Now I am sure you really poop rainbows

Yes, it's true--I am pretty blatantly liberal when it comes to social issues and that makes me quite rainbow...y. Just to clarify though--"liberal" is NOT a dirty word, however much disgust Bush or Limbaugh put into their voices when they are forced to utter it.

Or maybe it's just my diet that makes me poop rainbows...

ill be honest. if your saying things liek that your not really liberal. or at least not as liberal as you think you are. everyone has a right to believe in whatever they want to. even if it doesn't make sense to you {or me for that mater} and despite what most people believe everyone has as much right right to say your wrong as they do to agree with you.

Oh, I'm not entirely liberal. You can be as extremist on the Left as you can be on the Right. I tend to believe that a more Centrist view is often the best way. I actually do think people should be allowed to believe what they feel they honestly should, BUT--not when their influence over policies interferes with my rights and essential freedoms as a human being! Also, I hate seeing people indoctrinated into what I consider to be irrational belief systems before they are able to make decisions about those ideals for themselves--or when they are taught prejudice and hate.

But you are definitely right--people absolutely have the right the think I'm wrong as much as I might think THEY are wrong. And we each have the right to argue our case and say what we feel.

But just because I'm somewhat liberal doesn't mean I can't have specific viewpoints. I will solidly cling to my right to be as ignorant as anyone else. ^0^

well thats another point its the parents job to teach there children there own ideals. but nothings stoping them from makign there wn choice whent here old enough. hell my mom is extremly racist, homophobic, and a fire and brimstone christian. but i'm not.

Yikes...and good for you. But it took me years to overcome my "brainwashing", if you'll pardon the term--even though my church was fairly sedate in it's politics. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for you...or maybe, it's easier to rebel if the teachings are more extreme.

In any case--good for you!

You are right, those icons should not be rallying points for hatred. But the thing is that they're an excuse. Your friend probably doesn't even believe in god despite what he says, he's simply a bigot looking for an excuse.

Plenty of passages in the christian bible indicate that god wants people to get along, be friendly to one-another, and never *ever* to judge. That's his job. As soon as your friend condemns you to hell (what a nice thing to do, too), he would also condemn himself to hell if he truly believed the teachings of the bible. So, I call out any supposedly religious person trying to use that angle.

One of the problems with Christianity is that it's teachings are open to so much interpretation. Nobody can agree on what God really wants.

reading a book right now about gay people committing suicide due to "reorientation camps"

seriouspost nobody says anything meaningful in those discussions. the absolute, smug silliness of the theists and the glib, adolescent posturing of the atheists run together like greasy yolk-- aesthetically, substantially, viscerally offensive and meaningless

So...YAY for agnostics! Sometimes the middle is best. BTW--what's the book you mentioned? Sounds interesting.

Jesus would have accepted you. Your friend is forgetting that old saying "Judge not, lest ye be judged." What torques me off about some religions is that overt demonstrations of religious orthodoxy count more than good works. In other words, saying the right words to a preacher counts more for your soul than all the humanitarian, loving things you might do to make this world a better place (a theme that is repeated over and over in Jack Chick comics). To me, that's way fucked up. Talk about not having a moral center!

As far as the spiritual aspect to your art, knock yourself out. I really doubt that all the people doing pictures of Anubis and Set are really recognizing the proper rituals of worship on a daily basis (or even occasionally). I think mythological art is way cool, and it has a fine, long, tradition. Personally, I just lump in all the black velvet crucifixion paintings with the unicorn, zeus and bigfoot paintings.

Thanks. I'll probably be posting them here...so stay tuned. I hope they ARE worth your time...and mine too. LOL

You know, you make some excellent points there. I have a friend, used to be my best friend in the world, who ever since he "accepted Jesus into his life" and started getting closer to God, supposedly...has become more full of anger and hate than he has been in his entire life. This seems like the exact polar opposite of what ought to have happened. If he had become full of happiness, contentment and peace, it would be a lot easier for me to accept, because it seems that those things are what God and Jesus are supposed to be associated with. I just find it hard to understand how people that get this way, truly can't see it for themselves.
There are so many religions in this world, with so many adherents to each one, that I find it truly impossible for any of them to be "right". I think you hit it right on the nail about living as ethically a life as you possibly can, and appreciating the beauty of the world we live in without forcing yourself and others into a narrow line of dogma. If it turns out there is a God, I can't imagine anything he would have wanted more than that.

