Answered Questions Re: Miss California

[Rubystars]

1. Jesus wanted us to love one another as we do ourselves, and that is the point I was trying to make. He shunned the Pharisees and broke bread with those that society shunned, which I'm sure included a homosexual or two (although as it's been said, Jesus never came out and was quoted *in the Bible* as mentioning the gays specifically).

He loved people regardless of their sins.

2. Not even the 10 Commandments mention homosexuality. (Maybe Moses *did* drop the tablet with rules 11-15?)

It does say to honor your mother and father, not your mother and mother, or father and father. However you're right that it doesn't mention homosexuals in those 10 in any direct fashion.

3. The Old Testament Rules of Leveticus (among others) were voided after Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. (Which is nice, because now I don't have to sacrifice doves or sheep to atone for my sins.)

Or follow 613 mitzvot.

4. I've said it before and I'll say it again here. It is up to my husband and I to uphold the sanctity of our *own* marriage, same as it is with everyone else's. I am not threatened by what my neighbors do in their bedrooms, gay OR straight, and you shouldn't be either.

If only they would keep it in the bedroom!

There, I've said my piece, and now I'm going away for the weekend. Have fun, everybody.

Have a nice weekend.

[Rubystars]

Ok, so to sum it up, your religion says homosexuality is wrong. Right?

Right

Now what about this question: are you ok with people forcing their religions on other people?

I don't believe in forced conversions of anyone. In the context of this conversation you probably mean something different though. If you mean to say that I'm forcing my religion on other people by wanting to keep gay "marriages" from being officially recognized, then I would counter that by saying that I'm not saying for gay marriages to be banned. I just don't want official recognition of them. I don't see how that's forcing anyone to follow my moral codes. It's just saying that I don't want my government to reflect the moral codes of the homosexual lobby.

[Rubystars]

That's getting to be a minority opinion.

I'd consider anything Homo erectus and later to be human in the sense of being intelligent and able to communicate ideas through speech. I guess it really depends on where you draw the line, and yes, it's an arbitrary one really. You could easily make an argument for saying Australopithecines were human because they walked upright.

Genetics have shown the modern man shares very little in common with neanderthals. Their complete lack of symbolic representations and art suggests that they were fundamentally different and less sapient than us.

Different in many ways, yes. Less sapient? I don't know if I believe that. I guess we'll never know for sure unless we find a population of them somewhere still alive.

There was this "flute" though that was found:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divje_Babe

I think there was also evidence that they did begin to make ornaments, but this was after the arrival of modern humans into Europe, so they may have been copying them after they saw it and liked it.

Also there's no evidence that we did anything actively to push them to exinction. It could have been the extreme climate change to which they couldn't adapt rather than the age old killer ape theory of human development.

They were outcompeted, at least I think that's what happened. I don't think there was any real active genocide. It's sad they're not around anymore though. I think it would be neat to have more than one species of human around.

[Rapscallion]

I'm probably not completely innocent of the first one. I do try to not go off on a limb too much though. As for the second one, I do believe in free choice and free will. I'm not going to force people to follow my religion.

The bit that interests me is that you say you're not completely innocent of the first bit - the pick'n'mix religion part I mentioned. You said that elsewhere in this thread as well.

Why should you choose the gay-prohibition laws instead of the non-shrimp-eating laws (or whichever ones you don't follow)? What's the difference?

Rapscallion

[Flyndaran]

I believe it was a supreme court justice that said marriage is a civil right. He may have been talking about old laws forbidding interractial marriage, but it is perfectly aplicable to gay marriage.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

The distinction between the two sides which I think is quite important is that Ruby sees gay marriage as a condoning of homosexual behavior and therefore an immoral thing to do.

The fact of the matter is that not only have politicians and other influential people already weighed in on the matter by both condemning and condoning homosexuality, but Ruby and the rest of us don't see the current situation the same way.

Ruby sees it as neutral because Ruby doesn't believe there is inequality.

We see the deprivation of the, while not essential per-se, perfectly justified right for people to marry whomever they love enough to wish to. The current system oppresses and condemns gays by placing them at a legal disadvantage.

What we seek is a system that neither condemns nor condones anything, but rather allows for people to live their lives as they see fit on equal footing.

I'm going to go back to semantics for a moment, to point out that should we use the 'different phrase or word' for gay marriage, there would need to be a massive overhaul of any an all laws that take marriage into account so that they also take homosexual unions into account. And since separation is inherently unequal, it only makes sense to redefine legal marriages as being between two consenting adults and not necessarily two opposite genders.

