And red tribes, too. A lot of the stuff the pre-Columbian Indians used to do to captured prisoners is just sickening.
Is Evil Captor bad-mouthing America’s founders now too? :rolleyes:
Calling the writings collected in The Bible “crap” is grossly unfair. Our pre-technological ancestors didn’t have the base of knowledge we possess, so they had to create stories to help them explain the origin of the world, and thus we have Genesis. In the same way, they had to create rules to placate their gods, including the Canaanite thunder god YHWH, which the Jews adopted as their sole deity and thus we have the rest of the Pentateuch. You cannot hold our ancestors responsible for not knowing what we know. but you can hold our 21st-century contemporaries accountable for continuing to beleive in the verities our Bronze Age ancestors held sacred.
Avalonian, I understand your feelings, but this isn’t a tea party where we may discuss our differences ever so delicately over a scone a pot of Darjeeling. You, along with many other Dopers, misuse the term “bigotry” to dismiss righteous indignation against the many gross abuses of the relgious right against innocent gay people. The religious right, led by its president, is doing its best to roll back all the advances gay people have made over the last 30 years.
Yes, I’m criticizing their deeply held beliefs, because among their beliefs is the idea that I, and other same-sex-loving folks, should be treated as criminals and be stripped of our civil rights. That opinion is wrong. There’s no debate, there’s no looking at things their way–anyone who believes that his religion entitles him to be superior to me is my enemy, period.
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No, and eliminating that law would have done nothing–NOTHING–to prevent the circumstances that led to the rise of Hitler.
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My point was that no matter how close we think we are to being equal under the law, there’s a chance that we will lose all the progress that we’ve made, and worse. Much worse.
Also, the presence of that law on the books made persecution of gay people easier on the Reich. The gay men were, after all, criminals. In fact, after the war when the Allies were releasing people from the concentration camps, a large number of gay men were sent to prison. Even the ones released didn’t ever qualify for the government pensions meant to repay victims of concentration camps. They were, after all, criminals.
Laws can be, however, a good barometer of the legal resources available to various citizens at any given time. Right now, gays are in a precarious legal position.
I very much hope that you are absolutely, positively correct.
Tucson is a famously gay-friendly city. The mayor comes down and hangs out at Outoberfest, there’s a popular GLBT community center, an active community, a newspaper, and tons of community support.
There’s still anti-gay violence here. Walking down the street holding hands isn’t just a romantic or even a political decision, it’s a tactical situation.
Also, just being ourselves, my boyfriend and I aren’t very demonstrative physically, nor are we particularly identifiable as being gay. Most people who see us being ourselves just think we’re straight by default. And if we make more of a show of things, wouldn’t that be dishonest?
President Bush has mentioned that he’s going to try and push through the anti-gay amendment this year. I understand that the more people who know gay people as human beings and not a scary rhetorical device, the better off we’ll be. But we’re a minority, and the public doesn’t generally vote to make minorities equal with the majority. We need to have recourse to the courts, and the end run this amendment represents around the system is going to be immensely damaging.
And yet, I have no idea how to influence this process. Our president has repeatedly ignored protests, even the largest protests in the world’s history, and done what he pleased. Our representatives can’t declare themselves in favor of gay marriage without exposing themselves to being voted out of office. Even the candidates who oppose the president don’t see gay people as being worthy of equal rights.
As much as I’d love to, I can’t go around and invite every family in America out to coffee, to chat a bit about what gay people are really like. And I don’t know what else to do.
It doesn’t get any more gay-friendly than Tucson. And we both have jobs here, and we like our lives. And we love the absence of snow. But thanks for the offer.
gobear, it must be awful to experience such rage. I think that I would feel the same if someone wanted to keep me from marrying the person I love most.
It may seem at times that too many of us remain silent, but no one at SDMB really knows what we do or say that influences others.
Sometimes people stay within a church that is limited in its thinking in order to let in a little light. That is what has happened in the Episcopal Church and from what others have posted here, I see it in some very unexpected places.
I think that your anger might be better directed toward the religious right than the fundamentalists. There is a difference. (My own mother is what you would probably consider a “fundie,” but she is also a liberal Democrat and still trying to remain open-minded in her ninties. She is no dummy.
