In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On September 02 2015 22:00 SoSexy wrote: I got your point but I fail to understand how religious freedom would help their racism.
It's pretty common for leftists and others to disqualify people of faith by alleging their actions come from malice and not deeply held religious beliefs. Happened with Catholics and contraceptives, with this latest redefinition of marriage, even some with sex-ed. It's kinda an article of faith to go beyond criticizing the religion/religious sect to assaulting the motives of its practitioners.
For some additional reading, you can skim through to the pair of relevant sections in the DOMA decision in the opinion and first dissent.
Explain to me how someone following the bible in regards to gay marriage but then divorces and remarries 3 times is not a massive hypocrite and in fact take the "word of god" very seriously.
He isn't talking about this specific case. He is talking about some abstract, theoretical case that may or may not exist where faith is assaulted by leftist. Because if it is in the abstract, then there is no other motivation but religious freedom.
But of course at the end of the day, all these cases involve people. And the discussion of why they decided that birth control or gay marriage was the specific section of the bible they decided to care about is a totally valid discussion. There are a bunch of sections of that book most Christians ignore or just are not aware of.
These cases involve people, and people like you would have us believe that it is routinely out of bigoted malice that religious people object to participating in a gay marriage ceremony or redefining marriage to include two persons of the same sex. Scalia's on this page already was just on the previous page, so I'll bring up one quote from his dissent in Windsor:
In the majority’s telling, this story is black-and-white: Hate your neighbor or come along with us. The truth is more complicated. It is hard to admit that one’s political opponents are not monsters, especially in a struggle like this one, and the challenge in the end proves more than today’s Court can handle. Too bad. A reminder that disagreement over something so fundamental as marriage can still be politically legitimate would have been a fit task for what in earlier times was called the judicial temperament.
The hypocrisy is her refusing to let gay people marry in the name of preserving the holy sanctity of an institution that she shits all over in her free time.
On September 02 2015 22:00 SoSexy wrote: I got your point but I fail to understand how religious freedom would help their racism.
It's pretty common for leftists and others to disqualify people of faith by alleging their actions come from malice and not deeply held religious beliefs. Happened with Catholics and contraceptives, with this latest redefinition of marriage, even some with sex-ed. It's kinda an article of faith to go beyond criticizing the religion/religious sect to assaulting the motives of its practitioners.
For some additional reading, you can skim through to the pair of relevant sections in the DOMA decision in the opinion and first dissent.
Explain to me how someone following the bible in regards to gay marriage but then divorces and remarries 3 times is not a massive hypocrite and in fact take the "word of god" very seriously.
He isn't talking about this specific case. He is talking about some abstract, theoretical case that may or may not exist where faith is assaulted by leftist. Because if it is in the abstract, then there is no other motivation but religious freedom.
But of course at the end of the day, all these cases involve people. And the discussion of why they decided that birth control or gay marriage was the specific section of the bible they decided to care about is a totally valid discussion. There are a bunch of sections of that book most Christians ignore or just are not aware of.
These cases involve people, and people like you would have us believe that it is routinely out of bigoted malice that religious people object to participating in a gay marriage ceremony or redefining marriage to include two persons of the same sex. Scalia's on this page already was just on the previous page, so I'll bring up one quote from his dissent in Windsor:
In the majority’s telling, this story is black-and-white: Hate your neighbor or come along with us. The truth is more complicated. It is hard to admit that one’s political opponents are not monsters, especially in a struggle like this one, and the challenge in the end proves more than today’s Court can handle. Too bad. A reminder that disagreement over something so fundamental as marriage can still be politically legitimate would have been a fit task for what in earlier times was called the judicial temperament.
Again your turning things around. Believe it or not there is a difference between a bigot hiding behind pretend religion and a religious person opposing because of his belief.
This is clearly a case of the former and it is fairly common for people to hide behind something rather then be forced to express that their personal views are no longer deemed socially acceptable.
No one here is saying religious people are bigots. We are saying that bigots often pretend to be religious to hide themselves.
I think I understand the two perspectives here, but the bottom line here should be if your religion keeps you from doing your job, maybe you should quit. Like, you are allowed reasonable accommodations for religion, disability, etc, but if your religion and the basic duties of your job are so incompatible, well you need to quit your job. Or I guess you could quit your religion, but that would make you a shithead.
If you are a conscientious objector, it's fine to not join the army. But it's not okay to join the army, draw pay and benefits while refusing to be deployed or do your job in any way.
On September 02 2015 22:00 SoSexy wrote: I got your point but I fail to understand how religious freedom would help their racism.
