Author Topic: Christians! What the fork?  (Read 16096 times)

StashingAway

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #50 on: December 08, 2022, 06:19:24 AM »
Let me muddy the waters a bit. What if it was something offensive to you but still legal?

Person with a profession:
- website designer
- sandwich designer

Product created:
- Website
- Sandwich

Reason for refusal:
- Doesn't like that God made the person requesting service gay
- Doesn't like that God made the person requesting service black
- Doesn't like that the person requesting service is wearing a white robe and carrying a southern cross



I have to strongly disagree with your assertion that this bigotry is somehow different from the bigotry that regularly denied black people service in the civil right era.  Your argument that it's not a big deal and that gay people can just go elsewhere is certainly one that was used to justify denying service to black people at that time though.


The big difference is that, at the time, it was provable that they couldn't go elsewhere. The entire point of desegregation was that "separate but equal" wasn't working and wasn't feasible. Now, you'd be in a much more difficult position try to prove that those who are LGBTQ have difficulty finding equivalent services even regionally. Perhaps you could reliably do so(and if you did, I would be totally on board), but the social climate isn't anything like segregation, and to equate the two does a disservice of the struggle that took place during civil rights IMO.  This is me thinking out loud, I am not taking a hard stance. I could be totally missing the point, there just seems to be something off about how the scale or something to me.

« Last Edit: December 08, 2022, 06:22:27 AM by StashingAway »

PeteD01

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #51 on: December 08, 2022, 06:25:25 AM »
All simply to avoid offending and slightly inconveniencing someone who now has to go to the next cake shop down the street.
Should the cake shop owner be forced to create a Nazi cake, a penis cake for a child's 10th birthday, a "yay I got away with murder" cake? Service isn't being refused based on who the customer is, as was the case in Jim Crow, but what he/she is asked to produce.


Ok, let's dissect this a bit starting with the imaginary customers ordering such cakes:

1) Nazi cakes are typically ordered by Nazis

2) penis cakes for a child's birthday, are ordered by child molesters

3)"yay I got away with murder" cakes are typically ordered by murderers

4) Wedding cakes for gay weddings are typically ordered by gay couples

What you are doing here is creating an association of Nazis, child molesters and murderers with gay people. This is hate speech that is trying to elicit disgust in the recipient and direct it towards gay people.

« Last Edit: December 08, 2022, 06:44:36 AM by PeteD01 »

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #52 on: December 08, 2022, 06:25:30 AM »
As a tightwad, I am confounded by the concept of paying someone to design a wedding website or of even having a wedding website.  Didn't people use to be able to just get married without a website to proclaim the event?

The Bible teaches that Christians are supposed to go the second mile, turn the other cheek and all that.  If she doesn't want to design websites for couples who she thinks shouldn't be getting married, then the Christian thing to do would be to have a website business that doesn't make any wedding websites.  It shouldn't be that difficult, since there are plenty of other subjects for websites.  The Sermon on the Mount indicates that a Christian should be willing to take the loss themselves (i.e. losing out on some wedding website related income) if that is what they need to live a life in line with their beliefs.  Filing a lawsuit doesn't seem to be in line with what Jesus taught. 

Also, I would think she would have to include not doing websites if either person getting married were divorced, since the Bible speaks against divorce and remarriage.  Does she interview the bride and groom and/or check public documents to ensure that she is not creating a website for a couple entering into an unbiblical divorce and remarriage situation?

NotJen

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #53 on: December 08, 2022, 06:59:58 AM »
Let me muddy the waters a bit. What if it was something offensive to you but still legal?

Person with a profession:
- website designer
- sandwich designer

Product created:
- Website
- Sandwich

Reason for refusal:
- Doesn't like that God made the person requesting service gay
- Doesn't like that God made the person requesting service black
- Doesn't like that the person requesting service is wearing a white robe and carrying a southern cross


It's pretty simple for me.
Gay and black people -> Just living their lives, not okay to discriminate against.
KKK members in their gear -> Actively spreading hate, ok to discriminate against.

Cigarettes are legal but offensive to me.  I don't like that people smoke.  I don't like being around them when they are smoking, I don't like that people could be influenced to take up smoking by seeing people smoking, or seeing cigarettes for sale.  I would still serve a sandwich or make a website for someone who smokes (as long as they were following local laws regarding smoking in my place of business).

Metalcat

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #54 on: December 08, 2022, 07:18:15 AM »
Let's face it: Most of the problems stem from the word marriage. The state should not define what a marriage is - that's what I always hear.

Fine.

Go give "marriage" to the church alone and the state gives an "partnership".
Marriage is a purely privately, religious thing. It isn't written down in any state document and doesn't come with a name change. A partnership does. All tax advantages go only to the partnership.
Shop owners can refuse service if two homosexuals are married, but not if they are in a partnership.

Except homophobic religions aren't the only religions, there are plenty of gay Christians, and marriage has been a legal institution that non-religious, straight people have been doing for ages.

So if marriage, as it exists today were fundamentally religious, and all religions were against gay marriage, then that might be a different matter, but it isn't and they aren't.

My husband is atheist and marriage means a lot to him. My church is Christian and is staunchly pro-gay-marriage. One of my church friends is a bishop in a US Christian church, and she's gay.

Christianity isn't against gay marriage, some Christian organizations have decided that this is a BIG problem that they need to take issue with, disproportionate to countless other stuff in the Bible that they could decide people are doing "wrong."

I mean, man, DH's family is staunchly Catholic and the majority of them are divorced. His mother's generation are in their 80s/90s and 5/6 of them got divorced and remarried. Most of their kids have been divorced and remarried, and yet they're all still active members of their church in their little rural community.

Churches decide what to make a big deal of what not to make a big deal of. Each organization decides when to invoke Jesus' forgiveness and God's condemnation based on their own agenda.

It's funny, in my group of religious leaders that I meet with regularly, one of the things I am constantly doing is reminding them to have compassion and love for homophobic, bigoted Christian leaders. I remind them constantly that they too are political and have a political agenda and their interpretations are just as human as those with whom they disagree.

They are so frustrated and can get so condemning and hateful of bigoted Christian leaders, I have to remind them that they aren't actually allowed to engage in righteous hate in Jesus name, that it's hypocritical. They can engage in human anger and judgement, but they can't claim that their hate is holy while bigoted hate is evil.

I'm the most junior member of this group, so I piss them off...often. But I refuse to swallow any religious hypocrisy that a leader can speak hate against people while claiming to promote universal love. I'm not into that double speak.

Point being, all churches are political entities, run by people with human agendas. The Bible doesn't dictate what they support and hate, they decide what they support and hate and the bible is used as the "bullet proof vest" that they believe gives them righteous cover. Except that the other side is using the same Bible for the opposite stance, and their quote-game is just as good.

It's not as simple as saying: "oh just let the bigots have their bigotry, just rename marriage and it won't hurt anyone"

GuitarStv

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #55 on: December 08, 2022, 08:10:30 AM »
Let me muddy the waters a bit. What if it was something offensive to you but still legal?

Person with a profession:
- website designer
- sandwich designer

Product created:
- Website
- Sandwich

Reason for refusal:
- Doesn't like that God made the person requesting service gay
- Doesn't like that God made the person requesting service black
- Doesn't like that the person requesting service is wearing a white robe and carrying a southern cross



I don't really see the similarity between a Christian terrorist group (the KKK) and black people trying to order a sandwich or gay people getting married.  Seems like they're so wildly different as to not be comparable at all.  Can you expand on why you think that these are equivalent?




I have to strongly disagree with your assertion that this bigotry is somehow different from the bigotry that regularly denied black people service in the civil right era.  Your argument that it's not a big deal and that gay people can just go elsewhere is certainly one that was used to justify denying service to black people at that time though.


The big difference is that, at the time, it was provable that they couldn't go elsewhere. The entire point of desegregation was that "separate but equal" wasn't working and wasn't feasible.

That's not true.  Even under 'separate but equal' there were a few people in the country who would provide service to black folks.  It was always possible for black people go elsewhere.  But it was difficult due to the prevalence of bigotry, cost, distances involved.  Collectively, society decided that putting that difficulty on black people simply to allow racists to be openly bigoted wasn't something they wanted to have in their country.


Now, you'd be in a much more difficult position try to prove that those who are LGBTQ have difficulty finding equivalent services even regionally.

A gay couple who lives in a small southern town and wants to get married will have a limited number of options when it comes to flowers, decorations, catering, etc.  Any one of the people running those businesses could be bigoted and thus deny service.  Sure, it's theoretically possible that the gay couple can jump through hoops to make things work (pay more for longer deliveries, drive to other towns searching for non-discriminatory businesses, etc.) . . . but why should they?  Why should we protect the rights of homophobes to discriminate at the cost of the minority being discriminated against?  Why should intolerance and hate be more highly prized than two people loving each other?


the social climate isn't anything like segregation, and to equate the two does a disservice of the struggle that took place during civil rights IMO

I think that you're really minimizing the ongoing struggle for gay rights.  It was less than 40 years ago that you could be jailed for being gay.  Sodomy laws were still in effect in many states in the 80s.  The fight for gay rights has been going on for a long time, and significant progress has been made - but is far from over (recent supreme court comments have indicated a high likelihood that states will be able to prevent gays from marrying again in the near future).  Your comment here is like someone in the 1940s saying "well, black people aren't slaves any more . . . so why are they complaining about segregation?  Things are better, aren't they?".

The reason that the social climate is different now is because many states have laws that prevent exactly the kind of discrimination that you're arguing to allow.  The Supreme Court is now deciding whether to roll back gay rights to make things more like the 'separate but equal' dark period of US history.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2022, 08:14:59 AM by GuitarStv »

ATtiny85

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #56 on: December 08, 2022, 08:23:18 AM »
As a tightwad, I am confounded by the concept of paying someone to design a wedding website or of even having a wedding website.  Didn't people use to be able to just get married without a website to proclaim the event?

The Bible teaches that Christians are supposed to go the second mile, turn the other cheek and all that.  If she doesn't want to design websites for couples who she thinks shouldn't be getting married, then the Christian thing to do would be to have a website business that doesn't make any wedding websites.  It shouldn't be that difficult, since there are plenty of other subjects for websites.  The Sermon on the Mount indicates that a Christian should be willing to take the loss themselves (i.e. losing out on some wedding website related income) if that is what they need to live a life in line with their beliefs.  Filing a lawsuit doesn't seem to be in line with what Jesus taught. 

