Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe the fact that God has to tell you the difference between right and wrong reveals a lot about you.
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Morality Without The Bible and Homosexuality
- Thread starter NewGuyOnTheBlock
- Start date
I believe the fact that God has to tell you the difference between right and wrong reveals a lot about you.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe that and murder and rape and every other disgusting sin but not because He wants it that way. It is called permissive will. He permits it because people want it but then He will punish for it. The call is always to repent but if people were not doing wrong there would be no call.
Bob the Unbeliever
Well-Known Member
I can only speak from personal experiences. I was raised in a FundieXian cult myself, and was fed up until early adulthood, the usual lies about homosexuals.
And further, I was pretty much left in the dark, with respect to sexual identity, and indeed-- we were forbidden to even bring up the subject. We were taught to pretend that sexuality did not exist.
So I really had no clue. I was fortunate, however, to be a lover of biology, and biological sciences-- and I took a human sexuality course at University. It was a literal eye-opener. I had had no idea at all, about sexual identity or anything, really, apart from basic instincts that all mammals possess.
It caused me to re-examine my own identity in many ways, and to re-evaluate my reaction to gay people, and others not in the "typical" categories.
I learned a great many things, both about myself, and about others.
I learned that I had no power over them, at all. A most valuable lesson-- one that many theists seem to never learn-- they like to think they have such power, especially when they don't.
I learned that I like women, and I learned why that is. I also learned that I prefer being alone to crowds, the bigger the crowd, the less I like it. I discovered that my preference for women was not as strong as my preference to being by myself, or with the company of cats.
I learned that being gay isn't "catching"-- that you cannot "make someone gay" who isn't already gay in the first place.
I learned that nothing is a fixed value on a rigid plate-- everyone's sexual identity is at least marginally fluid, some folk more than other folk.
I learned that human sexuality is far more complicated than even the most complex description, and as varied as ice crystals are in the wintertime.
I learned a lot-- and I learned to be comfortable in my own skin, and to be comfortable around non-straight folk too. It came as an eye-opener, once, several years later, how much I had learned, when I was propositioned in a bar (one of my rare outings). Instead of insulted? I was quite flattered-- the dude was quite good looking. Later on, it hit me-- before learning? I would have been insulted. And that made me sad-- that the religion of my childhood was so horrible, so evil, that it would have made me angry at someone else's honest mistake.
Bob the Unbeliever
Well-Known Member
Except. One "god" says this.... .another "god" says that, which is contradictory. And a third "god" says something else yet again.
Which "god" is correct? Every single "god" spokes-person has the exact same level of evidence-- that is to say, none.
So which "god" do we believe? Or is it better to ignore 100% of the god-claims, and just figure it out for ourselves?
As all Secular Humanists have done, and their findings are far superior to 100% of the god-claims, as nobody is put into the "Less Than Human" group-- again, in contrast to 100% of all the god-claims.
Bob the Unbeliever
Well-Known Member
Well, yeah... have you read the "gospel" of John? It reads like a gay novel between two male lovers, really, if you let yourself ignore the classic interpretation.
"Disciple whom Jesus loved" is all through that one.
And Jesus did hang around exclusively with men, and never married.
Maybe he wasn't saying "amen" but was instead, saying, "aaah, Men"
Bob the Unbeliever
Well-Known Member
I suppose the Middle Ages-- called the Dark Ages, serve an even darker example of morality WITH the bible.
And let is not forget the North American Confederacy, one of the finest examples of Exodus 21 you could ask for on the planet.
Bob the Unbeliever
Well-Known Member
Except? Your bible does not, in fact, agree with you even a little. Murder? Is mandatory in the bible, under quite a few to us moderns, silly reasons. Back-talking kids? Bible says to kill'em.
And rape? If you are married, according to the bible? Rape is impossible--- wives, being possessions of the husband, have no say.
Worse-- if you are a rape victim? The victim has no say-- but the rapist gets a 2nd or 3rd bride, by paying a modest fee. To the victims owner-- all Moral according to the bible.
But let's look at Exodus 21, and Slavery, shall we?
Is there anything in the 10 commandments forbidding the owning of people? Nope.
