible was ahead of its time on this. In the Torah, Moses is said to have made provisions that daughters could inherit from their father, rather than some male kinsman making off with all of their father's property. Paul, an early proponent of Christianity who wrote in the first century CE (when, in the eyes of the law in much of the world, women _were_ objects) said: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Paul was by no means a modern feminist, of course.)

This one is entirely true:
> "other religions are wrong"
The Bible does indeed condemn the worship of gods other than YHWH (a.k.a Yahweh, Jehovah, Adonai, the LORD... it's a long story) about half a billion times. However, so essentially _every_ religion, until quite recently, said something similar. Pluralism and diversity are, generally, _modern_ values. In any case, though, what's inherently wrong with saying something is wrong or right? If I say that the Earth goes around the Sun, I'm saying that geocentric cosmology is wrong; if I say that the world is a sphere, I'm implicitly condemning the Flat-Earthers, yet I hold both of those beliefs not because of religion, but because of science. And I'm quite sure, based on what you've said so far, that you'd agree with the statement "Christianity is wrong," so...

This is the most egregiously wrong one - I could make (granted, rather disingenuous) arguments for any of your previous points, but this one is simply, totally wrong:
> "everything about human nature is evil and you should deny yourself every bit of pleasure at every opportunity because it's the right thing to do."
In the gospel of Luke, Jesus goes to a wedding feast, and when they run out of wine, he miraculously turns water into wine for the party-goers. The Bible book called the Song of Solomon (a.k.a Canticles or the Song of Songs) is a love poem bordering on the erotic. A quick read through the book of Proverbs will put aside any ideas about the Bible as a book for none but ascetic hermits and flagellates.

In summary, the Bible is a complex and ancient book, of which many different interpretations can be made. Do not blame the Bible, its writers, or their cultures, for the follies of a small and vocal subset of its modern interpreters.

> I've never been one to follow the beat of someone else's drum. Just because a book says something doesn't make it so

I'm not asking you to. I don't come here as an apologist for Christianity, to write "Against Senjuro."
I am merely asking that you not unfairly condemn something, of which you seem to be largely ignorant, on the basis of hearsay and rumor - a request that should seem entirely reasonable to anyone who is on _this_ website in the first place.

>I think, firstly, that you need to actually read the Bible before making blanket statements. It is inadvisable for one to have such firm, dogmatic opinions about topics about which one is so ill-informed. One of the mistakes you're making - which, ironically, is one of the same mistakes most Fundamentalists make vis-a-vis understanding the Bible in its own cultural context - is looking at the whole anthology of sixty-six books as one monolithic rulebook. But still, what you're saying isn't even true of the Pentateuch, much less the whole Christian Bible, written over the course of a thousand-odd years by dozens of people and shaped by many different traditions and cultures. I'm not saying you should go quit what you're doing and study religion for a few years for the sake of having an informed opinion, but try doing as the ancient Skeptics did and "suspend judgment" on complex issues.

Wow, you're condescending.

>Condemning them for not upholding our modern laws of war, or for applying capital punishment to a wide range of offenses, is simply anachronistic.

No, it's not. If the Bible is the word of a divine, all-knowing God (or at the very least delivered by him to his followers) then we have every right to expect that it will show a higher standard of morals than were present at the time.

>Not true! And, if anything, the Bible was ahead of its time on this.

Ummmm... What? Aside from Timothy 2:11 ("Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."), I seem to remember a story about how some angels visit Lot's house and the townspeople want to rape them, and virtuous Lot begs them to take his virgin daughters instead "and do ye to them as is good in your eyes". And if memory serves, that story's in the Bible in three different places, so they must've really liked it. It's my understanding that the Old Testament was, in large part, a lump of patriarchal propaganda, trying to undermine the matriarchal societies of the time by portraying women not only as a man's property, but as schemers and deceivers.

>In any case, though, what's inherently wrong with saying something is wrong or right?

Nothing, so long as you don't implicitly order your followers to MURDER those who believe 'wrong' things.

>I am merely asking that you not unfairly condemn something, of which you seem to be largely ignorant, on the basis of hearsay and rumor - a request that should seem entirely reasonable to anyone who is on _this_ website in the first place.

While this may not prove Senjuro's case personally, he's actually more statistically likely to know what he's talking about than a Christian.
"Atheists And Agnostics Know More About Religion"

I was wondering if you'd bring up that passage in Timothy... There's discussion in scholarly circles over that being a later reactionary attempt at correcting the "feminism" of Jesus and the earliest Christianity. In any case, Timothy is later than Galatians and scholars aren't sure if it was written by Paul or not - leaning toward "not." Certainly, though he has some anti-feminist ideas about women's role in religion, Paul is still ahead of those who thought a woman should live or die at the whim of the man of her household.

> While this may not prove Senjuro's case personally, he's actually more statistically likely to know what he's talking about than a Christian.

Given that "religious" is the default in our current civilization, whereas atheism and agnosticism are usually positions one adopts later in life as the result of doing some thinking about the matter, that's hardly surprising. Most people are amazingly ignorant of "their" professed religion. Some people think Jesus used the King James Version - they just haven't thought about things at all!

> Nothing, so long as you don't implicitly order your followers to MURDER those who believe 'wrong' things.

I agree that it is unethical to murder people who believe wrong things. We're on the same page here. I'm not asking you to change your belief on that, rather, just to accept that just because a work from another culture disagrees with ours on some points, it does make the whole thing valueless.

> It's my understanding that the Old Testament was, in large part, a lump of patriarchal propaganda, trying to undermine the matriarchal societies of the time by portraying women not only as a man's property, but as schemers and deceivers.

I'm not an OT scholar, but I'm fairly well read on the basics, and this sounds like a revisionist interpretation to me. We know very little about those civilizations from extra-biblical sources, so we don't really have any way to assess that. I mean, I've read "Ishmael" (as should you, if you haven't), but it's reinterpretation of the Genesis creation story as being about the abandoning of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle for agriculturalism is entirely speculative. Remember, the stories of Lot, Abraham, Moses etc. were written down in the form we know them around the Babylonian captivity, many hundreds of years after they are thought to have lived. We _do_ know about the culture of ancient Babylon during the Jewish exile, and it was certainly not a matriarchy, so a pro-male revisionist history of Israel would hardly have been "needed."

Should be "... but its reinterpretation of the Genesis ..." Grr. Why doesn't this site have an edit feature?

>I was wondering if you'd bring up that passage in Timothy... There's discussion in scholarly circles over that being a later reactionary attempt at correcting the "feminism" of Jesus and the earliest Christianity. In any case, Timothy is later than Galatians and scholars aren't sure if it was written by Paul or not - leaning toward "not." Certainly, though he has some anti-feminist ideas about women's role in religion, Paul is still ahead of those who thought a woman should live or die at the whim of the man of her household.

Um, isn't its placement kinda irrelevant to the fact that it's in there at all!? You're really gonna have to work hard to prove to me the Bible isn't a handbook for treating women like livestock.

>I'm not asking you to change your belief on that, rather, just to accept that just because a work from another culture disagrees with ours on some points, it does make the whole thing valueless.

Freudian Slip for the win!

>We _do_ know about the culture of ancient Babylon during the Jewish exile, and it was certainly not a matriarchy, so a pro-male revisionist history of Israel would hardly have been "needed."

I didn't say Babylon itself was. I read a book that delved pretty deeply into Genesis and that's what it said; there were matriarchal societies (maybe just tribes or cities?) that annoyed the early Bible writers. Regardless, given how Genesis traces, in excruciating detail, the lineage and children of men, but treats women totally as secondary characters, it's hard not to see it as considering women as 'less' than men.

> Um, isn't its placement kinda irrelevant to the fact that it's in there at all!?

Sorry, I was using technical jargon; "later" means later chronologically. Timothy was written decades after Galatians, by someone who may or may not have been the same as the author who wrote the statement suggesting gender equality in Galatians. Indeed, the different perspectives on women the two books apparently have is one of the arguments against common authorship.

And I was pointing out that, while scholars can delve into the books' real authors, the problem is that the common man thinks the book has only ONE author. Whose name starts with 'G'.

> I didn't say Babylon itself was. I read a book that delved pretty deeply into Genesis and that's what it said; there were matriarchal societies (maybe just tribes or cities?) that annoyed the early Bible writers.

I'd like to read this book you speak of, so I can examine its argument first-hand. However, the interpretation you describe does not sound like something a person who knew Genesis was compiled in its final form many centuries after Moses would come up with. Indeed, someone who thought it was written _by Moses_ would be hard put to come to that conclusion - nobody thinks Abraham or his predecessors wrote Genesis, and they're the ones who would have been interacting with, and displacing, these matriarchal cultures.

> Regardless, given how Genesis traces, in excruciating detail, the lineage and children of men, but treats women totally as secondary characters,
The information about women may simply have been unavailable to the author...

> it's hard not to see it as considering women as 'less' than men.
... but granted, it is clearly the work of a patriarchal culture.

>I'd like to read this book you speak of, so I can examine its argument first-hand.

It was R. Crumb's illustrated book of Genesis. I almost hate admitting it, because there's still this stigma that 'comic books aren't real books', but he put about ten years' worth of effort into it and there's extensive footnotes. He definitely did his research, though maybe his sources were pseudosciency? <shrug>

> No, it's not. If the Bible is the word of a divine, all-knowing God (or at the very least delivered by him to his followers) then we have every right to expect that it will show a higher standard of morals than were present at the time.

