But you can’t claim he isn’t, either. Your example provides no evidence by which we can judge whether he’s a mysognist; as you say, it’s quite possible that he’s just following the rules. On the other hand, he may be following the rules and quite happy about that because he doesn’t think women are as good as men.
While it’s accurate to say we shouldn’t attack the Church because they hold bigoted ideas, it’s just as incorrect to defend them and say they do not, based on the point that they take their rules from the Bible. If we took the military officer outside the army, and see what he does, we might be able to infer from that his position; we might be able to just ask him and get an honest response one way or the other. But it’s certainly worthwhile to check and find out, if he’s in a position where his adherence to the rules is affected by his attitude.
Yes, of course it will. If the Catholic Church allowed gay marriage, then gay sex (within marriage) would not be considered a sin. Sure, gays as well as everybody else would still be struggling with universal sins like anger and envy and adultery and fiddling one’s income tax. But gays would no longer be condemned to the uniquely harsh and cruel treatment of having even their monogamous committed love for a consenting adult partner forbidden all form of non-sinful expression.
No it doesn’t. The interpretation that God’s will prohibits gays from marrying is voluntary on the part of the modern Catholic Church. If the Church voluntarily changes that interpretation to extend the option of marital sex to gay couples, then gays will no longer be faced with the cruel and discriminatory Hobson’s choice between sin and total celibacy.
And I think you’d find that if the RCC left off after noting the impossibility of sacramental marriage and allowed civil society to enact whatever rules it wants, as the Church does in the case of divorced people marrying, then rants like the OP would be practically non-existant. What do we need to do to convince the Pope that he isn’t a secular legislator? Fight the 30 Years War all over again?
If the Church limited their opposition to gay marriage to the sacrament, there would be no issue, correct? I don’t think any gay marriage proponent wishes to force any churches to conduct gay marriage ceremonies. On the other hand, the current law prevents gay marriages performed in churches whose leadership believes that they are sanctified from being recognized civilly. Without a valid secular reason against gay marriage, why is this fair?
Polycarp and several others have addressed this point already. God said many things not enforced by law or even considered as sins today. Some who believe in god just as much as the Pope (I’m obviously not in that class) feel that other words of God and Jesus should cause it to be allowed. Given this, isn’t it at least possible that the position of the Church is driven by animosity? To know this for sure would require access to thoughts and private conversations that we don’t possess, but pretty much all churches believe that God’s word requires interpretation, and this interpretation is subject to human weakness. I don’t believe this position falls under infallibility, does it? (Not that this changes anything for someone not a Catholic.)
Is it foolish to require secular justification for a law? Remember, various religions may have varying opinions on the religious justification of non-justification of any law. How do we choose? Is the religous affiliation of legislators a good criteria for what should be enacted? I’m not saying that legislators should forget their beliefs, but perhaps without a secular justification they should leave them in the cloakroom and vote for all their constituents, not just those who share their faith. I trust that you would agree that an Islamic legislator should not vote as the Koran commands, right?
The officer is certainly not a bigot. A cop enforcing a blue law is not a religious fanatic, either. The people who wrote these rules on the other hand …
As a sidenote, a number of legislators faced this choice during the same-sex marriage debate in Canada. NDP MP Charlie Angus, for example, is no longer welcome to attend his church for having voted in favour of same-sex marriage.
If that’s what this is about, why isn’t the Pope speaking out against people who wear two fabrics at the same time, work on the Sabbath, plant two crops in the same field or harvest for more than seven years without giving their field a rest? God said all of those things too, in the same book–most within a couple of pages of each other. What makes homosexuality special?
Doesn’t fucking matter. You can call anything you want a sin–nobody wants to change what your deity thinks is or isn’t sinful. Just keep his wet snout out of our law.
He seems to have no such qualms directly denying his deity’s word by allowing Catholics to wear different fabrics at the same time, plant different crops in the same field, and work on the Sabbath.
I think what Priceguy meant was “maliciously”, not “evil(ly)”. I could be wrong, though.
Is it your position that homosexuals should strive to resist their need for sexual affection with people of the same sex?
Can you explain this? I don’t get it.
Isn’t the point of heaven that it transcends greed and the desire for a better materialistic lot?
Baloney. (Or should I say, pepperoni.) The Pope is a hypocrite if he disavows gay sex but lets Catholics slide on multi-fabric clothes. The man who has never had sex outside of marriage but wears nylon/cotton blends has committed far more sins than the man who has a male sex partner and always wears cotton-only. Which brings us back to the beginning: organized religion is a self-contradicting fantasy world, and if you want to live in that world, that’s fine, but secular law belongs firmly in the world of the rational.
I think you’re confusing the Catholics with the Fundamentalists, who claim to take their rules for living directly from the do’s and don’t’s found in the Bible.