It's pretty common for leftists and others to disqualify people of faith by alleging their actions come from malice and not deeply held religious beliefs. Happened with Catholics and contraceptives, with this latest redefinition of marriage, even some with sex-ed. It's kinda an article of faith to go beyond criticizing the religion/religious sect to assaulting the motives of its practitioners.
For some additional reading, you can skim through to the pair of relevant sections in the DOMA decision in the opinion and first dissent.
Explain to me how someone following the bible in regards to gay marriage but then divorces and remarries 3 times is not a massive hypocrite and in fact take the "word of god" very seriously.
He isn't talking about this specific case. He is talking about some abstract, theoretical case that may or may not exist where faith is assaulted by leftist. Because if it is in the abstract, then there is no other motivation but religious freedom.
But of course at the end of the day, all these cases involve people. And the discussion of why they decided that birth control or gay marriage was the specific section of the bible they decided to care about is a totally valid discussion. There are a bunch of sections of that book most Christians ignore or just are not aware of.
These cases involve people, and people like you would have us believe that it is routinely out of bigoted malice that religious people object to participating in a gay marriage ceremony or redefining marriage to include two persons of the same sex. Scalia's on this page already was just on the previous page, so I'll bring up one quote from his dissent in Windsor:
In the majority’s telling, this story is black-and-white: Hate your neighbor or come along with us. The truth is more complicated. It is hard to admit that one’s political opponents are not monsters, especially in a struggle like this one, and the challenge in the end proves more than today’s Court can handle. Too bad. A reminder that disagreement over something so fundamental as marriage can still be politically legitimate would have been a fit task for what in earlier times was called the judicial temperament.
As someone who is Christian, I always question when people use that religion as a method to deprive anyone of anything. That isn’t the way I was taught to practice. And to be honest, someone needs to go pretty far out of their way to justify using Christianity to deprive anyone of a right or some sort of benefit. You kinda have to want it.
Considering the poor form Scalia displays when he repeatedly insults his fellow justices, I don't think he's the best person to be making that point. It is a difficult question of fact to determine how much of the objection has its roots in bigotry, and how much in genuine religious belief, especially given how fuzzy the concepts involved can be. And the question of how one weights a belief that the person considers religious even if it does not in fact comport to what the religion says. Certainly, as very few admit to being bigots, most of the actual bigots would claim some religious or other basis for what they're doing; so it'd be rather hard to separate the two.
And with enough votes to secure the Iran deal, the GOP has successfully wasted a ton of time and energy fighting something that was destined to begin with.
On September 03 2015 01:05 Mohdoo wrote: And with enough votes to secure the Iran deal, the GOP has successfully wasted a ton of time and energy fighting something that was destined to begin with.
On September 02 2015 23:29 Plansix wrote:And the discussion of why they decided that birth control or gay marriage was the specific section of the bible they decided to care about is a totally valid discussion. There are a bunch of sections of that book most Christians ignore or just are not aware of.
On September 02 2015 22:05 Plansix wrote:People cited the Bible to justify the morality and legality of slavery. That book can be used to justify anything.
So I really don't mean to go after Plansix in particular, since I think we're at similar places on a lot of this stuff, but it's that point in the debate where the Bible guy has to point out that these cliches aren't really true.
Yes, if you take the fundamentalist position that "if the Bible says it, it must be true and valid" you end up having to pick and choose between all sorts of things. But if you really think you can quote any bit of scripture completely out of context and without reference to the overall narrative, you also end up thinking that "crucify him" (Mk 15.13 etc.) is also the "word of God." But no, obviously the Bible is a huge narrative, and each line has some purpose in that story.
Star Wars isn't ambiguous on atheism just because Han says "There's no mystical energy field controlling MY destiny" before saying "may the Force be with you." Those two lines are part of a character's progression from nihilistic ego-centrism to a religious and revolutionary faith.
In Christianity, the Bible is "Progressively Revealed." That is, humanity got to know God better progressively, with Jesus' life and teaching representing the culmination of that. The later letters show some acculturation away from Christ's message, and the struggle since then has been to fully comprehend what Jesus was on about. Most Protestants would see this continuing act of discovery/revelation in the Reformation, and most mainline Protestants would also see it in the Church's in-progress embrace of homosexuality.
TL;DR-- Bible is a story of humans getting to know God, not a rulebook.
YPSILANTI, Mich. — In June, Alice Newell’s doctor became alarmed by her ongoing weight gain and unhealthy eating habits. Joint and ankle pain had forced the 49-year-old nursing assistant to stop working more than a year earlier, forcing her to rely even more heavily — as financial stress so often does in America — on inexpensive foods loaded with calories, salt and processed sugars.