You're missing my whole point, I think. There are religions that say the Bible is all these things and argue that it does. If you want to take up this line of reasoning as an argument against those religions, by all means, do so. Make them try to justify putting women and children to the sword; whatever. They _can_, it's somewhat interesting to read such arguments, but they're just a little strained.

However, the Bible itself can't be blamed for all of the claims various modern denominations make for it. From what we know of the early church, for example, the writers of most of the NT books had no ambitions of their work ever being included in the Bible, which, for them, was the OT. It sounds to me like you have more of a problem with the way people use the Bible, than with the Bible itself, which ultimately is a book that various groups of people have rather strong opinions about.

>It sounds to me like you have more of a problem with the way people use the Bible, than with the Bible itself,

No, I have problems with BOTH.

>However, the Bible itself can't be blamed for all of the claims various modern denominations make for it.

Yes, but it can be blamed for SOME.

I reject both these ideas: "The Bible is responsible for all evil acts Christians commit" and "The Bible is responsible for none of the evil acts Christians commit". The truth is virtually never black and white.

People are responsible for their own acts, absolutely. But the simple fact is, if you have a handbook that encourages some pretty reprehensible behavior, that's gotta be a pretty big influence. (And no, it's not the same as claiming video games make kids violent. No video games has been considered for thousands of years by millions of people to be the commandments of the creator of the universe, which must be obeyed on threat of everlasting torture in Hell.)

I think a huge problem with the argument you and Squidfish are having is that you're both citing the Bible, you to show examples of how the Bible is, he to show counterexamples to try to prove the Bible isn't.

The problem with that is that the Bible is FULL of contradictions, and Squidfish even says why: "written over the course of a thousand-odd years by dozens of people and shaped by many different traditions and cultures." You can pretty much pull any philosophy you like out of it depending on which parts you like the most. If you want to be a horrible xenophobe who wants to enslave and kill anyone who doesn't follow your religion, the Bible supports that. If you want to be a peaceful hedonist who just wants to have fun and spread love among friends and all the people of the world, guess what? The Bible supports THAT TOO!

To Squidfish, this is what Alex is trying to get at: that because the Bible can be used to prop up any moral philosophy, it's useless as a moral code because all it does is reinforce the moral code you already started with.

>that because the Bible can be used to prop up any moral philosophy, it's useless as a moral code because all it does is reinforce the moral code you already started with.

Very nicely put. It's like a calculator that, instead of giving you a correct answer, will give you whatever answer you expect it to give. I'm also trying to convey to him that there is a difference between what the writers of the Bible intended, and how people are using it now. It's very similar to the 2nd amendment debate. It's easy enough to see what the writers intended, but even though it's not their fault because they couldn't have foreseen it, it sure as hell has led to a lot of problems and controversy nowadays.

I think a huge problem with the argument you and Alex are having is that you're both citing the Bible, he to show examples of how the Bible is, you to show counterexamples to try to prove the Bible isn't.

The problem with that is that the Bible is FULL of contradictions, and you even say why: "written over the course of a thousand-odd years by dozens of people and shaped by many different traditions and cultures." You can pretty much pull any philosophy you like out of it depending on which parts you like the most. If you want to be a horrible xenophobe who wants to enslave and kill anyone who doesn't follow your religion, the Bible supports that. If you want to be a peaceful hedonist who just wants to have fun and spread love among friends and all the people of the world, guess what? The Bible supports THAT TOO!

This is what Alex is trying to get at: that because the Bible can be used to prop up any moral philosophy, it's useless as a moral code because all it does is reinforce the moral code you already started with.

Let's not forget the equally-bizarre stuff that we don't think about as much because we're used to it. Talking snakes. A guy fitting two of every known animal on a boat for forty days, plus food and fresh water, and none of the animals eat each other. Burning bushes. Chariots in the sky. Parting the Red Sea. Mysterious plagues. The very idea of God himself, for cryin' out loud!

While all of the things you mention have a mythic ring to modern ears, and can cause plenty of discomfort and strained rationalizations from adherents of staunch Biblical literalism and inerrancy, none of them have anything to do with the Bible's alleged "hatefulness." And, lest I come off as unfairly condemning said adherents, some of those explanations are fairly reasonable. (I have animals in my house that would eat each other, but they don't... the cat can't eat your daughter's hamster if you keep it in a cage.)

Um, I wasn't trying to prove the Bible's hatefulness with those examples. I was arguing that it's as full of fantasy elements as a Tolkien book. (I try to prove the Bible's hatefulness elsewhere.)

I mostly agree with your basic thesis (I read it as - Fred Phelps is making obvious hate speech, but people don't recognize it as such because it's homophobic rather than, e.g. racist, which reflects a social bias). However, I disagree with your characterization of the Bible. In reality, the Bible says fairly little about homosexuality and even less about other hot-button issues like abortion. In Leviticus, male-male sex is called an abomination, but so are shellfish and idols and a surprisingly large variety of other things. Despite Phelps' fixation, there is no Bible book the main thrust of which is the condemnation of homosexuality. Indeed, Jesus himself spoke not a word on it himself!

Let's face it - people have held up the Bible to justify all kinds of different views. To pick your own example, in the past it was used to justify slavery... and abolitionism. That a book thousands of years old has some values dissonance with society today should hardly be reason to write it off completely as being "hateful ancient bullshit." As part of the respected traditional background of many people, it can be (ab)used as a "memetic gun" to enforce a variety of liberal or (more frequently) conservative positions, but don't blame a rabbi who lived two-thousand-years ago and preached peace, love and the Kingdom of God for a hateful and violently bigoted man like Fred Phelps.

If you haven't before, I encourage you to actually _read_ the Bible, and not just rely on the "Angry Fundie Version," so often quoted from, which consists of about ten verses condemning kinds of sex they are fixated on and saying that everyone who isn't an Angry Fundie will burn in hell.

This is one of the better counter-statements regarding the Bible that I've ever read. Thank you, sir.

Wanted to add to this:
>This is an entirely incorrect description of the transmission of the text of the Bible. Modern Bibles are translated directly from the languages in which the books were composed by their authors.

Maybe so, but most Christians I know of take the KJV as THE version of the Bible. Modern theologians can retranslate it all they want, but most people are gonna cling to the one full of 'thee's and 'thou's because it's more traditional. (And religion's all about clinging to what's traditional, regardless of merit.)

>However, I disagree with your characterization of the Bible. In reality, the Bible says fairly little about homosexuality and even less about other hot-button issues like abortion. ... Indeed, Jesus himself spoke not a word on it himself!

So? Even if the bible doesn't mention homosexuality too many times, every time it IS mentioned it's called a sin. It's not like there's any ambiguity that 'sodomites' are condemned to burn in Hell.

1st Kings 14:24 "And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel."
Romans 1:26-32 "For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. ... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them."
1st Corinthians 6:9 "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,"

>Let's face it - people have held up the Bible to justify all kinds of different views.

Right. Because the book's so sloppily-put-together and contradictory that you can find a verse somewhere in it to justify literally anything.

>That a book thousands of years old has some values dissonance with society today should hardly be reason to write it off completely as being "hateful ancient bullshit."

How's this for justification?

From Deuteronomy 13
"If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.
If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in that wicked men have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods you have not known), then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. Destroy it completely,a both its people and its livestock. Gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt."

I'd say 'hateful ancient bullshit' is actually too tame.

>If you haven't before, I encourage you to actually _read_ the Bible

I haven't read the whole thing cover to cover, but what I have read is the reason I'm so completely repulsed by it. You may point out some good ideas and wisdom in it, but I'll counter that there is nothing good that's unique to the Bible. There's no moral lesson there that couldn't be found elsewhere. Preferably in another book where you don't have to scrape so much bloodshed, misogyny, ignorance and fear-mongering off of it first.



BTW, how come there's two creation myths in Genesis? :)

> BTW, how come there's two creation myths in Genesis?

Because the editor of Genesis had available to him two stories about the creation of the world in his sources, and thought they were both good or edifying on some level? I honestly don't know. It's not something that I really worry about, being more focused on the NT, but current thinking (since a over a century ago) is that the Pentateuch was compiled from several different, more ancient, written sources. (The Documentary Hypothesis.) The only people who are generally bothered by that sort of thing are people who insist that God dictated the whole thing out to Moses word-for-word.

> I haven't read the whole thing cover to cover, but what I have read is the reason I'm so completely repulsed by it.

Have you read the Gospels? Mark is the shortest. Start there, with a modern Bible translation. Don't read it as something that Fred Phelps and his ilk use to justify hatred, read it as an ancient story about a Rabbi and miracle-worker in Galilee two-thousand years ago.

> D 13
The thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy is one chapter out of hundreds. The Bible is an anthology of dozens of books by many different authors. To fairly condemn the Bible as a whole, surely you must fairly condemn each of them, not one of them, much less a single passage from one chapter in one book which presents exceptional difficulty to our current culture and ethics.

> Maybe so, but most Christians I know of take the KJV as THE version of the Bible.

I certainly don't, and no one says you have to either, except for a handful of extremists. The KJV is, in fact, one of the worst English versions of the Bible, being based entirely on a few late manuscripts, it is heavily biased by the theology of its translators, and it predates great advances in the understanding of the ancient Greek and Hebrew languages. Not to knock it as literature, but the KJV has unicorns in it due to translational confusion. Unicorns!

