05-11-2006, 07:52 PM | #481 | |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
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05-11-2006, 08:40 PM | #482 | |
Entmoot's Drunken Uncle
Join Date: May 2005
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Faggotry is NATURE'S population control! I just wrote "faggotry," didn't I? Oh well. I'm entitled. |
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05-12-2006, 02:48 AM | #483 | |
the Shrike
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: San Francisco, CA <3
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"Binary solo! 0000001! 00000011! 0000001! 00000011!" ~ The Humans are Dead, Flight of the Conchords |
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05-12-2006, 03:49 AM | #484 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: In me taters
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Can I ask that we refrain from saying "well you have definitions/limits too so you're just the same" and focus on the argument? |
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05-12-2006, 11:44 AM | #485 |
Marshal of the Eastmark
Join Date: Apr 2002
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I guess I wasn't done.
It is NOT unnatural to be gay. By that definition it would be unnatural to have sex during pregnancy, or worse (shudder) to practice the rhythm method (that is, knowingly have sex between menstruation and ovulation). A married couple that has sex once a week (or even once a month) but only has two children, by that definition, would be unnatural! But, do you know why people say it's unnatural? Because they really think it's a sin and you don't believe them, so they go grasping after straws. Nature spurs me to murder in vengeance. Should I do so? Let's not be silly. The truth is they think it's a sin. They think they know the mind of God. And they choose to judge on God's behalf. It is, in fact, the furthest thing from love. It is a form of hatred that is practiced by more people than practice racism. And it is the most legal form of hatred that has ever existed. And THAT is why we want to change it. Not because we want to advance the homosexual agenda. But because it is wrong to continue to allow this legal hatred to continue. We really have to stop this permitted exclusion of one class of people. How can we claim to be proud of our freedoms when only SOME people are free? That's not freedom, that's privilege. |
05-12-2006, 02:26 PM | #486 | |
Quasi Evil
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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05-12-2006, 02:46 PM | #487 |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
Join Date: Sep 2002
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Or it's you not reading my posts
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
05-12-2006, 02:51 PM | #488 |
Marshal of the Eastmark
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Frankly, I don't even know why this thread exists. We don't have a thread about blacks, asians, and amerinds. We don't have threads about autistic people, brain damaged people, etc. Of course not. Why have a thread to talk about whether or not someone who is born a particular way should have equal rights?
And I don't see how sexuality pertains to anything at this site at all, except for something to talk about in a general way. I left a while back because I didn't want to let my feelings about political matters affect my feelings about fellow Tolkien fans. I notice we don't talk about The War anymore. Perhaps that's because the ops decided it was pitting Tolkien fans against each other and was actually counter-productive. Is it possible that these two argue-about-gayness threads are just unnecessary in the same way? Haven't we pretty much all repeated ourselves ad infinitum? I mean, this same nonsense was going on when I left, and the same arguments were being made. Nothing has changed. The people who think it's a sin do feel they must (lovingly) put on the pressure to stop people from sinning, especially any young people who read this thread. The people like me who have gay neighbors and gay co-workers, who have come to feel that the gays are just other people who are entitled to equal rights will just keep on arguing for fairness. So what is the point of these threads anymore? |
05-12-2006, 02:52 PM | #489 | |||||||||||
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, CA
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Sorry for the delay...finals week!
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Is this a fair definition: "Hope, in its widest acceptation, is described as the desire of something together with the expectation of obtaining it." Quote:
Sorry, just finished my philosophy final. But Christians more than most people. And for that matter, Buddhists most of all. Or maybe Socrates. They're pretty close on that one. Quote:
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Whether or not there should be religious interference is a different question, and one that seems to belong to a different discussion. Again, forcing is active, not passive, and if I forced them to believe in the Catholic religion, then I would be forcing them into believing. I am not, however, either forcing them to believe or to act in accordance with it; I don't advocate illegalizing homosexual intercourse. I advocate withholding from bestowing the official state approval thereof which is marriage. Quote:
What you said was: Quote:
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2) Yes, even if they don't realise it. Quote:
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
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05-12-2006, 02:54 PM | #490 | |
Quasi Evil
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Maryland, US
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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05-12-2006, 02:57 PM | #491 | ||
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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2) Freedom to marry whom you will is extended to no-one. 3) Freedom is overrated. EDIT: Kudos to IR.
