I told you, there is a cure for homosexuality.

I'm atheist now, but as a former believer, I find this bullshit attempt at redefining what Paul said as not referring to homosexuality ludicrous beyond belief. Romans 1 is just one of the three places where Paul condemned homosexuality. Dismiss Paul, call Paul irrelevant to Christianity, or say that Paul's words aren't relevant to modernity, but don't try to twist what Paul said to be the exact opposite. That's just bullshit. I'm not impressed by mental gymnastics and the ability to turn oneself into a pretzel to get the results one wants.

 

How then do you account for the fact that slavery wasn't ended until Christianity ruled the day, and Protestant Christianity at that? How is it that slavery of others was considered moral in every civilization prior to ours, and is still practiced in China, India, and the Middle East to this day?

You'll have to show me in the Constitution where it says that. I've read it several times and this is a new section I'm unfamiliar with. Our founding principles were all based in Christianity or at the least Deism, and natural rights, which I'll get to in the next section.

This isn't right. Much of the justification for the Enlightenment came from what has been termed Biblical humanism, the idea that humans have rights and not governments thanks to the widespread availability of the Bible in local languages rather than in Latin and limited to monks and bishops. It was only with the printing press that people discovered that the Catholic church had been lying to them for 1000 years about what the Bible actually said. As for "coming up" with a justification for authority and law, natural rights are quite an ancient idea, dating back to before Socrates. So they were not a creation of the Enlightenment, even if the Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke resurrected the idea for political purposes. But the Enlightenment thinkers did not base their beliefs on positive law or positive rights as you seem to suppose here. The legitimate authority of government coming from the consent of the governed originated in the idea that human rights, natural rights, came first, before the existence of government.

Protestant Christianity has served the West well for nigh onto 500 years now, no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, or try to reinvent the wheel. We know what morality Christianity stands for, and it serves others just as well as it serves the West, in Africa and Asia. Catholic Christian countries do worse than Protestant ones, primitive religion countries do worse still, and Islamic countries do the worst of all. Officially atheist countries have all been communist before this point, so it's hard to judge how a capitalist but atheist country will do, but with atheism seems to come a dismissal of the rights of man as irrelevant, so I'm not hopeful.

 

Nice diatribe there but you missed my point entirely.

 

Was there one? And by whoes authority were such edicts given. If there is no God then there is no legitimate moral authority to tell me how i should behave.

 

What does slavery have to do with God being "necessary" to come up with morals ? The Bible was perfectly ok with slavery in any case ?

The first amendment - and the founding principles. At least according to the founders !

I am pretty sure you do not realize what you are arguing- at least I hope not. You are arguing for Theocracy - law made on the basis of religious belief / where the authority of some leader or Gov't comes from God. This is not how our system works. The whole point of "secularism" and the point of the Classical Liberalism and to the founders - was to come up with a justification for the authority of Gov't that was not "Divine Right". That was the whole purpose of the exercise.


So to the first amendment -

Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any Manner contrary to their conscience.-- James Madison, explaining to Congress during the House Debate what the First Amendment means to him, 1 Annals of Congress 730 (August 15, 1789), That his conception of "establishment" was quite broad is revealed in his veto as President in 1811 of a bill which in granting land reserved a parcel for a Baptist Church in Salem, Mississippi (directly above this entry)

"NO LAW on the basis of religion" Period.

If you read the Declaration of Independence it is talking about what constitutes legitimate Gov't authority. Individual liberty is put "Above" the legitimate authority of Gov't. In other words - Gov't is not to make any law messing with individual liberty - never mind law on the basis of religious belief. Jefferson echos this point.

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82

The idea that the founders wanted theocracy - authority for Gov't and law on the basis of religious belief is simply false:

Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82

Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.
-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88 ) , from Adrienne Koch, ed, The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 258

As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?-- John Adams, letter to FA Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816

When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.-- John Adams, from Rufus K Noyes, Views of Religion, quoted from from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

 

What point was that pray tell. I addressed what you said .. and the point you were making .. and it was nonsense.

 

Why don't you give us a credible source as to the actual percentage. And just because some gays manage to appear and function as heterosexuals doesn't actually mean the are no longer homosexual, Just that they have donned the mask that lets them survive in our homophobic society.

 

The point is if there is no God, no person or groups of persons has any authority over anyone else period. Any person or ir groups of people who trys to assert such authority are just a bunch of tyrants.

 

Often I find these arguments there’s no morality can exist without ‘The Word of God’ contain a hidden confession. Theres that nasty scenario that without the threat of eternal damnation monsters are unleashed. How so many prelates have managed over the centuries to dismiss this threat is fascinating. Many who appear to live by religious hypocrisy, priestly pedophiles for example, simply aren’t turned (or tempted?) unless they feel an overpowering sense of ‘naughtiness’, so overpowering it operates as an aphrodisiac. Having witnessed the goings on behind the scenes for 11 years at a Catholic cathedral I’m fairly certain this was the prevailing psychology. As I’ve said previously here, don’t come the nonsense Satan is to blame.
It doesn’t wash.

 

Hell is a place designed to contain and punish Satan. It was never intended for human habitation.
That said God allows an alternative for people who don't want to spend eternity with Him.

 

Now that’s a new twist on Christian theology requiring further explanation.
Did he tell you one on one or are you referencing scripture? I’m intrigued.

 

Biblical scholarship like other disciplines grows and changes as other information is added, it does not stay still. So while you are entitled to your opinion, that is all it is.

 

So you're atheist yet still a fundamentalist? Interesting.

 

False. There are all sorts of involuntary behaviors there is an entire science based on the study of said behaviors.

Examples of involuntary behaviors is flinching at a startling sound, jerking your hand back when being pricked by a needle.

 

I don’t think that’s what’s being said here. It’s a simple case of an atheist having an opinion about the authenticity of part of the New Testmanent.
It’s only when true believers become dogmatic scripture is the Word of God when they fall on their faces.

 

If that was homosexuality why isn't it more common?

I see it as more of an issue with America's extremely litigious nature.

 

He's being pretty dogmatic.

 

Maybe so. Sometimes assertions need to be preceded by ‘as far as we know’ or ‘all the evidence suggests’. However we do know the Bible is a peculiar case. A collection of often unrelated tomes handed down via mistranslation, omissions and downright forgeries and that’s before the early Church of Rome got it’s hands on it. From my perspective the Bible can only accepted with varying degrees of certainty and/or un-certainty. Any dogmatic claim either it’s the Word of God or that sections as we have them today are untouched since the claimed author penned them are no more than wishful thinking.

 

Can we get back to the fairies?

 

That wouldn't make the statement any less fundamentalist.

From my perspective you can take the Bible however you want.

 

You obey the law because it is the LAW...not because your pastor says you should.

And have you ever heard of Hammurabi's Code?

 

Why does the law have authority to tell me what to do?
Hammurabi code? What gives that any authority. If there is no God society and its laws are meaningless who is society to tell me what to do?
There is mo good or bad so there can be no greater good, no common good.
If there is no authority murder is the same value as love.
Society cannot legitimately come up with it's own values force them on everyone.
If there is no God then everything is arbitrary.

 

Oops, sorry didn't mean to have sex with you it was just a reaction.

 

From mine it’s an effective way to begin to understand Western history and politics but not so much from what’s contained within but from what people believed it said.

 

No you have a pre concieved idea of what you want it to say, then twist it around to make it say what you want.