UNMODERATED - DISCUSS AT YOUR OWN RISK!:Uptown Sports has this little ditty to say:

wprager wrote:

Tuk Tuk wrote:

wprager wrote:

Tuk Tuk wrote:The sooner religion dies out, the sooner this hatred and bigotry will. I don't know why some people believe their own religious beliefs should have power over the rights of others. I don't see why people are so threatened by the concept of homosexual marriage. How does two men or women marrying take any value away from your own marriage?

Marriage is no longer a concept owned by the church, or any religion. Which means the views of those religions should have no influence on it.

You realize that you sound like a bigot, right there, don't you? Is corporate greed any better? Communism? Capitalism? The problem is not religion, but people. You *do* realize that, don't you? The Koran does not tell anyone to strap on a bomb and kill children, just like Christ never told his disciples to go out and kill those who refused to be converted.

The opposite of religion isn't corporate greed, communism, or capitalism. The problem is the people who grow up being taught this through their religion, and then pass it on to their children, and so on. It's mainly the middle eastern religions too. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc. You don't see this in Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, etc to my knowledge. Even the Romans and Greeks were completely accepting of homosexuality. We're farther back in terms of homosexual acceptance than people who lived more than 2000 years ago. That's what religion has done to us.

I wasn't going for opposites at all, just alternatives.

Tuk Tuk wrote:I have read the bible. I've gone through catholic schooling for 14 years now. I've also read the Qur'an, the Nevi'im and Kethuvim, The Morman Bible, and the Tripitaka.

If anyone's just accepting what's being fed to them, it's you.

Big Ev wrote:

Tuk Tuk wrote:I have read the bible. I've gone through catholic schooling for 14 years now. I've also read the Qur'an, the Nevi'im and Kethuvim, The Morman Bible, and the Tripitaka.

If anyone's just accepting what's being fed to them, it's you.

Why would you read those if you didn't have to? They probably do make for some good fiction though.

wprager wrote:

hemlock wrote:
The bible is pretty plain about certain things that are expected of it's followers. That's the scripture where the flaw lies, not the people. I'm talking ridiculous notions such as killing someone who works on the sabbath, selling your daughter into slavery, not being allowed to have contact with a women during menstruation etc etc.

You say the problem is people not religion. Religion is a man-made invention. It's a learned belief, and an absurdly archaic and flawed one at that. To blame people but not religion is ignoring the ridiculous notions that religion expects of it's followers.

I am with Tuk Tuk in that religion serves no purpose in today's society. It's unneccesary and quite frankly, the good outweighs the bad.

OMG, have you even read the Bible? Or do you just accept what's fed to you on TV?

Moses came down the mountain with 10 laws. *TEN* No-where does it say, in those 10, that you are not allowed to pick up a phone on Saturday, or even drive your car. Forget that there were no phones or cards in Moses' times. That was all interpretation by flawed man. "Keep the Sabbath Holy" somehow became "you can't cook or answer the phone on Saturdays". I'm not making this up, a good friend who was very strict Orthodox explained this to me. She had it in her contract to go home at 3:30 on Fridays in the winter, because she was not allowed to drive after sundown, when Sabbath officially began.

So we had 10 laws and man turned them into hundreds of pages of "interpretations".

Tuk Tuk wrote:

Big Ev wrote:

Tuk Tuk wrote:I have read the bible. I've gone through catholic schooling for 14 years now. I've also read the Qur'an, the Nevi'im and Kethuvim, The Morman Bible, and the Tripitaka.

If anyone's just accepting what's being fed to them, it's you.

Why would you read those if you didn't have to? They probably do make for some good fiction though.

I find the psychology of religion really interesting, I've written a few school papers on it, and been in a few debates, so I want to know as much as I could about them.

spader wrote:

wprager wrote:

spader wrote:

wprager wrote:

Bass Destruction wrote:
But you know there are some religions that do condone same sex marriage. So if a same sex couple were to get 'married' under that religion, would you then consider it a marriage or not?

Name one!

Unitarians, for one. Some others are moving towards an acceptance of happy marriage, but haven't made changes yet, including Episcopalians and Lutherans. Also, there are plenty of non-Christian religions that accept happy marriage including those of some Aboriginal communities, Buddhists, Pagans, and Wiccans.

Again, denominations are not religions. Pagans and Wiccans -- are you serious? Why not bring up the greeks and Romans, too. Buddhism is a philosophy than religion. Buddha was not, and never professed to be a deity. Just enlightened.