>Because the editor of Genesis had available to him two stories about the creation of the world in his sources, and thought they were both good or edifying on some level? I honestly don't know.

That was kind of a rhetorical question. I just wanted you to know I have looked into the book a bit.

>Have you read the Gospels? Mark is the shortest. Start there, with a modern Bible translation. Don't read it as something that Fred Phelps and his ilk use to justify hatred, read it as an ancient story about a Rabbi and miracle-worker in Galilee two-thousand years ago.

A Rabbi who said some wise things at times, and other times spoke endlessly about Hellfire and cast demons into livestock.

I'll admit, I like pretty much everything from the sermon on the mount. But my opinion of Jesus went straight into the toilet when I read this passage from Matthew:
"Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother, more than Me, is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter, more than Me, is not worthy of Me. And he, who does not take his cross and follow after Me, is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life, for My sake, will find it."

I'd be disgusted by any man who said something so arrogant. It reminds me of how so many people view Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son as a virtuous act. Christopher Hitchens nailed it: "If I was told to sacrifice [my children] to prove my devotion to God, if I was told to do what all monotheists are told to do and admire the man who said 'Yes, I'll gut my kid to show my love of God', I'd say, 'No. Fuck you.'"

>The thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy is one chapter out of hundreds. The Bible is an anthology of dozens of books by many different authors. To fairly condemn the Bible as a whole, surely you must fairly condemn each of them, not one of them, much less a single passage from one chapter in one book which presents exceptional difficulty to our current culture and ethics.

That's a bullshit argument. A piece of something can easily be so rotten as to spoil the whole. If a virtuous man only rapes one child in his whole life, that one act absolutely matters more than all his other good acts. And for me, the mere fact that the Bible contains this passage is reason enough to say, "I could be reading something a lot better than this." I'm not advocating judging something based on a snap decision. I am however, saying that sometimes all I need to see is a trailer to know a movie is a turd.

(Plus, I'm not basing my opinion of the Bible on this one passage, but on the many, MANY passages in it I find equally morally repellent.)

>Maybe so, but most Christians I know of take the KJV as THE version of the Bible.
>I certainly don't, and no one says you have to either,

<migraine> Was I talking about you and me!? No. I was talking about other people. Specifically, the superdogmatic Christians who worship ONLY the KJV, and who're usually the type who want to change this country's laws to fit their putrid morality. Your opinion and mine are irrelevant to what I was talking about.

References to "hellfire" in the NT are debatable and sporadic. In the NT, the afterlife is (as with many contemporary Jewish sects) the Resurrection of the Body; "well-developed" ideas of eternal punishment and reward of the soul came later under the influence of Hellenistic culture and philosophy. Even the reference Jesus makes to Hell of the inextinguishable fire and undying worm are absent from some early manuscripts and may be a later interpolation. "Hell" also is used to translate two Greek words, one of which is a reference to a garbage dump outside Jerusalem, and the other of which is a reference to a rather poorly defined underworld arguably better rendered as "the grave" or "death" in most cases.

It's an oversimplification, but there is a lot of truth, I think, to the idea that Hell was invented to "scare people straight" repeatedly in the history of religion.

> That's a bullshit argument. A piece of something can easily be so rotten as to spoil the whole.

"The Bible" is a group of writings that are commonly associated with each other. As far as we can tell from research, most of the authors did not intend their books to be grouped together. The Bible canon was debated for centuries, sometimes including certain books, other times excluding them, and is not entirely settled today. If you want to say that passage spoils Deuteronomy for you, so be it. But it is no basis for condemning, say, the letter to the Galatians.

>References to "hellfire" in the NT are debatable and sporadic.

Really? Cuz, see, I kinda remember Jesus talking an awful lot about a land of undying fire where souls will be separated from God and tormented eternally. What word he used for this place seems pretty irrelevant.

>"The Bible" is a group of writings that are commonly associated with each other.

Do I detect weasel words? They're not COMMONLY associated with each other, they're VIRTUALLY ALWAYS associated with each other. I don't think I've ever seen a single book from the Bible sold on its own. (Maybe the Old and New Testaments in two volumes.) And if people today know about any individual book it is solely because it is part of the collection.

Yes, I'm well aware that the Bible is more like a short story anthology than a single unified work. The problem is, do most people know that? Do they view the Bible in a scholarly way? Or do they see it as a holy text, the word of God himself, and believe unquestioningly in whatever interpretation of it they're fed?

I'm noticing with a lot of your arguments you're giving me reasons that aren't relevant. You're picking at details when my point has to do with the larger picture. The fact is, whether their interpretations are 100% historically correct or not, people are using the KJV as a battering ram for their beliefs. Now, people have used books to justify crazy beliefs lots of times in the past. Serial killers have said Catcher In The Rye told them to kill. Anti-abortionists claim Horton Hears A Who is a pro-life parable. The difference is, you can look through those books and tell right away they're being misinterpreted. But with the Bible, if someone claims Hell is real, you can find passages that say that. If someone says you should kill those who follow different gods, you can find passages for that. It may not be the original author's fault that this incredibly contradictory book is being treated as, ahem, gospel. But that's how things are. The real question is, what are we going to do to change things? I look at 21st century people thinking the Bible is anything more than a book, and it reminds me of the people who went to see Avatar and became convinced that they have Na'vi souls. Both are cases of people taking fiction too fucking seriously. We can quibble about whether the Bible is an inherently evil book, or we can acknowledge the evil that it it used to justify.

> I don't think I've ever seen a single book from the Bible sold on its own. (Maybe the Old and New Testaments in two volumes.)

The only times I've ever seen incomplete Bibles are that, often, the little pocket Bibles people will pass out on the street on occasion are just the New Testament plus Psalms and Proverbs. Almost as if they're embarrassed about some of the rest of it...

On a quasirelated note, I, like George Carlin, am SICK TO DEATH of people who use the word 'proverbial' to describe something that's not a proverb. Or even just a well-known saying!

NEWSANCHOR: Well, it looks like Coach Santia's team has fallen into a proverbial slump this year.
INIGO MONTOYA: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Scholarly translations with commentary are commonly sold as individual books. They're not handy for following references, though. It's not actually pertinent to the discussion, though (see my other post today.)

The word he used is rather relevant, because two different words are used, but both are translated "hell" in the KJV, possibly obscuring a serious difference in meaning.

> Really? Cuz, see, I kinda remember Jesus talking an awful lot about a land of undying fire where souls will be separated from God and tormented eternally. What word he used for this place seems pretty irrelevant.

Nope, it's rather sparse. There's a pericope where he says:

"""
Mark 9:43 So if you hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life without a hand than to keep both hands and go to hell and the unquenchable fire (44 where the devouring worm never dies and the fire is not put out). 45 And if your food causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life without a foot than to keep both feet and be thrown into hell (46 where the devouring worm never dies and the fire is not put out). 47 If it is your eye that causes you to sin, tear it out; it is better to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to keep both eyes and be thrown into hell, 48 where the devouring worm never dies and the fire is not put out.
"""

Again, "where the devouring worm never dies and the fire is not put out" is almost certainly a later addition to the text, according to textual critics and various early witnesses. The quote is from the Anchor Bible series, and incidentally, as is often the case with scholarly Bible translations with a commentary, it's one volume per book. (Some books are broken up into two volumes, in fact.)

Now, there's another passage with a bearing on this discussion. In a parable recorded in Luke, Jesus speaks of a rich man who treats a poor man unkindly, then both die. He's depicted as "being in torments," and separated from Abraham and the poor man, but as to the nature of the torments (fire? cold? separation from God? angry squirrels?) or if they are eternal, it doesn't say. As a parable, it's clearly heavy on the metaphor, as well.

>They're not COMMONLY associated with each other, they're VIRTUALLY ALWAYS associated with each other.

That's true, and important for considering the sociological role of the Bible, but again... don't blame the Bible's books for what people do with them, including how they have chosen to publish them. If one binds The Communist Manifesto and Moby Dick together in one handy volume, it wouldn't matter if that edition sold ten billion copies, it doesn't make Herman Melville a Communist - likewise no number of dead pagans in the OT can make John the Evangelist an advocate of genocide. (Not that I think the compiler of the Pentateuch was either, but that's an entirely different discussion.)

> people are using the KJV as a battering ram for their beliefs.

Yes, but you appear to be in the position of a man whose tower is attacked by a horde of barbarians with a battering ram, and says, "I hate that battering ram!" instead of "I hate these barbarians!" Maybe the barbarians wouldn't bother attacking your tower if they didn't have one, true, but a weapon is morally neutral, even if it _is_ a battering ram and inscribed, "You should bust in some tower doors with this thing!"

The cruces of my argument are, first, that the Bible should not be condemned because of what people do with it, and, second, that the Bible books need to be considered on their own merits, not by the other books they are collected with.

>The cruces of my argument are, first, that the Bible should not be condemned because of what people do with it, and, second, that the Bible books need to be considered on their own merits, not by the other books they are collected with.

