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On October 23 2013 04:26 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +But I think another strong point comes from the ST:voyager episode "Death Wish": Imagine you have every puzzle solved, every mathematical theorem proven, thought of every possibility. Wouldn't the existence as an all-powerful being not be boring? How couldn't it be.
Boredom is the necessary corollary of being in possession of an active nature, disposed to mutation and movement. These dispositions in their turn are the necessary corollaries of deficient perfection. You do not have to look to God to find an absence of boredom. Merely take any object immutable and immortal by its nature: rocks, dirt, mother-in-laws, etc.
fair enough. But non-active entities rarely create universes 
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On October 23 2013 04:32 Hryul wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2013 04:26 MoltkeWarding wrote:But I think another strong point comes from the ST:voyager episode "Death Wish": Imagine you have every puzzle solved, every mathematical theorem proven, thought of every possibility. Wouldn't the existence as an all-powerful being not be boring? How couldn't it be.
Boredom is the necessary corollary of being in possession of an active nature, disposed to mutation and movement. These dispositions in their turn are the necessary corollaries of deficient perfection. You do not have to look to God to find an absence of boredom. Merely take any object immutable and immortal by its nature: rocks, dirt, mother-in-laws, etc. fair enough. But non-active entities rarely create universes
Oh, fine. Let me try again, although I hate being long-winded:
The state of boredom is produced by the attribute of impatience, which is founded upon the temporal divorce between the reality of the present, and the possibilities of the future. If the sensation of time is felt by a sequence of changes, that which is immutable and immovable has no need of time, since neither advance nor retreat produces any alteration of state or essence. Furthermore, God, being eternal and omnipresent, is present simultaneously at all times. There is no black curtain which conceals from him the outcome of actions, or the destinies of quests. He is simultaneously present at every realised potential, and therefore cannot be bored. 
P.S. Why do you watch Star Trek Voyager at all?
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On October 23 2013 03:46 IronManSC wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2013 09:55 ETisME wrote:On October 22 2013 01:37 IronManSC wrote:On October 21 2013 23:49 ETisME wrote:
if you would describe Christianity as love, it is a selfish form of love that binds people to follow their rules and banish those who don't.
This is a shame because Christianity as a religion should be spreading love, instead of establishing what are right and wrong.
This is why I dislike religion as a whole.
They started with a very good intention: bring people together, form what's good for the society, teaches love and peace and forgiving EVEN to those that are born in a harsh environment and receive no education.
But now they are just degraded themselves further with arrogance, ignorance, power corrupted etc.
This is what happens when Church has too much wealth and power. Not every church is like this. I know mine isn't. Please don't generalize and say that all Christian churches are bad now. You just haven't been to a good church yet. Of cause, I am sorry if I offended anyone. But it's my belief that if the church remains in a structural order, such as the core church saying gay marriage is not acceptable, no matter what teachings there are,the church has failed to set an example of understanding and loving because it sets command of the fellow Christians to follow their decision. The church is not about tolerance, or as people say, "live and let live." It's not about accepting the sinful lifestyle of another being. We can understand the sin, relate to the person in that area, and cope with it, but we can't just accept it and leave it that way. The church - the Christian life - is about changing lives. God changes your life if you allow him, and it's a good change. James 2:14-16 says, "What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, 'Goodbye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well'--but then you don't give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?" Although this is more in line with expressing your faith in love to others, I do like to correlate this verse to changing lives as well within the church. If you're not helping someone become a better Christian, what was the point of inviting them to church? Give a man a fish and you've fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you've fed him for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, many Christians and churches are not very smooth and gentle about loving another person. Many are forceful, condemning and judgmental, and... "banishing" like you said. 2 Timothy 3:5 says, "they will act religious, but will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!" It may have to do with the area I'm in or perhaps I'm just lucky with the churches I've attended, but I haven't seen or witnessed a church be like that. The ones i've been to were very loving and hospitable. I've seen those attitudes in certain individuals from time to time, but not in churches. But like I said, that may have to do with the area i'm in or if I'm just lucky with finding the right church that my girlfriend and I currently attend. On account of God changing lives, most people think it's a bad change, or simply just an outward change, like giving up certain hobbies or other "fun" things (parties, etc), prohibiting certain things in sex, and a few others. One person told me before, "the Christian life is boring, you guys have no fun." It's really not about that. Of course we have fun. It's about getting to know your Creator and letting him work through you to display his love to other people. Change comes inwardly by the working of the Holy Spirit, and he does all the work. Your outward change is a gradual process and happens for the rest of your lifetime. Your perspective on life becomes more in line with God's (you think and see certain things the way that he does with the Holy Spirit's help). What you do on the outside stems from the inward change. This is called 'Sanctification', which is becoming more and more Christ-like as life goes on. It's not vice versa like many people presume: that when you become a Christian you have to "behave." I think a lot of people forget about that part.