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
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05-12-2006, 03:18 PM | #492 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Reality
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I know from my real life experience that understanding people begins with exposure. As a child I grew up in NYC and went to schools with all kinds of diversity. Later, around age 12, I moved to basic white suburbia in Connecticut and the discrimination and misunderstanding people had about minorities amazed me. But I realized in time that it was mostly due to lack of exposure. Everyone had grow up surrounded by white christians, and anything other than that (black, gay, muslim, whatever) was alien to them, or, at best, very different. It's extremely hard to empathize with someone you can not understand, and very easy to stereotype. (As one who did not grow up for my entire life surrounded by white christians, I tend to stereotype them myself. ) But posting here has also proven to me that words are not powerful enough to overcome upbringing. Maybe it's the inability to teach old dogs new tricks. I know nothing said here has ever made me think that gays should be anything less than 100% equal members of society. So I'm just as stubborn as everyone else. That said, even if I don't change any opinions I hope that time and exposure will. The generation being born now will be the first to grow up with all these gay issues completely out of the closet, much like my generation was the first to grow up in a society where "separate but equal" was no longer the norm for blacks in America. And, with the internet, this generation will mature with a exposure level to what is "different" light years ahead of any of us reading here now. So the point, for me, is just keeping the discussion going. And it keeps me from doing work too.
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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05-12-2006, 03:19 PM | #493 | |
Marshal of the Eastmark
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 1,412
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You believe it is immoral. Children surf this site. You MUST argue against what you think is immoral. I do not believe it is immoral. I believe calling it immoral is immoral. Young men similar to those who were abusive to me as a child surf this site. I MUST argue against your argument. This will continue until ... when...? In what way is this a fruitful discussion? If your brother was mentally disabled and we had a thread about forced sterilization, would you be offended? That's what this thread feels like to me. Are any other bi or gay people bothered in this way by this thread? Or the other one? Doesn't it seem that the main point is for those who call us sinners to have a podium for doing that? Doesn't this thread just further the prejudice? |
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05-12-2006, 03:39 PM | #494 | ||||||||||
Elf Lord
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a Field of Giant Daisies.
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If you allow one method of discrimination to be legalized then the other forms will likely follow one by one. Quote:
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The only being that could possibly understand universal morality would be the universe itself, or an embodiment of Everything. A human claiming such understanding comes off as being incredibly arrogant. Quote:
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Loopholes on the other hand I've always believed in. Quote:
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"Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; Leave me my name!" - The Crucible "nolite hippopotamum vexare!" Last edited by Lady Marion Magdalena : 05-12-2006 at 03:47 PM. |
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05-12-2006, 03:56 PM | #495 |
Marshal of the Eastmark
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Portland, OR
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Check out answers dot com on Liberal Christianity.
http://www.answers.com/topic/liberal-christianity Let me tell you. Growing up with the "f" word used against me every day from about age 8 till the day I ran away to join the military, I know for a fact that the teachings of the Church I grew up in made me hate myself. I have little more I can say on that. It took me a long time to realize that they were wrong and that I am not a bad person. I prayed to have my thoughts taken away. It just made me want to die when the thoughts kept happening. You can never know if it isn't part of your life. So, please, have a care. You may think you're not being offensive by calling other people immoral, but you are making them hate themselves and making them want to die! And here's one more link pertaining to exactly what is and what is not natural. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo Last edited by Elfhelm : 05-12-2006 at 05:35 PM. |
05-12-2006, 06:33 PM | #496 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: sikeston, MO, usa, earth, sol
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BOP, assisted reproductive technologies are not "natural" - they are assisted. Which brings me to wonder why if homosexuality has a genetic base (for which there is just as much evidence as for a god gene, by the way), why it hasn't failed of selective Darwinian processes over the ~4.8 million years since the first human ancestor? And that question suggests the obvious influence of cultural settings for the encouragement of homosexual expression which has had notable eddies and flows (should that be Eddies and Floes? ) in recorded history. Which brings us to Elfhelm's "why this thread". Because we are exploring the various concepts in the issue. Also, Elfhelm, the same God who says not to murder says not to lie with a man as a woman in an apodictic not relativistic sense. But it IS natural to want to murder in vengeance. That is called revenge. And it is apodictically prohibited. Along with stealing and adultery et cetera BECAUSE the natural is not sufficient of itself. So, having a natural urge to do a specific act is not, of itself, a guarantee of the "rightness" of the act, is it? Why the one specific prohibited act should suddenly be validated and all the other prohibited acts remain in force against "natural" acts is the real issue. It is merely societal whim at the moment as was pederasty in Greece in Plato's time and St. Paul's. It is contra naturales and was twittered at in Rome where Julius Caesar was known as the "Queen of Bythnia" for his conduct with the king of that region. So despite cultural approval of varying degrees at different times, it has constantly been regarded as unnatural in the religious and the a-religious world views known to humanity. Thus, while one category of classification, may indeed be sin, it is NOT the only reason for saying that homosexuality is unnatural. I realise that it is much easier to avoid discussion of the alleged naturality of homosexuality by labelling all opposition as originating in religious bigotry ( a tactic used by Episcopalian +Vicky Gene Robinson in front of the Log Cabin Republicans, by the way), but that is a falsehood in generality. A more productive mode of thought might be, why is it that such widely divergent human experiences as religion and politics address the homosexual experience in such a multiplicity of ways? And why, for the bulk of known societal history, has it been discouraged socially? And, all opposition to the advancement of homosexual "marriage" is not hate or homophobic in origin either. There is legitimate ground for the debate apart from emotion and pseudoscience and religiosity. That's why there's this thread.