I can't agree with you that weapons (or in this case books) are morally neutral. Sure, they're inanimate objects with no will of their own. But the people who created them did have a will, and created those objects for a purpose. It's disingenuous for the NRA to claim "Guns don't kill people; people kill people" because, while it is true in the most literal, technical sense, it obscures the reality that a gun's purpose is to kill living things in a very efficient manner. Similarly, we cannot treat the Bible as we would a random novel. What is its purpose? To serve as a guidebook for people. It is a book people are meant to live their lives by. So when people do live their lives by some of the nastier parts (especially when those parts are said to be rules handed down from the very mouth of God), it's disingenuous to say the Bible is blameless.

Look at it this way; if a fad diet book comes out, and people follow it, and lots of them get horribly malnourished and some of them die, do you think the writer of that book could get away with saying in court, "Hey, I just wrote the thing; it's not my fault if people follow it."

And okay, fine. Let's say some of the books of the Bible are less reprehensible than others. Do you honestly expect anyone, when criticizing its contents, to name exactly which books they have a problem with, each and every time? Besides, the Bible's books aren't just randomly slapped together, like your Communist Dick example. They didn't just float together by magic; they were assembled. The Church made a single book out of all the scattered ones. They say it is one book, so forgive me for treating it as one. Sure, they probably did it with no regard to the writers' wishes, but that sounds pretty much like what they did to Jesus as well. Like it or not, the book is a whole because the Church says so.

Can we agree on this at least? If I'm reading a short story anthology, and half of them are utterly morally repellent to me, I won't begrudge the other authors in the book, but can I blame the editor for sticking those nauseating ones in?

> can I blame the editor for sticking those nauseating ones in?
I suppose you can, but in this case, "the editor" is either a deity or a collective term for the dozens of people who shaped the Bible canon over the course of centuries, most of whom are anonymous. I guess you could blame Ezra the Scribe? It still seems to me like "blame" really lies squarely on the people who are misusing the Bible _now_, rather than those who wrote the books or even those who compiled them into one canonical collection.

> like your Communist Dick example
HA! That would certainly be the title.

> I can't agree with you that weapons (or in this case books) are morally neutral.
That's one for the philosophers, I suppose. I can see where you're coming from on the issue, but I don't agree. There are pragmatic reasons to support (or reject) gun control, but morally, a tool is just a tool, regardless of if it's a gun, a book about organical chemistry, a lockpick, or a DVD duplicator program.

> do you think the writer of that book could get away with saying in court, "Hey, I just wrote the thing; it's not my fault if people follow it."

Ultimately, people should be responsible for their own actions. If a book tells people that they can survive on a diet consisting entirely of tree bark and lichens, and for lack of critical thinking ability, they follow this advice, it represents a serious defect of the people involved. But if you want to make this analogy conform to the actual situation, imagine that the book that was written by, say, a druid who lived seven hundred years ago and really thought that tree bark and lichens were the cornerstones of a balanced diet. He wasn't acting with malice, he thought his suggestions were reasonable and there wasn't really a scientific consensus to challenge his theory at the time. If some modern company republishes his book and markets it to modern dieters, they, if anyone, are acting maliciously - not the writer.

>It still seems to me like "blame" really lies squarely on the people who are misusing the Bible _now_, rather than those who wrote the books or even those who compiled them into one canonical collection.

I blame them all. I dunno whether it's a cultural thing or what, but we're too used to blaming a single person/group for a vast problem and thinking that solves anything. Ever seen the movie Who Killed The Electric Car? Regardless of its conclusions, one thing I really liked was that, in the end, they laid the blame for the demise of the EV-1 car on a bunch of different people and groups, consumers included. With this Bible thing, I'm sorry, but one group doesn't get let off the hook because another group is slightly more guilty.

>That's one for the philosophers, I suppose. I can see where you're coming from on the issue, but I don't agree. There are pragmatic reasons to support (or reject) gun control, but morally, a tool is just a tool, regardless of if it's a gun, a book about organical chemistry, a lockpick, or a DVD duplicator program.

You just restated your argument instead of refuting mine.

>He wasn't acting with malice, he thought his suggestions were reasonable and there wasn't really a scientific consensus to challenge his theory at the time. If some modern company republishes his book and markets it to modern dieters, they, if anyone, are acting maliciously - not the writer.

You ever heard of negligent homicide? That's what they call it when someone, though a stunning display of dumb, gets someone else killed. No malicious intent, just a lack of forethought. So your druid, although he wouldn't be charged for it back in his day, would still be guilty of something like this. Because he'd still be able to observe the effects of this diet on himself and his followers. So he's as guilty as the modern publishers. Hell, that's the reason we have an FDA: if you make false claims about a product, they will put a stop to it. Whether you believe it or not doesn't matter. The writers of the Bible's books didn't have to say to themselves, "Oboy! We're gonna hinder scientific and social progress well into the 21st century!" The fact remains that they did, because they wrote books full of bullshit and told people it was the commandments of the creator. When I complain about the violence, misogyny and contradictions in the Bible, it's not in the same way I'd criticize a bad movie. I'm saying, "Hey, think about this critically and you'll see this book is nothing anyone should want to live their lives by!" If it was just another book I probably wouldn't care at all. What makes me angry is the FALSE CLAIMS made about the book. When someone says this book is more than a book, it becomes necessary to look at the book itself and see if that claim has any merit. Especially when people want to base our nation's laws on it!

The solution is not to burn every Bible, but for people to wake up and treat it as what it IS; ancient literature, nothing more. I have no problem with people selling books on Greek mythology (though there's plenty of violent, horrible stuff in them, too), because we acknowledge that they're fiction. That's all I want society to do with our current crop of 'holy' books. Treat them as what they are. I criticize the Bible because Christians have made it necessary for me to. Same with the Koran. There's a reason I don't write long essays about what a bastard Zeus was.

Reminds me why i put a rainbow ribbon on the back of my car, hehe

I was thinking about this the other day, while reading history. I read about a huge anti-slavery politician (I believe Garrison) who was dragged through the streets because people didn't agree with his abolitionism.
The first thing I thought was "Would people have done something similar if he had spoken against gays in this time?"
The answer was no, of course. Besides me and my boyfriend's goal of starting a gay-straight alliance at my school (we werent able to do it this year) and the sticker, I know I haven't done much. But I'm not a rash person. I like doing it in silently conquering ways. (Also, getting a gay-straight alliance at our school would be a HUGE phenomenon. The majority of our town is christian over 40 years old. Hell, most of our traffic is Sundays after church lets out.)

but I'm seeing A LOT more gays out in the open because of the recent crusades for equality. I mean even in our band (about 100 people) we have 3 gays. And i know we have TONS more bis and gays in the rest of the school.
Even though this is amazing, it's really unfortunate to think that "we are one of the lucky schools", and be right. We have absolutely no gay-bashing outside of the rightist kids making rude remarks. And they get laughed at. The kids know that any form of hate crime wouldn't be tolerated by our principal at all, and their ass would be outta here.

I would LOVE to see the day where gay-bashing is laughed at, and people who commit the crime get more than just a slap on the wrists.

>I would LOVE to see the day where gay-bashing is laughed at, and people who commit the crime get more than just a slap on the wrists.

Same here. and in the meantime, we have to be careful not to fall into the mindset that the struggle's over. Yes, there's openly gay characters on TV, but there's also still small towns where kids are afraid to come out for fear of being killed. Same thing with racism or sexism. The goals of the civil rights movement and the feminists have been mostly attained, but that's just treating individual hydra-heads of the beast called ignorance.

Ah religion and morality
The two favored weapons of bigots and various other people who enjoy attacking people for their differences. With them they can justify nearly any atrocity imaginable after all it's for the children and it's God's will.
(Even though we didn't ask what the children want, and disregard that added verse that we interpreted to justify our beliefs.)
It really is rather depressing to me to see how much jerkassery still exists in this world.
But still
When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always.
Mahatma Gandhi
I think jerkasses can be added to the list

>When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always.

I'm not sure I agree with you there. I can think of plenty of instances where evil wins pretty decisively.

Still, that's no reason not to fight on the side of good with all our strength. :)

As a Christian myself, honestly I do think homosexuality is wrong. However, as I also recognize all mankind as sinners, I deem it not my place to judge. One sin is as bad on the imortal scale of things as another in my opinion. When it comes to the mortal side of life though, I deem it as a relatively harmless sin compared to some others (rape, murder, etc.). So for me, it all comes down to as long as a person respects my sexual prefference, I'll respect theirs.

Out of friendly curiosity, why, both to the homosexuality and the all mankind as sinners bit?

I believe only three humans in existence have ever been sinless and two of them fell into sin. We've all done something wrong in our lives whether by thought, word or deed. The Bible declares homosexuality to be a sexual perversion and sinful. I for one do believe the Bible so my opinion is what is written there.

>As a Christian myself, honestly I do think homosexuality is wrong.

Well, I'm sorry, but that makes you a bigot.

There's no getting around it or denying it. You think something is wrong, based on your old book, despite there being no rational evidence backing that idea up. Homosexuality is found pretty much everywhere in nature, gays do not get more diseases than straights, they take care of their children as well as straights, are pretty much identical to straights in any sociological way that can be measured. The only difference is the gender of who they love.

Listen, you're an intelligent individual. You do not have to believe something just because it's in a book you follow. I think George Carlin was the best stand-up comedian to ever live. But are there things he said I disagree with? Sure there are! I can like the guy plenty and not agree with every last thing he said. Similarly, you can read your Bible and say to yourself, 'Reason tells me this part is irrational and unethical, so I choose not to follow it.'