There is literally no way to reconcile a good Creator (who created homosexuals) with the explicit forbidding of any and all homosexual actions, given that homosexuality is equivalent in every sense to the sexuality of heterosexual people, just with inverted targets. If homosexual sex is so sinful, then why the fuck would God make homosexual people to begin with? We're not talking like some tiny, dysfunctional minority group with associated pathologies, like pedophiles, or something. We're talking about people who are exactly the same as everyone else except they happen to be sexually attracted to a different gender. Why is it okay for a woman to feel attracted to a man but suddenly wrong when a man experiences the exact same thing?
Before you can reject "sinful lifestyles," you have to actually prove that they're sinful, which means that you have to prove that they are somehow immoral lifestyles or resort to a "God said so in the Bible" approach, which fails on account of the fact that the Bible is not a philosophy textbook, not concerned with making specific ethical commands (i.e. stuff other than universal like love your neighbour) to the 21st century, and, perhaps most importantly, not actually written by God.
placing the blame for the wrongs of Christianity at its structure really is a ground upon which a lot of Christians set off their apologia ("it's not Christianity that's wrong, it's the Church!")
Well, what do you want them to say? When someone tells me about the Westboro Baptist Church, I'm not guilty by being in the same category of religious affiliation (i.e. Christian). I don't think many people really object to the key tenets of Christianity, honestly, because many are purely theological (and have no ethical relevance to a non-believer) whereas others are basically just pretty obvious, broad ethical dictates like "do unto others" and so on. Given the nature of the early Church, it's not picking and choosing to say that the letters of Paul, of all the books in the NT, need to be taken in context, because they were written specifically for a context (i.e. to a particular Church undergoing a particular crisis or asking a particular question). Paul did not sit down and compose a huge body of letters to be read for all time. We should not act as if he did.
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On October 23 2013 05:00 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2013 04:32 Hryul wrote:On October 23 2013 04:26 MoltkeWarding wrote:But I think another strong point comes from the ST:voyager episode "Death Wish": Imagine you have every puzzle solved, every mathematical theorem proven, thought of every possibility. Wouldn't the existence as an all-powerful being not be boring? How couldn't it be.
Boredom is the necessary corollary of being in possession of an active nature, disposed to mutation and movement. These dispositions in their turn are the necessary corollaries of deficient perfection. You do not have to look to God to find an absence of boredom. Merely take any object immutable and immortal by its nature: rocks, dirt, mother-in-laws, etc. fair enough. But non-active entities rarely create universes Oh, fine. Let me try again, although I hate being long-winded: The state of boredom is produced by the attribute of impatience, which is founded upon the temporal divorce between the reality of the present, and the possibilities of the future. If the sensation of time is felt by a sequence of changes, that which is immutable and immovable has no need of time, since neither advance nor retreat produces any alteration of state or essence. Furthermore, God, being eternal and omnipresent, is present simultaneously at all times. There is no black curtain which conceals from him the outcome of actions, or the destinies of quests. He is simultaneously present at every realised potential, and therefore cannot be bored. P.S. Why do you watch Star Trek Voyager at all?
Well then I would disagree with you on that. I would see boredom as the lack of interesting or meaningful activity to pursue. But you may be right that for an eternal being who knows all possible outcomes, maybe boredom is a void concept. So maybe I ran into my own trap.
But I still hope that my original point isn't void: I have yet to see a convincing argument that links such a deity to (human) morale.
And I don't watch VOY. I watched it as a kid because I liked TNG and DS9 and some episodes stuck to my mind. I tried to rewatch it a few months ago but found it unbearable. Esp. with the advent of the new Generation of series like BSG (that ending though  ), Sherlock or The Wire.
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On October 18 2013 14:06 koreasilver wrote:and: Show nested quote +It is NOT PATHETIC for religious people to retreat to reason. If nothing else, it is a healthy exercise. It is not pathetic to have broader horizons. So... creationist evolution, a.k.a. intelligent design is a healthy exercise? So is all the slippery sloppy "oh well you can't prove God doesn't exist...?" What? Are you still misreading what I was saying in that small post? I was simply saying that people that try to safeguard their faith by abusing the limits of knowledge and reason is misguided. Nothing against reason itself, just its application in some particular frameworks. God have mercy. So unless you were still misunderstanding me, I'm more radically atheist than you at the end of it. I'm going to bed before I suffer an aneurysm. At this rate when I wake up tomorrow samzdat will become an apologist for neoliberal capitalism and I'll start worshiping Platinga and Milbank. edit: And never did I say my problem was a retreat into reason itself, I was having a problem with people retreating to the limits of reason by proposing things like a God-of-the-gaps kind of thing. Which I state explicitly in that post.
I think I sort of agree. I don't despise philosophical arguments for the existence of God, or whatever, even though I think all of them (or almost all of them, anyway) are fundamentally unconvincing, but I do think that it's wasteful to define one's faith by way of said philosophical constructs rather than have faith as its own thing. The way I look at it, those arguments are useful in a sort of indirect way: they, perhaps to the mind of someone already convinced, or not, at least make it look like it's at least plausible that a God could exist. Yes, it's all very immature and about assuaging insecurities, and whatnot, but I've never met anyone without insecurities, and I don't think that wanting to have at least something propping you up a little on the side is so heinously awful.