Thus the very same reasons I turned away from my Southern Baptist upbringing. All the anger and hate. **shakes head**

It can go both ways too, though... I often have to remind myself that not everybody is a Mike Savage or Rev. Phelps just because they are Christians. Just like you can't lump all Muslims in with the crazy extremists who are responsible for today being a National Day of mourning for the rest of eternity.

I have to be careful not to become a bigot against religion. Even my Fundamentalist friend is a good guy--smart and personable. I deplore his political and religious stands on certain issues, but otherwise I think he is an extremely admirable person. Even though he believes some of the same things that the really extreme hate-mongers believe, I don't think HE is a bad person.

While Palin may have some issues with gays, I'd much rather have a Vice President that prays for the salvation of gays at church instead of a President who has gone to church to listen to anti-white sermons for years, and publicly expressed that the preacher doing those sermons has told him the key to hope and change.

Also, Obama does not believe that gays should have rights. Palin at least thinks that they should be capable of defending themselves against hate crimes.

She also wants to let people slaughter helpless animals from airplanes and forbid any woman from getting an abortion regardless of the circumstances, treating a 12 year old who's father got her pregnant the same as a whore getting rid of a baby she cares nothing about.

True to some extent. But I somehow feel it's more important to be able to kill someone breaking into your home who wants to kill you and your family rather than an unborn fetus. I wasn't aborted. I'm pretty glad about that. I don't necessarily object to all abortion, but late term abortion is really pushing the limits in my mind.

It seems that the Democratic party wants to give all women the right to kill fetuses, while Republicans want to preserve the right to defend your home and yourself from violent criminals. Obama is anti-gun rights, always has been, don't let him lie to you. That's why he chose Biden. McCain chose Palin as a counter to that, being that she's extremely pro-gun.

I disagree--Palin prays for gays because she's posturing, believing that gays are fundamentally "evil" or at least immoral by definition. She is condescending to pitty gays for their lack of morality. She can keep her fucking prayers.

Obama probably doesn't care for homosexuality either--after all, he is also religious. ALL the candidates are. You can't BE a candidate for high office in this country without being religious, or at least giving lip service to God. But at least Obama won't try to change the Constitution to make gay marriage impossible, or stand in front of Congress and blatantly label homosexuals as second class citizens undeserving of government recognition as our current President has done.

McCain/Palin will keep this country in the dark age that we have already "enjoyed" for the past eight years. No thanks.

Yeah, they probably will. But getting a gay marriage is going to attract unwanted attention from the sort of people who don't like that thing, and then what? Not much we could do unarmed against eight "good 'ol boys" who don't put up with that sort of thing. So yeah, it'd be a hate crime, and yeah, we'd be morally superior, but we'd probably be dead or close to it. Now, I'm not saying that keeping the Second Amendment is going to bring about a surge of equality, but if more gays were to get their CCWs and start carrying, that would put a big damper on hate crimes. None of those guys would want to get shot by a "fairy".

Those "good ol' boys" have no more right to be morally offended by two men or two women getting married than I have to be offended by two straight people getting married. As long as people think that it's OK to use violence to "defend" their bigotry, because, say, our President or VP (and other leaders) point out same sex couples as being inferior, then yeah--practical considerations might be more helpful than idealistic ones. Still--we need to stop electing people with that sort of bigotry to make any progress.

I understand people wanting to keep their guns and all--but I really don't want to live in the Old West. There needs to be some sort of limit. Look at some of the Middle East countries where conservative religious rule is the norm--children carrying machine guns in the streets...do we really need that?

While I agree, marriage should apply to consenting adults of any gender or persuasion, neither candidate likes it. Joe Biden voted for the Defense of Mariage Act, but also acknowledges that gay marriage is going to happen eventually. We won't see gay marriage under Obama/Biden any sooner than we would under McCain/Palin. It's going to happen, but just not yet. However, once guns are gone, they'll be gone for good, and we can look forward to a rise in crime and a drop in civil rights just like other countries that banned guns.

You say you don't want to live in the old west, but actually, living in the old west wouldn't be so bad. There was very little crime, not because there were no guns, but because everyone had a gun. People were polite to each other, and showed respect where it was due. Pretty much all the movies showing the old west as a constant bloody gun fight are untrue. Before the NFA of 1934, a child could order a Maxim water-cooled machine gun out of the Sears catalog and have it delivered by mail. School shootings weren't a problem back then. Many of the notorious criminals back then were exaggerated in order to sell books about them. With current laws on gun control, someone looking to outdo even the fictitious records of notorious outlaws of the old west could easily walk into a "Gun Free" mall, school, church, or otherwise, and have a good chance at outdoing in only a day what some outlaws of the old west didn't do in their entire life.