Also, I would think she would have to include not doing websites if either person getting married were divorced, since the Bible speaks against divorce and remarriage.  Does she interview the bride and groom and/or check public documents to ensure that she is not creating a website for a couple entering into an unbiblical divorce and remarriage situation?

Well said. Seems to open the door to the interpretation that the business owner is really simply trying to overcome her internal bias/dislike by wrapping it in a religious shroud. Hope she burns in hell.

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #57 on: December 08, 2022, 08:30:44 AM »
Hey oh! Managed to get to the second page before the discussion ground was sown with salt. Not overly impressive, but not the worst, either. 

GuitarStv

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #58 on: December 08, 2022, 08:39:48 AM »
Seems to open the door to the interpretation that the business owner is really simply trying to overcome her internal bias/dislike by wrapping it in a religious shroud.  Hope she burns in hell.

This made me sad to read.  It's possible to completely disagree with someone without wishing harm upon them.  A position built on logic far stronger than threats and violence.

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #59 on: December 08, 2022, 08:41:08 AM »
With that said there should absolutely be, from a governmental perspective, equality for all 2 adult dependency groups but it certainly should not be called marriage when it is not a bio-man and a bio-woman.
By saying that everyone's use of the word "marriage" should be limited by your own religious beliefs you are attempting to impose your particular sect of religious belief on everyone else - including in the case of the USA a government which has specifically said it isn't going to be limited by anyone's religious beliefs.

Fortunately it's not going to work.

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #60 on: December 08, 2022, 08:45:11 AM »
Seems to open the door to the interpretation that the business owner is really simply trying to overcome her internal bias/dislike by wrapping it in a religious shroud.  Hope she burns in hell.

This made me sad to read.  It's possible to completely disagree with someone without wishing harm upon them.  A position built on logic far stronger than threats and violence.
Sometimes it's more than hurt that prompts a reaction like this, it's being disrespected and denied for one's inherent being.  Which may explain but still doesn't justify, of course.  And then somehow the sociallly respectable and quietly bigoted carry on with their respectable lives and carry on justifying, or not even noticing, the hurt they cause.

Metalcat

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #61 on: December 08, 2022, 08:53:51 AM »

Christianity isn't against gay marriage, some Christian organizations have decided that this is a BIG problem that they need to take issue with, disproportionate to countless other stuff in the Bible that they could decide people are doing "wrong."


Curious about this.  What is this massive concept you call Christianity? Isn't the Jesus Christ of the Holy Bible who we are talking about, the Christ in Christianity, right?  Are you suggesting that the Christian organizations you mention have some divine inspiration to overthrow ~6000-year-old prophetic and historic writings and ~2000-year-old apostolic history writing? 

Honest question: are there any Christian organizations that follow absolutely everything said in the Bible with the same aggressive rigor that bigoted churches do against LGBTQ+ folks?

Different sects of different religions interpret and emphasize different components. This isn't new or radical, it's business as usual over as long as human history has existed.

I've spent many, many years learning about how wildly different interpretations of religious texts can be. I spent the last 3 years learning about feminist Islam. Yeah. There's a whole feminist interpretation of Islam!

Actually, the study of how and why the Islamic religious texts came to be finalized is REALLY interesting. It gave me a lot of insight into what the process of finalizing the Bible must have been like.

So yes, there are plenty of organizations that promote very different interpretations of the same texts/ideas.

Don't forget, there was a very different eastern version of Christianity that existed and thrived well before western Christianity took over through war and defined *itself* as the foundational form of the religion.

So if radically different interpretations of the same text have existed from the very beginning, then how can any one group claim exclusive understanding?

I'm just not buying it.

GuitarStv

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #62 on: December 08, 2022, 08:59:33 AM »

Christianity isn't against gay marriage, some Christian organizations have decided that this is a BIG problem that they need to take issue with, disproportionate to countless other stuff in the Bible that they could decide people are doing "wrong."


Curious about this.  What is this massive concept you call Christianity? Isn't the Jesus Christ of the Holy Bible who we are talking about, the Christ in Christianity, right?  Are you suggesting that the Christian organizations you mention have some divine inspiration to overthrow ~6000-year-old prophetic and historic writings and ~2000-year-old apostolic history writing? 

Honest question: are there any Christian organizations that follow absolutely everything said in the Bible with the same aggressive rigor that bigoted churches do against LGBTQ+ folks?

Different sects of different religions interpret and emphasize different components. This isn't new or radical, it's business as usual over as long as human history has existed.

I've spent many, many years learning about how wildly different interpretations of religious texts can be. I spent the last 3 years learning about feminist Islam. Yeah. There's a whole feminist interpretation of Islam!

Actually, the study of how and why the Islamic religious texts came to be finalized is REALLY interesting. It gave me a lot of insight into what the process of finalizing the Bible must have been like.

So yes, there are plenty of organizations that promote very different interpretations of the same texts/ideas.

Don't forget, there was a very different eastern version of Christianity that existed and thrived well before western Christianity took over through war and defined *itself* as the foundational form of the religion.

So if radically different interpretations of the same text have existed from the very beginning, then how can any one group claim exclusive understanding?

I'm just not buying it.

The Christian church that I went to regularly held gay marriages.  And why wouldn't they?  Marriage is the union of two people, a declaration of faith and love.

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #63 on: December 08, 2022, 09:42:05 AM »
Ok, full disclosure, I didn't read all the posts yet, but I'll still bite.

Yes, I consider myself a Christian. No, I don't think this should be an issue. Wolfpack Mustachian wrote a lot of what I might have written, but I disagree that homosexuality is a sin, or at least I am no longer certain that it is, which doesn't much matter in a secular setting anyway.

My general problem with the issue is, that as a Green Bay Packers fan, I would like the ability to discriminate against a Chicago Bears fan. As in, I wouldn't want to have to design a website, wedding or otherwise, that promoted the Bears. This being said in jest, I can see the slippery slope others have mentioned with regards to cake styles and not wanting to acquiesce to customer requests. And yet, I can see the slippery slope of discrimination if this is allowed.

Is there a reasonable middle ground regarding the First Amendment?

I wish we could all just be good humans and not litigate or need to litigate to make other humans behave acceptably.

simonsez

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #64 on: December 08, 2022, 09:47:39 AM »
That being said, I do believe from scripture that homosexuality is a sin. I disagree with the sentiment that Jesus had very little to weigh in on things relating to sexuality, as he took a pretty hard line on even lust itself. I do agree that he didn't call out homosexuality particularly and that many of the verses used (especially in the Old Testament) to call out homosexuality are poorly evaluated. I base my view more on how I see marriage set up in Christianity in Ephesians 5, for example. So, tldr, it's a doctrine thing.
Do you take all Biblical scripture at face value about how to act or view things as either sinful or not?  Like if you view homosexuality as a sin do you think it is sinful for women to braid their hair or wear jewelry or teach or ever hold authority over a man?  If you are a Biblical literalist or your version of the Bible is infallible, that's your freedom to do/think so but I honestly don't have much faith in you as a fellow citizen to respect the rights (let alone different views) of others.  If you do NOT take every piece of the Bible to be accurate and relevant to today, however, why give credence to one passage but not another?  Is it okay to cherry pick which parts of doctrine you agree are accurate and thus can be used as a determiner of what really is sin and what parts of the Bible can be ignored (in terms of defining sin)?

I picked the 1 Timothy Chapter 2 stuff about women as an example found in most versions of the Bible as something that would be extreme in modern Western/Christian-based societies (my wife is a teacher so I'm glad her school district didn't consult the Bible when making hires).  That is, if Christianity by and large ignores Paul ranting about women why does Christianity also focus on Moses (or whoever in Leviticus) ranting on homosexuality?  Neither are Jesus speaking (I've heard versions of Biblical literalism that only focus on anything alleged to have been said by Jesus in the New Testament) and I've heard the Old Testament is usually viewed as not as modern/relevant as the New Testament - so the inconsistency is what I have a hard time following.  I would think both would be either be ignored or followed (depending if you use the Bible to define sin/morals or not) as a literal blueprint of what to call sin in modern times but that quite often does not seem to the case and I'm curious why the discrepancy with some scriptures but not others.  Help me understand!

GuitarStv

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #65 on: December 08, 2022, 10:13:01 AM »
That being said, I do believe from scripture that homosexuality is a sin. I disagree with the sentiment that Jesus had very little to weigh in on things relating to sexuality, as he took a pretty hard line on even lust itself. I do agree that he didn't call out homosexuality particularly and that many of the verses used (especially in the Old Testament) to call out homosexuality are poorly evaluated. I base my view more on how I see marriage set up in Christianity in Ephesians 5, for example. So, tldr, it's a doctrine thing.
Do you take all Biblical scripture at face value about how to act or view things as either sinful or not?  Like if you view homosexuality as a sin do you think it is sinful for women to braid their hair or wear jewelry or teach or ever hold authority over a man?  If you are a Biblical literalist or your version of the Bible is infallible, that's your freedom to do/think so but I honestly don't have much faith in you as a fellow citizen to respect the rights (let alone different views) of others.  If you do NOT take every piece of the Bible to be accurate and relevant to today, however, why give credence to one passage but not another?  Is it okay to cherry pick which parts of doctrine you agree are accurate and thus can be used as a determiner of what really is sin and what parts of the Bible can be ignored (in terms of defining sin)?

I picked the 1 Timothy Chapter 2 stuff about women as an example found in most versions of the Bible as something that would be extreme in modern Western/Christian-based societies (my wife is a teacher so I'm glad her school district didn't consult the Bible when making hires).  That is, if Christianity by and large ignores Paul ranting about women why does Christianity also focus on Moses (or whoever in Leviticus) ranting on homosexuality?  Neither are Jesus speaking (I've heard versions of Biblical literalism that only focus on anything alleged to have been said by Jesus in the New Testament) and I've heard the Old Testament is usually viewed as not as modern/relevant as the New Testament - so the inconsistency is what I have a hard time following.  I would think both would be either be ignored or followed (depending if you use the Bible to define sin/morals or not) as a literal blueprint of what to call sin in modern times but that quite often does not seem to the case and I'm curious why the discrepancy with some scriptures but not others.  Help me understand!

The bible acts like a Rorschach test.  People see whatever they want to see in it.

Take just about anything that seems accepted out of hand.  Say, polygamy.  1Timothy 3:2, 1Timothy 3:12 and Titus 1:6 . . . they all say that church leaders should be the husband of one wife.  But there's nothing else in the bible prohibiting polygamy.  And there's plenty of stuff in the Old Testament that indicates it's perfectly fine.