How about Jesus? Did he forbid ownership of slaves? Nope.
The bible is immoral. End of story.
Yuk it up all you like, the plain and simple fact is that there have always been more gays in highly public, often respected offices, than most people are aware of. Julius Caesar was known as "every woman's husband, and every man's wife." You perhaps remember Alan Turing, the brilliant mathematician whose work at Bletchley Park changed the outcome of WWII? How about Eleanor Roosevelt? Her their surviving correspondence with Lorena Hickok (about 3,500 letters) gives strong evidence of a lesbian relationship. King Edward II of England certainly had a homosexual relationship with Piers Gaveston, and even the producer of that great Bible (KJV), King James I (and VI of Scotland) thoroughly enjoyed the company of gentlemen, including the very handsome Duke of Buckingham (in fact, there was a rubric commonly known at the time, viz Rex fuit Elizabeth: nunc est regina Jacobus—"Elizabeth was King: now James is Queen."
I know quite a few scholarly references to Jesus and "the disciple Jesus loved," as well as. And heck, even the god Zeus boffed the boy Ganymede!
shmogie
Well-Known Member
Yeah, knew about them, and there are others.
Paul explains why he hasn´t a wife, and it has nothing to do with homosexuality.
He also explains why it might be better for those men spreading the Gospel to not be married, and it has nothing to do with homosexuality.
How about Ghandi?
Various charity organisations like
Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, UNICEF, Water Aid, Save the Children (yes, really), the Smith Family etc. All secular without any religious affiliation whatsoever. Atheist, if you will. Are they examples of morality without the Bible too?
Yes, and I've read the "explanations" given by American fundamentalist pastors for why they were diddling boys (only after they got caught, of course). Such explanations, like those of Ted Haggard, don't hold a lot of sway with me.
And may I also point out that quite a few of those "pastors" have been among the most vocal haters of gays. While certainly I do not know, it would not surprise me in the slightest if that were part of Paul psychological profile. Trust me, I have known many of them -- most often to my great disappointment.
To be fair though, Zeus boffed literally anything that moved.
Hey, not being fussy multiplies your opportunities exponentially!
Can’t argue with that lolHey, not being fussy multiplies your opportunities exponentially!
Ponder This
Well-Known Member
It seems that you haven't really justified any of these any better than someone justifies homosexuality.
"Killing is wrong" except in some cases.
"Homosexuality is wrong" except in some cases.
So you really haven't made a significant case here.
If you really don't think homosexuality is "wrong" then imagine a world where there are only homosexual pairings instead of heterosexual pairings. In such a world, the species dies out in a generation. So it's actually blatantly obvious that in that scenario something is "wrong" and the thing that is "wrong" is the preference for homosexual pairings over heterosexual pairings (and I explained that rather clearly without resorting to the Bible). On the other hand, you might argue that if only 11% of the population engages in homosexual pairings instead of heterosexual pairings, then there is nothing "wrong", which is sort of like saying that as long as the number of people killing other people is statistically "small", then it doesn't really matter that some people kill other people. It's... sort of true? Think about it.
NewGuyOnTheBlock
Cult Survivor/Fundamentalist Pentecostal Apostate
As well as a lot of moral, upstanding people who can only be described as being good people who existed before and after the bible.
NewGuyOnTheBlock
Cult Survivor/Fundamentalist Pentecostal Apostate
My point exactly.
That can't be right. Rape, murder, theft, are round throughout nature; we butcher millions if not billions of land, sea and air creatures every year but come out raging when they occasionally do it to us. Within the one species, we know that rapes and murders occur. Microorganisms have been feeding on each other for 3.5 billion years, under God's watchful and apparently approving eye; and we larger critters have been doing it ever since the Cambrian. So if God designed nature [he] designed those aspects into it and into us. If our civilizations overcome them to some extent, that's to our credit, not God's ─ [he] put them there in the first place.
HA HA GOTCHA YA SUCKERS!
So free will isn't free, and if you use it any way other than to toe the exact line you'll score everlasting punishment? If what you say is right, it's a totally corrupt set-up and knock-down. Do you really say God's as brainlessly devious, ruthless and cruel as that?