Christian and Homosexual Stereotypes

[tr1age]

I don't know about all of that crazy shit...

Telling someone to chill the fuck out when it comes to things that really don't affect them as much as they like to portray and actively persecuting someone for the same thing that really doesn't affect you are two entirely different things. There's no way you can sit here and pretend it's the same fucking thing. In that same sense of logic you just spewed, (whether it's your actual beliefs or just starting a discussion) could be spun around to say those that are against such senseless persecution have every right to destroy and eradicate those that do? Certainly not a way to solve anything. Being annoyed and irked at someone else's beliefs and orientation is one thing but to actively pursue and punish those for not being in line with you is some ignorant bullshit. If you truly believe these people are going to hell at the end of the day, who the fuck cares.. If you're right, they'll get what's coming to them, how is it anyone's place to step in and punish for "god"? So I just cheated on my wife and beat my kid but like you're gay and that's so much worse so I'm going to hunt you down and torture you so I get to feel better about myself and pretend I'm perfect and do no wrong because I follow god? Fuck. That. Shit.

Actively seeking out and hating someone can not be compared to tolerance and dealing with people believing in different things.

See Religion is supposed to be about opening up the eyes of others to their beliefs. But the way it is now, is very much in line with Belial's point here. It isn't so much of an open arms, look to the light, it is more of you are going to hell, better fix your shit so I can stop nagging you and making your shitty life shittier.

 

[Keleynal]

Religion and spirituality doesn't hold a monopoly on compassion.

I used to think everything mattered. When I was younger. I got my head wrapped up and spun around into every little thing that was going on (and some things were huge and significant. Death, drug abuse, etc). Then I started meditating and pondering the world, universe, etc. Wound up thinking that too.

The world, universe, is this huge place. The further back you go in history, the less ANYONE mattered. We have thousands of celebs in the world today that people know. Even less people know Baldassare. The "Sun King". Nero would be forgotten had he not had mal-aligned folk-lore.

In the end none of it matters.

Then one day I realized...that was the point. None of it matters.

Except for the present moment. That is all you have. That is all you will ever have.

So now...everything matters again. Except for the drama.

And at the root of that.

Compassion.

Because.

That's a much better thought out answer, thanks for that.

You've come to a similar conclusion as Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes. He spends pages and pages talking about how he's done so much, accumulated so much wealth, fought wars, had children, but in the end, none of it truly mattered. There was nothing new under the sun. The futility of it all.

I had a similar "Aha" moment when I realized that nothing I do matters except the things I do for God and the things I do for others. Everything else passes away. The Bible uses the analogy of raw gold ore being passed through a fire. All the dross burns up and you're left with pure gold.

I'm glad your root is based in compassion. So many have a root of fear or hate or greed or selfishness. My hope is that one day you'll be able to elaborate on that Because.

I can respect that your Because is as sufficient for you as God is sufficient for me. I appreciate you for hashing that out.

 

[Drac]

Spoiler

That definitely explains why homosexuality is OK for you, but what about everybody else? How can you tell anyone else that their hatred for and persecution of homosexuals is wrong? Their brain, heart, and morals tell them gay people are a blight and must be eradicated. What makes your belief system better than yours? The law is on your side, but only here. In Iran they kill gay people for violating the Sharea (probly misspelled) law. Is that whole government wrong for disagreeing with you, or are you wrong for disagreeing with them? Can you hold them (Iranians and hate crime commiters in America) accountable for their supposed crimes against humanity? Can anyone?

I don't think you have the authority or the right to tell me or anyone else that they are wrong because we all come to our conclusions pretty much the exact same way. You are no better or smarter than the next person and when it boils down to it, all you have is an opinion. Collectively, human beings are no better. Almost everyone would agree that even hundreds of our best and brightest government officials and scientists routinely make mistakes, make stupid laws, fall to corruption.

Without a solid Biblical foundation, all I can see is a huge pit of doubt and despair. I can't imagine living in a world like that.

And you're right. All I can do is justify my beliefs and explain what I base them on. To be honest, I can't tell you (or someone with a hatred towards gays) that they are wrong, that's my point. What I believe, and how I act, are a result of my education, my childhood, my experiences, and my preferences. I wouldn't expect others to follow suit, and I wouldn't want it.