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There is literally no way to reconcile a good Creator (who created homosexuals) with the explicit forbidding of any and all homosexual actions, given that homosexuality is equivalent in every sense to the sexuality of heterosexual people, just with inverted targets. If homosexual sex is so sinful, then why the fuck would God make homosexual people to begin with?
The most common fallacy people make is that if God is the cause of Good, and Good is the cause of evil, then God is a secondary cause of evil, and therefore cannot be purely benevolent. However, there is a difference between the necessary and sufficient cause here. If you take the position that evil is the deficiency of good, then God is only a secondary cause of evil, in the same sense that perfection is necessarily the cause of corruption. It is easy for poor logicians to make the equation therefrom that God = Evil, an equation which makes no more sense than Good = Evil.
Evil is merely a corruption of a thing from its proper purpose, or, to put it in metaphysical terms, the purely accidental cause without a final cause. If you accept those precepts, it is easy to work out a tenable position on homosexuality being sinful from there.
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Those precepts put a fairly burdensome restriction on the "power" of God though, so while It might not make sense to say that God created Evil, it certainly follows that he either allows it to exist or is unable to stop it.
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What particularly is your problem with the proposition that God allows it to exist?
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I have no problem with that whatsoever; those who take issue with the concept of God as it relates to Good and Evil most certainly will though.
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On October 23 2013 05:08 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2013 03:46 IronManSC wrote:On October 22 2013 09:55 ETisME wrote:On October 22 2013 01:37 IronManSC wrote:On October 21 2013 23:49 ETisME wrote:
if you would describe Christianity as love, it is a selfish form of love that binds people to follow their rules and banish those who don't.
This is a shame because Christianity as a religion should be spreading love, instead of establishing what are right and wrong.
This is why I dislike religion as a whole.
They started with a very good intention: bring people together, form what's good for the society, teaches love and peace and forgiving EVEN to those that are born in a harsh environment and receive no education.
But now they are just degraded themselves further with arrogance, ignorance, power corrupted etc.
This is what happens when Church has too much wealth and power. Not every church is like this. I know mine isn't. Please don't generalize and say that all Christian churches are bad now. You just haven't been to a good church yet. Of cause, I am sorry if I offended anyone. But it's my belief that if the church remains in a structural order, such as the core church saying gay marriage is not acceptable, no matter what teachings there are,the church has failed to set an example of understanding and loving because it sets command of the fellow Christians to follow their decision. The church is not about tolerance, or as people say, "live and let live." It's not about accepting the sinful lifestyle of another being. We can understand the sin, relate to the person in that area, and cope with it, but we can't just accept it and leave it that way. The church - the Christian life - is about changing lives. God changes your life if you allow him, and it's a good change. James 2:14-16 says, "What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, 'Goodbye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well'--but then you don't give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?" Although this is more in line with expressing your faith in love to others, I do like to correlate this verse to changing lives as well within the church. If you're not helping someone become a better Christian, what was the point of inviting them to church? Give a man a fish and you've fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you've fed him for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, many Christians and churches are not very smooth and gentle about loving another person. Many are forceful, condemning and judgmental, and... "banishing" like you said. 2 Timothy 3:5 says, "they will act religious, but will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!" It may have to do with the area I'm in or perhaps I'm just lucky with the churches I've attended, but I haven't seen or witnessed a church be like that. The ones i've been to were very loving and hospitable. I've seen those attitudes in certain individuals from time to time, but not in churches. But like I said, that may have to do with the area i'm in or if I'm just lucky with finding the right church that my girlfriend and I currently attend. On account of God changing lives, most people think it's a bad change, or simply just an outward change, like giving up certain hobbies or other "fun" things (parties, etc), prohibiting certain things in sex, and a few others. One person told me before, "the Christian life is boring, you guys have no fun." It's really not about that. Of course we have fun. It's about getting to know your Creator and letting him work through you to display his love to other people. Change comes inwardly by the working of the Holy Spirit, and he does all the work. Your outward change is a gradual process and happens for the rest of your lifetime. Your perspective on life becomes more in line with God's (you think and see certain things the way that he does with the Holy Spirit's help). What you do on the outside stems from the inward change. This is called 'Sanctification', which is becoming more and more Christ-like as life goes on. It's not vice versa like many people presume: that when you become a Christian you have to "behave." I think a lot of people forget about that part. There is literally no way to reconcile a good Creator (who created homosexuals) with the explicit forbidding of any and all homosexual actions, given that homosexuality is equivalent in every sense to the sexuality of heterosexual people, just with inverted targets. If homosexual sex is so sinful, then why the fuck would God make homosexual people to begin with? We're not talking like some tiny, dysfunctional minority group with associated pathologies, like pedophiles, or something. We're talking about people who are exactly the same as everyone else except they happen to be sexually attracted to a different gender. Why is it okay for a woman to feel attracted to a man but suddenly wrong when a man experiences the exact same thing? Before you can reject "sinful lifestyles," you have to actually prove that they're sinful, which means that you have to prove that they are somehow immoral lifestyles or resort to a "God said so in the Bible" approach, which fails on account of the fact that the Bible is not a philosophy textbook, not concerned with making specific ethical commands (i.e. stuff other than universal like love your neighbour) to the 21st century, and, perhaps most importantly, not actually written by God.
