Why I am an atheist

[Starlight]

I've actually heard this same line before. I'll have to share it with my gay friends.

Have you tried mentioning to them that you don't think gay sex and gay marriage should be legal or recognized as 'normal' and asking them what they think about you for thinking that? ...I note that later in your post you admit that "I never post like this on FB nor discuss such things at work nor would I... because... I have gay friends at work and on FB" so you obviously realize that their responses to hearing your views on the matter are not going to be overly positive.

I'm not anti heterosexual but I must be since I think premarital sex is immoral. hmmm It's laughable.

Wow, way to make irrelevant comparisons.

BTW, being gay and being black are not the same.

They are analogous. Being left-handed is similarly a useful analogy also.

But because I say I have gay friends

You know, the "I have a black friend, so I'm not racist" statement kind of defines cliche at this point.

(and have all my life) that's a sign I'm anti-gay.

I didn't say you were anti-gay because you have gay friends. That's a ridiculous thing for you to claim I said.

In what way exactly is a gay being discriminated against in the workplace?

Various gay people have gotten fired when their boss has found out they were gay. World Vision in the US refuses to employ gay people as a matter of policy.

we've put up with years of having the Christian faith mocked. It will get worse too. But then you're ok with that it seems.

I'm okay with comedy and satire. I'm also okay with people expressing their views about certain religious beliefs. I'm much more okay in general with people critiquing ideas (eg a religious teaching) than I am about people critiquing people (eg African-Americans). The degree to which Christianity gets mocked today doesn't hold a candle to the degree to which Christians have mocked atheism.

Yeah I always seek out comedians for commentary on important news items.

It's a reflection on the sad state of both the media and politics in the US that the best TV news shows are now done by comedians (The Daily Show, and Last Week Tonight), as various empirical studies have found.

It's not worth time nor is it really important to the discussion to find out.

Then don't repeat their lies.

Says the guy who doesn't know me personally and we are supposed to be having an open and honest discussion.

And we are. I told you I stopped identifying as a Christian because too many Christians opposed gay rights and repeated malicious lies about gay people. To which you responded by saying you opposed gay rights and you repeated malicious lies about gay people. To which I said: Yeah, the percentage of Christians who said and believed things exactly like that were what made me reject 'Christianity'.

[Papa Zoom]

Have you tried mentioning to them that you don't think gay sex and gay marriage should be legal or recognized as 'normal' and asking them what they think about you for thinking that? ...I note that later in your post you admit that "I never post like this on FB nor discuss such things at work nor would I... because... I have gay friends at work and on FB" so you obviously realize that their responses to hearing your views on the matter are not going to be overly positive.

Because there is a proper place for such open conversations and this forum is a proper place for it, work is not. And as for Facebook, I don't post any controversial topics because I have friends of all political persuasions and worldviews. FB is a place to keep in touch with friends and family and have fun. I came here to discuss a variety of topics with honesty.

Wow, way to make irrelevant comparisons.

I like the way you claim something is irrelevant but then avoid saying why.

They are analogous. Being left-handed is similarly a useful analogy also.

In your view they are, not in mine.

You know, the "I have a black friend, so I'm not racist" statement kind of defines cliche at this point.

I didn't say you were anti-gay because you have gay friends. That's a ridiculous thing for you to claim I said.

YOu misread what I said.

Various gay people have gotten fired when their boss has found out they were gay. World Vision in the US refuses to employ gay people as a matter of policy.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/...-marriage.html

Then don't repeat their lies.

Because you disagree with the study they must be lying. Got it.

[Starlight]

I don't think that analogy actually works.
...
Because you disagree with the study they must be lying. Got it.

Consider a health clinic who conducts a study on the people testing positive for STDs. They give these patients a survey which includes the questions "how many different sexual partners have you had?" and "what is your religious affiliation?". If someone else comes also and picks up that study and says "Christians have an average of 100 different sexual partners <cite study>", then is that reasonable? Of course not. That study by its very nature cannot give an accurate picture of the average sexual behavior of all Christians, and by its very design it excludes monogamous couples.

Or, if you go to a nightclub and conduct a similar survey of people there, are you going to get answers that are representative of all Christians? Of course not. You're excluding all the monogamous couples who are at home watching a movie together. You're going to get results that are absurdly skewed in favor of the types of people who go to nightclubs.