And there's ickier stuff.  There are plenty of cases of incest, many passages that either indirectly or overtly support slavery (1 Peter 2:18 is a pretty awful one).

Remember when Jesus said
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law — a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household."  - Matthew 10:34-37


Followers don't like this bad stuff so they ignore it or explain it away and focus on the parts that they consider good.  That's why it's goofy talking about doctrine most of the time.  There's nobody who can seriously follow biblical doctrine without making omissions for the bad stuff . . . it's all just a matter of interpretation regarding what you see as the bad stuff.

I expect that in another couple hundred years or so all but the most extreme fundamentalist churches in the west will have accepted gayness as OK.  And when that change happens the faithful will argue just as hard that their interpretation is the right one and that the past interpretations were flawed misunderstandings of what God meant.  Just like they do when they dismiss the slavery and incest today.

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #66 on: December 08, 2022, 10:16:47 AM »
I wish we could all just be good humans and not litigate or need to litigate to make other humans behave acceptably.

Yes, live and let live. Forget all the complicated rules in the religious texts. 

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #67 on: December 08, 2022, 10:26:16 AM »

Christianity isn't against gay marriage, some Christian organizations have decided that this is a BIG problem that they need to take issue with, disproportionate to countless other stuff in the Bible that they could decide people are doing "wrong."


Curious about this.  What is this massive concept you call Christianity? Isn't the Jesus Christ of the Holy Bible who we are talking about, the Christ in Christianity, right?  Are you suggesting that the Christian organizations you mention have some divine inspiration to overthrow ~6000-year-old prophetic and historic writings and ~2000-year-old apostolic history writing? 

Honest question: are there any Christian organizations that follow absolutely everything said in the Bible with the same aggressive rigor that bigoted churches do against LGBTQ+ folks?

Different sects of different religions interpret and emphasize different components. This isn't new or radical, it's business as usual over as long as human history has existed.

I've spent many, many years learning about how wildly different interpretations of religious texts can be. I spent the last 3 years learning about feminist Islam. Yeah. There's a whole feminist interpretation of Islam!

Actually, the study of how and why the Islamic religious texts came to be finalized is REALLY interesting. It gave me a lot of insight into what the process of finalizing the Bible must have been like.

So yes, there are plenty of organizations that promote very different interpretations of the same texts/ideas.

Don't forget, there was a very different eastern version of Christianity that existed and thrived well before western Christianity took over through war and defined *itself* as the foundational form of the religion.

So if radically different interpretations of the same text have existed from the very beginning, then how can any one group claim exclusive understanding?

I'm just not buying it.

The Christian church that I went to regularly held gay marriages.  And why wouldn't they?  Marriage is the union of two people, a declaration of faith and love.

Because a lot of churches / denominations consider gay marriage a sin and therefore will not perform them.  It's really as simple as that.  Some churches / denominations interpret the Bible differently, such as the one you attended, and therefore do not consider it sinful and embrace it. 

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #68 on: December 08, 2022, 10:33:27 AM »
I don't see how you recon same sex marriage with plain scripture that states it is between a man and a woman.  The government should stay out of religion, there is no example of Christians lobbying Caesar for laws to be changed.

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #69 on: December 08, 2022, 10:38:58 AM »

Christianity isn't against gay marriage, some Christian organizations have decided that this is a BIG problem that they need to take issue with, disproportionate to countless other stuff in the Bible that they could decide people are doing "wrong."


Curious about this.  What is this massive concept you call Christianity? Isn't the Jesus Christ of the Holy Bible who we are talking about, the Christ in Christianity, right?  Are you suggesting that the Christian organizations you mention have some divine inspiration to overthrow ~6000-year-old prophetic and historic writings and ~2000-year-old apostolic history writing? 

Honest question: are there any Christian organizations that follow absolutely everything said in the Bible with the same aggressive rigor that bigoted churches do against LGBTQ+ folks?

Different sects of different religions interpret and emphasize different components. This isn't new or radical, it's business as usual over as long as human history has existed.

I've spent many, many years learning about how wildly different interpretations of religious texts can be. I spent the last 3 years learning about feminist Islam. Yeah. There's a whole feminist interpretation of Islam!

Actually, the study of how and why the Islamic religious texts came to be finalized is REALLY interesting. It gave me a lot of insight into what the process of finalizing the Bible must have been like.

So yes, there are plenty of organizations that promote very different interpretations of the same texts/ideas.

Don't forget, there was a very different eastern version of Christianity that existed and thrived well before western Christianity took over through war and defined *itself* as the foundational form of the religion.

So if radically different interpretations of the same text have existed from the very beginning, then how can any one group claim exclusive understanding?

I'm just not buying it.

I don't know what bigoted churches do(well, I suppose they are hypocrites to what is Biblical), but there are local churches that use the Bible as their guide not adding anything or taking anything away from the storyline of scripture.  I don't see any way a reasonable person could read the Bible and believe they are not sinning by having gay sex.  It is not my place to pass judgment, but Paul certainly explains how God handles it pretty plainly in the first couple chapters of Romans if you want to read it yourself.  The rest of Romans should clear up why you should strive not to sin even though you might be predisposed to sin(of all kinds) and will do it anyways. 

People that don't claim to be Christian can do whatever they want, but if you claim to be Christian you should understand what God says about sin and how to discern what it is.  Jesus says to repent of your sins and believe.  Repent means to turn away from.

There are certainly different ways to interpret Biblical doctrine. The Roman Catholic church, for example, doesn't subscribe to the idea of the canon of scripture created by the apostles. They added the Apocrypha ~500 years ago at the Counsel of Trent and the pope has made edicts to a number of things contrary to the Bible over the centuries due to having self-defined divine authority to do so.  The final canon of the existing new testament was created less than 150 years after Christ was living. His last disciple John died about 70 years before the final current new testament canon.  John was still alive when the majority of it was already considered part of the canon of scripture.

Lots of things are very clear in the Bible, some are less clear.  The sin of gay sex is very clear in the Bible, but the doctrine of eschatology is less clear.  Eschatology won't change in the end based on how we interpret it, gay sex will always be clearly a sin in the eyes of God.  You are very correct about Christian organizations getting a lot of things wrong.  That is why reading your own Bible and knowing it deeply is the best method to knowing God plan through Jesus Christ.

I believe in singular absolute truth.  Unfortunately without a baseline truth to use in a discussion, the only civil outcome is agreeing to disagree.  This is what makes discussions like these, when between Christian and non-christian generally unfinishable.  I pray that all lost souls are found.
That is nicely clear that:

1.  A Christian should not have gay sex or be gay married because that is a sin.
2.  A Christian should repent (ie turn away from) their own sin in having gay sex or being gay married.

But if "repent" only applies to one's own sins, how it is Christian to turn away from someone else who is having gay sex or is gay married? 

jim555

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #70 on: December 08, 2022, 10:50:51 AM »
Just because a church says something is fine if the scripture says otherwise scripture wins.  Sola Scriptura is a prime Christian doctrine. 

GuitarStv

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #71 on: December 08, 2022, 10:55:02 AM »

Christianity isn't against gay marriage, some Christian organizations have decided that this is a BIG problem that they need to take issue with, disproportionate to countless other stuff in the Bible that they could decide people are doing "wrong."


Curious about this.  What is this massive concept you call Christianity? Isn't the Jesus Christ of the Holy Bible who we are talking about, the Christ in Christianity, right?  Are you suggesting that the Christian organizations you mention have some divine inspiration to overthrow ~6000-year-old prophetic and historic writings and ~2000-year-old apostolic history writing? 

Honest question: are there any Christian organizations that follow absolutely everything said in the Bible with the same aggressive rigor that bigoted churches do against LGBTQ+ folks?

Different sects of different religions interpret and emphasize different components. This isn't new or radical, it's business as usual over as long as human history has existed.

I've spent many, many years learning about how wildly different interpretations of religious texts can be. I spent the last 3 years learning about feminist Islam. Yeah. There's a whole feminist interpretation of Islam!

Actually, the study of how and why the Islamic religious texts came to be finalized is REALLY interesting. It gave me a lot of insight into what the process of finalizing the Bible must have been like.

So yes, there are plenty of organizations that promote very different interpretations of the same texts/ideas.

Don't forget, there was a very different eastern version of Christianity that existed and thrived well before western Christianity took over through war and defined *itself* as the foundational form of the religion.

So if radically different interpretations of the same text have existed from the very beginning, then how can any one group claim exclusive understanding?

I'm just not buying it.

I don't know what bigoted churches do(well, I suppose they are hypocrites to what is Biblical), but there are local churches that use the Bible as their guide not adding anything or taking anything away from the storyline of scripture.  I don't see any way a reasonable person could read the Bible and believe they are not sinning by having gay sex.  It is not my place to pass judgment, but Paul certainly explains how God handles it pretty plainly in the first couple chapters of Romans if you want to read it yourself.  The rest of Romans should clear up why you should strive not to sin even though you might be predisposed to sin(of all kinds) and will do it anyways. 

People that don't claim to be Christian can do whatever their conscience allows, but if you claim to be Christian you should understand what God says about sin and how to discern what it is.  Jesus says to repent of your sins and believe.  Repent means to turn away from.

There are certainly different ways to interpret Biblical doctrine. The Roman Catholic church, for example, doesn't subscribe to the idea of the canon of scripture created by the apostles. They added the Apocrypha ~500 years ago at the Counsel of Trent and the pope has made edicts to a number of things contrary to the Bible over the centuries due to having self-defined divine authority to do so.  The final canon of the existing new testament was created less than 150 years after Christ was living. His last disciple John died about 70 years before the final current new testament canon.  John was still alive when the majority of it was already considered part of the canon of scripture.

Lots of things are very clear in the Bible, some are less clear.  The sin of gay sex is very clear in the Bible, but the doctrine of eschatology is less clear.  Eschatology won't change in the end based on how we interpret it, gay sex will always be clearly a sin in the eyes of God.  You are very correct about Christian organizations getting a lot of things wrong.  That is why reading your own Bible and knowing it deeply is the best method to knowing God plan through Jesus Christ.

I believe in singular absolute truth.  Unfortunately without a baseline truth to use in a discussion, the only civil outcome is agreeing to disagree.  This is what makes discussions like these, when between Christian and non-christian generally unfinishable.  I pray that all lost souls are found.

This is the same Paul that very clearly said:
"A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet."

"Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says."

?



Most denominations in these modern times are pretty quiet about the sin of a woman in a position of authority.

Where are the prayers for the lost souls of all those women in positions of authority?

HPstache

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #72 on: December 08, 2022, 11:14:09 AM »

Christianity isn't against gay marriage, some Christian organizations have decided that this is a BIG problem that they need to take issue with, disproportionate to countless other stuff in the Bible that they could decide people are doing "wrong."


Curious about this.  What is this massive concept you call Christianity? Isn't the Jesus Christ of the Holy Bible who we are talking about, the Christ in Christianity, right?  Are you suggesting that the Christian organizations you mention have some divine inspiration to overthrow ~6000-year-old prophetic and historic writings and ~2000-year-old apostolic history writing? 

Honest question: are there any Christian organizations that follow absolutely everything said in the Bible with the same aggressive rigor that bigoted churches do against LGBTQ+ folks?

Different sects of different religions interpret and emphasize different components. This isn't new or radical, it's business as usual over as long as human history has existed.

I've spent many, many years learning about how wildly different interpretations of religious texts can be. I spent the last 3 years learning about feminist Islam. Yeah. There's a whole feminist interpretation of Islam!

Actually, the study of how and why the Islamic religious texts came to be finalized is REALLY interesting. It gave me a lot of insight into what the process of finalizing the Bible must have been like.

So yes, there are plenty of organizations that promote very different interpretations of the same texts/ideas.

Don't forget, there was a very different eastern version of Christianity that existed and thrived well before western Christianity took over through war and defined *itself* as the foundational form of the religion.

So if radically different interpretations of the same text have existed from the very beginning, then how can any one group claim exclusive understanding?

I'm just not buying it.

I don't know what bigoted churches do(well, I suppose they are hypocrites to what is Biblical), but there are local churches that use the Bible as their guide not adding anything or taking anything away from the storyline of scripture.  I don't see any way a reasonable person could read the Bible and believe they are not sinning by having gay sex.  It is not my place to pass judgment, but Paul certainly explains how God handles it pretty plainly in the first couple chapters of Romans if you want to read it yourself.  The rest of Romans should clear up why you should strive not to sin even though you might be predisposed to sin(of all kinds) and will do it anyways. 

People that don't claim to be Christian can do whatever their conscience allows, but if you claim to be Christian you should understand what God says about sin and how to discern what it is.  Jesus says to repent of your sins and believe.  Repent means to turn away from.

There are certainly different ways to interpret Biblical doctrine. The Roman Catholic church, for example, doesn't subscribe to the idea of the canon of scripture created by the apostles. They added the Apocrypha ~500 years ago at the Counsel of Trent and the pope has made edicts to a number of things contrary to the Bible over the centuries due to having self-defined divine authority to do so.  The final canon of the existing new testament was created less than 150 years after Christ was living. His last disciple John died about 70 years before the final current new testament canon.  John was still alive when the majority of it was already considered part of the canon of scripture.

Lots of things are very clear in the Bible, some are less clear.  The sin of gay sex is very clear in the Bible, but the doctrine of eschatology is less clear.  Eschatology won't change in the end based on how we interpret it, gay sex will always be clearly a sin in the eyes of God.  You are very correct about Christian organizations getting a lot of things wrong.  That is why reading your own Bible and knowing it deeply is the best method to knowing God plan through Jesus Christ.

I believe in singular absolute truth.  Unfortunately without a baseline truth to use in a discussion, the only civil outcome is agreeing to disagree.  This is what makes discussions like these, when between Christian and non-christian generally unfinishable.  I pray that all lost souls are found.

This is the same Paul that very clearly said:
"A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet."

"Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says."

?



Most denominations in these modern times are pretty quiet about the sin of a woman in a position of authority.

Where are the prayers for the lost souls of all those women in positions of authority?

Another issue that can be interpreted multiple ways that churches have fought over for decades.  For the same reasons as homosexuality & gay marriage, the Bible can be interpreted in multiple ways especially in context to how and when it was written.  Should women be allowed to preach or be elders/deacons?  That has split many-a-church in the 90's.

former player

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #73 on: December 08, 2022, 11:34:19 AM »

Christianity isn't against gay marriage, some Christian organizations have decided that this is a BIG problem that they need to take issue with, disproportionate to countless other stuff in the Bible that they could decide people are doing "wrong."


Curious about this.  What is this massive concept you call Christianity? Isn't the Jesus Christ of the Holy Bible who we are talking about, the Christ in Christianity, right?  Are you suggesting that the Christian organizations you mention have some divine inspiration to overthrow ~6000-year-old prophetic and historic writings and ~2000-year-old apostolic history writing? 

Honest question: are there any Christian organizations that follow absolutely everything said in the Bible with the same aggressive rigor that bigoted churches do against LGBTQ+ folks?

Different sects of different religions interpret and emphasize different components. This isn't new or radical, it's business as usual over as long as human history has existed.

I've spent many, many years learning about how wildly different interpretations of religious texts can be. I spent the last 3 years learning about feminist Islam. Yeah. There's a whole feminist interpretation of Islam!

Actually, the study of how and why the Islamic religious texts came to be finalized is REALLY interesting. It gave me a lot of insight into what the process of finalizing the Bible must have been like.

So yes, there are plenty of organizations that promote very different interpretations of the same texts/ideas.

Don't forget, there was a very different eastern version of Christianity that existed and thrived well before western Christianity took over through war and defined *itself* as the foundational form of the religion.

So if radically different interpretations of the same text have existed from the very beginning, then how can any one group claim exclusive understanding?

I'm just not buying it.

I don't know what bigoted churches do(well, I suppose they are hypocrites to what is Biblical), but there are local churches that use the Bible as their guide not adding anything or taking anything away from the storyline of scripture.  I don't see any way a reasonable person could read the Bible and believe they are not sinning by having gay sex.  It is not my place to pass judgment, but Paul certainly explains how God handles it pretty plainly in the first couple chapters of Romans if you want to read it yourself.  The rest of Romans should clear up why you should strive not to sin even though you might be predisposed to sin(of all kinds) and will do it anyways. 

People that don't claim to be Christian can do whatever their conscience allows, but if you claim to be Christian you should understand what God says about sin and how to discern what it is.  Jesus says to repent of your sins and believe.  Repent means to turn away from.

There are certainly different ways to interpret Biblical doctrine. The Roman Catholic church, for example, doesn't subscribe to the idea of the canon of scripture created by the apostles. They added the Apocrypha ~500 years ago at the Counsel of Trent and the pope has made edicts to a number of things contrary to the Bible over the centuries due to having self-defined divine authority to do so.  The final canon of the existing new testament was created less than 150 years after Christ was living. His last disciple John died about 70 years before the final current new testament canon.  John was still alive when the majority of it was already considered part of the canon of scripture.

Lots of things are very clear in the Bible, some are less clear.  The sin of gay sex is very clear in the Bible, but the doctrine of eschatology is less clear.  Eschatology won't change in the end based on how we interpret it, gay sex will always be clearly a sin in the eyes of God.  You are very correct about Christian organizations getting a lot of things wrong.  That is why reading your own Bible and knowing it deeply is the best method to knowing God plan through Jesus Christ.

I believe in singular absolute truth.  Unfortunately without a baseline truth to use in a discussion, the only civil outcome is agreeing to disagree.  This is what makes discussions like these, when between Christian and non-christian generally unfinishable.  I pray that all lost souls are found.
That is nicely clear that:

1.  A Christian should not have gay sex or be gay married because that is a sin.
2.  A Christian should repent (ie turn away from) their own sin in having gay sex or being gay married.

But if "repent" only applies to one's own sins, how it is Christian to turn away from someone else who is having gay sex or is gay married?
Not sure what you mean here.  Are Biblical Christians turning away from people having gay sex?  I am not, as said above, "People that don't claim to be Christian can do whatever their conscience allows".  Marriage is another issue that doesn't make sense to try and change the definition of as I went over in a previous response.

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

Treating someone like a pagan or tax collector is to pray for them to repent and believe as you would any other non-christian.  Nothing more and nothing less.
Well, the starting example for the thread was a woman who didn't want to make wedding websites for gay marriages.  That's not about her sinning, and it's not about her turning away from (repenting of) her own sin.  It's about her imposing her Christian values on someone else.

If the people getting gay married with a website are not Christians, why would she turn away from them?  If they are Christians (presumably Christians from a different part of the Church) does that make a difference? At what point does the "if your brother and sister sins" doctrine apply?

GuitarStv

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #74 on: December 08, 2022, 11:43:03 AM »
Well, the starting example for the thread was a woman who didn't want to make wedding websites for gay marriages.  That's not about her sinning, and it's not about her turning away from (repenting of) her own sin.  It's about her imposing her Christian values on someone else.

If the people getting gay married with a website are not Christians, why would she turn away from them?  If they are Christians (presumably Christians from a different part of the Church) does that make a difference? At what point does the "if your brother and sister sins" doctrine apply?

We're also forgetting that as a woman she should never have been in a sinful position of authority to be able to deny service to begin with.  And by fighting this case she's not being quiet at all.  Another sin!

It's almost like she's picking and choosing to follow only the biblical discrimination that she wants to.

PeteD01

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #75 on: December 08, 2022, 12:36:47 PM »
Well, the starting example for the thread was a woman who didn't want to make wedding websites for gay marriages.  That's not about her sinning, and it's not about her turning away from (repenting of) her own sin.  It's about her imposing her Christian values on someone else.

If the people getting gay married with a website are not Christians, why would she turn away from them?  If they are Christians (presumably Christians from a different part of the Church) does that make a difference? At what point does the "if your brother and sister sins" doctrine apply?

We're also forgetting that as a woman she should never have been in a sinful position of authority to be able to deny service to begin with.  And by fighting this case she's not being quiet at all.  Another sin!

It's almost like she's picking and choosing to follow only the biblical discrimination that she wants to.

They are imposing their sin on her, she is imposing nothing on them.  She is offering a service to people getting married in with a historical definition of marriage. They are free to use any other web developer but she desires the liberty to choose who she does business with.  Just like an LGBT community center would not want to be compelled to rent out its space to a group collaborating about a protest at an upcoming pride day parade when they regularly rent the space out to other local groups for various meetings.  Also, you will never see pork sold at a halal restaurant or grocery store, there are others that provide that product/service.

...