So you're asking me to prove what is sinful without saying that God said so? By definition, sin is an immoral act that's considered to be a transgression against divine law. In other words, doing anything contrary to the nature of God and what he wants for you is therefore sin in his eyes. To ask me to prove what is "immoral" is to resolve to only human reasoning. Every human being is sinful, so I don't depend on humanity alone to answer my questions. You would rather trust a sinful person to prove what is sinful over a divine God who has no wrong in him?
Assuming all you know are what people and the news likes to tell you, you can conclude that people are simply "born gay," but that's simply not true because otherwise their sexual orientation (or preference) would never change, ever, and yet they do change their preference all the time. There is no "gay gene." God does not create homosexuality. He doesn't create any sin, nor does he tempt us to sin, period. His plan for sex is clear: one man, one woman, sex within marriage. This is holiness to God and how he intended it to be because, perhaps, he knows it is the best way. It has always been that way in God's eyes. Everything outside of those bounds is sinful.
He creates the individual, but he did not create the homosexual behavior. That is something humans brought upon themselves due to many different reasons, whether they be personal, behavioral, or environmental. The Bible tells us that everything is permissable (allowable and lawful for me), but not everything is beneficial (good for me) -1 Corinthians 6:12. Until you live under the control of the Holy Spirit, everything will seem good to you but in the end it'll lead to death (Proverbs 14:12, by Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived). When you become a believer, you spiritually understand why it is wrong and not good for you. I cannot emphasize it enough that non-believers will never understand that kind of perspective unless they humbly accept Jesus.
From the very start of my blog I've been well aware that people will not fully comprehend the true Christian faith until they experience it themselves. Describing the presence of the Holy Spirit, faith experiences, and how he guides you is like trying to describe the color 'blue' to someone who's been blind from birth. I can tell you that it's blue, it's the color of the sky and the ocean, and many other things in life, but until you actually see it yourself, you won't know what blue really is.
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On October 23 2013 05:54 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +There is literally no way to reconcile a good Creator (who created homosexuals) with the explicit forbidding of any and all homosexual actions, given that homosexuality is equivalent in every sense to the sexuality of heterosexual people, just with inverted targets. If homosexual sex is so sinful, then why the fuck would God make homosexual people to begin with? The most common fallacy people make is that if God is the cause of Good, and Good is the cause of evil, then God is a secondary cause of evil, and therefore cannot be purely benevolent. However, there is a difference between the necessary and sufficient cause here. If you take the position that evil is the deficiency of good, then God is only a secondary cause of evil, in the same sense that perfection is necessarily the cause of corruption. It is easy for poor logicians to make the equation therefrom that God = Evil, an equation which makes no more sense than Good = Evil. Evil is merely a corruption of a thing from its proper purpose, or, to put it in metaphysical terms, the purely accidental cause without a final cause. If you accept those precepts, it is easy to work out a tenable position on homosexuality being sinful from there.
While I don't have a problem with the Augustinian approach to the question of evil per se, I think we at least have to problematize what "evil" is/means. I think the honest reader of the Bible will at least have to concede that God does what would very readily be described as "evil" or at the very least apathetic in a purely human way. Theologically we could easily sidestep and escape these problems by saying that the Good of God is of a utterly different sort than the human Good. I think the Augustinian formulation only works through a very particular set of presuppositions that wouldn't readily be accepted as axiomatic by an atheist, for example, and such theodical answers just don't have much value when talking outside of the broad orthodoxy. This is why apologetic theodicy has been such a cultural failure. What is understood as "good" and "evil" isn't nearly as simple as it may seem because it's so theologically loaded.
I personally think that we need to take the Left Hand of God a lot more seriously. And while I do like Augustine, I think the popular reception of the evil-as-the-privation-of-good formula obscures the problem of radical evil and the "demonic" (Patocka).
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On October 23 2013 06:14 IronManSC wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2013 05:08 Shiori wrote:On October 23 2013 03:46 IronManSC wrote:On October 22 2013 09:55 ETisME wrote:On October 22 2013 01:37 IronManSC wrote:On October 21 2013 23:49 ETisME wrote:
if you would describe Christianity as love, it is a selfish form of love that binds people to follow their rules and banish those who don't.
This is a shame because Christianity as a religion should be spreading love, instead of establishing what are right and wrong.
This is why I dislike religion as a whole.
They started with a very good intention: bring people together, form what's good for the society, teaches love and peace and forgiving EVEN to those that are born in a harsh environment and receive no education.
