Regarding the religious far-right

Great Debates
1

I am a pagan. I have been pagan by choice since early adolescence. (my family had no particular religion. We never went to church.) I arrived at my choice through earnest curiosity, sensible research, and endless reading. I am not a TV cliche kind of pagan; I don’t go around talking about “The Goddess” this and that, I don’t practice crystal healing or try to balance my chakras.

I mostly just find that my experience of divinity in this world comes mostly from nature. Because of this, I have a profound regard and respect for the earth and its flora and fauna, including my brother and sister humans. Things that bug me in an “against my religion” kind of way are things like pollution, littering, animal cruelty and people harming children. To a lesser extent, I also object to overly-manicured gardens and the need of “civilization” to pave over and sanitize everything.

I was reading an article this morning about the religious far-right faction that wishes to remove transgendered people from society altogether. I guess their end goal is to force everyone to identify as the gender of their birth, and anyone gay is supposed to just pretend they’re straight and be miserable. I find it hard to believe that they actually think they can achieve this, and what’s more, it’s inconceivable to me why they want it. Set aside for a moment the (arguable) fact that their bible appears to vaguely admonish against it, because that book says lots of things that they obey or not as they choose. (as I recall, “the sin of Onan” is also admonished against, yet if any one of them said they never masturbated, I wouldn’t believe it.)

From the position of someone who believes that nature is a manifestation of deity, I have no problem at all with people modifying their natural body. I would never be so ignorant as to suppose that nature never makes mistakes. I don’t understand why they hate LGBT people so much. It seems as though these same people hate the poor and anyone of color as well.

Why do they feel that they are entitled to force society into a misshapen regressive mold, to have everything be the way they want it regardless of how everyone else feels?

Why do they have the impression that they are in charge of making these decisions for a society that vastly outnumbers them?

Why do they think that what literally millions of people of color, women, and LGBT people want is simply irrelevant?

Why do they think that religious freedom somehow includes the right to oppress and punish other citizens, to whom our nation accords the same rights and freedoms that they themselves have?

Does it never occur to them that for billions of people, Christianity itself is “mythology?”

(FWIW, I feel the same way about repressive Muslim and other regimes, so you needn’t point them out as if it nullifies my remarks above. However, I know many American Muslims personally and they are all awesome. I’d wager a guess that repressive regimes elsewhere probably have far fewer actual adherents, as just people in fear of their lives. Whereas repressive Christians seem to be that way on purpose.)

2

The answer to all these questions is simple: they believe they are on the side of God. And they believe that doing what God wants outweighs any secular issue.

I’m not religious. I don’t believe in anything supernatural. But if I did believe that there was an all-powerful being who could destroy the world and make everyone suffer eternal torment then I would certainly obey that being.

3

P.S.: Did these people all boycott MASH as one, on the grounds that Klinger was an abomination? --Because I don’t recall hearing anything like that at the time.

4

Well, I understand being sure you know what deity wants YOU to do. (or in my case, more like “prefers that you do.” Nature doesn’t really have a battle plan, or a personal manifest destiny for me.)

I still don’t get how that translates to assuming a god-given right, to again assume that you know what god wants everyone else to do. I don’t think anywhere in that book it says to “go out and force everyone else to do what you say, because your judgement is as good as Mine.”

Doesn’t it say that “God works in mysterious ways?” Well, maybe LGBT people, non-whites, the poor, non-Christians etc. are some of those mysterious ways.

If those kind of people are not “godly,” are they saying that the devil created them? But only god creates people. And god is never mistaken. But them queer folks are mistakes. God didn’t mean to create them that way. But god doesn’t make mistakes. And round and round. It’s irrational.
BTW Mods, I realize I am probably relegating myself to GD here. That’s fine.

5

Because they are certain they are not only right, but to take the other side is to choose eternal damnation. And that doesn’t sound like fun!

Whenever it does, they are certain that those people are going to hell, too.

