posted
I'm worse than that: My sister I were disowned for not subscribing to the Baptist faith.
So much for religion being a fundament of family values, huh?
Liam, while I see your point about reevaluating all those laws stemming from dogmatic principles, I dont think the laws regarding incest would falter...although I DO think that from a legal POV (and my own slightly liberal one as well) that there is no basis other than religon for excluding gays from marriage.
If the whole system needs to be examined to determine what laws shoud be changed, I'm all for it.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
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posted
Which, in the end, would be an examination of christian morality itself. Which the fundies would be up in arms over.
I used to help teach Sunday school at my church. But the day they told me I had to tell them that the only path to salvation lay through the Presbyterian faith, and no other, I asked them how this could reconcile with an otherwise generally benevolent and forgiving philosophy. When they couldn't do this I left and decided maybe spirituality ought to be a more personal pursuit. Guess that makes me not-a-Christian.
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posted
I dunno. What on earth is the Prebyterian faith?
And isn't the technical definition of Christian "someone who belivies in God, Jesus, and that other thing"? It's only when you get into denominations that all the crazy rules start to apply.
Okay, here's a thought. Someone said that there are certain situations in which doctor's can forbid people from having children, presumably if they are going to be genetically abnormal (I'm not sure how they'd enforce such a thing, but there it is).
If this is true, what about if closely related siblings were allowed to marry, but not allowed to have children? Would there be anything fundamentally wrong with that? (Outside of "Ewwwwww, that's sick", obviously.)
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
As long as there wasnt some history of abuse leading to the siblings getting together....
Shit.
Why is it that not agreeing with Omega is leading to my supporting a potential incestous relationship?
Ug.
ANYway, it all comes down to the fundamentalistists not being secure enougth to re-examine their beliefs nad aso being unwilling to change a rule of their faith that excludes millions.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
I am always amused when Protestants I know claim adamantly that Catholics are not Christians. Are they not the original Christians? Or at least the oldest denomintation that still exists? Wasn't the Catholic Church founded by some of Jesus' original disciples?
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
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"Wasn't the Catholic Church founded by some of Jesus' original disciples?"
Well, not exactly. The Roman Catholic church claims that Simon Peter was the first pope, and that all subsequent popes are his direct successors. But I wouldn't think that the earliest Christians would have had so much organization.
"What on earth is the Prebyterian faith?"
Presbyterianism is a reformed protestant church derived from Calvinism. It was started by John Knox in Scotland.
Strictly speaking "presbyterian" refers to the organization of the church, where the power lies with groups of elders called "presbyters". The other form (used by Catholics, Anglicans, etc.) is episcopalian, which refers to a heirarchy of bishops. (Not to be confused with the proper noun "Episcopalian Church", which is just the American version of the Anglican Church.)
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: I'm worse than that: My sister I were disowned for not subscribing to the Baptist faith.
How much does a subscription to the Baptist faith cost? I can trade my frequent flyer miles for subscriptions; I wonder how many miles equals Bapitist-ism[?].
Registered: Oct 2001
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"Wasn't the Catholic Church founded by some of Jesus' original disciples?"
Well, not exactly. The Roman Catholic church claims that Simon Peter was the first pope, and that all subsequent popes are his direct successors. But I wouldn't think that the earliest Christians would have had so much organization.
If I am remembering my Church history correctly, Peter can be verified (through external, secular contemporary documents) as the first bishop of Rome, thus, since the bishop of Rome is today the head of the Catholic Church it can be said Jesus' apostles founded the faith. However, that is not evidence of "so much organization," because, in the very early Church the bishop of Rome was not regarded as its supreme leader; he was just one of many bishops, Church leaders in areas with large concentrations of Christians.
Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
Which was one of the excuses used by Henry VIII for splitting from the Catholic churuch, ie. that the Pope had exceeded his authorities and impinged on those of the secular princes. He produced documents (of somewhat dubious origin, it must be said) allegedly from a medieaval pope telling the king of England that affairs within his own realm were his problem, not the Pope's.
quote: I am always amused when Protestants I know claim adamantly that Catholics are not Christians
I think that what people are refering to when they do this is the whole salvation through faith alone thing. Catholics believe salvation is through faith joined with good works, protestants (most, anyway)in salvation through faith alone.
quote: If this is true, what about if closely related siblings were allowed to marry, but not allowed to have children? Would there be anything fundamentally wrong with that? (Outside of "Ewwwwww, that's sick", obviously.)
Ewwwwww, that's sick. Legally, the answer would have to be; wait for a test case.
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
*raises hand* Episcopalian. But also thoroughgoing free-thinker. I don't accept anything just because someone in authority tells me that's the way things are. I test the validity and applicability of everything (religious and secular) that gets handed to me.
I have to say, though, that I'm quite impressed with your school. It's only been in the last couple decades that I've seen even the slightest relaxing in popular culture (by that, I mean anything outside of the narrow focus of an academic or religious field of study) to begin to accept questioning of such heretofore basic, unquestioned tenets. Maybe there's something to this "Age of Aquarius" hokum after all... *heh*
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: I'm worse than that: My sister I were disowned for not subscribing to the Baptist faith.
How much does a subscription to the Baptist faith cost?
In Georgia, it costs a total denial of common sense, refusal to believe that anyone except baptists could go anywhere except hell in the afterlife, and possibly some snake handling.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
Which is EXACTLY like homosexuality and the will of God as stated in the Bible. People may act in a self-destructive way without knowing or believing that that way of life is self destructive. The only difference between the scenarios is that you personally acknowledge the incestuous abusive relationship to be damaging, but you don't recognize a homosexual one as such. If you believe that they are, the two are perfectly analogous.
I do realize that is what it may seem from your point of view. But I have not seen any real-world evidence in which gay relationships are self-destructive (other than ways in which unhealthy straight relationships can be as well). Care to provide some?
Was that intended to be a joke, or are you making a serious point? I'm lost.
I can go over it more slowly if you like. 1. You're saying if you want it badly enough, you can make yourself gay. 2. Historically, western society and religion have been heavily against homosexuality, as they are today. By societal pressures I mean the pressure to have a boyfriend/girlfriend, to get married, and to have children. 3. I'm saying since these pressures have been in place for the longest time, what makes one WANT to be gay, if we are all born straight?
You know, the arguments on this board alone should hint at the unreliability of language as a method of communication. How do you expect to understand the true meaning and intention of someone speaking thousands of years ago in a different language when we don't even fully understand each other?
Sure, sure, you're gonna say, "because the Bible was divinely inspired." I think I'm going to answer my own questions from now on with what I predict you'd say, just so you'd say something different. I have no doubt the Bible was divinely inspired, just as I have no doubt Conversations with God was divinely inspired, or the Koran, or the Bhagavad Gita. But I wouldn't take any one of them literally and without question because they all have had human filters. That is, the people who wrote them are limited by the context of the world and culture in which they live, whereas God is not limited by such contexts. People today are being inspired by God still, but if somebody came out and said she wrote "The Bible 2", would people go and take every word of it literally because it was "divinely inspired"? Hardly. But would they look over it and see if there are good things in it? Probably. What makes a divine inspiration different just because it happened thousands of years ago? What makes the writers different? Maybe the only difference is that the distance allows us to not see them as human anymore.
posted
If the letters of Paul are 100% divinely inspired, then Yahweh really does want women to wear hats and stay silent in church.
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