His solution was to write Newell a “prescription” for fruits and vegetables, enrolling her in an innovative program in which she could take the small form he provided to the local farmers market and receive $10 to spend there each week for 10 weeks. Before she receives the money, in the form of $1 wooden tokens, she must chat with a community health worker who marks down on her form how much fresh produce she ate the prior week and as well as her progress on her exercise goals.
“So you’re going to eat three cups of fruit and vegetables daily this week, right?” asks the health worker, Anne Davis, asks. “And how are you doing with your walking?”
“I’m up to an hour a day,” says a grinning Newell, shaking her head. “I can do that now. I already lost 10 pounds this summer. Ten to go!”
“You are doing awesome!” Davis beams back, handing over tokens that vendors at the farmers market accept as cash. “You’re doing so good!”
The Prescription for Health project, run by the health department in Ypsilanti, a city about 30 miles west of Detroit and funded by the Michigan-based Kresge Foundation, is one of a growing number of efforts around the United States to encourage low-income people to visit farmers markets in order to eat better. Typically started up as pilot programs offered and funded locally, this year they’ve earned the hearty endorsement of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the form of $31.5 million in block grants to communities in 26 states providing incentives for the poor to consume less junk food and more healthy fare. The money is part of about $100 million allotted in the Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive component of the 2014 Farm Bill, the rest of which must be distributed via grants through 2018.
“The more we connect households to healthier foods, the more it will result in improved health situations for those children and adults,” Agriculture Department Undersecretary Kevin Concannon said. “Foods like tomatoes and other vegetables have not been subsidized in this country, unlike corn or cotton or peanuts. The idea is to make it effectively more affordable for some households.”
New York City pioneered the concept a decade ago in a program called Health Bucks that give $2 in certificates to farmers market patrons for every $5 spent on fresh produce from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the funds commonly referred to as “food stamps.” Overall, shoppers spend more than $1 million in food stamps at farmers’ markets each year, unlocking an additional $400,000 per year in Health Bucks to spend.
Pardon me for ruffling feathers but there is an important aspect around where "sincerely held beliefs" and "delusions" overlap. Even if someone has a right to believe as they wish and choose whatever religion they'd like, it doesn't automatically make their beliefs more substantive than a schizophrenic's delusions.
We can find countless examples of what one "Christian" church teaches being considered heresy by another church. Even now, there is a schism forming within the Catholic church over whether priests can forgive abortion as a sin, despite the Pope making it clear.
Taking a delusion and plastering over it with loosely related biblically-based rationale doesn't make it not a delusion and painting over delusional hate and ignorance with a "sincerely held belief" in "God's authority" doesn't make it legitimate.
The lady should do her job or leave. People need to stop dragging their religion into their bigotry. Realistically and frankly people should take a long look at how children are indoctrinated with religion in the first place too.
Barack Obama closed out his visit to Alaska on Wednesday, promising to provide remote native villages with both 20th-century standards of flush toilets and sanitation and much-needed protection against the 21st-century consequences of climate change.
Ahead of a last stop in Kotzebue, a community of 3,000 north of the Arctic circle, the White House pledged $17.6m to help bring flush toilets and safe drinking water to 17 remote communities.
Obama also promised $2m, through the state’s Denali Commission, to help those remote coastal communities which have chosen to relocate because of climate change.
More than two dozen native Alaskan villages which are losing the land out from under them to coastal erosion and sea-level rise, are actively considering moving because of climate change.
The visit to Kotzebue would take Obama farther than any other president to a meeting with indigenous people on their home terrain. In Alaska, that often means conditions that would shock other Americans.
Preparations for Obama’s visit to Kotzebue, a native Inupiat community that ranks as a hub for north-western Alaska, involved hauling away 100 truckloads of rubbish and about 100 rotted cars that had been abandoned for decades, according to local press reports.
Even before he left the state, the president was winning praise for acknowledging remote Alaskan communities facing new challenges from a melting Arctic.
Robin Bronen, director of the Alaska Institute for Justice, which received some of the funds, said the money was an important first step to helping native Alaskans deal with the immensely daunting prospect of relocating from lands they have hunted and fished for, in some cases, thousands of years.
Until now, villagers were left on their own to plot their escape.
On September 03 2015 04:43 GreenHorizons wrote: Pardon me for ruffling feathers but there is an important aspect around where "sincerely held beliefs" and "delusions" overlap. Even if someone has a right to believe as they wish and choose whatever religion they'd like, it doesn't automatically make their beliefs more substantive than a schizophrenic's delusions.