Consider this too: Plenty of people in the past used the Bible to justify opposition to legalizing interracial marriage. If you were alive during that time, you very likely would believe that mixed-race marriages were also wrong. You would believe that. Because you'd have been raised to believe that.

Here's a fact: Homosexuality is NOT wrong. In any way. Why? Because I say so.

> Here's a fact: Homosexuality is NOT wrong. In any way. Why? Because I say so.

You know, you have the right degree of self-assuredness and the iconoclastic attitude that seems to be needed to found a new religion. Not that you aren't an okay guy and all, but I hope that my descendants, a thousand years from now, aren't doing their PhDs in "Early Alexreynardism."

Please let me know, though, if you suddenly get an urge to sell your house, put on sandals, and walk the Earth proclaiming your message, up to an eventual climatic martyrdom where you go to prison for punching Fred Phelps in the face. I want to be there, so I can make sure posterity gets an accurate account, and all. (And, I know it's wrong, but I'd like to see Fred Phelps get punched in the face, too... :) )

>Not that you aren't an okay guy and all, but I hope that my descendants, a thousand years from now, aren't doing their PhDs in "Early Alexreynardism."

I sure as fuck hope they are. That would rock.

>Please let me know, though, if you suddenly get an urge to sell your house, put on sandals, and walk the Earth proclaiming your message, up to an eventual climatic martyrdom where you go to prison for punching Fred Phelps in the face. I want to be there, so I can make sure posterity gets an accurate account, and all.

You already are there. I may be sitting at my desk, but my words have traveled to every home where this journal is on a computer screen. My keyboard is my sandals; my journals and my novels are my walk. I'm not gonna trust other people to carry my words for me (look where that got JC), I'mma do it myself.

BTW, I'd never punch Phlelps in the face. I'd arrange for several AIDS-positive gay men to gangrape him. ^__^

>BTW, I'd never punch Phlelps in the face. I'd arrange for several AIDS-positive gay men to gangrape him. ^__^

Don't you think thats a little unfair to the Aids virus?

Maybe, but I think I can live with that.

> I sure as fuck hope they are. That would rock.
> I'm not gonna trust other people to carry my words for me (look where that got JC), I'mma do it myself.

Even if you do, assuming that your ideas caught on, in a thousand years, the text on this page will have gone through so many editions, pious attempts to resolve "difficult" passages, alterations by heretics, and conflation with other things you wrote, said, or were rumored to have said, that you'd probably barely recognize it. We'll be lucky if "don't kill other people for believing differently from you" gets through, and if people don't decide that you meant that to be "metaphorical" about the same time Alexreynardism becomes the state religion of the Great Canadian Empire of the 27th century. (I also predict extensive debates involving fundamentalist and more liberal Alexreynardists on the topic: "Did animals talk in the Prophet's day, or were his talking animal stories moral allegories?")

Well, I do what I can to be as unambiguous as I can.

Still, I'm kind of reminded here of how, whenever someone points out a particularly nasty part in the Koran, the rebuttal is usually, "Oh, that's just a horrible translation you're using." Really? Then Jeepers, every Koran on Earth must have been translated by people who hate Islam, because there seems to be an awful lot of violent, misogynist, homophobic crap they inserted. It's certainly not possible that that stuff was always right there, perfectly in context.

> every Koran on Earth must have been translated by people who hate Islam

Well, probably not the most pious, conventional Muslims at any rate, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qur%27.....lamic_theology

So, "officially," only the Arabic is the real deal and any translation is suspect. Given how much some English translators have distorted the Bible, I have some sympathy for "only original languages are binding" as a principle.

>So, "officially," only the Arabic is the real deal and any translation is suspect

How very convenient for them.

*shrugs* Judge me as you will I suppose. I stick to God's word out of faith in him. I'll reprhase above and say that while I don't condone homosexuality, I don't condem it because it's not my place to do so. It'd be rather hypocritical of me anyways seeing as how I think I tread minorly into the bi territory myself, plus the fact that alot of my online buddies here are gay as well.

Sorry if I stepped on your toes there. Was just voicing my own opinions is all. To the main point of your journal though, I absolutely agree with you that the aforementioned assf*** was WAY out of line there. It especially bugs me because I'm a military kid. Dude needs some basic respect for the dead...

You allow yourself to be ruled by something simply because it's there and purposely, intentionally, willfully and knowingly do it like a sheep being herded or a dog being taught a trick. Why don't you think for yourself? Why is it wrong and not simply because God says so? What reason does God have? Did God have statistical analyses that he based his answer on? Did he conduct experiments on his hypotheses? Was he just having a bad day and said something rude about homosexuals while he didn't mean it? Was he closed-minded and simply refused to listen to anyone other than himself? You have to ask "why" when God says "what", or you're nothing more than a trained talking parrot.

Dude, A) Calm down. B) I hold true to him because I'm grateful to him for paying a debt for me I couldn't on my own. I have reason to obey him. C) Alot of the bible makes too much sense for me to doubt it anyways. It certainly makes more sense to me than some of the stuff scientists come up with.

You have only his word that the debt exists in the first place.

Consider the following scenario: Some guy walks up to you on the street and says "Hello, you don't know me but your grandfather owed me a large sum of money, and that debt was passed down to you. I've decided to forgive that debt on the condition that you come around to my house once a week to entertain me and my friends. You'll sing and tell everyone what a great guy I am for forgiving that debt." And when you ask him for proof of this debt you've never heard of, he shows a book he and some friends wrote about it.

What would you do?


P.S. It's even worse in the religious case because the debt of sin is a far more abstract concept than a financial debt. Not only do you only have the word of the religion that the debt exists, you only have their word that sin itself exists AS A CONCEPT.

I am calm, I'm just trying to make you realize that you're blindly following a path someone conveniently made for you rather than making one on your own. It's easy if there's a God and you have a book with everything perfectly spelled out and you never have to think for yourself, isn't it?

Addendum: I should also add that it's not science's fault if you don't understand it. There's no rule (other than the imaginary ones in the Bible) that says the world, the universe and life *has* to be simple to understand, the problem is you either assume it should/has to be and reject things based on that in favor of something more simple (the Bible).

>*shrugs* Judge me as you will I suppose.

I'm not the one judging you. You said you believe homosexuality is wrong. That's textbook bigotry, sorry. You can argue with the dictionary if you don't like it. Or you can stop believing such a thing.

>I think I tread minorly into the bi territory myself, plus the fact that alot of my online buddies here are gay as well.

Then, if your book is true, they are going to burn forever in undying fire, and you will too. Your book pretty explicitly states that 'sodomites' have no place in the kingdom of God. Again, this is not me saying this; I'm only reporting what's printed in the book. A book which also says that homosexuals should be put to death. Do you believe that too? If not, then why? That's a serious question. Ask yourself why you can decide for yourself that you won't believe it's wrong for gays to be put to death, but you still believe being gay is wrong. It sounds to me like, instead of making a firm decision on what to believe, you're instead going with a softer, easier belief in between the two extremes of, "God hates fags" and "The Bible is wrong."

But here's the scary part: one of those two extremes has to be true. If the Bible is God's instructions to his people, then do you think he'll forgive someone who chooses to pick and choose which of those instructions they'll follow? And if it's not the word of God, then it's just a book. Which means it has no power over you whatsoever.

Bonus question: Since homosexuality is wrong, then what do you believe is a fitting punishment for it?

I also place my faith in Christ. All sin is deserving of hell as heaven requires us to be as perfect as God. Christ wiped the slate clean for all who trust that he did. You're quoting the law part of the bible there but forgetting the gospel. The gospel is the good news and the main reason for the bible. The law is the mirror that shows us how much we need Christ.

Also, looked at the definition and I suppose I am a bit of a bigot. I'm just not a hostile one. I stick to my path and urge others to follow but I'm not going to force them onto it at gunpoint.

You didn't answer my question. What punishment do you think is fitting for a homosexual, assuming they don't receive Christ? Is hellfire a fair punishment, do you think? I'm just looking for consistency here. If you believe something is wrong, it must be corrected. Do you ever try to change your gay friends? You'd better, if you want to save them from Hell.

I don't try to change their sexual preference. I'd rather those who don't have faith in Christ first so even if they can't force themselves to change, the sin is at least forgiven and they've accepted the pardon. As I said sin in general is deserving of hell, yes hell is the punishment for homosexuals outside of Christ. All sinners from thieves, liers, murderers, and alduterers deserve hell but all of them have forgiveness available to them to give them the perfection required to enter heaven.

"So, God... You created Hell. And you are the one who defined sin. So I have to ask your son for forgiveness to save me from the Hell you created and you will send me to. Here's my question; since you're omnipotent, why don't you just choose not to send people to Hell? Or choose to let imperfect people enter Heaven? It seems like if anyone can change the rules, it'd be you. And if you can't change the very rules you made, then why should I believe you're God?"

That would make God imperfect if he were to do that. He's a just judge. To do anything otherwise would make him even worse than what he created. You'd probably get the God featured in your Bartelby stories or worse. In his love for his creation he created the only loophole for us he could while still sticking to his law.

>That would make God imperfect if he were to do that.

So God is imperfect. Because that's exactly what he did.

>In his love for his creation he created the only loophole for us he could while still sticking to his law.

That doesn't sound like 'love' to me. To me, real love is something unconditional and all-forgiving. Putting constant conditions on it, especially if failure to meet those conditions results in punishment, is something that people in abusive relationships do.