But the exact same issues are recurrent in 'studies' of the alleged number of average sex partners gay people have, and in fact the reality of many of these studies is actually much worse than my examples above. Almost always the monogamous stay-at-homes don't qualify for the survey criteria and get excluded from the outset. And always any gay men who are partially or wholly still in the closet equally tend to be excluded from the outset. (It's basically impossible to get real data on this subject because you can never fully include in the sample those people who are currently in the closet or who are celibate, and even the best methodologies tend to only reach a small fraction of the stay-at-homes, so any conceivable methodology is always going to provide an overestimate.)

For example, a study was conducted in the 80s and 90s in Amsterdam on gay men under age 30 who had tested positive with HIV, whose aim was to gain an understanding of how HIV was spreading. If a participant reported entering a permanent monogamous relationship, that person was dropped from the study by the researchers because that wouldn't spread HIV and so was uninteresting to them. For years that study was the main study cited on the subject by anti-gay groups, and in particular they cited the figure about the average numbers of partners the people in the study reported having per year, and about the length of time they stayed with each partner, the idea being that this was somehow a meaningful claim about the number of partners and length of relationships that all gay people in the world had on average (more on that study here). I've got no issue with studies like that in and of themselves - researchers are perfectly reasonably entitled to study whatever they like. But when someone else comes along and takes results that are specific to the studied group and claims they apply to everyone, then that person is just wrong and is horribly misusing the study, in much the same way a person would be if they claimed that the average number of trees per square mile on earth was the number reported by a study that had analysed a dense forest.

The situation gets even weirder though, because a lot of Christians know some celibate gay people who attend their church, who are celibate for religious reasons. So on the one hand they admit to knowing gay people who are having zero sexual partners per year and on the other hand try to use fake statistics to allege that gay people just don't have the morality or self-control that straight people have and so have a bajillion sexual partners per year. It's all a bit bizarre. They don't seem to stop and think about it and ask themselves the question of "what actually affects the number of sexual partners a given person chooses to have?" and just think about what the obvious answers to that question actually are, and that 'what gender they are attracted to' isn't one of those answers.

And the obvious follow up question seems to equally elude them: "If we have some concern about the number of different sexual partners gay people in our society are having, are we better to:
a) Encourage them to marry and have loving committed relationships with a single partner, and welcome them into our churches and teach values of faithfulness, love, and commitment; or
b) Deny them the ability to commit to their partners in marriage, and tell them this is because (among other things) that we expect their type not to have committed relationships and that's part of the reason we feel they don't need marriage. Exclude them from our churches, and so not teach them our values of faithfulness and commitment. Emphasize over and over again how much we expect all gay people to have numerous partners and not commit to any of them, and emphasize to all our kids that this is what gay culture is like, and thus if any of them grow up to believe they are gay they will know exactly how they ought to behave as gay people?"
The church is just plain crazy on that entire question.

[JimL]

Bigotry is not necessarily hatred, it is intolerance for those who do not think or live in accordance with your own personal views Papa Zoom, whether it is their race, their religion, their sexual orientation or whatever. So denying homosexuals, or wishing to deny them, the same rights that you have because of your self righteous intolerance towards them and their lifestyles is an act bigotry. So why are you offended by the term, if it is what you are with regards to homosexuals.

[Papa Zoom]

Bigotry is not necessarily hatred, it is intolerance for those who do not think or live in accordance with your own personal views Papa Zoom, whether it is their race, their religion, their sexual orientation or whatever. So denying homosexuals, or wishing to deny them, the same rights that you have because of your self righteous intolerance towards them and their lifestyles is an act bigotry. So why are you offended by the term, if it is what you are with regards to homosexuals.

More intolerant speech in the name of tolerance. It's actually quite funny. Ummm, that would make you a bigot for your intolerance of those who do not think or live in accordance with your own personal views. Welcome to the club.

[Starlight]

I agree that's a reasonable comment. I think Kirsten Powers is wrong about almost everything else she says however.