It's my opinion that advancements in the world (religious understanding, scientific, humane, etc) are made from people disagreeing in the first place and I would never seek to curb that. I don' think anyone is ever wrong for disagreeing with me, that's just simply what makes them different. So although I would never condone the murder of someone for have a particular sexual preference (or religious background, or gender for that matter), I would never force assimilation because of those differences. What I'm trying to say is that I agree with you, I don't have the right to tell someone that their beliefs are wrong simply because their different, the flipside to that is by default, I don't have to the right to tell someone that I am right simply because of what I believe in.

The only thing that counts is standing up for what you believe in.

 

[tr1age]

And you're right. All I can do is justify my beliefs and explain what I base them on. To be honest, I can't tell you (or someone with a hatred towards gays) that they are wrong, that's my point. What I believe, and how I act, are a result of my education, my childhood, my experiences, and my preferences. I wouldn't expect others to follow suit, and I wouldn't want it.

It's my opinion that advancements in the world (religious understanding, scientific, humane, etc) are made from people disagreeing in the first place and I would never seek to curb that. I don' think anyone is ever wrong for disagreeing with me, that's just simply what makes them different. So although I would never condone the murder of someone for have a particular sexual preference (or religious background, or gender for that matter), I would never force assimilation because of those differences. What I'm trying to say is that I agree with you, I don't have the right to tell someone that their beliefs are wrong simply because their different, the flipside to that is by default, I don't have to the right to tell someone that I am right simply because of what I believe in.

The only thing that counts is standing up for what you believe in.

I hate to do this but I disagree for one simple fact: Unless you are murdering, hurting another, or generally just a BAD person... there is NO REASON logically in this day and age for people to have so much hatred toward another.

END OF DISCUSSION.

I believe that the opinions of those who twisted the Koran to mean killing thousands of people are WRONG.
I believe the opinions of those who say gays are not people are WRONG.
I believe people who discriminate due to race are WRONG.

Are there stereotypes that people fit into? Of course, but as long as they are not doing the above mentioned shit that ruins life and the beauty of it, then they are doing just fine

 

[Keleynal]

I don't know about all of that crazy shit...

Telling someone to chill the fuck out when it comes to things that really don't affect them as much as they like to portray and actively persecuting someone for the same thing that really doesn't affect you are two entirely different things. There's no way you can sit here and pretend it's the same fucking thing. In that same sense of logic you just spewed, (whether it's your actual beliefs or just starting a discussion) could be spun around to say those that are against such senseless persecution have every right to destroy and eradicate those that do? Certainly not a way to solve anything. Being annoyed and irked at someone else's beliefs and orientation is one thing but to actively pursue and punish those for not being in line with you is some ignorant bullshit. If you truly believe these people are going to hell at the end of the day, who the fuck cares.. If you're right, they'll get what's coming to them, how is it anyone's place to step in and punish for "god"? So I just cheated on my wife and beat my kid but like you're gay and that's so much worse so I'm going to hunt you down and torture you so I get to feel better about myself and pretend I'm perfect and do no wrong because I follow god? Fuck. That. Shit.

Actively seeking out and hating someone can not be compared to tolerance and dealing with people believing in different things.

Your totally right, Belial, it's not the same thing at all. I am being a devil's advocate here because I'm trying to explore the basis, the core of a person's values.

You and I can look at hate crimes and correctly label them as ignorant bullshit, but why can't the person committing the crime? Is their moral compass somehow broken or missing entirely? And where did we get our moral compass? Did it evolve to help perpetuate the species?

That works to a point because stealing, murder, and abuse defintely work against the common good of mankind. But what about people with Down Syndrome or those that are so elderly they cannot even remember their own names anymore? Wouldn't it be in the best interest of our collective genetic pool not to allow those with Down Syndrome to reproduce? How much money would we save my allowing old people with nothing left to give just die sooner than later? Money that we could then use to help educate children or improve the general welfare of our communities? If all the Down Syndrome people were sterilized tomorrow, it would have no effect on me, so why should I care if it happened. This is some heartless stuff that very few people ascribe to, so something else is at work.