What you are saying is not what the case is about:


The Easy-to-Miss Twist That Makes the Supreme Court’s New Gay Rights Case So Strange
A graphic designer refuses to make custom websites for same-sex weddings. Colorado says that’s fine.
BY MARK JOSEPH STERN


But 303 Creative is not, in fact, that case. Why? Because Colorado law does not compel Smith to create a wedding website for a same-sex couple, or for anyone else. It only insists that once Smith has designed a wedding website, she must allow same-sex couples to purchase that product. In essence, Colorado says she must sell her website template to all customers, regardless of their identity. She need not create a new template or “speak” in support of any marriage. At most, if she makes a wedding website for Henry and Fiona, she must sell the same template to Henry and Frank. As Colorado Solicitor General Eric Olson acknowledged, she could even make a template that (for some reason) condemned same-sex marriage. This speech is permitted. Colorado targets only the conduct of refusing to sell that product to gay people.


https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/12/303-creative-gay-rights-free-speech-supreme-court.html

former player

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #76 on: December 08, 2022, 12:53:45 PM »
Well, the starting example for the thread was a woman who didn't want to make wedding websites for gay marriages.  That's not about her sinning, and it's not about her turning away from (repenting of) her own sin.  It's about her imposing her Christian values on someone else.

If the people getting gay married with a website are not Christians, why would she turn away from them?  If they are Christians (presumably Christians from a different part of the Church) does that make a difference? At what point does the "if your brother and sister sins" doctrine apply?

We're also forgetting that as a woman she should never have been in a sinful position of authority to be able to deny service to begin with.  And by fighting this case she's not being quiet at all.  Another sin!

It's almost like she's picking and choosing to follow only the biblical discrimination that she wants to.

They are imposing their sin on her, she is imposing nothing on them.  She is offering a service to people getting married in with a historical definition of marriage. They are free to use any other web developer but she desires the liberty to choose who she does business with.  Just like an LGBT community center would not want to be compelled to rent out its space to a group collaborating about a protest at an upcoming pride day parade when they regularly rent the space out to other local groups for various meetings.  Also, you will never see pork sold at a halal restaurant or grocery store, there are others that provide that product/service.

Also, as I mentioned before women are encouraged in the Bible to be CEOs outside the church to the benefit of their household(Prov 31:10-31)
She is living in the present, not the past, and so doesn't get to choose a historical definition of marriage.  A historical definition of marriage in some States would exclude marriage between people of different races, you surely don't think she can refuse to build a website for a marriage between people of different races?

If you mean that she is using a theological definition of marriage, then different theologies have different definitions.  As long as the marriage is legal (not involving a minor, and not bigamous, for instance) why it is a religious problem for her that two people of the same sex, or two people of different races, are the ones getting married?

The example of the gay group not wanting to hire out their hall to an anti-gay group is a somewhat similar issue, but that's not a religious issue and your argument has (until you introduced the idea of a historical definition which as I set out above I don't think is going anywhere) been a religious one: that there is a religious reason for refusing service which should be upheld in law.

The example of halal (or kosher, I imagine) is that the people in the restaurant would be forced to handle the pork contrary to their religious precepts.  That doesn't work as a comparison for the woman with the websites: she is not being required to get gay married herself or to officiate at someone else's gay marriage.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2022, 01:14:09 PM by former player »

ChpBstrd

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #77 on: December 08, 2022, 01:11:03 PM »
The issue isn't whether the bible prohibits sexual relationships between same-sex individuals, it's the level of obsession and discrimination applied in a unique way only to this one particular thing.

Here's a short list of biblically-prohibited behaviors Christians do all the time. Either nobody cares, it is forgiven as no big deal, or it is considered OK despite the Bible because the rest of the people at church are doing it.

Eating pork - Christians love a good BBQ sandwich.
Eating shellfish - Some churches literally have crawfish boils.
Violating Sabbath - People pour out of Sunday church into restaurants, gas stations, and retail stores, requiring those people to work. Or they'll mow the lawn.
Adultery - Adultery is treated like a serious sin, but just say you're sorry and it won't get you kicked out of church, ostracized, or treated like a threat to civilization like LGBTQ people are treated.
Sex during a Woman's Period - This is forbidden alongside homo sex and bestiality but I have never heard a Christian even mention it.
Wearing Mixed Cloth Threads - Your cotton/polyester shirt is a sin per the bible, as is your wool blazer stitched together with cotton threads.
Tattoos - Crucifixes are literally among the most popular tattoos, and yet tats are banned in the bible.
Women Wearing Jewelry - Again... crucifixes everywhere. This is a New Testament prohibition, BTW.
Cutting a Beard - Ignoring this biblical law is why not all Christians look like the Taliban.
Women Speaking in Church - Now they often have assigned speaking roles, and many denominations have female leaders.
Wasting Semen - I seriously doubt a significant proportion of Christian men don't wank. There is a bit of cultural guilt here, but most ignore it.
Gluttony - So much for the church potluck and various Christian "feasts".
Braiding Hair - This is another New Testament prohibition in Timothy.
Cussing One's Parents - When's the last time a Church put a child to death for this, per the literal words of the Bible?

Yes, I'm aware about the theology of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, and how some Christians will say some of these rules only apply to Jews or applied in the past but not any more. It's all easy enough to Google. Yet there is little to no biblical support for any of this rationalization. It's explicit cherry-picking with a thin veneer of "I've studied the bible for years so I'm an authority on which parts to ignore and which parts to obsess about." It's making excuses for that pork roast, that tattoo of a bible verse, and all the other things you want to do.

When Christians can hand-wave away large sections (the majority?) of the Bible, but then insist we must treat particular passages as if they're extremely critical, it raises suspicions about the human motives involved.

Today, Christians are obsessing about sexual nonconformity while being utterly unconcerned about the other stuff. The Bible doesn't rank sins in a points system, apply expiration dates for Old Covenant rules, or provide guidance on how to cherry-pick. All that is left up to human cultural influencers, like preachers and media personalities. When this process leads one group of people to detest and persecute another set of people, a lot of folks see through that and observe a man-made theology.

So an act being forbidden by the Bible seems to matter less than being singled out in popular Christian culture. A Christianity of Biblical literalists might have people constantly investigating whether any church members are cheating on their spouses or cheating on their taxes, protesting outside of BBQ joints, expelling men who shave, and of course punishing rebellious children with stoning. Of course, such Christians would only pray in dark rooms with the door locked, per the Bible as well, so maybe that would preclude the existence of such churches in the first place.

mm1970

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #78 on: December 08, 2022, 01:18:12 PM »
Quote
So if marriage, as it exists today were fundamentally religious, and all religions were against gay marriage, then that might be a different matter, but it isn't and they aren't.

Yup

HPstache

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #79 on: December 08, 2022, 01:24:29 PM »
The issue isn't whether the bible prohibits sexual relationships between same-sex individuals, it's the level of obsession and discrimination applied in a unique way only to this one particular thing.

Here's a short list of biblically-prohibited behaviors Christians do all the time. Either nobody cares, it is forgiven as no big deal, or it is considered OK despite the Bible because the rest of the people at church are doing it.

Eating pork - Christians love a good BBQ sandwich.
Eating shellfish - Some churches literally have crawfish boils.
Violating Sabbath - People pour out of Sunday church into restaurants, gas stations, and retail stores, requiring those people to work. Or they'll mow the lawn.
Adultery - Adultery is treated like a serious sin, but just say you're sorry and it won't get you kicked out of church, ostracized, or treated like a threat to civilization like LGBTQ people are treated.
Sex during a Woman's Period - This is forbidden alongside homo sex and bestiality but I have never heard a Christian even mention it.
Wearing Mixed Cloth Threads - Your cotton/polyester shirt is a sin per the bible, as is your wool blazer stitched together with cotton threads.
Tattoos - Crucifixes are literally among the most popular tattoos, and yet tats are banned in the bible.
Women Wearing Jewelry - Again... crucifixes everywhere. This is a New Testament prohibition, BTW.
Cutting a Beard - Ignoring this biblical law is why not all Christians look like the Taliban.
Women Speaking in Church - Now they often have assigned speaking roles, and many denominations have female leaders.
Wasting Semen - I seriously doubt a significant proportion of Christian men don't wank. There is a bit of cultural guilt here, but most ignore it.
Gluttony - So much for the church potluck and various Christian "feasts".
Braiding Hair - This is another New Testament prohibition in Timothy.
Cussing One's Parents - When's the last time a Church put a child to death for this, per the literal words of the Bible?

Yes, I'm aware about the theology of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, and how some Christians will say some of these rules only apply to Jews or applied in the past but not any more. It's all easy enough to Google. Yet there is little to no biblical support for any of this rationalization. It's explicit cherry-picking with a thin veneer of "I've studied the bible for years so I'm an authority on which parts to ignore and which parts to obsess about." It's making excuses for that pork roast, that tattoo of a bible verse, and all the other things you want to do.

When Christians can hand-wave away large sections (the majority?) of the Bible, but then insist we must treat particular passages as if they're extremely critical, it raises suspicions about the human motives involved.

Today, Christians are obsessing about sexual nonconformity while being utterly unconcerned about the other stuff. The Bible doesn't rank sins in a points system, apply expiration dates for Old Covenant rules, or provide guidance on how to cherry-pick. All that is left up to human cultural influencers, like preachers and media personalities. When this process leads one group of people to detest and persecute another set of people, a lot of folks see through that and observe a man-made theology.

So an act being forbidden by the Bible seems to matter less than being singled out in popular Christian culture. A Christianity of Biblical literalists might have people constantly investigating whether any church members are cheating on their spouses or cheating on their taxes, protesting outside of BBQ joints, expelling men who shave, and of course punishing rebellious children with stoning. Of course, such Christians would only pray in dark rooms with the door locked, per the Bible as well, so maybe that would preclude the existence of such churches in the first place.

You are mixing up old testament Jewish law with what Christians follow during the life of Jesus and after the resurrection

wenchsenior

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #80 on: December 08, 2022, 01:41:18 PM »
I care about homosexuality only to the extent that I think it is inherently disordered and not conducive to the continuation of our species and human society as a whole. I have no problem personally with anyone who is homosexual and tolerate them just fine whether it's an extended family member or co-worker. But I'm not going to accept it as equal or endorse it as normal from a moral perspective.

I've heard this sort of reasoning before but never understood it.  If there's a heterosexual couple where one of them is fertile and the other infertile . . . do you consider it immoral for them to have sex?

This would seem to be equally disordered and not conductive to the continuation of the species.  Are these heterosexual couples in the same boat equally immoral?  If not, why not?