You would be wrong about that last part. You are pretty lucky if every single Muslim you know is “awesome”. Or you don’t know very many. I know lots of Muslims and some are awesome while some are awful-- oddly, just like every other group.

6

This, but only when it’s combined with the absolute conviction that their view is the only possible correct view, that they have the exclusive inside track to the deity’s feelings and wishes, and that everyone who doesn’t believe as they do is, by definition, damned. It is, ironically perhaps, the very definition of hubris. (Note that not all evangelicals are this way, but certainly the ones who use their religion as a political club are.)

I sometimes wish I could require everyone who wants to force their religion on everyone to watch this clip, starting at about 6:15. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it better said.

7

They believe that God designed the world in a certain way. For instance, many of them point to the Biblical creation account to support the idea of a clear, God-given distinction between male and female.

8

I run a mid size business in southern California so I get to know all kinds of people from very different backgrounds and religious .

The vast majority of Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists that I have met are awesome people. They don’t give a crap about whether a person is in the LGBT community or what color or ethnicity they are. These people are too busy working their ass off trying to support their families.

I don’t know why you feel you have the right to lump all Christians in with those few Christians who dislike the LGBT community and people of color. May I remind you that there are Muslim extremists who throw LGBT individuals off buildings to their death. In some Muslim majority countries women are treated like second class citizens, little girls have their clitoris mutilated and being a part of the LGBT community in these places is akin to a death sentence.

And you have a problem with a small group of nuts that you label the Christian Religious Right?

The so called Religious Right has no power to do anything against those individuals they don’t care for. If they want to protest against the LGBT community, it is their constitutional right to make themselves look stupid.

ALL religion is based on wacky “mythology”, not just Christianity.

BTW, I’m a follower of Buddhism, which is NOT a religion.

9

The answer is, “One true God.”

It’s the same for every religion. Their way or the highway. Because there’s only one true God…MINE!

For me the most astounding thing is that Christians, Muslims and Jews all worship the same God, essentially. A God who preaches living in peace with your neighbours, treating your enemies as brothers, and to leave judgement to God alone.

There are not enough :dubious::dubious::dubious: in the world.

After two thousand years of them slaughtering each other why does anyone, believe any of them, any more?

10

Like a lot of people who are either not religious or who chose their own faith through sober reflection, I think you are misunderstanding how it works.

The religion is part of the culture, yes, but it’s really highly mutable (or selective, or cherry-picking, if you’d rather). It is used to justify the culture. In the case of gender issues, effectively, it is because the majority Western culture has been gender-binary for a long time, and those individuals who did not conform were forced to perform as gender normative except in protected subcultural space. Plus, gender binary has the benefit of simplicity: you can look at a person, and by any one of a number of cultural features (clothing, make up, jewellery or lack thereof, hairstyle, name) you can immediately assign them to both a sex and a gender, and make all sorts of assumptions about them. So, in the interests of both simplicity and cultural continuity, the religion is decreed to find what they are used to, normal, and what they are not used to, sinful.

Of course, the downside of this is that if you are gay or feel that your culturally assigned gender is a mismatch, your entire life is full of miserable, as if the person you end up marrying, but hey, we can’t all be happy, right?

Anyway, I don’t think it’s anything to do with Christianity per se, but with human nature and how religion is used to enforce cultural beliefs, and in hierarchical cultures to enfore the beliefs of the people who hold the power. Look at how Christianity was used to justify slavery, and later to justify abolition, and now is largely silent on the issue.

11

Since you live in California maybe you are right to say the Religious Right has no power but here in Texas that is sadly not true.

You are right that all religion is based on wacky mythology.

12

My impression was that Klinger was not transsexual (I don’t think the term even existed in those days) or even a transvestite, but just wanted to get out of the army.

But to get back to the OP, they “religious” right are certainly not Christians (they don’t follow the precepts of Jesus) but have their own brand of religion in which whatever they believe is, or should be, obligatory for everyone. They still believe in conversion therapy, for example.