We can find countless examples of what one "Christian" church teaches being considered heresy by another church. Even now, there is a schism forming within the Catholic church over whether priests can forgive abortion as a sin, despite the Pope making it clear.
Taking a delusion and plastering over it with loosely related biblically-based rationale doesn't make it not a delusion and painting over delusional hate and ignorance with a "sincerely held belief" in "God's authority" doesn't make it legitimate.
The lady should do her job or leave. People need to stop dragging their religion into their bigotry. Realistically and frankly people should take a long look at how children are indoctrinated with religion in the first place too.
Even more simply than this, religious beliefs have the same value as opinions. They shouldn't have some special status where people get to discriminate just because they are a religion.
Twelve Chicago residents, who have been on a hunger strike for more than two weeks to protest the closing of their neighborhood high school, plan to confront Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for a second time Wednesday night at a public forum on the city’s budget. Emanuel on Monday met privately with the strikers, who said the meeting accomplished little.
"He asked us to come off the hunger strike, and of course we said the only way we will is if we get what we want," said Rev. Robert Jones, one of the protesters, who has been drinking juice and water, but has had no solid food for 17 days.
Jones said that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Forrest Claypool did most of the talking during the meeting with Emanuel. "The mayor did not give much of a response personally," Jones added. "They did say they wanted to have this resolved in a couple days. So we will see."
By repeating their demands at the budget meeting, the strikers aim to put more public pressure on the mayor to act.
“We’re going to make it uncomfortable for him, and he’ll come to the table. He can only take so much public embarrassment,” said hunger striker Jeanette Taylor-Ramann, 40.
Ramann’s daughter Mikiya Coley, 13, recently graduated from Irvin C. Mollison Elementary School in the Bronzeville neighborhood in Chicago’s south side, a 20-minute walk from Walter H. Dyett High School, which the city closed in June. With the closest high school now closed, Coley will have to travel 16 miles to her new school this fall. That long journey worries Taylor-Ramann, particularly after this summer’s spike in violent crime in the city.
“I would have to purchase her a cell phone I can’t afford,” said Taylor-Ramann. “I would have to get her some sort of protection because she’ll take a train and two buses to school.”
The 12 protesters are holding their strike on a lawn outside the high school. Sitting on folding chairs during a late-summer heat wave, at least one of the strikers, Anna Jones, required a trip to the hospital, she told Al Jazeera. The protesters say they have not eaten any solid food since Aug. 17, staying hydrated by drinking juice and water.
Twelve Chicago residents, who have been on a hunger strike for more than two weeks to protest the closing of their neighborhood high school, plan to confront Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for a second time Wednesday night at a public forum on the city’s budget. Emanuel on Monday met privately with the strikers, who said the meeting accomplished little.
"He asked us to come off the hunger strike, and of course we said the only way we will is if we get what we want," said Rev. Robert Jones, one of the protesters, who has been drinking juice and water, but has had no solid food for 17 days.
Jones said that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Forrest Claypool did most of the talking during the meeting with Emanuel. "The mayor did not give much of a response personally," Jones added. "They did say they wanted to have this resolved in a couple days. So we will see."
By repeating their demands at the budget meeting, the strikers aim to put more public pressure on the mayor to act.
“We’re going to make it uncomfortable for him, and he’ll come to the table. He can only take so much public embarrassment,” said hunger striker Jeanette Taylor-Ramann, 40.
Ramann’s daughter Mikiya Coley, 13, recently graduated from Irvin C. Mollison Elementary School in the Bronzeville neighborhood in Chicago’s south side, a 20-minute walk from Walter H. Dyett High School, which the city closed in June. With the closest high school now closed, Coley will have to travel 16 miles to her new school this fall. That long journey worries Taylor-Ramann, particularly after this summer’s spike in violent crime in the city.
“I would have to purchase her a cell phone I can’t afford,” said Taylor-Ramann. “I would have to get her some sort of protection because she’ll take a train and two buses to school.”
The 12 protesters are holding their strike on a lawn outside the high school. Sitting on folding chairs during a late-summer heat wave, at least one of the strikers, Anna Jones, required a trip to the hospital, she told Al Jazeera. The protesters say they have not eaten any solid food since Aug. 17, staying hydrated by drinking juice and water.
Have hunger strikes always involved drinking juices? I would have to imagine you could live a healthy life for quite some time drinking fresh vegetable juice.