Sorry, I should have left Paganism and Wiccan out of the debate. I didn't realize we were only talking about the "serious" and "believable" religions.

Just to clear things up and make this process a bit simpler, why don't you tell us what counts as a religion? Denominations are out, as are fringe religions. What are we talking about here? Judaism, Islam, and Christianity? Or do the last two count as denominations of the first?

hemlock wrote:

spader wrote:

wprager wrote:

spader wrote:

wprager wrote:

Bass Destruction wrote:
But you know there are some religions that do condone same sex marriage. So if a same sex couple were to get 'married' under that religion, would you then consider it a marriage or not?

Name one!

Unitarians, for one. Some others are moving towards an acceptance of happy marriage, but haven't made changes yet, including Episcopalians and Lutherans. Also, there are plenty of non-Christian religions that accept happy marriage including those of some Aboriginal communities, Buddhists, Pagans, and Wiccans.

Again, denominations are not religions. Pagans and Wiccans -- are you serious? Why not bring up the greeks and Romans, too. Buddhism is a philosophy than religion. Buddha was not, and never professed to be a deity. Just enlightened.

Sorry, I should have left Paganism and Wiccan out of the debate. I didn't realize we were only talking about the "serious" and "believable" religions.

Just to clear things up and make this process a bit simpler, why don't you tell us what counts as a religion? Denominations are out, as are fringe religions. What are we talking about here? Judaism, Islam, and Christianity? Or do the last two count as denominations of the first?

Don't forget about the Church of Scientology. Those people have it going on.

spader wrote:

hemlock wrote:

spader wrote:

wprager wrote:

spader wrote:

wprager wrote:

Bass Destruction wrote:
But you know there are some religions that do condone same sex marriage. So if a same sex couple were to get 'married' under that religion, would you then consider it a marriage or not?

Name one!

Unitarians, for one. Some others are moving towards an acceptance of happy marriage, but haven't made changes yet, including Episcopalians and Lutherans. Also, there are plenty of non-Christian religions that accept happy marriage including those of some Aboriginal communities, Buddhists, Pagans, and Wiccans.

Again, denominations are not religions. Pagans and Wiccans -- are you serious? Why not bring up the greeks and Romans, too. Buddhism is a philosophy than religion. Buddha was not, and never professed to be a deity. Just enlightened.

Sorry, I should have left Paganism and Wiccan out of the debate. I didn't realize we were only talking about the "serious" and "believable" religions.

Just to clear things up and make this process a bit simpler, why don't you tell us what counts as a religion? Denominations are out, as are fringe religions. What are we talking about here? Judaism, Islam, and Christianity? Or do the last two count as denominations of the first?

Don't forget about the Church of Scientology. Those people have it going on.

I keep thinking about the Steven Roberts quotation. Something like, "I contend that we're both atheists. I merely believe in one less god than you. When you understand why you dismiss all other possible gods, you'll understand why I dismiss yours."

hemlock wrote:That was my signature here for the better part of my tenure here. I only just changed it recently actually.

hemlock wrote:
Have I read the bible? Surely, you jest. How do you think I became an atheist in the first place?

And I quote from Deuteronomy 5:6-21:

"But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work"

Straight out of the New Revised Standard Edition. As far as the other things I mentioned, they are all in there, in the book of Leviticus, which I suggest you read before accusing me of not reading the bible.

Flo The Action wrote:Buddhism not a religion? Surely the millions here In Thailand would disagree. Just because Buddha wasn't delusional enough to think of himself as the son of god doesn't mean a religion didn't ensue.

Speaking of homosexuality, here in Thailand, the general population doesn't blink twice about it. It's also very common for a man to rebound his born gender and seek an operation to be a woman. No one bats an eye at this.

Makes one wonder how many people repress themselves under the morals of Christianity an our conservative society.

wprager wrote:

hemlock wrote:
Have I read the bible? Surely, you jest. How do you think I became an atheist in the first place?

And I quote from Deuteronomy 5:6-21:

"But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work"

Straight out of the New Revised Standard Edition. As far as the other things I mentioned, they are all in there, in the book of Leviticus, which I suggest you read before accusing me of not reading the bible.

You completely skipped what I said. The *basis* of the Judaic laws is the Ten Commandments. There are various translations and, no, sorry, I have not read the original, but whether it says to keep it holy or to not work, my point was the ridiculous ends to which it has been interpreted. Leviticus was just the start. Moses did not come down the mountain holding the Book of Laws but just a couple of stone tablets. "Man" is responsible for the rest.

Cap'n Clutch wrote:Some may say "man" is responsible for all of this?