13

This is not at all true. There are religions that don’t believe in any God, religions that believe in many Gods, and religions like Judaism, which believes in one true God, but doesn’t expect everyone else to follow the same rules. There are a number of religions, including many different Christian denominations, that are fixated on “my way or the highway,” but it’s wrong to assume that their approach is common to all religions worldwide.

14

People who get bothered by others different from themselves are insecure.

While it’s a stereotype that homophobes are closet homosexuals, that’s only a small percentage of these folk.

They were taught certain things are absolute 100% truths and when they encounter people who don’t share those views it is very upsetting. They don’t want to consider the possibility that some of their beliefs are wrong.

Remember, they were taught these views. They have never really thought about them. Thinking about what you believe is an alien concept and must be avoided.

If they start accepting that one of their views might be merely a personal choice, then all their views are subject to questioning and they can’t handle that.

It’s like the old story about the Chinese emperor who stepped on a thorn. Their solution is to cover the Earth with leather rather than wear shoes.

15

This is one of the root problems of religion in any form. As far as religion goes, it’s my way or the highway. Once you introduce supernatural bugaloo, common sense goes right out the window.

16

Klinger was not transgender, transsexual, a transvestite or even really a cross dresser. He was merely a man who wanted to get thrown out of the Army on the basis of being crazy and the best/easiest way for him to commit to the idea was to dress in women’s clothing.

The character of Klinger was no more related to sexuality or gender than the characters in Some Like it Hot. Except those guys were really trying to look like women.

17

A lot of religious people don’t see their beliefs as a choice they made. In their view, God made the rules and they’re universally applicable. The believers see themselves just as the people who are aware of the rules that God made.

They don’t see God’s universal rules as something you can choose to accept or not. They effect you regardless of your belief. Just like gravity will effect you, even if you don’t believe in it.

Their view is God made a rule that says everyone is a man or a woman and you’re the physical gender you were born in. If you defy this rule, God will send you to Hell when you die, where you will suffer for the rest of eternity. And these rules apply to everyone. You can’t choose to opt out of them.

The result is these people don’t feel they are oppressing transgendered people. They feel they’re helping them by warning them of a danger they’re either unaware of or are ignoring.

18

From my experience getting religious (Catholic) people to change their minds about transexuality, homosexuality and gay marriage: in their case, it was a lack of understanding. For example: explaining about intersex situations does wonders on the transexual end of things. Once someone accepts that biological sex itself isn’t binary, it’s a much smaller jump to “sometimes people’s brains and bodies just don’t match”. If God can make mistakes, then God can make mistakes.

We all know (and those who don’t aren’t reading the newspapers) that some of the people who are more rabidly opposed to those things are actually fighting themselves. They reject their own wishes, desires, self. Until they accept and learn to love themselves they cannot accept and learn to love others.
Note that the “lack of understanding” part also applies to things such as being against any legal form of abortion. The only person I’ve known who claimed that abortion shouldn’t be allowed even in case of ectopic pregnancy was a man and he wouldn’t even believe that ectopic pregnancies exist. Then again, he’s convinced that most women who claim to have been raped or sexually assaulted are exaggerating. Talk about a lack of understanding :smack:

19

Title of thread: “Regard the religious far-right”

You: “Why are you attacking all Christians?!”

Do you see the distinction between what the OP actually said, and what you accused her of saying?

In 2008, the Religious Right managed to pass an amendment banning the recognition of gay marriage to the constitution of the state of fuckin’ California. If you think the religious right doesn’t have power in this country, you need to wake the fuck up. Badly.

20

Not only that, but there was an episode with a Scandinavian doctor who visited who suggested that Klinger could get sex reassignment surgery, as it had been done in her country (almost certainly referring to Christine Jorgensen). Klinger was vociferously opposed to sex reassignment surgery, calling people like us “crazy.” A cringe-worthy moment.