It's the compassion that Dash mentioned. Somehow we are wired to care about things that don't make total sense and can actually cause us harm or cost us time and money to care about. Everything came from somewhere, so where did that come from? Wild animals don't have it. They'll turn on each other in an instant if it means their survival. Many, if not most of humanity will go to great lengths to protect other human life.

I would submit that this compassion comes from God. Earlier it was mentioned that we were created in God's image. There's something inside of us that strives to be like or know God, even subconsciously.

 

[Dash]

That's a much better thought out answer, thanks for that.

You've come to a similar conclusion as Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes. He spends pages and pages talking about how he's done so much, accumulated so much wealth, fought wars, had children, but in the end, none of it truly mattered. There was nothing new under the sun. The futility of it all.

I had a similar "Aha" moment when I realized that nothing I do matters except the things I do for God and the things I do for others. Everything else passes away. The Bible uses the analogy of raw gold ore being passed through a fire. All the dross burns up and you're left with pure gold.

I'm glad your root is based in compassion. So many have a root of fear or hate or greed or selfishness. My hope is that one day you'll be able to elaborate on that Because.

I can respect that your Because is as sufficient for you as God is sufficient for me. I appreciate you for hashing that out.

Ha! That's interesting. I'll have to read about him.

Yeah, compassion is just based on something intuited within myself. Don't know where it comes from, really. And that's sufficient. Exactly what you said.

But, interestingly, let's attempt to break down this down in terms of good ole' empirical observation.

Take spirituality, religion, the bible, the golden rule, all of that aside, and treat the world as a cold "dead" machine. There are two thoughts regarding social contract. Calvin. Hobbes. (Comic book!)

One is fear oriented, the other compassion. Both espouse basically the same idea. We band together because it increases our chance of survival in our brief exposure to the world. Fighting and destroying each other further hinders our own chance of survival by virtue of weakening ourselves as a society. The man shot in line at starbucks may have, a year down the road, given a discount on the renovations needed done to the shooter's house.

The larger and more interconnected we are, and in a compassionate and warm manner, the greater our prosperity. In surveys of Harvard graduates decades after graduation, the most successful ones were the ones who were "super connectors".

Ever hear of the six degrees experiment? The idea that everyone in the world is six degrees apart from anyone else. If you haven't heard of it, here's how the experiment worked. (if I recall correctly)

Researchers picked a town in the middle of nowhere in the mid-west. They picked a number of "finish line" addresses in Boston. Stock Brokers. Lawyers. Teachers. People that agreed to take part in the experiment. The researchers then walked to volunteers in this small town, and handed them the "finish line" envelopes. The rule was simple.

You can mail this to anyone, as long as you personally know them. So you would effectively mail the envelope to whomever you thought most likely knew someone in Boston. Each mailing was tallied.

On average, it took six mailings to get to the finish line.

Now...the radically interesting thing.

Virtually every envelope moving from this small town passed through one of the same three people in this small town.

Meaning...Three dudes in this place handled over 90% of the envelopes at one point. People like this are called "super connectors" (in one book I read regarding this experiment). Their capacity to reach out and affect the people around them is magnified ten-fold because of how interconnected they are with the people around them.

Speaking purely on a level of "power" and "influence", they probably reign king. Pair that with the Harvard study.

it's difficult to think they got to that point by being cutthroat. More likely through compassion.

Even without having a spiritual root, compassion is a logical extension of one's survival. Criminal action and hatred is shortsighted, and could result in further self-destruction.

Though, frankly, I still prefer the warm and cuddly "because" reasons.

 

[Dash]

But what about people with Down Syndrome or those that are so elderly they cannot even remember their own names anymore? Wouldn't it be in the best interest of our collective genetic pool not to allow those with Down Syndrome to reproduce? How much money would we save my allowing old people with nothing left to give just die sooner than later? Money that we could then use to help educate children or improve the general welfare of our communities? If all the Down Syndrome people were sterilized tomorrow, it would have no effect on me, so why should I care if it happened. This is some heartless stuff that very few people ascribe to, so something else is at work.