But now they are just degraded themselves further with arrogance, ignorance, power corrupted etc.
This is what happens when Church has too much wealth and power. Not every church is like this. I know mine isn't. Please don't generalize and say that all Christian churches are bad now. You just haven't been to a good church yet. Of cause, I am sorry if I offended anyone. But it's my belief that if the church remains in a structural order, such as the core church saying gay marriage is not acceptable, no matter what teachings there are,the church has failed to set an example of understanding and loving because it sets command of the fellow Christians to follow their decision. The church is not about tolerance, or as people say, "live and let live." It's not about accepting the sinful lifestyle of another being. We can understand the sin, relate to the person in that area, and cope with it, but we can't just accept it and leave it that way. The church - the Christian life - is about changing lives. God changes your life if you allow him, and it's a good change. James 2:14-16 says, "What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, 'Goodbye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well'--but then you don't give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?" Although this is more in line with expressing your faith in love to others, I do like to correlate this verse to changing lives as well within the church. If you're not helping someone become a better Christian, what was the point of inviting them to church? Give a man a fish and you've fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you've fed him for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, many Christians and churches are not very smooth and gentle about loving another person. Many are forceful, condemning and judgmental, and... "banishing" like you said. 2 Timothy 3:5 says, "they will act religious, but will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!" It may have to do with the area I'm in or perhaps I'm just lucky with the churches I've attended, but I haven't seen or witnessed a church be like that. The ones i've been to were very loving and hospitable. I've seen those attitudes in certain individuals from time to time, but not in churches. But like I said, that may have to do with the area i'm in or if I'm just lucky with finding the right church that my girlfriend and I currently attend. On account of God changing lives, most people think it's a bad change, or simply just an outward change, like giving up certain hobbies or other "fun" things (parties, etc), prohibiting certain things in sex, and a few others. One person told me before, "the Christian life is boring, you guys have no fun." It's really not about that. Of course we have fun. It's about getting to know your Creator and letting him work through you to display his love to other people. Change comes inwardly by the working of the Holy Spirit, and he does all the work. Your outward change is a gradual process and happens for the rest of your lifetime. Your perspective on life becomes more in line with God's (you think and see certain things the way that he does with the Holy Spirit's help). What you do on the outside stems from the inward change. This is called 'Sanctification', which is becoming more and more Christ-like as life goes on. It's not vice versa like many people presume: that when you become a Christian you have to "behave." I think a lot of people forget about that part. There is literally no way to reconcile a good Creator (who created homosexuals) with the explicit forbidding of any and all homosexual actions, given that homosexuality is equivalent in every sense to the sexuality of heterosexual people, just with inverted targets. If homosexual sex is so sinful, then why the fuck would God make homosexual people to begin with? We're not talking like some tiny, dysfunctional minority group with associated pathologies, like pedophiles, or something. We're talking about people who are exactly the same as everyone else except they happen to be sexually attracted to a different gender. Why is it okay for a woman to feel attracted to a man but suddenly wrong when a man experiences the exact same thing? Before you can reject "sinful lifestyles," you have to actually prove that they're sinful, which means that you have to prove that they are somehow immoral lifestyles or resort to a "God said so in the Bible" approach, which fails on account of the fact that the Bible is not a philosophy textbook, not concerned with making specific ethical commands (i.e. stuff other than universal like love your neighbour) to the 21st century, and, perhaps most importantly, not actually written by God. So you're asking me to prove what is sinful without saying that God said so?
Yes.
By definition, sin is an immoral act that's considered to be a transgression against divine law. In other words, doing anything contrary to the nature of God and what he wants for you is therefore sin in his eyes.
Well, I like to think God isn't a totally arbitrary imbecile who just randomly makes up rules for no real reason.
To ask me to prove what is "immoral" is to resolve to only human reasoning. Every human being is sinful, so I don't depend on humanity alone to answer my questions. You would rather trust a sinful person to prove what is sinful over a divine God who has no wrong in him?
Considering that if we could literally speak in an explicit fashion to an entity who had "solved" morality, as it were, the world would immediately become perfect, human reasoning is the best we've got. But beyond that, no shit you've gotta use human reasoning; whose else's have you got? Who do you think actually wrote the Bible? Do you think they didn't understand the words that they were writing? If they did understand, then understanding is within the realm of human reason. Even further beyond that, even if divine reasoning is more perfect than human laws, one would expect that it wouldn't totally contradict human law at a fundamental level.
I mean, even the Bible says "test everything; hold onto the good." You're basically saying the opposite. God gave you the ability to reason for a reason: because it's what makes you like God (in a fashion). If you want to live in a way that a deity would approve of, start by forming beliefs in a measured fashion. There's nothing wrong with believing in revelatory experiences, but only if they're confined to the mystical level. I absolutely reject the notion that God "tells" people how to make ethical decisions. In fact, there's no reason to suggest that such a notion has anything to do with the Bible, in large part.
