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Atlanta Fire Chief - fired for being Christian.

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  • Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View Post
    Once again, you have missed the point. Mountain Man specifically claimed that the fact that the Bible calls the act an "abomination" is the reason it is sinful. He did not appeal to the difference between ceremonial law and moral law. He focused on the word "abomination." I merely pointed out that there are other things which are listed as "abominations" only a few verses after the Bible lists homosexuality as such which are no longer considered sinful.
    No, you most certainly did not. You cited nothing but an offhand remembered prejudice that had nothing to do with the text. The point of my reply was to say that the Bible (the NIV, anyway) did not specifically describe the eating of unclean animals as ABOMINATIONS or ENORMITIES or ACTS WORTHY OF DEATH or other such shades of moral seriousness. "Unclean" is primarily a hygenic category of rules, hence the English transliteration of the term. The Bible (as does most texts written by people with life experience longer than four years of college) condemns homosexuality as a serious sexual perversion, to a level that it does NOT condemn the eating of unclean animals.

    This has nothing to do with whether or not the Bible actually holds homosexuality to be sinful (for what it's worth, I believe that it does). This has to do with the logic behind demonstrating that fact. If one of my geometry students wrote on a quiz that the Pythagorean Theorem is true because a circle has a radius, his answer would be wrong regardless of the fact that the Pythagorean Theorem actually is true. Similarly, even if the Bible does say that homosexuality is sinful, that proscription is not due to the fact that the Bible refers to it as an abomination.
    For the young, the innocent, the trusting, the inexperienced, and the followers, i.e., something that everybody was once in their lifetimes, it most certainly is. One does not need to go into lurid detail on the horrific physical and social consequences of the gay lifestyle to say that the act itself is a disgusting abomination to most, and that there's a very good reason for the seperation of gays from normal society (due to the majority of those who practice it being both abominable and unclean, in almost every possible definition of the word.)

    I have no "vendetta" against Mountain Man; and while you seem to think him incapable of doing so, I have complete faith that the gentleman can defend his own statements without need of your help.
    May I then expect you to make such poorly-thought-out rejoinders to just anyone? Because there is something about him that seems to bring out the maker of false statements in you. Nevertheless, making them to anyone would bring the same response, you really need to start clicking links before you start spouting off about what you don't know except by hearsay.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Starlight View Post
      Chrawnus,
      Murder and child molestation harm others in obvious ways. Therefore there is every reason for society to want to dissuade people from doing those things.
      And what exactly does this have to do with the price of tea in china?

      Originally posted by Starlight View Post
      I am unaware of any protestant Christian denominations who hold to theology that says that if a saved Christian commits a murder or molests a child then that person is going to hell. Rather Christians strongly encourage others not to murder or molest children because those are not a loving, Christ-like things to do, and Christians should strive to be loving and Christ-like. However, such acts are not salvation issues - doing more good works / doing less bad works are the 'fruits' of salvation, they are not the cause of it, which is Christ alone. (According to standard evangelical theology anyway. Your theology may vary of course. And being an atheist myself, I don't actually believe this, but it's what standard evangelical doctrine teaches. (I used to be a theologian, and still dabble))
      And one of those fruits would be homosexual people deciding to live celibate instead of continuing to live in sin. The fact that you're forgiven for your sins is not a free pass to continue in your sinful ways, no matter how harmless you think specific sins are.

      Originally posted by Starlight View Post
      The reformer Martin Luther was subjected to a lot of criticism for his theology on exactly this issue - his bold new claim that human works were not a route to salvation and that in fact it is Christ's finished work alone saves people, was subjected to criticism by Catholics who responded that if you take away good works from being a cause of salvation then it incentivizes people not to bother so much with doing good. Protestants have since had to grapple with the issue because they view good works as "fruits" but not the "cause" of salvation. Luther (in)famously wrote "sin boldly", emphasizing to his followers that their faith in Christ was what ultimately saved them, not their sinlessness: "let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger". In protestant theology, neither murder nor gay sex, nor any other sin real or imagined can be an ultimate issue of salvation, only faith in Christ, for without Christ no sinless life can save, and the blood of Christ covers all sin. So just as being straight doesn't save anyone, being gay doesn't damn them.
      Luther would probably be turning in his grave if he knew how people keep using his writings to justify all kinds of sinful behaviour.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
        all sin hurts people directly. It keeps them from having eternal life with God. That is what Jesus came and died for, so we could be forgiven because we all have sinned.
        and since you are telling us how we should behave and believe (or NOT believe) -- you fail your own criteria, you entitled twit.
        When you argue with me you are arguing only with me and not with me and my overbearing god. If I tell you what I think or even I tell you what I think you should do, because there is no superior authority at my back it is immediately clear to you that you can easily disregard anything I say without penalty.
        “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
        “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
        “not all there” - you know who you are

        Comment


        • Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
          When you argue with me you are arguing only with me and not with me and my overbearing god. If I tell you what I think or even I tell you what I think you should do, because there is no superior authority at my back it is immediately clear to you that you can easily disregard anything I say without penalty.
          This seems... disingenuous.