(I know you're playing DA here. Trying to do the same)

I tend to ascribe to the "Anyone can cook" theme from Ratatouille. Just because someone is limited, doesn't mean there isn't great potential for something within them they didn't even know they had.

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." -Einstein

 

[Keleynal]

I hate to do this but I disagree for one simple fact: Unless you are murdering, hurting another, or generally just a BAD person... there is NO REASON logically in this day and age for people to have so much hatred toward another.

END OF DISCUSSION.

I believe that the opinions of those who twisted the Koran to mean killing thousands of people are WRONG.
I believe the opinions of those who say gays are not people are WRONG.
I believe people who discriminate due to race are WRONG.

Are there stereotypes that people fit into? Of course, but as long as they are not doing the above mentioned shit that ruins life and the beauty of it, then they are doing just fine

It's very hard to disagree with any part of that. The conflict comes because everyone can't agree on who the bad people are. It's obvious to you and me that twisting the Koran to kill people is bad, but not to the people doing the twisting. To them YOU are the infidel that is corrupting humanity. Somewhere in Iran, there is a man your age saying "There is no reason logically in this day and age for people not to accept our interpretation of the Koran!" What gives us the authority to label them as bad? I totally agree that the label fits, but isn't their belief structure just as valid as ours?

 

[Beerf]

It's very hard to disagree with any part of that. The conflict comes because everyone can't agree on who the bad people are. It's obvious to you and me that twisting the Koran to kill people is bad, but not to the people doing the twisting. To them YOU are the infidel that is corrupting humanity. Somewhere in Iran, there is a man your age saying "There is no reason logically in this day and age for people not to accept our interpretation of the Koran!" What gives us the authority to label them as bad? I totally agree that the label fits, but isn't their belief structure just as valid as ours?

Um no because they're taking it much further beyond a belief to simply live your own life by when you're hurting or killing others.

 

[NeverMore]

I'm tired of just answering questions, let me ask you guys something. This is for the ones that reject the Bible, in whole or in part.

How can you be certain of anything? When you make a statement of belief or value that cannot be empirically proven by science, what standard or point of reference can you point at to back up your belief?

I'll give you an easy example- the topic at hand. Many, if not most of you, hold the position that homosexuality is 100% OK all of the time. But how do you know that for sure? Because it feels good to believe that way? We can trot out thousands of people who vehemently hate homosexuals and feel very good about that. Because it's best for society as a whole to accept them? Lots of countries reject that notion on the grounds of disease being spread, or just old-fashioned superstition. I know they are wrong because they contradict the Bible, but how do you know they are wrong?

I just realized how much the discussion we're having here on the forums reminded me of the southpark episode with the united atheist alliance and what not.

I was actually wondering when one of you two would ask this question. Though I didn't expect Baldo to just... quit. So, I have to say that I am not certain of anything. I do know that there is no indisputable fact supporting any religion out there. I have found no hard evidence. The closest thing I have to proof is the bible, and that has been rewritten quite a few times. Perhaps it's got some truth in it, but even that truth is subjective I believe. The story goes that some man was told the story by a burning bush doesn't it? Perhaps I would have been okay with that 2000 years ago, but this is now, and I know that that sort of thing is only the product of a demented mind. Whether that be due to dehydration, starvation, disease, or otherwise. The bible tells me that I should believe in ghosts, zombies(Albeit a rather nice zombie named jesus, who doesn't eat people), place after death, place after life, and that there is some all powerful being that I cannot feel, see, touch, taste, or hear. More so it tells me that this all powerful being wishes me to do everything the way he has told man to write it(which has been rewritten to better suit whomever ruled at the times beliefs), and that if I fail he will cast me down into a pit of horrors unimaginable where I will suffer for all of eternity, but he loves me.

It's not only the basic belief that keeps me from subscribing to any religion, it's that so many of religions ideals subscribe to things opposite of what we have proven. More so than even that, but religious folks of the same religion argue over what parts of the bible are relevant, what aren't, and constantly twist the passages to fit their own need. The devout don't even know what god apparently wants!