Errr.... how did you infer that? He's stuck to the laws he's made.

And actually, he has given everyone forgiveness of sins. Whether they're serial killers, petty thieves, rapists, or simply deceitful, all sinners have been forgiven. It's just if they haven't accepted that gift from Christ yet that they haven't obtained salvation. Christ died for everyone. Everybody just hasn't acknowledged they need him yet.

Consider it like this. A fat lot of good a miracle pill does someone who's terminally ill if they won't take it, especially if they won't even admit the fact they are sick and need the pill in the first place. And most people won't be too happy if they get tranqued in the hindquarters before having a pill stuffed down their throats, most would force themselves to throw it up.

God is giving everyone the pill. It's just a hard one to swallow sometimes.

> Errr.... how did you infer that? He's stuck to the laws he's made.

If that's true, he's been incredibly inconsistent in revealing them.
Example 1: Not telling Abraham that the sacrifice didn't REALLY have to be Isaac until Isaac was about to get his throat cut by his own father.
Example 2: So up until the time of Jesus people had to offer sacrifices to offset their sins, but hey, now God does something that's never been done before and conveniently, it's just what needs to be done to undo all of sin, effectively negating the rules that were in place before and putting in a new set.

Yeah... God's making it up as he goes along.

> Consider it like this. A fat lot of good a miracle pill does someone who's terminally ill if they won't take it, especially if they won't even admit the fact they are sick and need the pill in the first place. And most people won't be too happy if they get tranqued in the hindquarters before having a pill stuffed down their throats, most would force themselves to throw it up.

I'm disturbingly reminded of Alex's own story, Dangerous Lunatics, wherein Dr. Beatrix convinces the kids that they need medication to cure their mental conditions, when in fact the medication is meant to hurt them, by taking away their powers. Why should we accept the advice of someone who refuses to even prove that he exists? Why should we take pills for a condition we have no evidence of, no symptoms, and the side effects are terribly life-changing?

I want a second opinion.


And just in case you have a problem with me citing a work of fiction (Dangerous Lunatics) to illustrate my point, let me point out that I am in no way the first in this conversation to do so. Hint hint.

Example 1: That was a test of Abraham's faith and obedience to God. This site acutally explains it very well in my opinion. http://www.rationalchristianity.net/abe_isaac.html
Example 2: God foretold Christ would come what could easily have been five minutes after the first sin was commited. Christ's coming wasn't exactly unexpected. The Old Testament is full of prophecy foretelling Christ's coming and what he would do.

As for the story reference, I've no problem with that. Judge not lest ye' be judged right? God proved he existed many times in the old testament and many more times in the new. Christ was risen from the dead being the greatest of all of them. Now all that's needed to be done is actually trust your doctor which is where faith comes in.

Faith and obedience to such an extent as to be willing to kill your own son because the voice in your head told you to... these days we'd have a different term for that... I think it'd be "pleading not guilty of murder by reason of insanity."

And I say again, if God is a doctor, I INSIST on a second opinion. I have no reason at all to trust his words.

Second opinion right here for starters. Second opinion comes from somebody trying to drag you down with him to hell is there as well. You're not gonna find somebody with both the knowledge and the unbiased opinion.

Anyways, got a question for you both. Have we moved from theological discussion to flat-out arguing? I really don't want to be ticking anyone off. Not my style of evangelism.

...honestly? I don't think we're quite there yet, but we're teetering on the edge. I also don't really want to make you angry, so if you want to stop the discussion now, that's fine. *hug*

>And actually, he has given everyone forgiveness of sins. Whether they're serial killers, petty thieves, rapists, or simply deceitful, all sinners have been forgiven.

Isn't forgiveness something that only the victims of those transgressions have the right to give?

If you steal from someone else, and I tell you that I forgive you for it, what does that matter? You should be looking for forgiveness from the person you stole from, not me. And what right do I have to give it?

This concept of God granting forgiveness, merely because you ask it, has always deeply disturbed me. In my opinion, forgiveness should only be granted to someone who has not only made an apology for their harm done, directly to the person they harmed, and then only after they've worked to make amends. That part is crucial. Otherwise you have people just apologizing to get off the hook, then going back and committing the crime again.

You've sinned against your fellow man yes, but you've also sinned against God's law.

And technically, yes, you could perform sin after sin and ask for his forgiveness each time. A student of Martin Luther asked him the same question when he told them of this. Martin's question in response when the student asked, "So I may go out and kill a man if I want and still obtain salvation?" was this, "Do you want to?" If you really have faith in God and the forgiveness he granted, it becomes a question of whether you want to sin anymore or not. Would not one be grateful to him and wish to lead a more godly life in thanks for what he'd done for you?

As for obtaining the forgiveness of the man you'd sinned against, that's between you two. While he might need you to do something for him to forgive you though, remember that God freely gave his pardon to all who would accept it.

Just a little bit from another reply:
>The Old Testament is full of prophecy foretelling Christ's coming and what he would do.

Isn't it rather easy to write a book in which something predicted in the last chapter comes true in the next one?

>You've sinned against your fellow man yes, but you've also sinned against God's law.

If we're using the example of someone stealing, who is more deserving of apology? God, or the person whose stuff was stolen?

>If you really have faith in God and the forgiveness he granted, it becomes a question of whether you want to sin anymore or not. Would not one be grateful to him and wish to lead a more godly life in thanks for what he'd done for you?

Um... That may be true for some people, but definitely not everyone. In fact, I could see a killer coming to a completely different conclusion.

KILLER: Hey, I got away with that murder scot free! That must mean God *wanted* me to get away with it!

In fact, one of the most gruesome serial killers in history, Ed Gein, thought exactly that. He murdered children, and believed that if God had not approved of his crimes, angels would have descended to stop him.

>As for obtaining the forgiveness of the man you'd sinned against, that's between you two. While he might need you to do something for him to forgive you though, remember that God freely gave his pardon to all who would accept it.

I'm still asking you the same thing: Who is it more important to apologize to and make amends to?

Whenever this topic of forgiveness comes up I think of a story I heard on the news that chilled me to the bone. An Amish girl was raped by her brother literally hundreds and hundreds of times as they grew up. No matter how much she pleaded for the grownups to do something about it, they kept insisting that she needed to forgive him, because after every time he confessed his sin and was forgiven for it. This is what happens when you have forgiveness with no punishment or making amends attached.

I am flat-out saying that God's system is not ENOUGH.

I'm not angry at YOU, personally... but can you honestly blame me if I take GREAT offense at having the mere fact that I love another man deemed morally equivalent to MURDER?

Not really. That part is basic human nature. Don't blame you one bit and hope I'm not really stepping on any toes. Just discussing my views at this point.

i liek prety flowesr

thay arr deliciuos

The the issue with just ruling in favor of the man who is suing Phelps is once free speech is limited even once; where does it end? I do agree with you that Phelps is morally wrong but the precedent can't be allowed to be set that you can get someone to stop what they are saying just because you don't like it.

But the precedent is ALREADY set; racist remarks are considered "hate speech" in many jurisdictions. That's the double standard Alex is railing against here.

In the US, hate speech laws are unconstitutional. Neo-Nazis and the KKK have both won in court over attempts to prevent their speech.

Yes, the precedent is set: The exact opposite of one which would create a double standard if Phelps is allowed to speak.

Hmmm then why not call it obscenity instead? That's loosely enough defined, and well-known as an end-run around the First Amendment.

The problem with that idea is that this kind of thing has already been ruled protected speech.

>I do agree with you that Phelps is morally wrong but the precedent can't be allowed to be set that you can get someone to stop what they are saying just because you don't like it.

The precedent has ALREADY been set.

We have already declared racism to be hate speech. We've already declared harassment directed at a specific individual, family or group to be unprotected speech. Same for slander and libel.

The right to free speech is there to ensure that people can badmouth those in power all they want and not be thrown in jail for it. So long as that stays true, I'm okay with us adding sensible restrictions to punish bigots, stalkers and liars.

You know what I wanna see if they actually don't get slapped right out of court? I wanna see a group of people at every funeral for someone from that group, with signs saying that they died because of their religion based hatred, and see how fast the protesters get tossed in jail. Sadly, I really doubt many would see the flat out hypocrisy...

If that happened, the protesters would probably outnumber the mourners.

I'd say this would be a low blow, but considering what this group has done...

Well that wouldn't be hard. After all, get maybe 2 or 3 people there to protest and you'd probably outnumber the 'mourners' 2-1.

Well, their whole Phelpsy family would show up, but I'm still betting the jubilant protesters would more than outnumber them.

Huh, suppose that's right, so it would take a few more than just 2-3 protesters to outnumber the mourners by such a large margin then.

At work the other day, I thought about something. You know how people say something is "gay", but they mean it in the sense of it being "bad", and not innately homosexual? Well, I thought about that and deciding something. next time I hear someone say "This is totally gay.", I'm going to suggest that they instead choose a different "okay" word directed at minority describe it. Namely, black. Say that "this is totally black". Or Asian. Or Mexican. Or anything like that. Same idea.

i suggested this to a friend at work whom I thought would appreciate it, and he was basically disagreed with it because black people are a single minorty group, while gay folk are more numerous, or something. I don't know exactly, all i knwo is that he was attempting to draw a line between the term "gay" and the term "black" as being titles for those who aren't both white and striaght. i don't know. maybe he's right. maybe I'm not seeing something.