I don’t claim to understand the reasoning behind the Catholic Church’s positions on sexuality, homosexuality, marriage, etc., but I’m pretty sure they’re not founded just on a strict reading of the Mosaic Law. Hence, this particular accusation of hypocrisy is unfounded.
Freudian_Slip I agree with you, the gov’t should get out of the marriage business all together.
Do you really mean this, isn’t your point is that the pope hates gay people because he considers them evil (unsuported by you and discredited by me through Otto’s cite) ?
I agree, God gave us free will.
Let me ask somethiing of a atheist - is it possiable that there is a God that exists that you can’t currently understand?
You can try to make God look bad, I just try to call it like it is (and BTW I support the droppiing of the 2 atomic bombs.)
Well I doubt that, but if true yes you don’t have to accept the give of forgivness, you will stay where you are - you own God nothing God owes you nothing - you go your own way, God is OK with that.
It would be refreshing, but in the 2 people in the OP only the pope showed this tendency, not the hateful bigoted Der Trish
Orge I personally agree with this, I don’t knwo what the pope would say. The issue (for me) is faith, not religion. Faith I consider a personal relaitionship with God, Religion is of man - this however is my belief your and the Pope’s MMV.
Personally I feel it is bad as far as the Kingdom of God but indifferent as far as humanity is concerned, for the KoG it is no more bad then pre-martial sex, planting 2 (or more) crops in the same field, wearing multi fabric clothes, etc… I accept that these things will happen and these things are just part of being human - AND IT IS NO REASON TO CONDEM A FELLOW HUMAN UNLESS YOU HAVE NEVER SINNED.
My view is based on we have no claim on the kingdom of heaven - none. Let me be clear here - we have no basis at all to even consider any claim to the KoG. We live outside it, and that will determine our ultimate fate, which just happens to be destruction - this is just a fact, just like a slug will die. As such it really doesn’t matter what your sexual orentation is, or what you wear - in that respect there is no harm in homosexuality, wearing cotton poly blends, or even growing bean and corn in the same field of all things- they result is the same.
Irrelevant if he’s doing things I understand. Promoting bigotry is bad, and I don’t care if he’s a “higher being”.
So you think the slaughter of two cities for unapproved sex acts is good ? That’s sick and vile, and so are you.
Do you actually know your own religion ? The Christian God is a control freak; of course it would matter to him what I did and thought, assuming he existed.
Yeah, because promoting hatred and oppression towards gays is so loving. And you still haven’t explained why hating the leadership of a death/hate/guilt cult is bigotry.
Actually no, the whole if a man lies with a man as like a woman clearly states it is a sin.
Again the Bible directly contradicts you.
Fully and completely agree, as I stated we are all sinners - every one - now move on (dot com)
NO, or let me put it another way , NO
Quickly, we were given paridise (garden of Eden), we wanted to go it along (w/o God), after the 2nd coming and during the 1000 year rule of Christ we will have to undo the damage we did to society and the planet to restore paridise, so it can becoem part of the KoG.
I didn’t say you would want to have a intergalitic SUV is you only had a fusion scooter. But it is in the Bible many time people’s ‘places’, some having better then others.
Agreed (if I understand the multi fabric clothes issue - which I really don’t but accept in this thread.)
you missed my point then, both are unworthy of entering the KoG, nor do either have any claim to enter - none.
Thus saith the kanicbird from the left hand of a teeny-tiny nitpicking lesser god who apparently wants kanicbird to help him judge who gets into the “KoG.”
Jesus said to take no thought about what we should wear. Since he was a little more “down to earth,” and his teachings generally make more sense, I’ll stick with thinking of “God” as something that I’m not meant to grasp in this life.
It’s a sin to the Catholic Church if the hierarchy says so; if they say tomorrow it’s the religious duty of all good Catholics to screw their own gender like gay bunnies, then it’s their religious duty. It’s all arbitrary.
You actually believe in the Garden of Eden ? Literally ? :rolleyes:
Kind of contradictory, considering how much of the damage was done by Christ. Nor do I see why anyone sane would want to be part of the Kingdom of the God of Bigotry; your God.
So even paradise has a class system ? Some paradise.
Once again; hatred of all humanity. You remind me of the monks in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who kept chanting and whacking themselves in the face with a board.
Frankly, this whole notion of a Christian “sin” just seems arbitrary and mean from an outsider’s point of view. The whole argument about “we are all sinners” is equivalent to stating “we are all scum.” However, there is a subset of people who are (pardon the metaphor) born “scummy”, spend their lives “scummy”, and are told by Orders of the Holy Soap that they must spend all their time in the shower lest their scumminess send them straight to hell?