And within bibles there are hundreds of conflicting passages. I feel like with all the evidence against religion and the bible, I'd be hard pushed to believe it. Perhaps that's the test, but you know what.. I don't care. I want real proof, I want something palpable for my trials and tribulations.

~~~~~Homosexuality~~~~~

In order to think there is anything inherently wrong with homosexuality I believe that you have to have religion play into it somewhere. Homosexuality has NOT always been a problem. There are plenty of societies in the past where it really didn't matter at ALL if you partook in it. There is no disease in existence that is homosexually exclusive. There are some that are spread more easily, due to the way they're transferred, but there is nothing a homosexual can catch that a heterosexual cannot. I have no religious foundation at all, and I'm perfectly content with my life. I don't need some father figure lording over me to tell me what I'm doing is correct. I can take solace in myself and my own doings. Religion is the cause of so so so so much war murder death, and destruction. It has been used as a way to abuse and use people throughout time! I cannot for the life of me deign why, with all of this evidence, I would ever want to take part in something so hateful, judgmental, and downright wicked. It seems to me like it's always just been used as a powergrab, and even today, in america, people use religion as an excuse for this and that.


I've seen so many things that religions claim will be actively punished by god, go unchecked, that I don't believe. If one day some towering majestic being lands on this planet and ascends half of the population to heaven before the apocalypse then, my bad. I still will not live my life how any being tells me I should live it, and I will have no regret if that day comes.

Those are my issues with religion.

I also watched this video some time ago, and it explains how I've thought of the way people interpret god and use the belief if god to their advantage. It is also rather explanatory of why the religous people are so disgusted with atheists. I feel some of this has even been shown in this discussion.

 

[Keleynal]

Spoiler

Ha! That's interesting. I'll have to read about him.

Yeah, compassion is just based on something intuited within myself. Don't know where it comes from, really. And that's sufficient. Exactly what you said.

But, interestingly, let's attempt to break down this down in terms of good ole' empirical observation.

Take spirituality, religion, the bible, the golden rule, all of that aside, and treat the world as a cold "dead" machine. There are two thoughts regarding social contract. Calvin. Hobbes. (Comic book!)

One is fear oriented, the other compassion. Both espouse basically the same idea. We band together because it increases our chance of survival in our brief exposure to the world. Fighting and destroying each other further hinders our own chance of survival by virtue of weakening ourselves as a society. The man shot in line at starbucks may have, a year down the road, given a discount on the renovations needed done to the shooter's house.

The larger and more interconnected we are, and in a compassionate and warm manner, the greater our prosperity. In surveys of Harvard graduates decades after graduation, the most successful ones were the ones who were "super connectors".

Ever hear of the six degrees experiment? The idea that everyone in the world is six degrees apart from anyone else. If you haven't heard of it, here's how the experiment worked. (if I recall correctly)

Researchers picked a town in the middle of nowhere in the mid-west. They picked a number of "finish line" addresses in Boston. Stock Brokers. Lawyers. Teachers. People that agreed to take part in the experiment. The researchers then walked to volunteers in this small town, and handed them the "finish line" envelopes. The rule was simple.

You can mail this to anyone, as long as you personally know them. So you would effectively mail the envelope to whomever you thought most likely knew someone in Boston. Each mailing was tallied.

On average, it took six mailings to get to the finish line.

Now...the radically interesting thing.

Virtually every envelope moving from this small town passed through one of the same three people in this small town.

Meaning...Three dudes in this place handled over 90% of the envelopes at one point. People like this are called "super connectors" (in one book I read regarding this experiment). Their capacity to reach out and affect the people around them is magnified ten-fold because of how interconnected they are with the people around them.

Speaking purely on a level of "power" and "influence", they probably reign king. Pair that with the Harvard study.

it's difficult to think they got to that point by being cutthroat. More likely through compassion.

Even without having a spiritual root, compassion is a logical extension of one's survival. Criminal action and hatred is shortsighted, and could result in further self-destruction.

Though, frankly, I still prefer the warm and cuddly "because" reasons.

It is very amusing that you bring Calvin and Hobbes into the discussion.