Or those of us who are straight and have zero interest in having kids. Oops, no sex for us :eyeroll:

iris lily

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #81 on: December 08, 2022, 02:01:02 PM »

Christianity isn't against gay marriage, some Christian organizations have decided that this is a BIG problem that they need to take issue with, disproportionate to countless other stuff in the Bible that they could decide people are doing "wrong."


Curious about this.  What is this massive concept you call Christianity? Isn't the Jesus Christ of the Holy Bible who we are talking about, the Christ in Christianity, right?  Are you suggesting that the Christian organizations you mention have some divine inspiration to overthrow ~6000-year-old prophetic and historic writings and ~2000-year-old apostolic history writing? 

Honest question: are there any Christian organizations that follow absolutely everything said in the Bible with the same aggressive rigor that bigoted churches do against LGBTQ+ folks?

Different sects of different religions interpret and emphasize different components. This isn't new or radical, it's business as usual over as long as human history has existed.

I've spent many, many years learning about how wildly different interpretations of religious texts can be. I spent the last 3 years learning about feminist Islam. Yeah. There's a whole feminist interpretation of Islam!

Actually, the study of how and why the Islamic religious texts came to be finalized is REALLY interesting. It gave me a lot of insight into what the process of finalizing the Bible must have been like.

So yes, there are plenty of organizations that promote very different interpretations of the same texts/ideas.

Don't forget, there was a very different eastern version of Christianity that existed and thrived well before western Christianity took over through war and defined *itself* as the foundational form of the religion.

So if radically different interpretations of the same text have existed from the very beginning, then how can any one group claim exclusive understanding?

I'm just not buying it.

The Christian church that I went to regularly held gay marriages.  And why wouldn't they?  Marriage is the union of two people, a declaration of faith and love.

Because a lot of churches / denominations consider gay marriage a sin and therefore will not perform them.  It's really as simple as that.  Some churches / denominations interpret the Bible differently, such as the one you attended, and therefore do not consider it sinful and embrace it.

This reminds me that my mother’s  rabbi would not marry her in the temple to her Catholic boyfriend. I don’t know what point I’m making except to say  there are many Instances of religious institutions not marrying two individuals, it’s not only gay people that is considered “wrong.”

And this was the reform congregation.

Back in the day, when many (most?) Churches held the line in marrying only two of their own kind, everyone could go to the Unitarian church to get married if they wanted a churchy experience. Unitarians would marry anyone.

GuitarStv

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #82 on: December 08, 2022, 02:30:30 PM »
The issue isn't whether the bible prohibits sexual relationships between same-sex individuals, it's the level of obsession and discrimination applied in a unique way only to this one particular thing.

Here's a short list of biblically-prohibited behaviors Christians do all the time. Either nobody cares, it is forgiven as no big deal, or it is considered OK despite the Bible because the rest of the people at church are doing it.

Eating pork - Christians love a good BBQ sandwich.
Eating shellfish - Some churches literally have crawfish boils.
Violating Sabbath - People pour out of Sunday church into restaurants, gas stations, and retail stores, requiring those people to work. Or they'll mow the lawn.
Adultery - Adultery is treated like a serious sin, but just say you're sorry and it won't get you kicked out of church, ostracized, or treated like a threat to civilization like LGBTQ people are treated.
Sex during a Woman's Period - This is forbidden alongside homo sex and bestiality but I have never heard a Christian even mention it.
Wearing Mixed Cloth Threads - Your cotton/polyester shirt is a sin per the bible, as is your wool blazer stitched together with cotton threads.
Tattoos - Crucifixes are literally among the most popular tattoos, and yet tats are banned in the bible.
Women Wearing Jewelry - Again... crucifixes everywhere. This is a New Testament prohibition, BTW.
Cutting a Beard - Ignoring this biblical law is why not all Christians look like the Taliban.
Women Speaking in Church - Now they often have assigned speaking roles, and many denominations have female leaders.
Wasting Semen - I seriously doubt a significant proportion of Christian men don't wank. There is a bit of cultural guilt here, but most ignore it.
Gluttony - So much for the church potluck and various Christian "feasts".
Braiding Hair - This is another New Testament prohibition in Timothy.
Cussing One's Parents - When's the last time a Church put a child to death for this, per the literal words of the Bible?

Yes, I'm aware about the theology of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, and how some Christians will say some of these rules only apply to Jews or applied in the past but not any more. It's all easy enough to Google. Yet there is little to no biblical support for any of this rationalization. It's explicit cherry-picking with a thin veneer of "I've studied the bible for years so I'm an authority on which parts to ignore and which parts to obsess about." It's making excuses for that pork roast, that tattoo of a bible verse, and all the other things you want to do.

When Christians can hand-wave away large sections (the majority?) of the Bible, but then insist we must treat particular passages as if they're extremely critical, it raises suspicions about the human motives involved.

Today, Christians are obsessing about sexual nonconformity while being utterly unconcerned about the other stuff. The Bible doesn't rank sins in a points system, apply expiration dates for Old Covenant rules, or provide guidance on how to cherry-pick. All that is left up to human cultural influencers, like preachers and media personalities. When this process leads one group of people to detest and persecute another set of people, a lot of folks see through that and observe a man-made theology.

So an act being forbidden by the Bible seems to matter less than being singled out in popular Christian culture. A Christianity of Biblical literalists might have people constantly investigating whether any church members are cheating on their spouses or cheating on their taxes, protesting outside of BBQ joints, expelling men who shave, and of course punishing rebellious children with stoning. Of course, such Christians would only pray in dark rooms with the door locked, per the Bible as well, so maybe that would preclude the existence of such churches in the first place.

You are mixing up old testament Jewish law with what Christians follow during the life of Jesus and after the resurrection

There's plenty of stuff in the New Testament that people ignore too.  It very clearly condones slavery for example:  “Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ” - Ephesians 6:5-8  (see also Colossians 3:22-24, 1 Timothy 6:1-2, Titus 2:9-10, etc.)

Or in Mathew 15 when Jesus told everyone that there's no need to wash your hands before eating, since you can only be defiled by things you say not what goes in your body.

Or the passages by Paul that I mentioned earlier telling women that they should never have authority over men.

Or Peter's fashion advice for women:  "You should not use outward aids to make yourselves beautiful, such as the way you fix your hair, or the jewelry you put on, or the dresses you wear." - 1 Peter 3:3

Or "anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery" - Mathew 5:32

this list of stuff to ignore can get pretty long too.





Also, as I mentioned before women are encouraged in the Bible to be CEOs outside the church to the benefit of their household(Prov 31:10-31)

Nothing in that passage contradicts what Paul said about women never having power over men.  Women are encouraged to work really hard within the confines of what they're allowed to do.



My whole point is similar to what ChpBstrd was making . . . there are tons of parts of the bible that are ignored because they are foolish.  Women can be in positions of power.  We don't have slaves any more.  People wear jewelery, wash their hands, get remarried.  So why are we so hellbound on making a special exception for the sin of homosexuality?  Why is that the one that folks desperately cling to?

Sailor Sam

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #83 on: December 08, 2022, 02:33:41 PM »
I am sure there are homosexual Christians…

Such as the godly gaywad who started this thread. But you’re happily ignoring me to debate in public at the temple stairs.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/christians!-what-the-fork/msg3087717/#msg3087717


GuitarStv

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #84 on: December 08, 2022, 03:14:08 PM »
We just need to be really careful about creating laws.  Every new law limits the liberty of one in favor of another, therefore all laws have the potential to limit religious freedom directly or indirectly.

Sure, I agree that it's very important that the impacts of new laws are thought through fully.

Religion has too often been used to do evil throughout history.  When a religion is preaching evil and its followers use their freedom to act to harm others then the best possible thing to do is to limit that freedom to mitigate the damage.  Being religious is certainly not the same as being moral, and does not exempt one from consequences of bigoted actions.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2022, 03:30:23 PM by GuitarStv »

Metalcat

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #85 on: December 08, 2022, 03:25:41 PM »
I am sure there are homosexual Christians…

Such as the godly gaywad who started this thread. But you’re happily ignoring me to debate in public at the temple stairs.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/christians!-what-the-fork/msg3087717/#msg3087717

I think people really underestimate how many LGBTQ+ Christians there are out there and just how affirming some Christian churches really are.

There are multiple openly lesbian bishops in the US alone.

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #86 on: December 08, 2022, 03:40:02 PM »
I am not a Christian. I wholeheartedly support same-sex marriage. I am saddened by the bigotry that so many people face on a day-to-day basis, such as the bigotry being displayed by this web designer toward gay couples.

That said, I understand that many people hold religious beliefs that cause them to find a same-sex wedding to be a deeply sinful event, and would believe themselves to be also committing a sin if they were to help facilitate that event. Religious freedom is supposed to be one of the highest laws of our land. All rights have their limits, of course, but it would seem extremely limiting to say that this basic right doesn't apply to the commercial world. To a large extent that would seem to be what this case is about. Can a self-employed person choose to refuse business opportunities that, if accepted, would require them to violate their religion? Or is the freedom to avoid sin only granted to those wealthy enough they don't have to work for a living?

ChpBstrd

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #87 on: December 08, 2022, 03:42:26 PM »
The ten commandments are the written law of God.  The mosaic law was put together to create order out of chaos interpreting the commandments for the Israelites escaping slavery out of Egypt, the mosaic law is not prescriptive for Christians but many would argue that the ten commandments are.  Paul says that just because Jewish believers have freedom in Christ over the mosaic law doesn't mean they should or should not continue to follow it.  All scripture is guidance to all believers, but the old testament is a storyline of the Israelites that points back to creation and points forward to the coming of Jesus Christ.
....
Many of the things in your list are mosaic law used to help Moses lead the Israelites, some of the others are new testament sin issues that should be called out if known by a caring loving friend in Christ.  I am sure there are homosexual Christians, but if they are not troubled by their sin I might question their claim of belief if I knew them well enough.  If a couple of college kids claiming to be Christians are having sex, I might question their claim of belief if I knew them well enough.

For those who claim to believe in the saving grace of Jesus, if your conscience does not cause you to be troubled by your sin, you might question whether you truly believe or are the one that cries Lord Lord and he says he never knew you.

The New Testament does not contain an itemized list of which Old Testament laws and commands can be ignored, and which are still relevant. The closest we get are Jesus'  contradictions of the eye-for-an-eye principle, and his "cast the first stone" statement. There are probably a few other contradictions of traditional Judaism, but I'm pretty sure nowhere does it directly state that Christians can now eat shrimp and pork, get tattoos, have sex during a woman's period, etc. 

