Gay Marriage views at Apolyton

[Ben Kenobi]

Anyway, 100% of Americans have a psychological disorder or some kind.It's just that 95% of them believe in invisible friends in addition to any other problems they might have.

100% of the people have psychological disorders?

Well, if religious belief is a mental problem, one can only speculate as to which mental problems communists are afflicted.

[Ben Kenobi]

Naturally, I was only including the religious people who think that marriage must be defined as being between a female and male humans

Yeah, it's a mental problem called common sense.

[Ben Kenobi]

Bennie refuses to respect gays,

So to respect someone, I must agree with everything they do? That's a pretty narrow definition. By that definition, I don't agree with everything Catholics do, does that mean I do not respect my girlfriend, who is a Catholic?

[Uncle Sparky]

bananas need love too !!!

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Well, if religious belief is a mental problem, one can only speculate as to which mental problems communists are afflicted.

Well I have a messiah complex.

[Caligastia]

Heh, I like your new avatar Che.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by MrFun
Bennie refuses to respect gays, and you refuse to respect non-bigoted religious people -- it's hard for me to pick which one is more evil.

You don't chose to be gay, but you do chose to believe in grown-up Santa Claus. I see no reason to respect someone who believes something so silly as an invisible spirit which loves you, made you, but can't be detected and will torture you for all eternity if you don't love him back.

On top of that, you only believe it because some shepard 5,000 years ago said its true. Well heck, shepards 5,000 years ago believed a lot of crazy things. Why pick one shepard over another? Because he wrote it down? Because a group of religious fanatics seized control of the most powerful empire in the West and forced everyone to believe on pain of torture and death?

Yeah, I'm gonna respect that. You and Ben are both crazy.

[Elok]

These are the sort of questions that really make me appreciate America's religious freedom; what would I do if I couldn't thank God for the banana option?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Caligastia
Heh, I like your new avatar Che.

T'anks!

[Ben Kenobi]

On top of that, you only believe it because some shepard 5,000 years ago said its true.

Not that long ago, Che. If you are referring to Christ, he's a carpenter, not a shepherd.

Why pick one shepard over another? Because he wrote it down?

No, because of the resurrection.

Because a group of religious fanatics seized control of the most powerful empire in the West and forced everyone to believe on pain of torture and death?

After kicking the *** out of believers for 3 centuries?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Not that long ago, Che. If you are referring to Christ, he's a carpenter, not a shepherd.

It starts with Abraham

No, because of the resurrection.

Which you only believe in because someone told you it happened.

After kicking the *** out of believers for 3 centuries?

Irrelevent. At the time the Christians seized control of the Empire, it was still a minority religion. It only became the majority because it outlawed all other religions. If they hadn't done that, there's a good possiblity we'd be Odinists or Wiccans or some other pagan religion.

[Caligastia]

It's not a matter of believing in God, it's a matter of knowing him.

[Elok]

How would an omnipresent being be anything but invisible? If He were visible, you couldn't tell, because you'd never have been able to see any space that wasn't occupied by God. God could "look" like something we regard as just an aspect of light itself. And interestingly enough, I don't think the Bible ever says God is the one doing the torturing. He is said to send people to a place of torment, but that torment could easily be self-inflicted.

Think about it. Suppose you had a deadbeat son. He lounges around the house all day pulling pranks on his brothers, he refuses to work or help around the house, he swears at visitors, and no punishment or reasoning can get him to change. What do you do? Forcibly prevent him from being a heel? You can't do that forever, and a life of forced good behavior is not a kindness. Neither is it fair to let him keep making everyone else in the house miserable. The best option is to boot his butt out of the house until such time as he learns to behave himself and decides he wants to. Then he can come back. He'll probably screw his life up plenty and make himself thoroughly miserable in the interim, but there's nothing else you can do without taking away his freedom or feeding his disease. And that, I think, is Hell.

It might also be why the kid isn't allowed to see his father, to extend the metaphor. We have a bad tendency to see God as a big brother spoiling our fun, and one of the messages of Christianity is that a lot of our "fun" was never that fun to begin with. An obvious God can be resented and fought. This way, even a nonbeliever can decide to get his life in order on his own, then surrender his pride after he's learned how useless it really is.

[Thorn]

Although Elok your defination of hell is closer to the true one, the problem with Christians both Protestant and Catholic is that they are both from the same roots. The Catholic Church in its effort to gain power has warped what Jesus has said.... to the point that Jesus is frustrated with both of these groups. Looking at Heresy texts such as the Gospel of Thomas give a more accurate view of what Jesus said and wanted. No where is homosexuality discussed by Jesus.

And if you recall the passage in the bible about "a man lying with another man is an abomination" this entire section was an outline for a certain sect of Jewish Preists only, so keep things in context please. Unless you practice what you preach, not eating pork...etc.....

[Chemical Ollie]

Legalize Apolygamy!