You have every right to refer to homosexual unions differently, and to teach other people to follow your example. But using a definition-based argument to justify depriving homosexuals is incredibly nonsensical. Definitions change just as culture has changed which must in the natural course of history has brought religion to change with it.

IMO most Christians feel deprived lately not because they're losing equality, but because the judeo/christian belief system is losing absolute dominance, something that is incredibly bad for equality (the dominance, that is)

This country needs to be from a legal standpoint totally blind to as many arbitrary things like race, and sexual orientation as possible. There's no reason to stop gays from marrying unless you think that they, either inherently or through their actions are less human than heterosexuals. The kind of persecution and bigotry this country has waged wars to end.

[the_std]

Conservatives would consider wide acceptance of homosexuality as being harmful in its own right. However what we're really debating here is whether gay marriage ought to be made official by government recognition. I'm not looking to "outlaw" gay marriage ceremonies, although I don't agree with them.

You missed a word. I said "prove". You offer no proof.

[Rubystars]

do honestly believe it wasn't that way in the 50s? crime was rampant in the large urban areas like new york, chicago, and l.a. there are always going to be some areas that have higher crime than others no matter what decade you look in, even within the same city. i grew up in houston, in the pasadena area to be exact. i know how high crime was there. then i moved to katy. not so much crime.

I answered this one but I don't think I answered the actual questions in the post. I just responded to the part about Katy vs. Pasadena. Sorry. I'm actually getting an Excel spreadsheet to list each post and the post numbers I responded to them with so that I can try to make sure I've covered all my bases here.

Yes I believe that the 50s were in general a safer time than decades after the 50s. However if crime is going down again, then that's of course a good thing. I hope it stays that way and goes even further down. I don't really trust the idea that it is just as safe now as it was then though.

[Rubystars]

That is a very valid reason to consider it invalid. If you cannot prove that something is harmful, there should be no law against it. Period. How is that even a debatable point?

Conservatives would consider wide acceptance of homosexuality as being harmful in its own right. However what we're really debating here is whether gay marriage ought to be made official by government recognition. I'm not looking to "outlaw" gay marriage ceremonies, although I don't agree with them.

[blas87]

I pick and choose. Some years, I observe Lent. Others, I don't.

I couldn't pick what to give up this year, so I said F it.

[Rubystars]

So... you get... to pick and choose which to follow? So you've picked the parts which appeal to you, and discarded that which doesn't, since you don't need to follow every letter?

I'm probably not completely innocent of it, but I try to be consistent for the most part. I don't think that Gentiles are under the restrictions of halacha (Jewish law). I explained some of this in another reply I did on this thread with a scripture. I think it was my reply to Rapscallion.

I stopped being Christian when no one could ever give me straight answers. Absolutely no wackiness at all. Just a belief system that seemed patently absurd at the most basic level.

I've heard of that happening a lot too. I've even had trouble getting answers for my questions. Ironically enough sometimes it was non-Christians that I got more information from. I like to ask questions on some Jewish message boards because they often have very deep knowledge of their parts of the Bible. For NT of course I have to try to find Christian sources and that's not always easy for the kinds of questions I ask.

[BroomJockey]

Most of the atheists I've spoken to were former Christians who were exposed to some really wacky people growing up that turned them off to religion for good..

I stopped being Christian when no one could ever give me straight answers. Absolutely no wackiness at all. Just a belief system that seemed patently absurd at the most basic level.

[Flyndaran]

Most of the atheists I've spoken to were former Christians who were exposed to some really wacky people growing up that turned them off to religion for good. I don't really blame them for feeling that way, considering the kind of weird stuff that I heard people saying when I have attempted to go to church.

That's belittling thier beliefs.
To most of us atheists ALL those religious beliefs are wacky.

I was a born atheist born to two loving liberal christians. My atheism has nothing to do with what I was told about religion. It comes from a complete inability to believe those fanciful stories. I was six when I realized that adults actually believed all the stuff they told me in sunday school. It wasn't just a game of make up silly stuff.

[Rubystars]

I'm trying to get to everyone's posts so if I don't reply right away then don't think I'm ignoring anything. There's just a lot to reply to.

[Rubystars]

Funny. Though I don't think atheists can be created.
They are either born like me, or come to that conclusion after educations.

Most of the atheists I've spoken to were former Christians who were exposed to some really wacky people growing up that turned them off to religion for good. I don't really blame them for feeling that way, considering the kind of weird stuff that I heard people saying when I have attempted to go to church.