Gay Marriage views at Apolyton

[CharlesBHoff]

Originally posted by Spiffor

That confirms my point about persecution. When the church is persecuted, the members adhere to their faith. When the church becomes wholly integrated into the state, people fall away when the props are kicked out. That is what we are seeing in Europe right now. The props are being kicked out, and people are falling away.

Yeah right. There were many more Christians among the population back when Christians were fed to the lions, in comparison with when Christianty was enforced.
And we all know Christianty is much more persecuted in the US than in Europe, which is the obvious reason why so many people are flocking to it

Christian arenot being persecuted in america. There are some minister in jail for doing criminal act. There is than minister in jail for rapeing than woman of than other religion. He is in jail for criminal rape not because he is than christian.

[Az]

Interesting, historical accounts suggest that if Constantine had not converted and the Edict of Milan not put in place when it had, the Christians would have been exterminated within 10 years. It was that close.

Warm up the time machine, here I come.

[Ben Kenobi]

I used to be on your side of the issue, but unfortunately I opened mind. Look what has become of me. Close your mind before they get you too!

If your mind was open, why is it now closed?

I'm not afraid to listen to opinions different to mine, since that is how I bacame a Christian in the first place.

[Ben Kenobi]

Ned:

I have critiques for each study. I am refraining from clicking on the link that says critiques, as a test of my own reasoning.

Each index case and his cotwin were given a Kinsey rating from 0 (exclusive heterosexuality) to 6 (exclusive homosexuality), although the precise method by which these ratings were obtained is, again, unclear.

Again, this is problematic, because you may say two twins are 'homosexual', but the meaning is unclear of what precisely makes one homosexual.

Now for the second example:

12 index cases were obtained.

That is too small a sample to derive any meaningful data.

Now from the third study:

Recruitment was through advertisements placed in homophile publications in several cities in the Midwest and Southwest of the United States.

Which, of course, is going to unduly bias your sample.

The third study, even with the biases, does not show a 1:1 correlation as found in the second study, but rather,

29/56 (52%) 12/54 (22%)

The fact that not all of the monozygotic twins showed a similar affinity, demonstrates that homosexuality is not genetic, but is rather influenced by environment.

[Ned]

Schwarznegger opposes constitutional amendment! "Gay marriage is a state issue."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/03/02/GOVERNOR.TMP&type=printable

[Ben Kenobi]

Che:

Where did I say Constintantine was forced? Rather I said when he seized control, HE FORCED the Roman Empire to convert, on pain of death. I was wrong about Constantine, however. It was a later emperor who forced the Roman Empire to convert or die.

Thank you for your first admission.

Secondly, was the penalty death for all those who did not want to become Christians? You have not provided any evidence supporting your argument.

[Ben Kenobi]

While your sources conveniently ignore the forced converstions following the converion of the leaders, however.

I provided one source that directly refuted your claim that people were forced to become Christians in England, that rather they were inspired to become Christians along with their liege. This implies voluntary and not coercive action.

As for your marriage being or not being valid. There was a time when men could do just that, grab a woman and claim her as his wife.

And why do we not do so now?

But people can be forced to believe things. Free will isn't as free as people like to think, and social pressure is very powerful in forcing people to conform.

Yes, but social pressure is an entirely different scope than promising to kill those who refuse to join a religion. You are making the latter claim, and not the former, so don't shift goalposts on me.

[Ben Kenobi]

There were many more Christians among the population back when Christians were fed to the lions, in comparison with when Christianty was enforced.
And we all know Christianty is much more persecuted in the US than in Europe, which is the obvious reason why so many people are flocking to it

First of all, that is not my claim. Anyone can point and say that there were many more Christians in the 9th Century than in the First or Second. However, that was not my claim. My claim is that the church grew fastest when persecuted.

Now, let us suppose we have a function. If we start at 0 Christians, and jump to a million or so, that is a huge jump in proportion. Let us suppose we have y representing time, and z representing the number of Christians, for a graph of the number of Christians over time.

The number that pertains to my argument is going to be d'd(y) or the first derivative of the function of y, or time.

Again, I would argue that under the persecution of the Roman Empire, you would have the most rapid growth in Christians.

[Ned]

Theodosius had a very hard time even convincing the Romans to abandon paganism. He was largely unsuccessful. There was no question as to executing anyone.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

I provided one source that directly refuted your claim that people were forced to become Christians in England, that rather they were inspired to become Christians along with their liege. This implies voluntary and not coercive action.

The fear of being put to death could be a great source of Inspiration

[Ben Kenobi]

The best description if you want to get historical is slavery of a woman to a man.

Let us take this argument, and go along these lines. Why should a gay man have a right to another man's pension, just because they are married? Surely the one man is merely the property of the other.

Therefore I abandon that and say that marriage is what it is to the beholders, in other words, the would-be weds.

Whaleboy:

Do you believe that the state should be involved in marriage? If not, why should they accord benefits to married people?

As far as the state is concerned therefore, it is nothing more than a contract, and that surely comes under freedom of association.

Again, if you go down this line, why should the state provide benefits to a private association? Marriage is not a private association, because it requires witnesses in order to confirm that a marriage has taken place. No witnesses, no state recognition, hence no private association.

I can find no logical barrier to gay marriage, nor would I want to.

Why don't you want to? What is so frightening about considering the opposite side?

[Ben Kenobi]

The fear of being put to death could be a great source of Inspiration

As could social conformity, or heavens, genuine religious faith! Without evidence, your claim has no merit.

[Agathon]

Well, it took him a while, but our friend Fred at the Westboro Baptist Church has weighed in on the issue.

Surely you will condemn him Ben.

[Ben Kenobi]

Bigotry implies an abense of respect. How can I possibily respect someone who believes in something so utterly foolish as a belief in something completely intangible, which they only believe in because they were convinced as to its existence by someone else.

Stop yourself Che. I believe you have just called yourself a bigot, under your own definition. You admit an absence of respect for those who believe in something intangible.

I admit, that it is not as firm, as the rocks that we kick, but if you start getting into metaphysics, you will realise, just how little of the truth that you see with your eyes, or feel with your hands.

Do we feel atoms? Yet do we not rigidly insist upon their reality? What about electrons, even though the best theories can only represent them as a cloud of probability?

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

As could social conformity, or heavens, genuine religious faith! Without evidence, your claim has no merit.

Of course the source of Inspiration could be everything.
But to say "they were inspired" therefore also doesn´t exclude the possibility that some of the leaders gave their peasants the choice to either believe in the right God or to die