Calvin is John Calvin, a 16th century theologian famous for his sermon entitled "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Which actually isn't as dark as it sounds and some really great reading. He was the founder of Calvinism, a huge influence on modern day theology. I don't personally agree with all his tenents, but very solid stuff. So, surprisingly enough, the man proposing some kind of compassion as a root of human interaction had God at his root.

Hobbes is Thomas Hobbes, a 17th century philosopher who wrote Leviathan, a hugely influential book that basically said that men were nothing but vicious animals that required a strong government to rule them. He was educated in churches and religious institutions, but so was everyone else at that time in history. He did vehemetly deny being an athiest, but he may have done that because athiests were ostracized and ridiculed at the time. So it's up in the air if the father of the more fear-based model of human behavior had a Christian belief system. He certainly was aware of it, even if he didn't adhere to it.

So there you go, the basis of much modern moral thought came from Christian (or at least religiously educated) people.

 

[Keleynal]

Um no because they're taking it much further beyond a belief to simply live your own life by when you're hurting or killing others.

Your still projecting your beliefs onto them. They see it as right and proper to hurt and kill others. They get many virgins in heaven for it.

 

[tr1age]

Your still projecting your beliefs onto them. They see it as right and proper to hurt and kill others. They get many virgins in heaven for it.

And this is logic? Humanity is broken.

 

[Miranda]

I would submit that this compassion comes from God. Earlier it was mentioned that we were created in God's image. There's something inside of us that strives to be like or know God, even subconsciously.

If you believe that you need god to give you compassion, or to set your morals, isn't that just a religious crutch? I can't be good unless I have a god to base good off of sort of thing. Its common sense to say something like gays and straights are both human, regardless of who they like.

idk. It seems a little ridiculous that we would need a bible or a god to tell us simple things like don't murder others. Shouldn't we already know that?

 

[Corvus Rex]

Interesting discussion, I'm coming to it a bit late so I'm going to respond generally to things I've seen in the thread so far so that I don't have 10,000 quotes. :S


On the topic of homosexuality and "choice"

It's an interesting part of human psychology that we feel a need to "define" things. If you learn anything from studying biology it's that life is outrageously complex and fluid and any word you use to label an aspect of it is only a transient thing at best. Everything from defining a species to defining life itself is almost impossible to do. Gender and sexual orientation are no exception; a huge array of genetic and environmental factors contribute to them.

Simply looking at chromosomes will not reliably tell you if a person is male or female; there are a number of situations in which a person who is XY will present as a female and a person who is XX will present as a male (there's also XXY and XYY but that's a whole other can of worms). Genes on other chromosomes have been found to contribute to gender determination and certain biological conditions (e.g. insensitivity to testosterone) will cause a person to present as a different gender from what you'd expect by looking at their sex chromosomes alone.

Similarly with homosexuality, it presents as the result of a variety of factors. If you're looking for the "nature" factor then its probably not going to be a specific gene, as some research has demonstrated inconsistencies in that regard and even if there are genetic factors its far to complex a system to be one gene acting alone. Much more likely is that it is the result of epigenetic regulation. I haven't checked into it in a while (and there's not a lot of it because of the stigma) but I believe this is where the research was heading.

While it is not necessarily a "choice" there is a "nurture" factor to a person presenting as a homosexual; without variability all phylogenetic traits are a combination of "nature" and "nurture." But as there is more than one way for gender to be determined there is also more than one way for sexual orientation to be determined. The majority of the homosexual population are "genetically" homosexuals (don't read a positive or negative emphasis here we're talking about a baseline) which are individuals whose personal biology predisposes them to being attracted to their own gender. There is however a small portion of this population which are "phenotypically" homosexual, these are individuals whose personal biology predisposes them to being attracted to the opposite gender but due to some environmental cause (abuse, culture, mental illness) they either genuinely experience homosexual feelings or are mimicking them. Similarly, there are individuals who are "genetically" homosexual but present "phenotypically" heterosexual as a result of environmental stimuli (abuse, culture, mental illness).