Ask the christian ass hat if he's ever lied. Then tell him that in his religion, all sins are the same in his God's eyes. So to leave you the fuck alone about being gay. Because to his god being gay and him lying is the same thing x3 I love this shit... my grandpa is a minister so I know how to make the Christians cry.

**snickers** I LOVE doing that too... And pointing out just how backwards and flawed their religion really is. XD

I've got a document called ``god.txt'' just for that purpose. It contains a couple of nice questions to ask like:

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

mostly I don't get an answer after that

**laughs evilly** There's a lot of good ones that can be used from their own book to slap them stupid with. It's great to see their reactions too. **snickers** Hot blooded fundaMENTALists are so easy to rile up and then shut them down. Great fun too.

I've said this before in one way or another: If religious fundamentalists are the ones who are going to "heaven" then I will gladly go to hell. If it turns out there is a God, I will accept that he exists, but if he exists, he may very well be an asshole. If so, I refuse to worship him. He's got a lot of shit to answer for if the fundies are right.

Also, please tell your friend to read the Old Testament and get back to you on that "lack of moral center".

LOL Oh believe me--he knows his Bible backward and forward. It's the way he interprets it that is the problem. He has "logical" answers for all the obvious contradictions and outright monstrosities that the Bible has to offer. He'll insist that we need only live by Jesus' revised ideal of "Love God and Love you neighbor as yourself" on one hand, and then will tell you that the world was absolutely made in seven days and that human and animals are separate creations and that homosexuality is an absolute sin on the other. He sees no problem picking and choosing like that. He'll argue circles around you so that you're so confused you can't contradict his scriptural references--but even if the Bible WAS supposed to be taken as absolute Truth or only the basic outline of a philosophical belief system doesn't matter to me.

The point is--it was written by people who were almost entirely ignorant of how things in this universe actually work. They didn't know what the stars were. They didn't know why the forces of nature function predictably--or in some cases unpredictably (eclipses, etc). I'm not implying that they were stupid or evil or psycho or even foolish--they were simply ignorant. Period.

We are somewhat less ignorant today as a society. We have a long way to go. I believe there's much more to be discovered about the universe. He believes there's NOTHING more that needs to be learned about the universe. I will never change his views--and he will never change mine.

>.> *sits next to you and puts on a robin williams mask* "have you found Jesus?"

but really, i agree on ur thoughts whole heartedly, we should chat IM some time ;3

**laughs** Every time someone asks me that my first knee-jerk response is usually "Don't tell me you've lost him, AGAIN?!?"

:D win point for u, that was good.

**giggles and bows** I aim to please. **grins**

lol u aim, i just let it hit where it wants to XD

Sometimes, usually off-the-cuff though. I get some of the most entertaining reactions that way. **snickers**

... i like u 0.o

You should see me when I really get going. More to the point, you should see other people's faces when I'm just getting started. **smirks wickedly**

Just as an example: My mom insists on watching the news every night. I think she enjoys being miserable. O.o Anyways, one night they were covering a story about how Orville Redinbacher had died and that in his Will he wanted his ashes scattered over a corn field.

First thing that popped out of my muzzle: "Well, that's one way to dust your crops."

My mother wanted to kill me for that one. **laughs**

do you have a IM? id like to chat more with ya :D

I do, I shall note them to you. **smiles**

Don't let the fundies get you down. Not all religious practitioners are out of their fucking minds.

u speak as if u know me o0

well i was actually speaking about myself. Unless you are me, you are not right?

idk, you tell me :P

I cant tell! THERE IS NO WAY TO KNOW!!!!

how about u look into a mirror, do you see me?

yay for the appreciation of everything :3

God = 42!

Thus why I have NEVER understood the phrase "God fearing Christian"... Nor do I see how "the only way to salvation is by blah blah blah..." My mother keeps going on about how "We're in the end days!" and "You better get right with God and Jesus or you're going to be thrown into the 'lake of fire' with all the other sinners and evil people..." **facepalms** RIGHT! I'll get right on that... Just as soon as I get done sacrificing cows as burnt offerings... O.o **shakes head**

"My fundamentalist Christian friend (who I worked on a comic with) tells me I have no "moral center" without Jesus."