But to me, I simply see no difference.

He probably thinks being gay is a choice. Which, btw, is an argument used by some people to justify anti-gay bigotry. Which is especially dumb if you think about it; oh, it's okay to hate gays because they chose to be that way, whereas the only reason it's not okay to be racist is that black people just can't help being black!

If someone uses "being gay is a choice" as an excuse, ask them if they think it's OK to go after people for their religion.

I of all people can attest that being gay is not a choice. If I COULD be gay, I'd have a freaking RELATIONSHIP since one of my buddies came out of the closet a while ago. If I were able to wake up one day and go "you know what? I find men attractive." Then I would've.

Trust me. It don't work. >_>

Your friend may have some rocks in his head. Get a flashlight and check. ;)

So what's your plan when the old bastard finally buys the farm? I want to join you and all the rest of the LGBT community in picketing en masse.

Most people would say "Don't picket his funeral, show some decorum and say we're better than them".

To which I say: Who gives a shit, they deserve it.

>To which I say: Who gives a shit, they deserve it.

VERY AGREED.

There's a time and a place to be better than your enemy.

Sometimes though, your enemy is so foul, so repulsive to all human morality, and so unchangably set in their ways, that I see nothing wrong with giving them a taste of their own medicine and then some. If some dude drove by a WBC protest and riddled the fuckers with BBs, I'd happily contribute to his legal bills.

>So what's your plan when the old bastard finally buys the farm?

Actually, dropping trou and shitting on his grave sounds even more fun. :)

>> If some dude drove by a WBC protest and riddled the fuckers with BBs, I'd happily contribute to his legal bills.

Better yet, we should get a whole crowd of butch lesbians to just go bananas. :3

>> Actually, dropping trou and shitting on his grave sounds even more fun. :)

But considering the funeral will be in Kansas, you'll be spending the rest of the week getting buttfucked by a guy named Bubba in a jail cell.

>Better yet, we should get a whole crowd of butch lesbians to just go bananas. :3

WITH FOOT-LONG SPIKED DILDOS! :D

>But considering the funeral will be in Kansas, you'll be spending the rest of the week getting buttfucked by a guy named Bubba in a jail cell.

I could eat a bunch of laxatives beforehand and claim it was an accident. ;)

Buttfucked... laxatives... I just got the greatest idea ever!

Before going and shitting on his grave, anybody planning on doing so could get a trusted friend to spooge up his (or her) butt, so the feces of disrespect would be mixed with the semen of sodomy.

SANTORUM!!!

They've hit a new low.
A pox on Fred "the fuckwad" Phelps and any future generations he may produce.

If they inbreed, that may come true literally...

Touche'.

You'd think our military-centric culture would be all for tossing these rednecks in jail for practically dancing and spitting on the graves of our soldiers. Fred Phelps needs to be kicked in the balls 'till they're concave.

Also... I HATE YOU CUZ YOUR BLACK

>You'd think our military-centric culture would be all for tossing these rednecks in jail for practically dancing and spitting on the graves of our soldiers.

Actually, I think that's the only reason the Phelpsies are getting as much attention as they are in the first place. When they were just hatin' on gay funerals, most of America didn't give too much of a fuck.

>Also... I HATE YOU CUZ YOUR BLACK

MY BLACK WHAT?

the one and only thing i have to say for society these days is:

OH SHIT! RUN FOR IT! ITS THE DERPOCALYPSE!

Grab tinfoil for hats, baseball bats, and for God's sake keep your fucking television turned off!!!

ZEE HATS! ZEY DO NOTHING!

and turning off the television is impossible for people these days... they would die without its radiation...

Once again Alex you impress me with your clerity and ability to think like OH MY GOD! A rational human being!

You would make a fantastic world leader if not for all the damn politics.


you have done what everybodys hould have done. Your not justafying anything or excuseing anything you have striped the issue down to it's naked truth and examined the facts.


and the FACT is hes a bigot and a fascist. This man hates gays like hitler hates jews and hes being a sadestic old fuck about it.


I'll tell you this much if god exists, if hes realy the way hes suposed to be, hes likely not happy with this man and his BS. If god does not exist, then this man is wasteing his time entirely anyway.


moron.

>You would make a fantastic world leader if not for all the damn politics.

Seriously, I fantazise about being omnipotent emperor of the world pretty much every other day or so. :)

>you have done what everybodys hould have done. Your not justafying anything or excuseing anything you have striped the issue down to it's naked truth and examined the facts.

It's so easy to just hate Fred himself. But he's a cartoon. He's just the most visible symptom of a disease that probably most of the country has. People wanna shut him up so they can go back to not caring about homophobia again. Nuh-uh. I ain't about to let that happen.

>I'll tell you this much if god exists, if hes realy the way hes suposed to be, hes likely not happy with this man and his BS. If god does not exist, then this man is wasteing his time entirely anyway.

Or if the God of my Bartleby tales exists, he probably has a welcome mat outside Heaven waiting for Fred...

I got a book for you to read, it's FANTASTIC it's called the Moral Landscape by Sam Harris Auther of the End to faith.


and no it's not a relgion bash

it's a rational scientific aproch to the cocenpt of morality, good and evil and how we dont NEED god to be good.

Sounds like something I'd pick up at the library if I saw it.

I thought The End Of Faith was a little dull, but his Letter To A Christian Nation was amazing. Nothing but damn good arguments against the kind of criticism Christians usually throw at atheists. It's a dignified but blistering defensive punch.

i try to avoid the religion vs. atheisum debate and thats part fo why i liked this recent book so much. he sites the debate allot yes but the books about morality and just what IS right and wrong, good and evil, it realy is refreashing to read my own opinions on the issue reflected so well in public media.


Gives me a tiny little spark of hope that not everybody a complete retard.

I think I heard about this... It's bullshit man, there's no way people are that bad... Right? I mean, people are inherently good aren't they? No one can be that... That much a bigot! It's impossible, it's a joke right? He's just joking, RIGHT?!!

>Right? I mean, people are inherently good aren't they?

Most of them, I'd say yes.

But don't ever let yourself believe that truly evil people don't exist. I've met plenty personally.

And they count on your jaw-dropped disbelief. Makes 'em stronger.

That's... Just... That's... I can't... I guess you could be right, but I like to and I shall continue to believe there is some form of inherent good in humans. Cause I cannot bring myself to believe that there exists creatures of only pure evil. If there is no good in something, then there is no good or evil in this world and it's only a vain concept on our part to explain a deed.

Sure there's good and evil. You just have to think of the Bell Curve.

It's all about the law of probability. In any group (literally ANY), you can measure almost anything and the majority of the people in the group will be somewhere in the middle, a handful will be near each end, and there will have to be someone on the absolute ends. So depending on what your scale is, there has to be both a goodest person in America and the evillest person in America.

I'm also not saying that there's anyone as evil as some cackling cartoon villain. Sociopaths understand the difference between good and evil; they just don't care. So they'll use and manipulate people with no remorse to get what they want. But they're still *capable* of doing good. Heck, the vilest serial killer who ever lived still probably did good deeds on occasion, if for no other reason than to keep up his secret.

Someone call  oinuttah!!! ;)

You sir have won many many internets for once again pointing out how much society is a rotting piece of shit that allows too much hate and intolorance while crying about intolorance when christianity "Gets targeted" ((Note the quotations)) when they are among the most hateful bunch of assholes out there which is REALLY ironic because supposidly this "Christ" person they worship was a tolorant and nice guy O_O

HOW THE FUCK DID THAT HAPPEN!?!

People pay lip service to the ideals of Christ while being truer to the values of His abusive father. :P

so their a bunch of self servicing hyprocrites who say onething then do something entirely different...

I should be supprised yet I'm not... or is that the other way around?

> HOW THE FUCK DID THAT HAPPEN!?!

This is indeed one of the most terrible ironies of the history of religion. As a student of Early Christianity, I've wondered long and hard over how things went awry. It defies a simple answer, like most problems in history and sociology.

I think the basic fact is that there are people who are nice, and people who aren't. Once Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire, over three hundred years after Jesus' death, a lot of unkind people started identifying as Christians - people who never would have been attracted to Christian teachings if they had a choice.

I do not think, though, that anyone as violently hateful as Fred Phelps owes their hatred to Christianity - they're hateful in spite of it, or it's just an excuse for them.

I think the key is power and control. People who want to dominate others latch onto, or start, a religion as an easy and effective way to win the hearts and minds of the masses, and then control them, and build themselves up with prestige and money.

That is a nice explination and thanks for the historical lesson also ((here I thought the fucked up twist happened more recently IE just before the dark ages))

seriously though if someone's going to call themselves "Christian" they could at least try to figure out what their claiming to be O_O

I don't think I could say it any better than Alfador did.

You still win several thousand Awsome scented internets complete with insect repellent for making this journal in the first place =D

*hugs*

A scheme: at the next funereal protest, set up a counter-protest (perimeter one block further out, unless the funeral allows both Phelps and cameras). Let Phelps in before marching. News crews will hit counter-protest lines first. Signs to include "STOP BEING FRED-ENABLERS," "What if this were a black funeral?" (optional "OH WAIT") and "FRED PHELPS HATES ONE IN TEN HUMANS." (I realized "Americans" was falsely charged.)