So where do these ideas come from, if there's no exemption mentioned in the Bible?

If Christians are worshiping the same god who helped the Israelites out of Egypt, and that god laid down the Mosaic law and said x, y, and z are immoral, then did that god change its mind after the arrival of Jesus?

If no, then did the Israelites have falsehoods in their religious law?
If yes, then was God initially mistaken or is God's morality circumstantial?

As you can see, I'm finding it much easier to understand the process as people making it up as they go. One avoids all these logical knots by just viewing religion as a human construction. What can you show me to prove this isn't a matter of humans cherry picking which sins we count as sins?

Sailor Sam

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #88 on: December 08, 2022, 03:56:08 PM »
I am sure there are homosexual Christians…

Such as the godly gaywad who started this thread. But you’re happily ignoring me to debate in public at the temple stairs.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/christians!-what-the-fork/msg3087717/#msg3087717

I think people really underestimate how many LGBTQ+ Christians there are out there and just how affirming some Christian churches really are.

There are multiple openly lesbian bishops in the US alone.

There’s a no-shit, honest-to-god affirming Baptist church near me. Surprising, and delightful.

ChpBstrd

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #89 on: December 08, 2022, 03:58:36 PM »
I am not a Christian. I wholeheartedly support same-sex marriage. I am saddened by the bigotry that so many people face on a day-to-day basis, such as the bigotry being displayed by this web designer toward gay couples.

That said, I understand that many people hold religious beliefs that cause them to find a same-sex wedding to be a deeply sinful event, and would believe themselves to be also committing a sin if they were to help facilitate that event. Religious freedom is supposed to be one of the highest laws of our land. All rights have their limits, of course, but it would seem extremely limiting to say that this basic right doesn't apply to the commercial world. To a large extent that would seem to be what this case is about. Can a self-employed person choose to refuse business opportunities that, if accepted, would require them to violate their religion? Or is the freedom to avoid sin only granted to those wealthy enough they don't have to work for a living?

We're having a similar conversation as people had in the 1950s and 1960s when businesses would put up signs saying they will not serve or hire brown-skinned people. They argued that the businesses were their property, and that they had a right to express their deeply-held conscience. Some even cited the Bible.

But what they were really doing was working in coordination with other businesses, politicians, and law enforcement officers to make life miserable for brown-skinned people. Their racist beliefs may have been sincerely held, but the result was harms committed against a large number of victims who were left impoverished, unable to participate in the economy, and bullied into being treated as subhuman.

The outcome of the Civil Rights movement was a realization that simply holding an attitude does not grant one the right to make other people's lives miserable. A government that claims to protect its citizens from the depredations of other people cannot turn a blind eye simply because private property is used as the weapon.

We've forgotten how bad things can get, and we're rehashing the old arguments as if history has taught us no lessons about hatred.

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #90 on: December 08, 2022, 04:07:16 PM »
The ten commandments are the written law of God.  The mosaic law was put together to create order out of chaos interpreting the commandments for the Israelites escaping slavery out of Egypt, the mosaic law is not prescriptive for Christians but many would argue that the ten commandments are.  Paul says that just because Jewish believers have freedom in Christ over the mosaic law doesn't mean they should or should not continue to follow it.  All scripture is guidance to all believers, but the old testament is a storyline of the Israelites that points back to creation and points forward to the coming of Jesus Christ.
....
Many of the things in your list are mosaic law used to help Moses lead the Israelites, some of the others are new testament sin issues that should be called out if known by a caring loving friend in Christ.  I am sure there are homosexual Christians, but if they are not troubled by their sin I might question their claim of belief if I knew them well enough.  If a couple of college kids claiming to be Christians are having sex, I might question their claim of belief if I knew them well enough.

For those who claim to believe in the saving grace of Jesus, if your conscience does not cause you to be troubled by your sin, you might question whether you truly believe or are the one that cries Lord Lord and he says he never knew you.

The New Testament does not contain an itemized list of which Old Testament laws and commands can be ignored, and which are still relevant. The closest we get are Jesus'  contradictions of the eye-for-an-eye principle, and his "cast the first stone" statement. There are probably a few other contradictions of traditional Judaism, but I'm pretty sure nowhere does it directly state that Christians can now eat shrimp and pork, get tattoos, have sex during a woman's period, etc. 

So where do these ideas come from, if there's no exemption mentioned in the Bible?

If Christians are worshiping the same god who helped the Israelites out of Egypt, and that god laid down the Mosaic law and said x, y, and z are immoral, then did that god change its mind after the arrival of Jesus?

If no, then did the Israelites have falsehoods in their religious law?
If yes, then was God initially mistaken or is God's morality circumstantial?

As you can see, I'm finding it much easier to understand the process as people making it up as they go. One avoids all these logical knots by just viewing religion as a human construction. What can you show me to prove this isn't a matter of humans cherry picking which sins we count as sins?
+1, and well the idea that a human sacrifice was needed so that a scapegoat can take over my responsibility for my misdeeds (but only if I believe it) is unethical. In what universe can granny go to prison for the grandson?
The Bible is all too unoriginal, obviously based on older myths (such as Zoroastrianism) and requires apologetics and childhood indoctrination to push all that magical thinking.

former player

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #91 on: December 08, 2022, 04:08:26 PM »
I am not a Christian. I wholeheartedly support same-sex marriage. I am saddened by the bigotry that so many people face on a day-to-day basis, such as the bigotry being displayed by this web designer toward gay couples.

That said, I understand that many people hold religious beliefs that cause them to find a same-sex wedding to be a deeply sinful event, and would believe themselves to be also committing a sin if they were to help facilitate that event. Religious freedom is supposed to be one of the highest laws of our land. All rights have their limits, of course, but it would seem extremely limiting to say that this basic right doesn't apply to the commercial world. To a large extent that would seem to be what this case is about. Can a self-employed person choose to refuse business opportunities that, if accepted, would require them to violate their religion? Or is the freedom to avoid sin only granted to those wealthy enough they don't have to work for a living?
As I understand it the US Constitution requires the free exercise of religion. There is no problem with people believing whatever they want to. There is no problem with people worshipping as they want to or proselytising their religion as they want to or acting in accordance with those beliefs (within limits, I guess, I'm not sure human sacrifice for religious reasons would pass muster).

The problem comes when someone says "my religious belief is this, someone is proposing to act in contradiction to that belief, and while I am neither participating in that action against my beliefs (eg I am not the one getting gay married) or enabling that action (eg I am not acting as celebrant for a gay marriage) I would be doing something peripheral to that action (setting up a website for the two people who will be getting gay married).

Where is the biblical prohibition on that?  Isn't it part of being out in the world, as opposed to being in a closed religious order, that one does business with people of other faiths and none?  Where is it written that Christianity means only doing business with people who have exactly the same religious beliefs?  If your religious belief is that people of different races shouldn't marry could you refuse to set up a website for them on religious grounds?  Could you refuse to set up a website if one or both had a divorced spouse still living and remarriage was contrary to your religious beliefs?  Where is the boundary and what is the religious justification for that boundary?

RetiredAt63

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #92 on: December 08, 2022, 04:11:51 PM »
Judaic laws got ditched when most Christians were not converted Jews.  And I'm about to celebrate a non-Christian holiday under the guise of Christianity.  Christianity has always been so hungry for converts that it reliably appropriated local gods and customs.

And there is nothing in the 10 Commandments that forbids homosexuality.  In fact, one commandment implies there are other gods - because if you can have no other gods before Yahweh, that implies there are other gods that could be put in higher priority (like Baal).  So bye-bye monotheism.  And lets not forget that if a widow has not borne her dead husband any sons, she is supposed to marry her husband's brother (who may well already be married) so she can produce one for her in-laws, and of course keep her dowry in the family.

Remember Jesus overturning the tables in the temple forecourt?  He was very clearly speaking out against people who followed all the forms of their religion without observing the heart.  This lady strikes me as someone who would have been doing her business in the temple forecourt if she had been around back then.

I grew up Anglican - nothing like belonging to a Church that was started because a King couldn't get the divorce he wanted (the then-Pope would not grant it) to clearly see the intersection of religion and politics.  Nothing like growing up in an educational system where you were Catholic or Protestant schools (and Protestant basically equalled non-Catholic so if you were Jewish or Muslim or Hindu or basically anything but Catholic you went to the Protestant schools) to see the lack of welcome, and desire to segregate.  During the Revolution Tranquille Quebec went from basically the most religious province to the most secular province.

Metalcat

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #93 on: December 08, 2022, 04:15:19 PM »
I am sure there are homosexual Christians…

Such as the godly gaywad who started this thread. But you’re happily ignoring me to debate in public at the temple stairs.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/christians!-what-the-fork/msg3087717/#msg3087717

I think people really underestimate how many LGBTQ+ Christians there are out there and just how affirming some Christian churches really are.

There are multiple openly lesbian bishops in the US alone.

There’s a no-shit, honest-to-god affirming Baptist church near me. Surprising, and delightful.

Baptists churches are fascinating in how they are run.

They started with the fundamental premise that each Church and their congregation were to decide for themselves how they would be run, which is very cool. They're ecclesiastically autonomy, just like the Quakers.

However, of course a larger association grew, because ideas are nice, but reality is a thing, and these larger organizations created top-down rules and got around the whole "each Church decides for themselves" by saying that each Church decides by themselves to voluntarily join our larger association and therefore by assent subscribes to our prescriptive beliefs.

Wait...what?? Uh ..okay, defeats the purpose, but hypocrisy ain't new for churches.

So technically, every single Baptist Church is totally autonomous in how they decide to practice their faith. Which means that although the bulk of the Baptist's voluntarily subscribe to a certain way of thinking, any given Baptist Church can legitimately go in a totally different direction if their congregation decides that that's what's most holy.

So technically, the Baptists are actually the among the freest churches to decide that gay is A-OK!

Technically....in practice??? Ehhh...politics.

I kind of want to get ordained and start an affirming Baptist Church just because I can.