Hatred is perhaps too strong a word though. I think three general levels of concern for other people can be separated out:
1. Empathy / love / kindness / compassion... where a person gives a lot of thought to the well-being of others and how those people are feeling and genuinely wants what is best for them.
2. Apathy / disinterest / psychopathy... where a person just doesn't care about the impacts on other people and doesn't take them into account
3. Hatred / malevolence / ill-will... where a person genuinely wants to see bad things happen to someone and intends to hurt and harm others

Most of the Christian opposition to gay issues I find belongs in category 2. It follows the general pattern of "I think the bible says X about this, therefore I support the traditional conservative position on the topic, end of my consideration of the topic." That simply doesn't even consider the feelings of gay people, so it's category 2. An analogy I like to use is imagine if in the days of slavery someone had said "well I've thought about the economic pros and cons of slavery and overall I think the institution of slavery probably helps the country economically more than it harms it, so I support slavery." The response of most people to hearing that would be to face-palm and ask "what kind of a person doesn't even consider the effects of slavery on the slaves?"

The simple answer is someone who lacks empathy. And I find this to be the recurrent problem on the subject of homosexuality when I engage with Christians on this matter: They lack empathy. They lack it to such a degree and extent that I variously find it alarming, horrifying, and slightly terrifying. A total and complete lack of empathy gets within the definition of 'psychopath'. These Christian simply don't raise questions like "what would the impact of our proposals be on gay people?" They aren't interested in those issues when I try and bring them up. They prefer their discussions of slavery to not consider what the impact would be on the slaves.

So it's not so much that they actively hate the gays, it's more that they consistently show no interest whatsoever in their welfare.

The fix that seems to turn on the empathy centers of their brain seems to be having one of their children come out as gay. If I had a dime for every story I'd read of a Christian mother who's said "well I used to be strongly against gay rights, but then my son came out as gay, and that's caused me to rethink my position and now I support gay rights..."! I'm left wondering what was wrong with these people that they just weren't interested in how their ideas were impacting other people until it affected someone they loved. They were quite happy to advocate oppressive laws that harmed a minority group they'd never met without thinking twice about it, but once they realize their ideas are negatively affecting someone they love, then the empathy centers of their brain light up and they actually think it through and realize "oh, yeah, we're actually being really horrible and nasty to that group of people. I'm not in favor of that anymore." What is shows is that Christianity is doing the world's worst job of promoting love and empathy among its followers and is in fact having the opposite effect of actively reducing their empathy. How does it go about doing this? Primarily by encouraging people to evaluate moral decisions not by looking at how much different people are helped or harmed by the action (which is what most atheists do) but instead by consulting the bible, God, and tradition and never giving a single thought to the people involved at all. Which again, is why I think Christianity has become a net negative moral force in the world.

The ONLY possible reason to oppose same sex marriage is HATRED for gays.

As I've explained above, I don't think you need hatred, only disinterest in the wellbeing of gay people.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/...-marriage.html

Their decision to hire gay people was reversed two days later because evangelicals in the US threw a tantrum.

[Papa Zoom]

I'm not sure there is anything more to say on this particular matter that would be productive since we are at opposite ends. I do find it odd that someone could be apathetic and yet under your argument still be guilty of hate speech. So even under category II you can be a hater. IF and only if you say something about it (in a negative way). If you keep your mouth shut, you'll be ok. Just apathetic.

I see how it works. You still manage to sneak in the tactic of silencing.

[Starlight]

More intolerant speech in the name of tolerance. It's actually quite funny. Ummm, that would make you a bigot for your intolerance of those who do not think or live in accordance with your own personal views. Welcome to the club.

Oh, yay, the supposed "intolerance of tolerance". How original.

Any time anyone has a moral code they believe in, the question arises of what should be done when someone breaks that moral code, and whether the punishment itself can be justified under that moral code.

Christians believe in loving others. But most Christians don't seem to bat an eyelid at the idea of giving harsh penalties to criminals, which are clearly not loving. Some Christians however say that they think it is better to always turn the other cheek and not respond to violence with violence.

In a similar way, liberals believe everyone should treat everyone else well and be tolerant of everyone. But most liberals seem happy with the idea of the government punishing criminals, which is clearly not treating them well or tolerating them. Some liberals however think that the best approach is to be tolerant even of intolerance.

Christians claiming there is a contradiction in the liberal moral code of tolerance should equally look in their own eye and see the log of contradiction that is their own moral code of love.

[shunyadragon]

Killing babies with pitchforks or eating popcorn. Are they both morally neutral?