I hope that you and those you love find peace and total freedom and that it will come soon.
I cheer every time I hear of another state that has begun performing marriage ceremonies for all who wish to be married.
Pax
For anyone interested:
Clergy United for the Equality of Homosexuals: http://www.clergyunited.com/
Christian dialog and support site for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgendered persons and their friends and family: http://www.glow.cc/
No, this is not the case, this is a lie pushed by the Bigot in Chief and his thralls to lull moderates into a stupor. The writers of the We Hate Gays Amendment specifically state that it will also eradicate all civil unions currently in existence (and all that would ever exist) by denying the “incidents of marriage” to any non-male/female relationships.
Anyone who supports this amendment is no better than a Klansman, a Nazi or the people who beat Matthew Shepherd to death. Anyone who votes for anyone who supports this amendment isn’t far removed, either.
This, like slavery, is a black/white determinative issue: you are either a good person for freedom and equality, or you are backwards bigot filth.
No, it was wrong of you to use a racial epiteth to describe those people. If you had wanted to call them “morons” or “bloodthirsty,” there would be no objection. It’s when you reached into the racist phrasebook that you crossed a line.
Hey, African tribes were also wont to attack other tribes, killing the men and taking the women and children into slavery. That doesn’t mean it would be appopriate for you to call those ancient tribes “a bunch of niggers.”
Is ignorance a boolean?
No, wilful ignorance is the domination of emotionally driven self-interest over intellectual honesty (DNA, geology, cosmology, the whole scientific farm).
Unless someone wants to tell me their ‘belief’ in archaic God(s) is at a net personal (emotional) cost ? Nah, it’s entirely self-serving, which is about the only rational thing about it – in a Darwinian sense, of course.
Yet still that emotional self-interest blinds ‘em - that must be some emotional vacuum they’re filling with their so-called ‘God’.
So, how on earth am I supposed to respect people who irrationally and wilfully oppress other peoples civil rights because of their own emotional self-indulgence (via this bizarre 2,000 story); all I see is smug intellectual dishonesty ?
I don’t expect anyone to respect people who oppress other people’s civil rights, period. No matter what the reasoning behind it.
I have to say, this thread has been really eye-opening.
Here I am, not really giving a damn who believes (or doesn’t believe) what, as long as they don’t hurt (or oppress) anyone else. To me it’s pretty simple. I know that my beliefs look “crackpot” to someone looking at them from the outside. I know that many beliefs of other cultures look “crackpot” to me ('cause I’m on the outside for them). But the funny thing is, I don’t really give a damn, nor do I think that these fellow “crackpots” are stupid, irrational, deluded, or not worthy of my respect. I just think they have had different experiences. And as long as their so-called “crackpot” beliefs don’t hurt anyone, who gives a damn? We’re all crackpot in some way or another, after all.
So, I find it astonishing to find that there are a lot of people (many on this thread) who look down on the rest of us, thinking that we’re stupid, deluded, irrational, foolish creatures. They smugly look down their noses at us. Even those of us who have done nothing to harm them. ('Cause as has been demonstrated on this thread, not all people who have religion are out to oppress.)
:shrug: I dunno. I just find it ironic, is all. I’d rather be a happy “crackpot” than some of the rest of you, who apparently spend a great deal of time wondering why all of us religious folk are so stupid and deluded and (there’s that word again) irrational, while simultaniously patting youeselves on the back because you’re so much smarter.
This “smug and superior” act goes both ways, you know.
That is a good question. All I can say, as an ex-Christian, it shalln’t have turned out this way. This is a major failure on the part of Christanity.
One thing that I wish to point out is Christians are too individuals. Not all Christians I know “irrationally and willifully oppress other peoples’ civil right…”. Each Christian, as individual, shall make up their own mind over pressing issues of the days and not just go with whatever people at the top says. Christanity is not about persecuting ‘sinners’, labelling things as right and wrong and defintely, not to be used as a dracion measure to control people’s lives. Yet, somehow, it turned out this way.
And I do think I know some Christians who chose to be individuals and not just go with the flow.
Just to add on, not all Christians believe the world is created in 6000 years or that the Adam and Eve story is to be taken literally. There was a discussion about the creation story way before 1000 AD and many Christian thinkers at that time think it’s likely not to be taken literally. There’s quite a debate about it, and of course, about a lots of other issues.