Assuming all you know are what people and the news likes to tell you, you can conclude that people are simply "born gay," but that's simply not true because otherwise their sexual orientation (or preference) would never change, ever, and yet they do change their preference all the time.
What does this even mean? Even if (and I'm skeptical that this occurs--if it did, it's called being bisexual) people's "preferences" change, that in no way implies that sexual attraction to the same sex is any less real than sexual attraction to the opposite sex. It's not about there being a "gay gene," but there almost certainly are neurochemical variations which are associated with homosexuality vs. heterosexuality. It sounds like you have a naive understanding of the way genetics works if you think that there needs to be an explicit "gene" for every iota of a person's identity. Much in the same fashion that there is no "gay gene," there is no "straight gene."
There is no "gay gene." God does not create homosexuality. He doesn't create any sin, nor does he tempt us to sin, period. His plan for sex is clear: one man, one woman, sex within marriage. This is holiness to God and how he intended it to be because, perhaps, he knows it is the best way. It has always been that way in God's eyes. Everything outside of those bounds is sinful.
Best on the basis of what, though? Sure, maybe God does know it's the best way. But if he does, it shouldn't be a mystery; since it's a moral principle, it should be founded on logical reasoning (else it would be totally arbitrary, even on God's end) and therefore it should be at least somewhat accessible to human reasoning, even if some pieces are missing. But if you look at actual ethical philosophy, and science, and really the human understanding of goodness in general, homosexuality is just so obviously not an evil thing.
He creates the individual, but he did not create the homosexual behavior.
I consider my heterosexuality (and sexuality in general) to be pretty integral to my whole identity. I don't think I would be me if you removed my sexuality. In the same vein, creating an individual includes creating the sexual component of an individual.
That is something humans brought upon themselves due to many different reasons, whether they be personal, behavioral, or environmental.
So...as opposed to what, exactly? Literally everything any human being has ever done has been done for "personal, behavioral, or environmental" reasons. In fact, your faith is founded on one (or more) of these.
The Bible tells us that everything is permissable (allowable and lawful for me), but not everything is beneficial (good for me) -1 Corinthians 6:12.
This basically says you shouldn't treat your body as an object, because it's valuable. I fail to see what that has to do with homosexuality in particular; it seems like an argument against lackadaisical sex, more than anything. In what way are homosexuals disrespecting their bodies or treating their bodies poorly?
Until you live under the control of the Holy Spirit, everything will seem good to you but in the end it'll lead to death (Proverbs 14:12, by Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived).
On what do you base the bolded sentence? Also, the "control" of the Holy Spirit? Uh, I don't think God is really in the business of moving human beings around like chess pieces. Nor do I think it's impossible to distinguish good from evil without God telling me so; if that were the case, God did a pretty awful job with the invention of the mind.
When you become a believer, you spiritually understand why it is wrong and not good for you.
I am a believer. I, nevertheless, disagree with you entirely on the matter of homosexuality.
I cannot emphasize it enough that non-believers will never understand that kind of perspective unless they humbly accept Jesus.
That, first of all, is moronic, because it means that there's no actual reason to make some ethical decision over another. What do you think ethical decisions should be based on? Secondly, I'm a believer who has "humbly accepted Jesus" and, as I said, I don't "understand that kind of perspective" because I think it's wrong. Stop being so patronizing and condescending.
From the very start of my blog I've been well aware that people will not fully comprehend the true Christian faith until they experience it themselves.
I could say this exact sentence to you. Would it be meaningful if I did?
Describing the presence of the Holy Spirit, faith experiences, and how he guides you is like trying to describe the color 'blue' to someone who's been blind from birth.
Amusingly, this is a lot like a gay person trying to explain why they find the same sex attractive. They just do. Just like you "just do" find the opposite sex attractive. There's no choice involved in the attraction in that grand sense.
Your reasoning renders all moral philosophy totally irrelevant. Apparently you can only know that, say, murder is evil, if you believe in God, or read the Bible. But I mean, if that's your premise, it's not really worth actually discussing anything with you, since you've almost explicitly stated that God's decisions have nothing to do with anything even resembling logical reasoning.
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On October 23 2013 05:54 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +There is literally no way to reconcile a good Creator (who created homosexuals) with the explicit forbidding of any and all homosexual actions, given that homosexuality is equivalent in every sense to the sexuality of heterosexual people, just with inverted targets. If homosexual sex is so sinful, then why the fuck would God make homosexual people to begin with? The most common fallacy people make is that if God is the cause of Good, and Good is the cause of evil, then God is a secondary cause of evil, and therefore cannot be purely benevolent. However, there is a difference between the necessary and sufficient cause here. If you take the position that evil is the deficiency of good, then God is only a secondary cause of evil, in the same sense that perfection is necessarily the cause of corruption. It is easy for poor logicians to make the equation therefrom that God = Evil, an equation which makes no more sense than Good = Evil. Evil is merely a corruption of a thing from its proper purpose, or, to put it in metaphysical terms, the purely accidental cause without a final cause. If you accept those precepts, it is easy to work out a tenable position on homosexuality being sinful from there.
