Christian business owners . . .

[Kidlicious]

Insurance companies love paying for useless unnecessary treatments. /sarcasm

They don't like to, but they end up doing it to a certain degree.

[giblets]

Medicine is also different because success can be measured. How do you measure the success of religious scholars?

It's impossible to check the accuracy of someone's religious beliefs.

[Kidlicious]

It's impossible to check the accuracy of someone's religious beliefs.

And that's why you should trust someone who's success you can estimate, and not someone's who's success you can't estimate.

And why would God depend on scholars to deliver his message? Did Jesus send a scholar to the woman at the well?

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'd concede that when we're talking about science. Maybe History, But never for literature or the Bible.
I've known too many authors that laughed at what the "EXPERTS" were saying what they thought the Author meant.
I think the bible is in the same category.

Regardless of random authors laughing, I'd much rather listen to literary experts than random folks opining about works, who may put Meyer's Twilight on the same level as Rushdie's Midnight's Children. Same goes for art, for that matter.

[Kidlicious]

Regardless of random authors laughing, I'd much rather listen to literary experts than random folks opining about works, who may put Meyer's Twilight on the same level as Rushdie's Midnight's Children. Same goes for art, for that matter.

But what you're saying is that if some homeless guy explained the Gospel to you and it made complete sense to you, and the world's leading scholar explained the Gospel to you and it made your head spin, that you would believe the scholar. What a bunch of horse ****!

[Elok]

MrFun:

How many right-wing Christians do you actually know, that you can analyze what they really think? I imagine for some of them it is simple hate. For others, it's more complex. Yes, you have effectively won--you're on the downhill slope with momentum on your side. Full protections are now a matter of time. I don't know about gay teenagers in general, but in my county the kids are really quite pro-gay. I've gotten reactions ranging from an eye-roll to angry denunciation on the odd instances when kids thought I was expressing disapproval of homosexuality. The culture is essentially won by your side. The climax is past; all that remains is the long resolution.

Martin Luther King is not relevant to this situation. There is no gay Jim Crow, nor ever was AFAIK. That is, there is no elaborate structure of discrimination meant to keep gay people down as a group. At present, IIRC, you guys are actually wealthier and better-educated on average than the general population, mostly due to the lack of kids. The very nature of your community is different from a racial group like black people; your numbers are kept stable at something like 2% of the population by a fairly random selection of the population happening to produce gay offspring. It's not always possible to tell a gay person from a straight visually. And so on. There are lots of reasons why the parallel, while valuable to your side for propaganda reasons, simply doesn't make sense.

[giblets]

And that's why you should trust someone who's success you can estimate, and not someone's who's success you can't estimate.

And why would God depend on scholars to deliver his message? Did Jesus send a scholar to the woman at the well?

Good question. Why would God depend on a collection of ancient books assembled by scholars to deliver his message?

[rah]

Regardless of random authors laughing, I'd much rather listen to literary experts than random folks opining about works, who may put Meyer's Twilight on the same level as Rushdie's Midnight's Children. Same goes for art, for that matter.

It wasn't random, it was the actual author of the book that we were discussing in our class. And it was just an example of how no matter how much the experts studied it, it was only their opinion and had nothing to do with what the actual author meant. Most are pretentious bores.

Art experts. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
Only in terms of identifying, beyond that, all crap.

[Lorizael]

My philosophy professor (one of the leading philosophers of aesthetics in the US) would probably disagree you.

[rah]

He might be just a tad biased in the matter.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It wasn't random, it was the actual author of the book that we were discussing in our class. And it was just an example of how no matter how much the experts studied it, it was only their opinion and had nothing to do with what the actual author meant. Most are pretentious bores.

Art experts. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
Only in terms of identifying, beyond that, all crap.

Yes, "random authors". Thanks for once again making an anecdotal evidence into your entire basis for something and for continuing to foster anti-intellectualism. I'm sure that sort of attitude has had no effect on what we think of people who study things in detail...

[MrFun]

MrFun:

How many right-wing Christians do you actually know, that you can analyze what they really think? I imagine for some of them it is simple hate. For others, it's more complex. Yes, you have effectively won--you're on the downhill slope with momentum on your side. Full protections are now a matter of time. I don't know about gay teenagers in general, but in my county the kids are really quite pro-gay. I've gotten reactions ranging from an eye-roll to angry denunciation on the odd instances when kids thought I was expressing disapproval of homosexuality. The culture is essentially won by your side. The climax is past; all that remains is the long resolution.

Martin Luther King is not relevant to this situation. There is no gay Jim Crow, nor ever was AFAIK. That is, there is no elaborate structure of discrimination meant to keep gay people down as a group. At present, IIRC, you guys are actually wealthier and better-educated on average than the general population, mostly due to the lack of kids. The very nature of your community is different from a racial group like black people; your numbers are kept stable at something like 2% of the population by a fairly random selection of the population happening to produce gay offspring. It's not always possible to tell a gay person from a straight visually. And so on. There are lots of reasons why the parallel, while valuable to your side for propaganda reasons, simply doesn't make sense.

Does the severity, or level of systematic discrimination have to be exactly the same from one instance to another, before we can make any comparisons, or make parallels?

Before the momentum of gay civil rights movement picked up in 1970s, underground clubs where gays frequented were raided by police. Just merely being gay made you out to be a criminal because of anti-sodomy laws. Murders of known gay people were not investigated or taken seriously. These are just two examples.

No where have I argued that there is a Jim Crow level of discrimination against LGBT people, but the right-wing reactionaries continue to stigmatize, stereotype, and dehumanize LGBT people and in fact, LGBT people today continue to suffer real life discrimination and harassment.

[Lorizael]

He might be just a tad biased in the matter.

Well, one of the things he might say is that authorial intent is not the end all be all of analyzing a work. This is true both in a very simple sense ("I hated that book!") and in a more philosophical sense (see Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote).

[Kidlicious]

Yes, "random authors". Thanks for once again making an anecdotal evidence into your entire basis for something and for continuing to foster anti-intellectualism. I'm sure that sort of attitude has had no effect on what we think of people who study things in detail...

Which disciple was the intellectual?

[giblets]

Which disciple was the intellectual?

Was it the one who committed suicide in two different ways?