GuitarStv

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #94 on: December 08, 2022, 04:31:57 PM »
The ten commandments are the written law of God.  The mosaic law was put together to create order out of chaos interpreting the commandments for the Israelites escaping slavery out of Egypt, the mosaic law is not prescriptive for Christians but many would argue that the ten commandments are.  Paul says that just because Jewish believers have freedom in Christ over the mosaic law doesn't mean they should or should not continue to follow it.  All scripture is guidance to all believers, but the old testament is a storyline of the Israelites that points back to creation and points forward to the coming of Jesus Christ.
....
Many of the things in your list are mosaic law used to help Moses lead the Israelites, some of the others are new testament sin issues that should be called out if known by a caring loving friend in Christ.  I am sure there are homosexual Christians, but if they are not troubled by their sin I might question their claim of belief if I knew them well enough.  If a couple of college kids claiming to be Christians are having sex, I might question their claim of belief if I knew them well enough.

For those who claim to believe in the saving grace of Jesus, if your conscience does not cause you to be troubled by your sin, you might question whether you truly believe or are the one that cries Lord Lord and he says he never knew you.

The New Testament does not contain an itemized list of which Old Testament laws and commands can be ignored, and which are still relevant. The closest we get are Jesus'  contradictions of the eye-for-an-eye principle, and his "cast the first stone" statement. There are probably a few other contradictions of traditional Judaism, but I'm pretty sure nowhere does it directly state that Christians can now eat shrimp and pork, get tattoos, have sex during a woman's period, etc. 

So where do these ideas come from, if there's no exemption mentioned in the Bible?

If Christians are worshiping the same god who helped the Israelites out of Egypt, and that god laid down the Mosaic law and said x, y, and z are immoral, then did that god change its mind after the arrival of Jesus?

If no, then did the Israelites have falsehoods in their religious law?
If yes, then was God initially mistaken or is God's morality circumstantial?

As you can see, I'm finding it much easier to understand the process as people making it up as they go. One avoids all these logical knots by just viewing religion as a human construction. What can you show me to prove this isn't a matter of humans cherry picking which sins we count as sins?
+1, and well the idea that a human sacrifice was needed so that a scapegoat can take over my responsibility for my misdeeds (but only if I believe it) is unethical. In what universe can granny go to prison for the grandson?
The Bible is all too unoriginal, obviously based on older myths (such as Zoroastrianism) and requires apologetics and childhood indoctrination to push all that magical thinking.

The God of the Old Testament is a completely different God than the God of the New Testament.  They behave wildly differently and have so many conflicting messages about right and wrong that they're not really comparable.

This makes sense when you study the history of the bible - it's a mish-mash of plagiarism.  The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Egyptian Teachings of Amenemope, ancient Hebrew Laws, the story of Dionysus, Pandora's Box, various bits of Zoroastrianism, etc . . . cool stories and ideas were cribbed from other sources and then jammed together over the years to form the two sections of the bible.  They very clearly don't match well though.  That's why over the years there were so many different arguments and changes regarding what sections would be kept as cannon and which would be discarded.  It's a beautiful and ancient tapestry that ended up being woven together, but it's not very consistent because it's sources were not consistent.

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #95 on: December 08, 2022, 04:32:25 PM »
I care about homosexuality only to the extent that I think it is inherently disordered and not conducive to the continuation of our species and human society as a whole. I have no problem personally with anyone who is homosexual and tolerate them just fine whether it's an extended family member or co-worker. But I'm not going to accept it as equal or endorse it as normal from a moral perspective.

@Michael in ABQ, you’ve gotten a few replies from others, but I hope you’ll indulge this one.

I’ve also seen homosexuality described as disordered, but I’ve never been sure what it means. Would you be willing to give your definition?

Again, I’m genuine, blah blah. I’m not going to argue with you, blah blah. I truly want to understand your take on the word.

@Sailor Sam I would say something is disordered if it doesn't achieve its natural purpose. A human being is conceived, born, grows up, reproduces (in most cases), and eventually dies. That is the natural order of basically all life (a tree isn't born, but it does grow, tries to reproduce, and does eventually die). Eating food to provide nourishment is ordered, eating food to purposely vomit it back up is disordered. Killing a person is disordered, but death itself is not disordered as it is the natural end to all life in due time. It's the willful choice to do something inherently wrong, i.e., sin that is disordered.

Humans are made to reproduce, and we're all equipped to do so (barring some medical problem). When we choose to use our sexuality for something other than it's intended purpose (unitive love between a married couple and creating new life) then it is a moral choice to do something disordered. That encompasses homosexual activity as well as a whole host of other sexual activities.

GuitarStv

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #96 on: December 08, 2022, 04:40:25 PM »
I care about homosexuality only to the extent that I think it is inherently disordered and not conducive to the continuation of our species and human society as a whole. I have no problem personally with anyone who is homosexual and tolerate them just fine whether it's an extended family member or co-worker. But I'm not going to accept it as equal or endorse it as normal from a moral perspective.

@Michael in ABQ, you’ve gotten a few replies from others, but I hope you’ll indulge this one.

I’ve also seen homosexuality described as disordered, but I’ve never been sure what it means. Would you be willing to give your definition?

Again, I’m genuine, blah blah. I’m not going to argue with you, blah blah. I truly want to understand your take on the word.

@
Humans are made to reproduce, and we're all equipped to do so (barring some medical problem).

I'd argue that a human who is born only attracted to the same sex is not in fact equipped to reproduce.



When we choose to use our sexuality for something other than it's intended purpose (unitive love between a married couple and creating new life) then it is a moral choice to do something disordered. That encompasses homosexual activity as well as a whole host of other sexual activities.

I have so many questions about this reasoning.

You only have sex with the intent of creating new life?  How many kids do you have?  Will you give up sex when you're too old to be fertile?  If you're still fertile but your wife becomes too old to be pregnant will you find a new wife who can reproduce because of the unnatural relationship that you'll be in?  Where do you stand on polygamy (given that men can father far more children than women can bear, wouldn't that be a more natural state)?



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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #97 on: December 08, 2022, 04:45:37 PM »
I care about homosexuality only to the extent that I think it is inherently disordered and not conducive to the continuation of our species and human society as a whole. I have no problem personally with anyone who is homosexual and tolerate them just fine whether it's an extended family member or co-worker. But I'm not going to accept it as equal or endorse it as normal from a moral perspective.

@Michael in ABQ, you’ve gotten a few replies from others, but I hope you’ll indulge this one.

I’ve also seen homosexuality described as disordered, but I’ve never been sure what it means. Would you be willing to give your definition?

Again, I’m genuine, blah blah. I’m not going to argue with you, blah blah. I truly want to understand your take on the word.

@Sailor Sam I would say something is disordered if it doesn't achieve its natural purpose. A human being is conceived, born, grows up, reproduces (in most cases), and eventually dies. That is the natural order of basically all life (a tree isn't born, but it does grow, tries to reproduce, and does eventually die). Eating food to provide nourishment is ordered, eating food to purposely vomit it back up is disordered. Killing a person is disordered, but death itself is not disordered as it is the natural end to all life in due time. It's the willful choice to do something inherently wrong, i.e., sin that is disordered.

Humans are made to reproduce, and we're all equipped to do so (barring some medical problem). When we choose to use our sexuality for something other than it's intended purpose (unitive love between a married couple and creating new life) then it is a moral choice to do something disordered. That encompasses homosexual activity as well as a whole host of other sexual activities.

Thanks for responding. I’m sure you’ll catch flack for being willing to post your opinion, which I can’t do much about, but I do appreciate the answer.

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #98 on: December 08, 2022, 05:00:51 PM »
We're having a similar conversation as people had in the 1950s and 1960s when businesses would put up signs saying they will not serve or hire brown-skinned people. They argued that the businesses were their property, and that they had a right to express their deeply-held conscience. Some even cited the Bible.

But what they were really doing was working in coordination with other businesses, politicians, and law enforcement officers to make life miserable for brown-skinned people. Their racist beliefs may have been sincerely held, but the result was harms committed against a large number of victims who were left impoverished, unable to participate in the economy, and bullied into being treated as subhuman.

"Some" may have cited the Bible, but I really doubt most restauranteurs of the day honestly believed that their religion said it was a sin for Black people to eat dinner. They just didn't like the idea of serving Black people. That's the difference. A sincerely held racist belief is not protected by the First Amendment, while a sincerely held religious belief is.

You can certainly argue that there's no good reason our law should draw a distinction between religiously-motivated discrimination and discrimination that has other motivations. I'd agree with you! Whether our law does draw that distinction is another matter. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Does the "free exercise" of one's religion include the obligation to abstain from activities one views as prohibited by their religion, even if that might inconvenience potential customers of their business? Seems to me a bigger logical leap to say it doesn't than to say that it does.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Christians! What the fork?
« Reply #99 on: December 08, 2022, 07:06:09 PM »
I care about homosexuality only to the extent that I think it is inherently disordered and not conducive to the continuation of our species and human society as a whole. I have no problem personally with anyone who is homosexual and tolerate them just fine whether it's an extended family member or co-worker. But I'm not going to accept it as equal or endorse it as normal from a moral perspective.

@Michael in ABQ, you’ve gotten a few replies from others, but I hope you’ll indulge this one.

I’ve also seen homosexuality described as disordered, but I’ve never been sure what it means. Would you be willing to give your definition?

Again, I’m genuine, blah blah. I’m not going to argue with you, blah blah. I truly want to understand your take on the word.

@Sailor Sam I would say something is disordered if it doesn't achieve its natural purpose. A human being is conceived, born, grows up, reproduces (in most cases), and eventually dies. That is the natural order of basically all life (a tree isn't born, but it does grow, tries to reproduce, and does eventually die). Eating food to provide nourishment is ordered, eating food to purposely vomit it back up is disordered. Killing a person is disordered, but death itself is not disordered as it is the natural end to all life in due time. It's the willful choice to do something inherently wrong, i.e., sin that is disordered.

Humans are made to reproduce, and we're all equipped to do so (barring some medical problem). When we choose to use our sexuality for something other than it's intended purpose (unitive love between a married couple and creating new life) then it is a moral choice to do something disordered. That encompasses homosexual activity as well as a whole host of other sexual activities.

Well, we now know you are not a biologist.  Reproduction in the animal kingdom is a wild and wonderful and weird topic.   And there are lots of examples where individuals of various species who could technically reproduce do not actually reproduce.  And there are same-sex matings in nature.  And group matings.  Add in plants and fungi and protists and it gets even weirder.  Assuming there is a God, s/he must be very experimental in tossing in so many options.  And of course, as has been pointed out elsewhere, God must love beetles, s/he made so many of them.

Point is, nature is a terrible example of what God might want.

Also, the more we learn about ecosystems, the more we see cooperation between different organisms, not competition.