In what way is homosexuality a "deficiency of good," then? And give actual reasons that can be discussed, not just assertions or Biblical quotes. I don't think the Bible constitutes the sum-total of human knowledge, nor was it intended to; ergo, I think that the Bible should, at least, be broadly compatible with reason in its universals, and, with respect to things that proscribe interpersonal relations, should be absolutely connected to reason.
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I thought I killed this thread, but apparently, you guys just won't let up.
On October 23 2013 06:14 IronManSC wrote:
He creates the individual, but he did not create the homosexual behavior.
Somehow, I knew this was coming. I could see this coming for weeks or however long this thread has existed. I should've started a betting thread and see who could predict when the Christianity discussion would run into Homosexuality.
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On October 23 2013 10:43 ninazerg wrote:
Somehow, I knew this was coming. I could see this coming for weeks or however long this thread has existed. I should've started a betting thread and see who could predict when the Christianity discussion would run into Homosexuality.
The whole "God created everything ever except the things I don't like" always shows up.
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I think that the Bible should, at least, be broadly compatible with reason in its universals, and, with respect to things that proscribe interpersonal relations, should be absolutely connected to reason.
I apologise for not answering your question, I only have time right now to ask one of you:
Do you regard proper use of reason in a prescriptive or proscriptive role? Should a person act reasonably at all times, or is reason merely the instrument of preventing a limited set of actions/consequences?
In other words, is ethics for you a question of duties and obligations, or is it a question of understanding the limitations on natural freedom?
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On October 23 2013 23:42 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +I think that the Bible should, at least, be broadly compatible with reason in its universals, and, with respect to things that proscribe interpersonal relations, should be absolutely connected to reason. I apologise for not answering your question, I only have time right now to ask one of you: Do you regard proper use of reason in a prescriptive or proscriptive role? Should a person act reasonably at all times, or is reason merely the instrument of preventing a limited set of actions/consequences?
I'm not exactly sure what this means. Persons should act reasonably at all times; that doesn't mean every person should we making syllogisms in their head as they sing their infant a lullaby, though.
In other words, is ethics for you a question of duties and obligations, or is it a question of understanding the limitations on natural freedom?
Um, I think it's probably more the former, but it's also the latter. I'm not sure what "natural freedom" is. I think, in some senses, the two are the same thing. I am more or less a Kantian, if that helps.
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On October 23 2013 05:08 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2013 03:46 IronManSC wrote:On October 22 2013 09:55 ETisME wrote:On October 22 2013 01:37 IronManSC wrote:On October 21 2013 23:49 ETisME wrote:
if you would describe Christianity as love, it is a selfish form of love that binds people to follow their rules and banish those who don't.
This is a shame because Christianity as a religion should be spreading love, instead of establishing what are right and wrong.
This is why I dislike religion as a whole.
They started with a very good intention: bring people together, form what's good for the society, teaches love and peace and forgiving EVEN to those that are born in a harsh environment and receive no education.
But now they are just degraded themselves further with arrogance, ignorance, power corrupted etc.
This is what happens when Church has too much wealth and power. Not every church is like this. I know mine isn't. Please don't generalize and say that all Christian churches are bad now. You just haven't been to a good church yet. Of cause, I am sorry if I offended anyone. But it's my belief that if the church remains in a structural order, such as the core church saying gay marriage is not acceptable, no matter what teachings there are,the church has failed to set an example of understanding and loving because it sets command of the fellow Christians to follow their decision. The church is not about tolerance, or as people say, "live and let live." It's not about accepting the sinful lifestyle of another being. We can understand the sin, relate to the person in that area, and cope with it, but we can't just accept it and leave it that way. The church - the Christian life - is about changing lives. God changes your life if you allow him, and it's a good change. James 2:14-16 says, "What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, 'Goodbye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well'--but then you don't give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?" Although this is more in line with expressing your faith in love to others, I do like to correlate this verse to changing lives as well within the church. If you're not helping someone become a better Christian, what was the point of inviting them to church? Give a man a fish and you've fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you've fed him for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, many Christians and churches are not very smooth and gentle about loving another person. Many are forceful, condemning and judgmental, and... "banishing" like you said. 2 Timothy 3:5 says, "they will act religious, but will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!" It may have to do with the area I'm in or perhaps I'm just lucky with the churches I've attended, but I haven't seen or witnessed a church be like that. The ones i've been to were very loving and hospitable. I've seen those attitudes in certain individuals from time to time, but not in churches. But like I said, that may have to do with the area i'm in or if I'm just lucky with finding the right church that my girlfriend and I currently attend. On account of God changing lives, most people think it's a bad change, or simply just an outward change, like giving up certain hobbies or other "fun" things (parties, etc), prohibiting certain things in sex, and a few others. One person told me before, "the Christian life