Zapp Brannigan
Captain of the Nimbus
Biblical teachings and religion in general discourage critical thinking. That's why they're bad for you.
Why is religion and the bible always holding our society back?
- Thread starter Sensitive Blake Griffin
- Start date
Is that so?
Brown_Pride
All Star
this is the importance of the seperation of church and state.
The concept of marriage is legal in nature.
Then there is a RELIGIOUS concept of marriage. While they share the same name they are not the same thing.
For instance, there are not tax implications from the church angle, while legally marriage has ramifications.
For that reason I support gay marriage. The church, as a private entity, can choose who it wants to allow to ceremonially be joined in the eyes of God.
The state should not be afforded the right to prevent equal protection under the law to people for any reason.
Churches can continue NOT allowing gays to be married in their churches.
I don't get all the fuss TBH from christians. My experience is "the word" marriage upsets them
What's sad is if you change the word "marriage" to civil union, then, again in my experience, most "religious" people don't care...
Most people are reasonable when you speak to them BTW. I usually provide the scenario of a lesbian couple living together for 50 years and then having one get sick and the other not being able to make medical decisions. For some reason people relate to this. Those that don't are in a small minority of irrational people.
there is much to be said of fear and its ability to control people.
Exactly.. if these folks didn't have their holy book telling them what to do they'd actually have to use critical thinking skills and examine their beliefs, which would ultimately lead to them supporting gay marriages if logic and critical thinking are correctly applied... I'm astonished that logic classes aren't a required course for high school students in America.
the bible is NOT the government. Ergo it's not religion hodling us back but the government.
I agree, but wouldn't you say fear is the main reason (or at least one of the main reasons) people bother with religion at all? Fear of death, fear of going to hell, fear of displeasing god, fear of being ostracized for by family, etc. That was really the only reason I did as a kid anyway. Sometimes I wonder what percentage of people only follow a religion because they're scared they might go to hell if they don't.
If you didn't believe in heaven/hell, etc., would you still be a believer?
Granted, it's human nature to be scared of death (and other things), regardless of religion, but it seems like religious systems in particular tend to use a lot of scare tactics to gain followers.
yeah....
they really aren't being shat on. Regardless, It really doesn't matter what the hetros think or feel if the gays have equal rights with unions.
They are different. Whether the behavior is accepted or not, whether it's cool or weird. It is different regardless of wedding rings.
If gays received equal rights with unions there would be no real issues other than them wanted to have the traditional title of marriage... Why would you want a traditional title if you're not following the tradition of that title?
It's unnatural. Might produce a child that's fukked up.. Violates the purpose of us being the type of animal that needs parental guidance for much of our life
What difference does this make? They should be treated equally, and the best way to do this is by not singling out their marriages.
Nonsensical argument.
K, I can go with this. But suppose the couple had a situation where it was 100% impossible for them to reproduce. Would you still be against the union?
Don't know what this means. Translate. English, please.
No the best way to do this... the best way is for them to be allowed to live together, for them not to be denied employment and social advancement due to the mental defect, for them to be able to enjoy a life partner and get tax breaks, and adopt children(even tho I'm not 100% decided on this). You don't need to have the title labelled marriage to have all this sh1t. They can't really be married anyway. There's a TS that lives by my mom. His man refers to him as she, she did this, she did that. U can call sh1t what u want that doesn't make it so, that is a man not a woman. Marriage has been what it is for 15k+ years.. Now we r pretending to only be seeking to do the equivalent of calling an apple a nomayo- which really doesn't affect what an apple is; when truthfully we want to keep calling apples apples and also call bananas, oranges, and grapes, apples as well.
I thought a fruit analogy would be appropriate. Only in the sense that mental disorders are natural because they occur in nature. I guess I mean uncommon, counterproductive to our species, and an invalid glitch in our evolution that isn't check or naturally selected out due to perpetuation of our culture.
Yes, unless the mother only met the son at random, they started fuking without knowledge of them being motherson.
Reason for this is, son's naturally have a sexual attraction towards mothers at some point in their life, especially if they breastfeed (even if it's subconscious)- it's part of development and building the ability to trust and have future relationships with women. mom might take advantage of the very thing that prevents men from becoming serial killers. The mother can't be prevented from exploiting that and/or training the son to like her. Plus the mother obviously is dealing to mental issue for even wanting the relationship so she can't be trusted not to have brainwashed the son.