In the spirit of the Lenten season, Yosemite Babe, may I suggest that you get off your cross?
Nobody in this thread is “looking down their noses” at you because you embrace theism–in fact, it seems that the theists have the greater share of posts in this thread.
If you want to believe in God or gods–there are a great many persuasive arguments for atheism, but because the existence of deities is not amenable to falsifiability, it’s impossible to say conclusively that deities don’t exist.
But that’s not what this thread is about. I’m not going after religion in general or even Christianity in particular. I’m attacking the hardcore religious conservatives who persist in reading the Bible as a science textbook and mandating that their religion should replace science in American classrooms.
Nobody can condemn you for having religious faith, but, for example, if one ignores all the evidence for the change in gene frequency in populations over time and bleive that “evolution is just a theory,” that person is ignorant. If one persists in claiming that a worldwide flood wiped out all plant and animal life outside the contents of one boat within the last 6,000 years, that person is ignorant.
And that’s does not apply merely to the loopy claims of uneducated fundies–the claims for astrology, feng shui, palmistry, UFO cultists, John Edward, Sylvia Browne, James Van Praagh, perpetual motion engines, pentawater, laundryballs, cold fusion, Atlantis, magnet therapy, and Nostradamus are, to borrow a phrase from Penn & Teller, all bullshit.
What you must be willing to do is to follow the evidence where it takes you because people lie, but the evidence never does. That’s the essence of skeptical thinking.
That goes for me, too. I have to throw off my cultural prejudice against fundies, so that while I may have contempt for their ideas, I need to see them as more than a monolithic block of gay-hating hicks. I need to see them as people.
I apologize if I didn’t make my meaning clear. I’m not specifically talking about the so-called “ignorant” beliefs that go against science. I’m talking about the oozingly smug posts that deem any religious belief to be “irrational.” Just believing in a God equals irrational. Deluded. Mystifying. There are some folk here that obviously find any religious belief to be deluded and stupid.
I don’t personally give a shit if someone believes in something that I don’t “get,” as long as they aren’t hurting me or anyone else. Whatever makes them happy. I might think that they’re wasting their time, but as long as they aren’t bugging me to believe it too, it’s not that big of a deal. I don’t think I go around talking about how deluded and irrational they are, either. 'Cause I don’t give that much of a shit. If they seem to be otherwise reasonably intelligent folk, I figure that their “crackpot” belief is just an interesting quirk, and nothing more. :shrug:
Eh. Whatever. If you don’t pick up on the oozing superiority (oh, I do love saying ooze! ;)) then that’s that, I won’t press the issue. But it’s blatantly obvious to me, and this hasn’t been the first thread where I’ve seen it. And it’s not restricted towards those who attempt to oppress: it’s often towards anyone with a religious belief.
In closing, I do want to say that I respect you, gobear, because you’ve always made it clear that you don’t really give a shit what people believe as long as they don’t hurt you or yours. You’ve got this nice “Don’t rain on their parade” attitude that I like, even though I think you do paint with too broad of a brush at times.
Okay, that’s enough of that. Carry on! 
Well, the people I was speaking of have all been dead for 2,000 years, so their feelers may reasonably be described as “not harmed” and I won’t use the term any more in any event.
We can go to another thread if you want to dispute this. It’s undeniable that many of the pre-Columbian peoples of North America were far from the granola-munching hippies of the plains they are portrayed as nowadays.
No, it’s not unfair, it’s completely fair. It’s crap by modern standards precisely because the people who wrote it don’t have our base of knowledge. People who wilfully believe it to be literally true nowadays are wilfilly being ignorant fools.
Thank you for saying it like it is. Lotsa pussyfooters on this board.
Oh, and in using the term, I want it understood that I was specifically describing proto-Christians and Jews of the time not the people normally considered to be covered by that epithet. So your analogy is that I would have described Chinese and Hispanics as a “bunch of niggers.” Which is to say, it’s not NECESSARILY a racial epithet, more of a cultural one.
Oh, please. you’re using the cheap rhetorical trick of substitution. You’re substituting the term “all people who have religion” for “religious fundamentalists” – the group clearly identified in the OP. Nobody, so far as I know, has attacked religious people generally.