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Rick Santorum is an idiot, a bigot, and morally inconsistent...

Reading these posts by RobertPrey is fairly saddening to me, to see that this is basically what religious dogma and religious belief have been reduced to for a large amount of people in the United States and abroad. Although I am non-religious myself, I used to always try my utmost to be tolerant of religious belief in general, even when I perceived that such beliefs and practices contributed to its adherent's arbitrary intolerance of others and compelled them to direct their dislike, intolerance, and misfounded beliefs toward people and groups of people that were entirely undeserving of such treatment.

My thoughts have changed drastically over the past ten years (a large part of my life), being exposed perennially to people who hold views like Rick Santorum and RobertPrey, views apparently borne out of a religious viewpoint that seems so at odds with the reality of how the world works and how people ought and do behave, based on notions of "sin" that can be arbitrarily allotted based on the particular wont of the individual or congregation or cult or denomination. I have often marveled at the cognitive dissonance that many religious people employ when discussing most any subject in which their religious belief shapes a large part of his or her opinion.

I feel that if I truly believed that the truths of our universe, the very essence of what it means to be human, the answer to the why of the question "why am I here?" and the what of the question "what should I be doing?" were contained in a collection of writings and chronicles known collectively as the Old and New Testament, for example...If I truly believed that erring in this understanding might lead to my eternal damnation (something imagined to be very bad, though the specifics vary)...If I truly believed it should be the basis for how I treat people and how I treat myself...if it were to the point where it was the very basis to what I felt a person's matrimonial contract ought to be, how they should conduct themselves in such a contract, and, more importantly, who a geopolitical state allows to enter into such a contract while giving certain benefits for doing so to both parties involved.... I would be doing everything in my power to study this document, to understand it, to really understand it, and to further such an understanding in a thoughtful, helpful way.

Lofty ideals, indeed! We all see, alas, what reality has to offer us with people such as RobertPrey.
 
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I often wonder if all the people who rage against gay marriage/unions/whatever and use the whole "mother, father, child" argument have ever demanded that divorce and infidelity be outlawed.

after all, don't those laso do damage to the basic unit of society?
 
To clarify my position further, RobertPrey, I would like to first say that "love the sinner, not the sin" is a phrase that describes a course of action that even non-religious persons would be wise to often follow; it is a principal that I often try to employ toward people when they hold opinions with which I strongly disagree or hold views of the world that are so at odds with my own. So although I hold disdain for the bankrupt positions that you and other religious persons hold as well as the ridiculous arguments often used to support such positions, I can nevertheless understand that you are probably secure in your opinion of being right; that is, I do not assume that you express your positions out of a malicious intent, but out of a sense of holding a righteous or superior position.

Confirmation Bias is a tendency to which all people are prone, not just the religious; and yet, I think any rational person would have to admit that religious belief seems especially prone to such biases. An obvious example, RobertPrey, would be the views about homosexuality that you have expressed in this thread. By your own admission, your views are largely shaped by the understanding you have of your scriptures. Such understanding is not shaped simply by the scriptures themselves (though how you have argued your position makes me wonder what the depth of your knowledge really is on the subject), but also what sort of perceptions your society and environment shapes about those scriptures.

For example, a large amount of religious people recognize that the scriptures are not the best source of understanding for scientific concepts, or our idea of how cosmology or physics work in reality; we no longer look to scriptures to tell us whether or not it is okay to enslave others, finding that we can justify either position; we no longer look to the scriptures and justify treating women as property or stoning disobedient children or having multiple wives, as the good Lord intended; it seems silly for many to look to the scriptures to figure out what sorts of food are acceptable to eat and which ones just might incur the wrath of Gott; but for some reason, it seems perfectly reasonable for many people to have the scriptures inform their views and opinions on same-sex attraction and tell them how to treat two men or two women who wish to have a romantic or sexual relationship with one another. And what's more, they will do so without ever even showing an ounce of curiosity about why their opinions are scripturally informed on some respects and not on others.

Certainly, you are more than welcome to express your opinions here, but all I would wish in return is that you consider seriously other people's opinions and perspectives. Consider that your scripturally-based opinions about same-sex marriage and homosexuality may well be just as wrong and ridiculous-looking to others as antiquated, scripturally-based defenses of slavery or misogyny.

As a person in a same-sex relationship, I have a certain perspective on this issue. I would share it here, but I can't help but feel you're not interested in actually hearing the perspective of a person you would glibly describe as "perverted" or "sinful."

If you lose your head, just where are you going to lay it?
 
Donal said:
I often wonder if all the people who rage against gay marriage/unions/whatever and use the whole "mother, father, child" argument have ever demanded that divorce and infidelity be outlawed.

after all, don't those laso do damage to the basic unit of society?
Click to expand...

Matthew 19:3-9:
Hath ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh? What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. -- Jesus
 
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Hahaha, nothing like a Jesus quote to illustrate the pointlessness of debate with our local bigot.
 
Robert Prey said:
Matthew 19:3-9:
Hath ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh? What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. -- Jesus
Click to expand...

So I assume you are as disgusted by divorcees as you are by gays, right? Newt Gingrich must make you vomit a little in your mouth.

-Bri
 
Robert Prey said:
Matthew 19:3-9:
Hath ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh? What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. -- Jesus
Click to expand...
Great.
You just demonstrated that Christian faith does not traditionally support gay marriage or Divorce. Allowing legal marriage does not in anyway compel the christian church to start performing gay marriages. Religions will, as always, be free to choose who they wish to marry. As such, your quote is simply irrelevant.


Interestingly, your quote also states that the Christian faith traditionally did not allow divorces and yet, today, ~50% of the christian marriages in the US end in a divorce. If you are going to make an appeal to tradition, it would help if your appeal didn't also include a classic example of a changing in another tradition.
 
Robert Prey said:
Matthew 19:3-9:
Hath ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh? What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. -- Jesus
Click to expand...


So, where is the Evangelical movement's demands that divorced be banned?

If I didn't know any better, I'd think this was all just fake outrage drummed up by politicians to distract simpletons from real issues. Otherwise, divorce and infidelity would also be big issues.
 
Robert Prey said:
Matthew 19:3-9:
Hath ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh? What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. -- Jesus
Click to expand...
Fairy tails make for poor argument.
 
Bri said:
So I assume you are as disgusted by divorcees as you are by gays, right? Newt Gingrich must make you vomit a little in your mouth.

-Bri
Click to expand...
Newt does that to everybody. Especially when he forgets to blot off the santorum dripping down his tie.:D:jaw-dropp
 
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