          If you don't actually believe that the Christian God exists, then how does that God's opinion about anything have any bearing? Do you think telling people how to behave and what to believe is okay, just so long as you don't invoke a deity?
          "[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
          --Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
            And one of those fruits would be homosexual people deciding to live celibate instead of continuing to live in sin.
            If a particular gay Christian feels the Holy Spirit has worked in them and transformed them so that they want to be celibate, I have no particular issue with that.

            I have an issue with anti-gay people trying to force others to be celibate, including non-Christians, in some sort of misguided effort to save them through works by threatening them with damnation if they don't change fast enough for the person's liking.

            The fact that you're forgiven for your sins is not a free pass to continue in your sinful ways, no matter how harmless you think specific sins are.
            Most Christians would say that no one is sinless, even after they have been saved. Most evangelicals would readily admit they still sin every day. For the most part they try not to sin, some even try really really hard, but it still happens. So let's not going looking for the twig in the eyes of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, when there's a log in our own eyes! And let's let the person who's sinless cast the first stone! Judge others as you would wish to be judged. The Spirit seems to work in everyone at different speeds and everyone grows toward grappling with the problems of their sinful human nature at a different pace. If a gay or lesbian Christian brother or sister has not yet experienced a transformation of their sexuality and still feels the need for a relationship and sex, then who are we to judge? For are we perfect ourselves? And don't we also have similar needs ourselves?

            What the bible has to say about marriage involves a lot of compromise to human nature. Paul in 1 Cor 7 says that ideally everyone would be celibate, but he concedes that humans have lusts and as a concession to those lusts he says it is better to marry than to burn with lust. Jesus, when he approaches the topic of divorce in the gospels, says that divorce is not at all ideal, but he concedes that it is sometimes necessary due to fallen human nature being what it is. In short, we live in a fallen world, where God's ideals can't always be obtained perfectly, and it can often be better to make concessions to the fact that human nature is imperfect, than to try and force an idealized standard on fallen humanity this side of eternity. We allow marriage and divorce for that reason, even though we are told that in heaven "man will be like the angels and will not marry". So regardless of whether or not God ever intended for anyone to be gay, it is a matter of fact that in our fallen world we observe that some people are indeed gay. One option is to try to force them into a mold of an idealized standard of what humanity 'should have' been like, which we can observe causes them great harm to try to force them to comply with our heavenly ideals. A better option seems to be to make a concession to their human nature, and like the issues of marriage and divorce, concede that what we expect to be God's ideal standard that will be realized in heaven isn't very practical this side of eternity in the fallen world in which we live, and that the most loving and most harmless way to deal with the situation is to let gay people love and marry according to their desires, and to celebrate that with them because that seems to be the most kind and loving approach to the issue.
            "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
            "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
            "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Starlight View Post
              The actual fact of being gay doesn't appear to hurt them at all. I know several gay couples who seem entirely happy with their lives, who don't seem to be hurt by their gayness in the least, not one iota.
              I don't really care who you know.

              But prejudice and discrimination definitely does hurt people.
              Debatable.

              Every gay person I have ever talked to has had stories to tell of the stress, anxiety, and sufferings they've endured as a result of their families, friends, or society being anti-gay.
              Lots of people have stories. This guy had a story:

              http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...lice-time.html

              They're usually delusional (an obvious problem for people who suffer from a mental disorder like homosexuality) or lying outright. Any story of minority victimhood coming out of the mouths of members of the progressive hegemony should be assumed to be false until proven otherwise.

              Anti-gay prejudice is almost always cited by gay people who have attempted suicide or had suicidal thoughts as being the primary motivation for that.
              Which doesn't make it true. Again, they are mentally ill people. Mentally ill people often claim they're trustworthy and may even think they're trustworthy when in reality they could have no grip on reality.

              It should be obvious, but society being repeatedly and constantly nasty towards people harms them.
              White men have the second highest suicide rate among race/sex groups, with male native americans taking the first spot. Males in general have higher suicide rates than women. Are you saying white males are the second most repressed group in the United States?

              Being nasty towards gay people very very definitely hurts them, as scientific and medical organisations around the Western world have been testifying to for more than a decade now.
              By "scientific" you of course mean the mostly fraudulent field of psychology and a horde of progressives masquerading as objective individuals.

              And while it is hard to pin an exact number on the damage done by prejudice, because the subtle effects of anti-gay sentiment are quite insidious and often difficult to quantify, it is reasonably clear that the kinds of numbers of people were are talking about is on the order of 2000 premature deaths per year in Canada alone (that was prior to marriage equality there - marriage equality significantly reduces the death rate).
              Even if these numbers weren't entirely made up, that's a drop in the bucket compared to the damage obesity does to lesbians without men to motivate them to stay healthy or gays who have unprotected sex with three random guys in a gas station bathroom.