is boring, you guys have no fun." It's really not about that. Of course we have fun. It's about getting to know your Creator and letting him work through you to display his love to other people. Change comes inwardly by the working of the Holy Spirit, and he does all the work. Your outward change is a gradual process and happens for the rest of your lifetime. Your perspective on life becomes more in line with God's (you think and see certain things the way that he does with the Holy Spirit's help). What you do on the outside stems from the inward change. This is called 'Sanctification', which is becoming more and more Christ-like as life goes on. It's not vice versa like many people presume: that when you become a Christian you have to "behave." I think a lot of people forget about that part. There is literally no way to reconcile a good Creator (who created homosexuals) with the explicit forbidding of any and all homosexual actions, given that homosexuality is equivalent in every sense to the sexuality of heterosexual people, just with inverted targets. If homosexual sex is so sinful, then why the fuck would God make homosexual people to begin with? We're not talking like some tiny, dysfunctional minority group with associated pathologies, like pedophiles, or something. We're talking about people who are exactly the same as everyone else except they happen to be sexually attracted to a different gender. Why is it okay for a woman to feel attracted to a man but suddenly wrong when a man experiences the exact same thing? Before you can reject "sinful lifestyles," you have to actually prove that they're sinful, which means that you have to prove that they are somehow immoral lifestyles or resort to a "God said so in the Bible" approach, which fails on account of the fact that the Bible is not a philosophy textbook, not concerned with making specific ethical commands (i.e. stuff other than universal like love your neighbour) to the 21st century, and, perhaps most importantly, not actually written by God. Show nested quote +placing the blame for the wrongs of Christianity at its structure really is a ground upon which a lot of Christians set off their apologia ("it's not Christianity that's wrong, it's the Church!") Well, what do you want them to say? When someone tells me about the Westboro Baptist Church, I'm not guilty by being in the same category of religious affiliation (i.e. Christian). I don't think many people really object to the key tenets of Christianity, honestly, because many are purely theological (and have no ethical relevance to a non-believer) whereas others are basically just pretty obvious, broad ethical dictates like "do unto others" and so on. Given the nature of the early Church, it's not picking and choosing to say that the letters of Paul, of all the books in the NT, need to be taken in context, because they were written specifically for a context (i.e. to a particular Church undergoing a particular crisis or asking a particular question). Paul did not sit down and compose a huge body of letters to be read for all time. We should not act as if he did.
In what way is homosexuality a "deficiency of good," then? And give actual reasons that can be discussed, not just assertions or Biblical quotes. I don't think the Bible constitutes the sum-total of human knowledge, nor was it intended to; ergo, I think that the Bible should, at least, be broadly compatible with reason in its universals, and, with respect to things that proscribe interpersonal relations, should be absolutely connected to reason.
Um, I think it's probably more the former, but it's also the latter. I'm not sure what "natural freedom" is. I think, in some senses, the two are the same thing. I am more or less a Kantian, if that helps.
It should be fairly easy for a Kantian to see how homosexuality is a deficiency of good. One cannot perform homosexual behavior in a way that accords with the categorical imperative; there is no rationally universalizable maxim that allows one to perform homosexual activity ("everyone should have sex with people they're attracted to" "one should have sex without wanting to procreate" etc.).
In any case, your view of the issue is misguided because you view homosexuality as an integral part of identity whereas pedophilia etc is a disease. First of all, the idea that homosexuality really defines your identity is a totally modern creation; Greeks or Romans wouldn't define themselves in these terms, because homosexual behavior was not seen as central to your identity. God doesn't decide what traits people decide to see an integral to their identity, which means that there's no reason for God to make "parts of identity" morally uncondemnable as compared to "accidental behaviors" which he can condemn. There are no essential eternal lines that divide up identity and accidental behaviors, which means there is no way to construct an argument to say that identity, rather than accidental behaviors, cannot rightly be condemned by God (since there's no way to appropriately divide up these categories in the first place).
Moreover, you think that the fact that homosexual behavior is determined by physical factors means that it cannot be condemned (well, maybe you wouldn't go this far). It simply doesn't matter whether or not we have a physical explanation of some piece of behavior unless we've already got a moral philosophy in hand that explains what kinds of physical causes absolve us of guilt and what kinds don't. We can give a theoretically physical explanation for why a person murdered someone else, but that doesn't mean the murder has no moral significance. Given your espoused proclivity for moral philosophy, you ought to see that the question of whether determinism invalidates moral responsibility is very controversial, and in no way settles in such a way that "homosexuals can't be at fault because they are biologically different" simply has to be accepted by any reasonable moral philosopher.
You are very un-Kantian in your thinking. Kant makes a distinction between the rational moral agent and the contingent empirical agent who is subject to inclinations and desires. A rational moral agent simply must act in accordance with the categorical imperative, and it is not immediately clear that homosexuals really do that. Given Kant's broader views on sex and relationships, a lot of doubt is cast on the notion that a Kantian can really hold that homosexual behavior is morally acceptable.
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"Everyone should have the ability to individually determine whom they are attracted to and act on it accordingly."
That wasn't so hard.
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EPT