Also, this would leave the door open for Man daughter relationships. And we all know that men are lecherous creatures by nature.
some animals do not care for their young. Our parent or caretakers are there because we are born helpless. Their job is to nurture until we can take care of ourselves... not to fuk us.
Brown_Pride
All Star
I'd say yes it is. I came to terms with how i was turned on to god a long time ago and have learned that what is important is my relationship with him now. I can't honestly say how i'd be if not for the initial "fear" of it all. Now though, i'm not a believer because of the fear, that I can honestly say.
Proverbs 1:7 "fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom"
turns out this is true, but it is only the beginning. There's so much more to it. Anyone staying out of fear IMHO has missed the whole boat.
Weren't the Egyptians religious, what about so many other civilizations? History is embroidered with examples of human advancement in the pursuit of God. For all your talk about science, you and everyone who dapped up the prior post aren't embarking on any sort of scientific analysis. It's just an exercise in circularity. You're so anti-religion that you subscribe to the conclusion most palatable to your perspective and justify it with the same assumption you seek to prove This specious reasoning only appeals to those whose own internal biases reverberate to the same tune.
Did religion harm MLK's, Malcolm X's, Kant's, Descartes's, etc., abilities to critically think?
You assume that religion is what leads to bigotry in regards to things like same-sex marriage. Yet, homophobia and anti-homosexual attitudes have permeated throughout the world for much of the past 2,000 years regardless of what religion people adhered to and even in cases where the religion does not even specifically address homosexuality or where the society is not all that "religious" at all in the traditional sense. Homosexuality was outlawed in China until somewhere in-between 1997 to 2001 if I remember correctly.
64% of Hong Kong does not practice any religion and I'm pretty damn sure (last I checked) they still have not been willing to go forward with same-sex marriage.[/B] Then, you make the unsubstantiated claim that applying the proper logic would necessarily result in greater support for same-sex marriage as if there is a set criteria of evaluations that people must make, or will make. Consistent adherence to religious practice has dropped all over Europe yet only 8 countries fully recognize same-sex marriage and they usually settle on alternative civil arrangements. The argument is not this simple, but you're agenda had you wedded to making it so.
The same religion that justified it was used by MLK to argue against it, that was part of the brilliance in the arguments in the Letter from Birmingham. [/B] The principles underlying Christianity were used to encourage intellectuals to think critically and to reevaluate conventional wisdom about social structures and the law. It woke people up to the fact that there was another way to live. Religion will always have inherent organizing ability and the potential for mass mobilization, but what it is mobilized for and against, is not apparent. It is determined by the zeitgeist which underlies the usage of those Holy texts. At times cultural norms and bigotry become so ingrained and intertwined with a segment's religious orthodoxy that they are no longer discernible. Do not mistake that for inherent traits.
Zapp Brannigan
Captain of the Nimbus
Look how brave you are with all your straw men to address my one-lined response!
History would have made its advances regardless of whether or not all of these people believed in god. They didn't need it then, and they don't need it now. They pursued what they wanted to and if they didn't have a belief in god they would have thought of some other reason to justify their efforts to further human advancement. You speak as if these ancient people wouldn't have had any motivation whatsoever if they didn't have their religious beliefs to devote time to technology, philosophy, etc. On top of that? Where was "all my talk about science" in this thread? I just said that religion stifles critical thinking - which it does. When you're asked to accept a truth based on zero evidence outside of assertions and holy text, you're encouraging a culture that purposefully stifles critical thinking.
In addition, people don't have to be embarking on scientific endeavor in order to understand how religion harms people. That's not a good counter argument.
The extremely different people that you list achieved what they had in spite of religion, not because of it. They also believed in very different versions of what god is and to assume that they're agreeing with your idea of what god is is quite a stretch. Furthermore, their philosophies about equality and the way the world works aren't all entirely based around a deep rooting in religion, so to act like they were is really disingenuous.
Yes, religion does lead to bigotry in regards to same sex marriage. Just because other parts of their world may have developed other reasons to stifle human rights doesn't mean that religion isn't guilty of the same crime. Pointing a finger and saying, "See? See? He's a bigot, too!" Doesn't make the original bigot any less of a bigot. Those other bigots have just found some other way to justify being bigoted toward the gays - it certainly doesn't mean that religion doesn't stifle critical thinking. In addition, just because people all over the world discriminated against gays regardless of their religion doesn't make me any less correct about this. In addition, the drop in practicing in overall religion seems to have quite the interesting relationship with the rise in acceptance of gay rights.