People who get their morals from a 2000 year old unchangeable work of fiction (which can be mail ordered from Amazon.com) scare me, especially when they start proclaiming that this is better than getting one's morals from being a normal sane person raised in a civil society (like we actually do).

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com

One look into that book makes it abundantly clear that few, if any people in modern America derive their moral center from it.

Wow--what an interesting website! Thanks for the link!

Again, I don't have a problem with people believing in this 6-2000 YO work of literature and mythology. It's only when they think they have the right to inflict it on me--against my own judgment and will--and force me to live by the dictates of ignorant and superstitious...um...persons--THAT's where I have to draw the line.

They quote that one line from Leviticus and tell me that it means that homosexuality is an abomination to God, but they ignore the passage that puts shellfish in the same catagory, using the exact same word, no less. I don't see Rev Phelps out picketing Red Lobster. I don't see crab fishermen being attacked for plying their evil trade. Actually--the Bible was MORE clear on the subject of shellfish than it was in its ambiguous phasing about "man lying with man". And why are lesbians picked on...neither one of a lesbian couple is a man. ;)

Seriously though--people can believe what they want or need to, but they CANNOT force me to live by rules that I can only view as ignorant and backward (on some cases) because it's part of a book that I consider to be no less mythological than stories about the Greek or Egyptian gods. What if they insisted we do ALL the things listed in the Bible--burnt offerings, murdering adulterers in the street, etc? Lovely world.

Agreed, 100% I strongly believe that people should be able to think and believe whatever they want, as long as it doesn't infringe upon other people's rights i.e. gays. I dare anybody to give one good secular reason why gays should be denied any rights at all.

By the way: "I don't see Rev Phelps out picketing Red Lobster."

Unfortunately, I have seen other people doing this. When I saw them, I had a hard time figuring out if they were being serious or satirical.

Yikes--I WAS being ironic, but somehow, I'm not surprised...

"At the very least--belief in a God should be a comforting thing, not a rallying point for hate."

Win!

What comic did you write with a fundamentalist christian? Most or all of the comics I've seen you do are gay, which would be an odd thing to work with someone like that on.

That was my Platypus Rex comic--a vampire slaying montotreme. He is a really smart guy and we got on so well on subject of comicbook and movie culture that until we started talking about religion and politics during a long drive to a con, I would never have known he was insane. ;)

I always thought Serendipity put it remarkably well in "Dogma". She basically said that it doesn't matter what you have faith in. What's important is that you *have* faith.

Have faith in yourself and in mankind...maybe it will ultimately pay off. It'll certainly get you farther than having faith in imaginary beings...at least, in my Secular Humanist opinion. ^0^

Brahma Approves your message!

"I want to show my awe and reverence for the beauty of life and the universe. I want to show that you don't HAVE to worship forces that are greater than yourself to APPRECIATE and respect them."

for years i have followed an "animistic" and shamanic view. (after being a fundamentalist fucktard) There was an old passage i heard in church that God was in Everything. this sparked something. the fact that many people on my dads side of the family followed some Native American Traditions helped to make it more concrete. the Event that shaped my removal from the Church really gave it life. the many experiences and such that have forged my life til now Learning about the Tao and Shamanism from all over the world past and present, learning about the old tibetian concept of Brahma (versus the more modern Hindu version of him) All of it brought me to where i am now. which is that Everything is Brahma and Brahma is everything and the only thing Brahma wants is to experience everything and that Brahma is in everything. Once i was asked by a fundy much later after i had left the church why i prayed to plants and animals as gods. They could not understand that my silent acts of respect were not holding them up as gods but simply respecting them and asking for their guidance or thanking them for letting me take part of them (in the case of plants) They went on and on about what would i do if i lost my Medicine pouch and could not understand the response of make a new one and be a bit upset at the loss of the last one. Of course i know why they had such troubles since i was one. we were taught that the Heathens worshiped everything as gods and that they were indeed worshiping the devil for everything undesirable in the fundy world view is demonic or of the devil.