With all due respect to a person’s belief system, this definition of “god” that would create some humans to fall in love with a same-gendered person and then instruct them to spend their lives completely celibate, never let yourself fall in love lest you SIIIIIN is a rather simplistic, debased and downright mean god. I honestly believe that a God that can create quantum mechanics can create compassionate, complex humans of all kinds. I do believe in God, andwe have absolutely NO way of understanding her/his nature, and therefore no right to make any statement in her/his name, “infallibility” of the Pope included.
I really don’t care what minutiae your badly translated, written from oral histories passed down over hundreds of years “holy books” have to say about sexuality based on tribal customs. Truth is, Jesus said specifically that he came to overturn the old laws, that the only true commandment is “to love each other as you would love yourself.” Personally, I would think that included keeping your nose out of other people’s bedroom, and ensuring that ALL loving couples and families had the appropriate legal rights. Same with Muslims, given that they are entreated to “love for his brother what he loves for himself.”
You love your spouse, your marriage? Yet you would deny it to your neighbor? Very un-Christian and Un-Muslim in the truest and best sense of those religions.
But other things in the Bible are equally “clearly stated”—e.g., that you shouldn’t trim your sidewhiskers or shouldn’t eat pork—and the Church voluntarily decided to interpret those prohibitions as trivial, outdated, or irrelevant.
Similarly, the Church could (and probably will someday, IMHO) voluntarily decide to interpret the Biblical prohibition of same-gender sex as irrelevant, thus making gay marriage perfectly acceptable.
There is no reason to accept Biblical prohibition of gay marriage, while ignoring Biblical prohibitions of other activities, that doesn’t depend on voluntary choices about how to interpret the text. You can’t avoid that responsibility by claiming “oh well, the Church has to prohibit this, because the Bible says so”. The Bible says a lot of other things that the Church ignores.
Okay then, it looks as though you agree that it’s hypocritical for the Church to enforce a Biblical prohibition against gay sex while ignoring other Biblical prohibitions.
So kanicbird, I presume that you yourself, not wanting to be a hypocrite, take all those other Biblical prohibitions as seriously as the one against gay sex? Obviously you consider it sinful for two men to lie together, because the Bible says so, and presumably you avoid such sinful behavior.
Do you also avoid eating pork or shellfish? The Bible says you should.
Do you also avoid wearing mixed-fabric clothing? The Bible says you should.
Do you also avoid trimming the hair of your sideburns? The Bible says you should.
If you don’t avoid these things, then aren’t you a hypocrite too?
Kanicbird, Leviticus also states that if a man approaches a woman for sex while she’s menstruating that’s also an abomination. If memory serves, the language is as strong as that used to condemn homosexuality and within a few verses of that (I’ll give you cites tonight or tomorrow). Nevertheless, society does not decry nor is there a proportionate outcry against that.
The Pope is not saying that people who have committed adultery or gotten divorced should not legally allowed to marry, only homosexuals, despite adultery being far more clearly condemned by the Bible. A Catholic I knew who had divorced his first wife some years early was able to get an annulment and have a second Catholic wedding when he remarried. If we apply the same standards to his situation that the Pope is applying to homosexuality, not only should he not be allowed to be married within the Catholic church, he shouldn’t have been legally allowed to marry at all.
I consider adultery immoral and I’ve a bit more Biblical evidence to support that view than that used to condemn homosexuality. I would not marry an adulterer, nor would I want family or a friend to marry one. Nevertheless, I would not support laws making it illegal for adulterers to marry.
I have a very dear friend who happens to be gay. He and his partner have been together for over a decade now and intend to spend the rest of their lives together. I’ve some idea of the hoops they’ve jumped through to have similar rights to those granted to married couples automatically. As a Christian, I think it’s ridiculous that people will say nothing about the likes of, say, Senator Bob Barr, who’s been married three times, yet say my friend is a threat to marriage because he would like to get married once.
As a believer myself I don’t make my judgements based on a verse pulled from context, written by a man several centuries ago in a totally different culture. I think it is morally irresponsible for people to do so.
The Bible also say woman should pray with their head covered I Cor 11. Do you know many churches that follow that?
How about women keeping silent in the church and not teaching? ! Tim 2
Do many churches follow that?
The Bible directly contradicts itself on numerous occasions. I know a little about religious conviction and the complications that go along with it. There are many interpretations and opinions about what the Bible is and isn’t and it’s application to our lives. For people who claim to worship the God of love and truth to make a moral judgement against others based on a few verses from the Bible is a betrayal of the very beliefs they espouse and the teacher they claim to follow.
It is very obvious when reading the Bible that it is heavily influenced by the culture of that day. It’s unreasonable and just prejudice to justify our moral judgements by pulling out select verses to support a bias.