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
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05-12-2006, 06:41 PM | #497 |
Marshal of the Eastmark
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Portland, OR
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If "having a natural urge" doesn't make something right, how does calling something unnatural make it wrong? Don't you see the contradiction? On one hand, the thing you think is sin and are willing to twist all logic to prove harmful, you call unnatural, but on the other hand the things that are natural that you think are sins are also wrong.
So the truth is, you think it's a sin. |
05-12-2006, 08:44 PM | #498 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: sikeston, MO, usa, earth, sol
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Elfhelm,
Sin is certainly one category of classification as I stated earlier. Why argue the conceded as though there were points to be scored? And I am a sinner, too, when it comes to the crux of the matter. Perhaps not in the area of homosexuality, but certainly in some areas of morality. Therefore, I am in the same state of sin as any homosexual and that is my natural human state. I may not be particularly attracted to my neighbors' possessions but maybe eBay gets the covetousness going with my lust for a 3D Star Trek Chess set! For a religious argument which I think very apropos see: http://titusonenine.classicalanglican.net/?page_id=9626 You will find reference there to additional concerns about the nature of human sexuality and the nature/nurture controversy. However, since you identify yourself as a minister of some sort (you marry folks), I may make bold to say that there are cogent reasons for dealing with sin, in its natural or unnatural manifestations, as YHWH has made known in Israel, Yeshua, and the Spirit, as well as the Church. There is no reason that homosexuality should be isolated from the moral laundry lists of the OT and NT by eisegesis. Exegesis has not found a way to expunge the texts of their meaning, though many have tried. Kleptomania is not an excuse for stealing which absolves one from penance, restitution, and amendment of life in religious terms nor prison in social terms. Justifiable rage over child abuse does not abdicate the murderer from the crime or the sin. So, while one may certainly make serious argumentation over the clear and unequivocal nature of sin religiously, remain the social aspects of those acts in legal and sociological terms. Your attempt to unjustify all dissent from your view as contaminated by "sin-mentality" may be a convenient pigeon hole in your mental desk, but, alas, it is too limited. You may review this thread and its predecessor for all of my posts on the subject since my arrival at Entmoot. You will not find that my argumentation has ever been based on religious precepts forced upon the contenders in this arena. I have been pilloried and accused of vile manipulations of data and a whole host of sins (both moral and social), but no one can say that I have not made my case from the available data by paucity, absence, or an embarassment of riches. Many have not liked what I have argued. They need not. But do not tar all opposition in this fashion. It is unbecoming a position for one advocating tolerance to argue that all motivation has but one source.
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
05-12-2006, 11:07 PM | #499 | |||||
Entmoot's Drunken Uncle
Join Date: May 2005
Location: ghost
Posts: 1,792
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(Haven't you been wondering why there are so many natural disasters occuring lately? Population control!) Also, homosexuality isn't genetic. It's as random as which Jews survived the Holocaust. (I've been reading Maus, so this metafore has been on my mind.) Quote:
However, this brings us back to the point of "Who are homosexuals harming?" If there is no God and no Divine Judgement, what is wrong with homosexuality? Oh, and I don't really hate you, Inked. I just get bothered sometimes. Which brings me to this little tidbit that I forget who posted: Quote:
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05-13-2006, 03:29 PM | #500 |
the Shrike
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: San Francisco, CA <3
Posts: 10,647
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I disagree with you Klatuwhatever. I think the nos of homosexuals has remained constant with the population numbers. And ink? The reason it hasn't "died" out I suspect, is largely because of genetics rather than culture. I suspect the homosexual genetic coding isn't just down to one gene, and therefore it doesn't matter if they don't breed and pass it on. It's likely that its linked to other genes.
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