This sets up in a large part the misinformation on the topic of homosexuality, as individuals who are held as examples of homosexuality being a "choice" are typically members of the "phenotypically" homosexual population. While not a conscious choice per se (or maybe they're really weird and chose to act homosexual, though barring mental illness they are unlikely to genuinely "feel" it) the environmental factors that determined their preferences can be subject to change, as such their preferences can change. In the majority of the homosexual population however, changing environmental stimuli alone will not be enough to influence their orientation.

On the topic of religion and "knowing something" without faith

I personally am an atheist, and I have no difficulty in finding both meaning in life as well as an ability to be confident in my conclusions. As a scientist, I am well aware that nothing is ever 100% certain, even the most basic "laws" of the universe are at best described as "not yet disproven" (and some of those are starting to look incorrect actually). Instead, life is a never ending balance of debate and practice; you can research and theorize as much as you like but eventually you have to act on something, so you can only ever make your best educated guess.

This is not to say that my life is plagued by uncertainty, far from it. Since I apply my beliefs and actions to a rigorous scientific standard I am confident in my ability to (more often than not) make the right choices. I personally feel that free will is a function of knowledge- the more knowledge you have the more decisions are open to you. I hold nothing in particular against people of faith, I've met quite a few that are really good people (the caveat to this being people who try to either force their faith on others or harm others as a part of their faith). I do not however see the logic in believing everything another person tells me just because its written on a piece of paper, just because this person also tells me that an entity I see no evidence of existing inspired its writing.

My two cents.

Edit: Fixed some word-swapping my brain slipped in on me >.>

 

[NeverMore]

Spoiler

On the topic of religion and "knowing something" without faith

I personally am an atheist, and I have no difficulty in finding both meaning in life as well as an ability to be confident in my conclusions. As a scientist, I am well aware that nothing is ever 100% certain, even the most basic "laws" of the universe are at best described as "not yet disproven" (and some of those are starting to look incorrect actually). Instead, life is a never ending balance of debate and practice; you can research and theorize as much as you like but eventually you have to act on something, so you can only ever make your best educated guess.

This is not to say that my life is plagued by uncertainty, far from it. Since I apply my beliefs and actions to a rigorous scientific standard I am confident in my ability to (more often than not) make the right choices. I personally feel that free will is a function of knowledge- the more knowledge you have the more decisions are open to you. I hold nothing in particular against people of faith, I've met quite a few that are really good people (the caveat to this being people who try to either force their faith on others or harm others as a part of their faith). I do not however see the logic in believing everything another person tells me just because its written on a piece of paper, just because this person also tells me that an entity I see no evidence of existing inspired its writing.

My two cents.

Had I not already been so deeply raveled in this conversation I'd have said it similarly. Though I do feel that My info is also part of how I personally feel.

 

[Dash]

So there you go, the basis of much modern moral thought came from Christian (or at least religiously educated) people.

Yeah, but I'd be hard pressed to find a theologian who wasn't immersed or educated in religion at one point or another. It's kind of everywhere.

The real point I was making came after the social contract theory bit, about compassion being an intelligent extension of survival, even without the spiritual aspect.

Edit: Theologian isn't the word I meant. I think I meant philosopher.

 

[Dash]

In light of this conversation MoD,

I love that your "mood" is "feminine".

 

[NeverMore]

In light of this conversation MoD,

I love that your "mood" is "feminine".

Lol, well moobies thread... what can I say? xD

 

[Keleynal]

If you believe that you need god to give you compassion, or to set your morals, isn't that just a religious crutch? I can't be good unless I have a god to base good off of sort of thing. Its common sense to say something like gays and straights are both human, regardless of who they like.

idk. It seems a little ridiculous that we would need a bible or a god to tell us simple things like don't murder others. Shouldn't we already know that?

I don't see it as a crutch, I'm just acknowledging that everything about me, including my morality came from somewhere. You could say it came from my environment. Ok, how did it get into my environment? I had Christian parents and grew up with this kind of stuff. So where did my parents get it? On back we go until we get to God, the ultimate source of anything and everything good.

It is kind of ridiculous that we need to be told. Secularly, we are told by our government and police officers not to murder people. Well, duh. I don't think that makes government a crutch though.