              That is what comes of telling a minority group that they are bad people, sinners, undeserving of the same status for their relationships that other people have, that who they love and who they are is wrong, that God disapproves of their lives, that their families and society don't approve of them and their choices.
              That's what comes from having a mental illness (I'm referring to liberalism here) that tells people they're entitled to everybody else's approval.

              That causes chronic stress and chronic anxiety, it drives people to alcohol, drugs, and smoking for stress relief, the chronic stress cause and exacerbates other latent medical or psychological problems, and the feeling of rejection and lack of self-worth leads to depression, despair and suicide... in massive numbers. We're not talking about a small amount of harm here: We're talking about the attitudes of anti-gay Christians killing more people in the US per year than the Muslims did in 9/11. And even worse is that anti-gay discrimination doesn't just kill people, it makes their lives so miserable that they want to die.
              Sounds horrible. As soon as we find the cause, and a cure, and erradicate this terribly harmful disorder, the better.

              Promiscuity can also hurt people, through STDs and emotionally, which is yet another reason why anti-gay Christians are so wrong to try and deny to gay people the possibility of the commitment of marriage. I have seen many Christians hypocritically berate gay people for promiscuity while at the same time insisting that they be denied the right to commit to each other in marriage.
              I'm not sure how turning naturally promiscuous people into swingers is gonna deal with the promiscuity problem but whatever.
              "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12

              There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                Chrawnus,
                Murder and child molestation harm others in obvious ways.
                So does AIDS.
                "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12

                There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by square_peg View Post
                  No it's not, unless you want to argue that love DOES mean being nasty to people until they kill themselves, that being gay DOES hurt people in the same way alcohol does, and that being anti-gay does NOT hurt people.
                  That is merely poor logic, combined with piles of assumptions that I will deconstruct, one at a time:

                  1. Where does this actually go on? Can you show me where gays are getting bullied in any larger numbers than other groups that face bullying behavior? I hate to break it to you, but gay people are not the only people that face bullying. Despite large and larger levels of acceptance, why is there still such a problem? How much longer are you going to blame others?
                  2. The idea that a sin 'doesn't hurt anybody else' is not an argument against saying such a thing isn't a sin. After all, sex before marriage 'doesn't hurt anybody else', but yet... there is a link between those who engage in it and have early divorces. There is also links between having multiple sex partners and being unhappy in marriage too. Do these sins technically, 'hurt other people' no, but would you seriously argue there isn't a problem?

                  Thus the piles of burning straw. It doesn't address anything.
                  "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                  GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                    The actual fact of being gay doesn't appear to hurt them at all. I know several gay couples who seem entirely happy with their lives, who don't seem to be hurt by their gayness in the least, not one iota.
                    Outward appearances, can be deceiving. Just because somebody LOOKS happy; doesn't imply they are.
                    "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                    GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Darth Executor View Post
                      So does AIDS.
                      You know that the vast majority of homosexuals don't have AIDS, right?
                      "[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
                      --Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
                        I agree. What a star. Maybe the godless should have a ‘Bravo’ button.

                        The underlying SIN is the entitlement that people feel they have to tell others how to behave. In an attempt to avoid the sin they appeal to a higher authority. If that higher authority is a god, the counter is either, my god is more powerful than yours or your god is imaginary. This error of appealing upwards to authority is a compounding sin – a shirking of personal responsibility.


                        Says it is wrong to judge others; judges others and doesn't see the contradiction in his own argument. Do yourself a favor FF, stop talking. It might make you look smarter.
                        "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                        GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
                          Outward appearances, can be deceiving. Just because somebody LOOKS happy; doesn't imply they are.
                          This argument would seem to be a rather slippery slope. A non-Christian could similarly claim that all Christians are actually unhappy about their lives, dismissing those who appear perfectly happy because "outward appearances can be deceiving."
                          "[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
                          --Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View Post
                            This argument would seem to be a rather slippery slope. A non-Christian could similarly claim that all Christians are actually unhappy about their lives, dismissing those who appear perfectly happy because "outward appearances can be deceiving."
                            Many people, who commit suicide, you'd find that these people seemed outwardly quite happy and even content with things in life, while turning quite different thoughts inside their head. In reality, you can't truly know if somebody is happy, even if you think you know them well. Those thinking of suicide, could be quite hard to spot.
                            "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                            GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
                              Many people, who commit suicide, you'd find that these people seemed outwardly quite happy and even content with things in life, while turning quite different thoughts inside their head. In reality, you can't truly know if somebody is happy, even if you think you know them well. Those thinking of suicide, could be quite hard to spot.
                              Oh, I certainly agree with this. However, it's quite a jump from "some outwardly happy people are actually depressed" to the claim that the particular happy gay couples which Starlight mentioned are likely to be actually depressed.
                              "[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
                              --Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View Post
                                You know that the vast majority of homosexuals don't have AIDS, right?
                                No, they just have other STDs. All around it reduces their lifespan considerably, and you can't say it wasn't harm inflicted on them by someone else since STDs take two to tango.
                                "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12

                                There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.

                                Comment

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