I'm sort of hoping there's an obvious flaw here since I should have gone to bed a while ago, but let me know what you-all think.

I actually really like the "FRED PHELPS HATES ONE IN TEN HUMANS" one. (Though it's probably more true to say he hates 99% of humans...)

I'm not making excuses for anyone, as I agree with this journal 100%. But this argument would never work against someone who makes judgments based on what they believe the Bible teaches. To them, being gay is a choice. Even if one's instincts make them attracted to the same sex, these people feel that a gay person can and should choose not to have gay sex, solely on the basis that it's a sin. No different than how the desire to murder someone does not absolve them of their guilt should they actually commit murder. It's completely different from being black, because a black person cannot just decide to be white. But a gay person most certainly can live a life of torture, fighting themselves and their natural desires by pretending to either be attracted to the opposite sex or have no sex drive at all.

So the way to strike back is not to compare gays to blacks, but to find a way to convince them either that being gay isn't evil, or that denying two consenting adults their choice of sexual activity, which harms no one, is the greater evil.

>So the way to strike back is not to compare gays to blacks, but to find a way to convince them either that being gay isn't evil, or that denying two consenting adults their choice of sexual activity, which harms no one, is the greater evil.

To be frank, I don't give a shit about trying to change the minds of those already infected with bigotry. To me they're like zombies; you can't cure them, you can only either run from them or fight them.

I think the better solution is to reach out sometimes to moderate Christians with open minds, but also know when someone is too far gone to waste time on. Give 'em one good solid chance to see reason, then let it go if they choose not to. Better to put that effort into helping spread critical thinking, to get to minds that haven't crystallized in their beliefs yet.

I agree. Or something.
I don't really have something logical to say.

So long as ya liked it, that's fine. :)

It's weird. I was gonna put tl;dr, then I did read it...
I'm just glad you're not boring (Though the bolded "Thank God For Dead Niggers" is hard to ignore you crafty son of a bitch)

>Though the bolded "Thank God For Dead Niggers" is hard to ignore you crafty son of a bitch

^__^

Fred Phelps ain't the only sonofabitch in the world who knows how to manipulate his audience. ;D

Here's something I think a lot of people who are waffling on the whole "Well, it's not right, but it's protected by free speech" thing.

How would *you* feel?

Think about that for just a few seconds.

How would you feel if, during a time of grief most poignant and piercing, some fucktard who didn't give two shits about your pain used it not as a strike against you, but as a shot to be famous? How would you take it? I'd bet my last two cents that you'd be furious beyond belief. You'd want you some justice and you wouldn't give a damn about "Freedom of Speech Protection" because it got abused all over you.

One of the problems with hatred is and always has been *lack of perspective*. The ideal that you are perfectly justified in thinking what you want because hey, "not my problem, didn't happen to me."

My car got broken into. My iPod was stolen. I got it back and managed to call the fuckwit who broke my window. He even bragged to me on the phone that he did it all the time.

Imagine if you were in my shoes and then tell me that I need to not be so angry about him stealing from me. It's the same idea, but unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to replicate or give away. Perspective is kind of unique in that it has to be given freely and also freely accepted in order to be understood. If someone doesn't WANT that perspective, then there's very little any of us can do to change that.

What we CAN do, however, is keep fighting for what we believe in and to keep standing up for the good things in life.

And each and every one of you reading this knows that I am right when I say Fuck the Freedom of Speech this one time. Fred Phelps is wrong and needs to be shut down. What he's doing, regardless of gay or racism or conservative agenda or whatever...he's fucking wrong and it needs to fucking stop. The freedom of speech does NOT outweigh the Right to Humanity.

>How would you feel if, during a time of grief most poignant and piercing, some fucktard who didn't give two shits about your pain used it not as a strike against you, but as a shot to be famous?

I absolutely agree that emotion does, and should, play a big part in this. But we have to be wary of allowing the law to be changed because of emotion. Too many times, that's resulted in really, really, horrid laws that cause more harm than good. Thankfully, you can be against Phelps on this one for rational reasons too. I cannot (and I've tried) think of any constructive good that could come from protesting at anyone's funeral. I can think of no solid reason why the Court should find in Phelps' favor, and plenty of reason why they shouldn't.

>One of the problems with hatred is and always has been *lack of perspective*. The ideal that you are perfectly justified in thinking what you want because hey, "not my problem, didn't happen to me."

<nod> This is why I can't stand people who fight against racism/homophobia/sexism/etc, but who act like their personal struggle is somehow more important than all the others, and they won't lift a finger to help out victims of other types of persecution. (Semi-similarly, I am not impressed when a celebrity either gets a diease, or someone in their family does, and all of a sudden they start raising money for it like mad. Excuse me, but how 'bout doing that just because it's a good thing to do, not because it personally affects you?)

>And each and every one of you reading this knows that I am right when I say Fuck the Freedom of Speech this one time.

I don't think we even need to go that far. The precedent for calling this kind of shit an exception to free speech is already there. We just have to fucking apply it.

How Phelps has gone this long without getting the pulp beaten out of him by an enraged funeral attendee is beyond me

Problem is, they're all lawyers, that would be exactly the kind of action they'd slaver over.

Yup. The only solution is to KILL ZEM ALL FROM SPAAAAACE!

You'd think there'd be at least one guy who'd realize, "Yeah I'll go to prison for a while... but when I get out I'll be a national hero for the rest of my life!"

Applause here here

Thank you there there. ;)

I agree.

For people who would like more background information on how prejudice and the human mind work, I recommend this free e-book:

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

Cool! Already downloaded and will try to read later.

I also downloaded Anamanaguchi's chiptune album Dawn Metropolis today, BTW. Very tasty. :)

I like this article, but one comment about your use of the word "Islamophobia". I probably mention him too often, but Pat Condell put it nicely when he said Islamaphobia isn't a word, it doesn't exist. However, there is Islamonausea.

LOL! I like that.

Still, you understand its use in context of what i was trying to say. Though I really do wish we had two separate words; one describing ignorant hatred directed towards all Muslims regardless of their behavior, and another word for the perfectly rational fear of the religion itself. In that context, Islamophobia is completely accurate.

a statement in favour of homosexuality:

jesus spent almost all of his adult life with other adult males. the only female he really had any kind of connection to was his mother. he never had children (to our knowlege).

if somebody had a life like that in the current era, what would we suspect?

>the only female he really had any kind of connection to was his mother.

Oh, and a hooker.

>if somebody had a life like that in the current era, what would we suspect?

He sure as hell'd never get elected to office.

>Oh, and a hooker.

oh yeah, her too.

>He sure as hell'd never get elected to office.

not what i was going for, but true!

Lets post a sign "Phelps hates Fags so does that mean that if Gay black mean die Phelps hates Fag N

---

s?"


or is that too far

Idea: New term for gay black people: FIGGERS.

I should be ashamed of saying that, but I'm giggling too much. Especially since I can't not think of Fig Newtons now. :)

If going so low as to claim the events to be evidence, it seems that in younger history god seems rather to hate those who hunt homosexuals than those who enable them. Nazi Germany hunted them and lost WW2. Many countries in the Islamic world hunt them and now they got the hate vor at least mistrust of the rest of the world. America tries to hunt then and had quite some desasters and very bloody wars in the younger history. Most countries who enabled homosexuals seem not to have suffered from such problems since. Fred can even be contradicted on the grounds of his own insanity.

Maybe god changed his mind over the milliemia? Maybe there is more than one god and this one was new in the job when he started all that shit?

I like your theory, but what then of that unpronounceable volcano that fucked up most of Europe's air last summer? That's more act-of-God-ish than losing a war, and it happened to a lot of countries that are lots more tolerant of sex in general. Nature and history are pretty much random chaos. You can look for patterns, but you could find them in support of absolutely anything, so it's kinda moot.

"History is a set of lies agreed upon." --Napoleon, who ironically ended up being a historical figure.

Sounds like he pretty much nailed it though.

if, of course, he wasn't a lie himself...

I dunno. It'd be hard to make up that story about the rabbits.


While Waterloo was no doubt Napoleon's most crushing defeat, it was not his most embarrassing.

"In 1807, Napoleon was in high spirits having signed the Peace of Tilsit, a landmark treaty between France, Russia and Prussia. To celebrate, he suggested that the Imperial Court should enjoy an afternoon's rabbit-shooting.

It was organized by his trust chief-of-staff, Alexandre Berthier, who was so keen to impress Napoleon that he bought thousands of rabbits to ensure that the Imperial Court had plenty of game to keep them occupied.

The party arrived, the shoot commenced and the game-keepers released the quarry. But disaster struck. Berthier had bought tame, not wild, rabbits, who mistakenly thought they were about to be fed rather than killed.

Rather than fleeing for their life, they spotted a tiny little man in a big hat and mistook him for their keeper bringing them food. The hungry rabbits stormed towards Napoleon at their top speed of 35 mph (56 kph).

The shooting party - now in shambolic disarray - could do nothing to stop them. Napoleon was left with no other option but to run, beating the starving animals off with his bare hands. But the rabbits did not relent and drove the Emperor back to his carriage while his underlings thrashed vainly at them with horsewhips.

According to contemporary accounts of the fiasco, the Emperor of France sped off in his coach, comprehensively beaten and covered in shame."

- The Book of General Ignorance (by John Lloyd & John Mitchinson)

EPIC!

at least he wasn't wearing orange...

thankl you Im saving this