For me knowing that everything comes from the same place (big bang and the story of Brahma's creation are very very similar including that the old stories speak of things happening in billions of years) kinda means i should respect it. and when i seem to be "praying" to it like it is a God it is only that i am talking to it as another divinely inhabited thing just like you or me or this internet.

but unfortunately even those who never were part of the Judeochritian faiths are still tainted by them and think that god means all powerful when that is a recent invention of mankind. and so they do not understand that divinity is in everything

Oh and that Online ordination thing. if you go through Universalist Life Church do not use the monastery version as they are not recognized and are indeed a fucked up little group. find the site for the main church in Modesto California. they are the real church and it is a very real ordination. i know i have one. and i recently preformed a wedding. Also remember that there are a lot more faiths in the world than just Christianity Muslims and Jews. and if you go looking please do not be pushed away by flakes. every faith has them. and they are no better than the flakes in the big three

Thanks for the advice, and the support!

*Hugs!*

no problem at all. glad to be of some help

Ultimately, whatever the nature of divinity is - or if there is one - religions are practiced by people, based on stuff written by people. So they're going to have human failings, and these tend to be the same ones, you know the drill; fundamentalism, greed, warmongering, coercion.

The other thing is that most religious texts are immediately relevant to when they were written. A quick read through the Quran shows that it's really intended for people living in the urbanized environment of Mohammed's time; things like the Revelation of St. John is very specifically about junk going on at the time. The Pentateuch, and Leviticus especially, really gets slammed for a batch of stuff that makes no sense now, but which isn't a bad guide to surviving as a Bronze Age nomad. History rolls along, though, and what makes this stuff big is that you can interpret and reinterpret it in the present; the good news is that this is vital for any religion, the bad news is that not all those re-interpretations are always nice, as per the above...

... which connects up to the great OH NOES GAY! thing.

There's exactly one line in Leviticus which says that lying with a man as with a woman is an abomination. I actually interpret that as being very specifically about anal sex, something the contemporary Egyptians found horrifying (they were cool with being Gay; they just weren't cool with anal sex), and which sort of makes sense for a culture running low on bathwater and condoms, but that's not quite so valid here and now. Ranks right up there with eating shrimp, or rules for how to be fair to slaves, as stuff which really doesn't mean much now. It's one line; heck, Leviticus devotes more time to telling you what varieties of vultures you can't eat. By comparison, the Old Testament goes on about how one needs to treat outsiders well - 36 times to be precise. I'd say the Old Testament has "be nice to Queers" as more of a focus than "don't be Gay."

Which gets back to the first point, really. You've got the same document which religious rightwingers quote as why being Gay is bad, and here I'm quoting it as why being Gay isn't bad at all! This stuff is like Shakespeare, you can use it to say anything really. And that's just the recent stuff, like the Old and New Testaments, and the Quran - I'm not even talking about the really old stuff, like the Bhagavad-Gita or the Dhammapada!

The Old Testament and most other religious documents that exist are merely derivations of mythology, folklore and sectarian pronouncements of various leaders and village elders that were invented, handed down vocally and insisted upon as right and true for centuries. Tribal spiritualism became pantheism and pantheism was refined down to monotheism. I just think it should be refined down further...by about one more god.

But the specific passages in the Bible that make their vague and arguable judgments about homosexuals are part of the book that is horribly dated and almost entirely irrelevant to society today. (I mostly don't eat ANY kinds of vultures, myself.)

I will never believe that a good person would go to hell just because they are gay or bi or whatever. I don't believe that Heaven, if it exists, is a "Christians Only Club". As long as you, that's a generic you, are a good person and try to live as good a life as possible, then you will receive your eternal reward. And I do believe in an after-life. Though I'm not entirely sure what that might be. And I hate those Christians that say that if you aren't a Bible toting, heterosexual, you won't go to Heaven. That pisses me off to no end! God is better than that.

See, now--that is the kind of Christianity that I can live with! In fact, back when I was a starry-eyed Christian youngster, that's the kind of believe I insisted on--that good people weren't excluded simply because they hadn't been "convinced". My God was the God that loves everyone...not the vengeful God of doom and jealousy.

I really don't want to destroy anyone's deeply held, sincere beliefs. And just because I don't believe any more doesn't mean there isn't the possibility that there could be SOME truth to it somewhere... That's why I have to call myself an agnostic--because I'm NOT arrogant enough to believe I have all the answers either.

I'm glad that you have such liberal Christian views. *HUGS!*

I feel that I have to because I am human. And the Bible does say to love each other and that God created us in His image. That's why I don't think that homosexuality is an abomination. My mom liked to say "God don't make no junk!" That's exactly how I feel.
How knows, maybe one day, you might believe again. But God will always believe in you. *hugs ya right back*