You keep putting words in my mouth that I'm not saying, but hey, let's address yet another one of your straw men that you somehow gleamed from my one line response in this thread. You assert that the same principles that supported things like Jim Crow and slavery were borne out of the same source that argued against it. To this my question is: why play it out like that? Why go through the hassle of including the holy books and holy men and not just engage the issue directly than use a time-draining, logic filtering medium like the bible in order to justify everything that they do? The only thing people do when you pass it through a medium like that is take the quotes that support their position to begin with and apply as much leverage, influence, or force to get what they want anyway.
40% are agnostic/atheists and that number goes lower and lower the further amount of years you go back. China had sodomy laws, it wasn't illegal to be a homo and that law was repealed in 1997 not enacted in 1997. It's CLEAR that religion does lead to bigotry, just go read posts by Mowgli and other evangelicals on this forum. All I gotta do is take one peek at my facebook news feed. It doesn't matter if Europe has a greater number of atheists/agnostics.. the majority of the people are still religious, especially politicians who control the country because as we all know, if you're an atheist there is no fukking way in HELL you're going to get into public office.
You can't tell me religion doesn't hinder peoples abilities to critically think when I personally know religious people who are OTHERWISE intelligent, vehemently denying evolution (and other scientific theories) based on their beliefs. No logic or science involved. Just because you give examples of people who are intelligent and religious doesn't mean anything. I'd argue that if the ancient philosophers were around today, they'd be atheists because they'd be the scientists and theoretical physicists of today.
Homphobia is a very new phenomenon dude. The word homosexual wasn't even used until the late 1800s and originated in Germany if memory serves me correct. Let alone "2000" years ago. 2000 years ago people weren't defined by their sexuality. They were defined by their family and class.
Human advancement has absolutely nothing to do with god, and everything to do with science, mathematics and physics. Why aren't science, mathematics, physics and logic the religion of our species? Don't you think that would be the best direction our society could take?
Look, biases aside, it's fukking 2013 god damnit, if you still believe in organized religion you're a fukk tard of monumental levels.
No the best way to do this... the best way is for them to be allowed to live together, for them not to be denied employment and social advancement due to the mental defect, for them to be able to enjoy a life partner and get tax breaks, and adopt children(even tho I'm not 100% decided on this). You don't need to have the title labelled marriage to have all this sh1t. They can't really be married anyway. There's a TS that lives by my mom. His man refers to him as she, she did this, she did that. U can call sh1t what u want that doesn't make it so, that is a man not a woman. Marriage has been what it is for 15k+ years.. Now we r pretending to only be seeking to do the equivalent of calling an apple a nomayo- which really doesn't affect what an apple is; when truthfully we want to keep calling apples apples and also call bananas, oranges, and grapes, apples as well.
But why call it something different when it's exactly the same in every other way except the gender. You're the one calling apples nomayos. Would you have advocated calling interracial marriages nomayos as well? It was different from the "traditional" idea of marriage too.
Well, even if you call homosexuality as a mental disorder, persons with mental disorders can marry.... so what are we talking about? Its not counterproductive to our species because homosexality has always been a part of our species. It's not like this will increase the amount of gays and eventaully lead to the end of homo sapiens. There will still be straight people that marry, and make babies. This does not affect them!
You still didn't explain why you'd be against the relationship, only that some woman might be able to force her child to fall in love with her .... which I don't even know that's true. So you think if incest is allowed, every mother would want to fukk their kid? You lost me on this point. Pull up some facts that this is actually possible, then I'll entertain it.
Again .... prove that someone can make their child fall sexually in love with them when they reach adults, and maybe I'll agree with you.
Sure, but we're not talking about a mother having sex with her underage son. We're talking about two fully grown people going into marriage.
On a five second skim, this is a very random post. Number 1, I didn't put a single word in your mouth. You said religion hinders critical thinking, I just said that it is not necessarily true. You asserted matter-of-factly that it does. That's about as much your post that was relevant to what I said. The rest was responding to Blake. But within that 5 second skim I saw ridiculous arguments and misusages of terms like "straw man." The worst part is that your ending question was some shyt like, "but why filter it through a religious prism", as if there is something inherently wrong with that if you reach the same result and you're using it as part of a logically coherent and well-structured argument. Why base something on democratic principles alone, or on a particular economic belief system or ideals of justice...because they are analytical devices that people find useful. Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, etc. Abiding by those religions has never stopped any of my friends from being completely logical and highly intelligent. It never stopped the Greeks, Romans, Sumerians and Egyptians. It sounds like you guys have superiority complexes.