Extremes do not demonstrate objectivity.

Unless the religion specifically states such evil and commands it be done. It's not the Christian faith that is the problem. It's the heart of man.

You need to read the OT more carefully.

[Papa Zoom]

[QUOTE=Starlight;226155]

I didn't realize that an argument had to be "original" to be true.

Christians believe in loving others. But most Christians don't seem to bat an eyelid at the idea of giving harsh penalties to criminals, which are clearly not loving. Some Christians however say that they think it is better to always turn the other cheek and not respond to violence with violence.

Prison Fellowship. Started by Christian, run by Christians. And there are many other Christian organizations that do the same AND millions of dollars are given each year to help prisoners by, Christians. Because Christians don't care about prisoners.

In a similar way, liberals believe everyone should treat everyone else well and be tolerant of everyone.

Except those that disagree with them and their you get to be a target. Read The Silencing by Powers.

[Papa Zoom]

Extremes do not demonstrate objectivity.



You need to read the OT more carefully.

Well that's a nice dodge.

[Starlight]

I'm not sure there is anything more to say on this particular matter that would be productive since we are at opposite ends. I do find it odd that someone could be apathetic and yet under your argument still be guilty of hate speech. So even under category II you can be a hater. IF and only if you say something about it (in a negative way). If you keep your mouth shut, you'll be ok. Just apathetic.

I see how it works. You still manage to sneak in the tactic of silencing.

I judge the morality of actions both by their effects and their intention. An action does not have to be intended to be harmful in order to cause a lot of harm.

If someone says "well I ran that person over because I wasn't looking where I was driving because I didn't care if I hit someone or not" is that better than "I intentionally drove into that person because I wanted to see them suffer"? Sure. But it's still pretty bad.

In some ways what the argument over the "anti-gay" term boils down to is the analogy: Can a driver who doesn't have the welfare of pedestrians in mind when the drive be accurately labelled "anti-pedestrian", or is that labeling solely reserved for drivers who intentionally set out to hit pedestrians?

Evil requires harmful intentions or harmful actions. What your hilarious and exaggerated label of a 'tactic of silencing' boils down to is that actions can be harmful. If you don't care about a group of people one way or the other, and do nothing to help or harm them, then yes you have indeed avoided doing evil towards them. But once you take the step of actually taking actions that significantly affect them, then you've opened yourself to moral judgement on the issue in terms of both your intentions and the effects of your actions.

[Papa Zoom]

I judge the morality of actions both by their effects and their intention. An action does not have to be intended to be harmful in order to cause a lot of harm.

If someone says "well I ran that person over because I wasn't looking where I was driving because I didn't care if I hit someone or not" is that better than "I intentionally drove into that person because I wanted to see them suffer"? Sure. But it's still pretty bad.

Evil requires harmful intentions or harmful actions. What your hilarious and exaggerated label of a 'tactic of silencing' boils down to is that actions can be harmful. If you don't care about a group of people one way or the other, and do nothing to help or harm them, then yes you have indeed avoided doing evil towards them. But once you take the step of actually taking actions that significantly affect them, then you've opened yourself to moral judgement on the issue in terms of both your intentions and the effects of your actions.

It's not my tactic. It is an observable phenomenon and has been documented in a book. You can also get some info online.

[Starlight]

I didn't realize that an argument had to be "original" to be true....

Except those that disagree with them and their you get to be a target.

And Christians haven't targeted those who disagreed with them over the years??? What planet are you living on?

I feel like you missed the point of my post which is that there's an exact logical match between the inherent paradoxes that lie within the enforcement of both the Christian and the liberal moral systems. It's just plain hypocritical for Christians to pretend liberals have some sort of unique problem with how they deal with intolerance, since exactly the same issue applies in exactly the same way within the Christian framework.

[Papa Zoom]

[QUOTE=Starlight;226169]And Christians haven't targeted those who disagreed with them over the years??? What planet are you living on?[quote]
Earth

I feel like you missed the point of my post which is that there's an exact logical match between the inherent paradoxes that lie within the enforcement of both the Christian and the liberal moral systems. It's just plain hypocritical for Christians to pretend liberals have some sort of unique problem with how they deal with intolerance, since exactly the same issue applies in exactly the same way within the Christian framework.

That's one way of looking at it. Not the way I see it for sure.