Twelve Chicago residents, who have been on a hunger strike for more than two weeks to protest the closing of their neighborhood high school, plan to confront Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for a second time Wednesday night at a public forum on the city’s budget. Emanuel on Monday met privately with the strikers, who said the meeting accomplished little.
"He asked us to come off the hunger strike, and of course we said the only way we will is if we get what we want," said Rev. Robert Jones, one of the protesters, who has been drinking juice and water, but has had no solid food for 17 days.
Jones said that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Forrest Claypool did most of the talking during the meeting with Emanuel. "The mayor did not give much of a response personally," Jones added. "They did say they wanted to have this resolved in a couple days. So we will see."
By repeating their demands at the budget meeting, the strikers aim to put more public pressure on the mayor to act.
“We’re going to make it uncomfortable for him, and he’ll come to the table. He can only take so much public embarrassment,” said hunger striker Jeanette Taylor-Ramann, 40.
Ramann’s daughter Mikiya Coley, 13, recently graduated from Irvin C. Mollison Elementary School in the Bronzeville neighborhood in Chicago’s south side, a 20-minute walk from Walter H. Dyett High School, which the city closed in June. With the closest high school now closed, Coley will have to travel 16 miles to her new school this fall. That long journey worries Taylor-Ramann, particularly after this summer’s spike in violent crime in the city.
“I would have to purchase her a cell phone I can’t afford,” said Taylor-Ramann. “I would have to get her some sort of protection because she’ll take a train and two buses to school.”
The 12 protesters are holding their strike on a lawn outside the high school. Sitting on folding chairs during a late-summer heat wave, at least one of the strikers, Anna Jones, required a trip to the hospital, she told Al Jazeera. The protesters say they have not eaten any solid food since Aug. 17, staying hydrated by drinking juice and water.
Have hunger strikes always involved drinking juices? I would have to imagine you could live a healthy life for quite some time drinking fresh vegetable juice.
Yeah I always assumed it meant nothing, seems really silly if you're still going to be taking in the nutrition you need to survive, not sure why or how that would cause any change.
You can live that long on water and salt tablets. Its all basically a misguided PR stunt that I am fairly certain was imagined up by the union. People complain about segregated schools, and then when their crappy segregated school gets shut down they also complain.
On September 03 2015 07:24 cLutZ wrote: You can live that long on water and salt tablets. Its all basically a misguided PR stunt that I am fairly certain was imagined up by the union. People complain about segregated schools, and then when their crappy segregated school gets shut down they also complain.
Congratulations, you obviously know absolutely nothing about what's going on in Bronzeville. It's a desperate last attempt to save the last public high school in the area.
Under the plan they are protesting one mother's daughter would have to ride 2 buses and a train to get to school almost 20 miles away.
The situation is absolutely ridiculous but I don't see any point to discussing it here.
The woman who is complaining about it is, in fact, making the choice to send her child to a school in Little Village, CPS has 12 other high schools in a 3 mile radius of her home that her child could attend (although, knowing CPS, they also probably suck).
On September 02 2015 23:29 Plansix wrote:And the discussion of why they decided that birth control or gay marriage was the specific section of the bible they decided to care about is a totally valid discussion. There are a bunch of sections of that book most Christians ignore or just are not aware of.
On September 02 2015 22:05 Plansix wrote:People cited the Bible to justify the morality and legality of slavery. That book can be used to justify anything.
So I really don't mean to go after Plansix in particular, since I think we're at similar places on a lot of this stuff, but it's that point in the debate where the Bible guy has to point out that these cliches aren't really true.
Yes, if you take the fundamentalist position that "if the Bible says it, it must be true and valid" you end up having to pick and choose between all sorts of things. But if you really think you can quote any bit of scripture completely out of context and without reference to the overall narrative, you also end up thinking that "crucify him" (Mk 15.13 etc.) is also the "word of God." But no, obviously the Bible is a huge narrative, and each line has some purpose in that story.
Star Wars isn't ambiguous on atheism just because Han says "There's no mystical energy field controlling MY destiny" before saying "may the Force be with you." Those two lines are part of a character's progression from nihilistic ego-centrism to a religious and revolutionary faith.
In Christianity, the Bible is "Progressively Revealed." That is, humanity got to know God better progressively, with Jesus' life and teaching representing the culmination of that. The later letters show some acculturation away from Christ's message, and the struggle since then has been to fully comprehend what Jesus was on about. Most Protestants would see this continuing act of discovery/revelation in the Reformation, and most mainline Protestants would also see it in the Church's in-progress embrace of homosexuality.
TL;DR-- Bible is a story of humans getting to know God, not a rulebook.
The problem is the large number of people that think that it is a rule book and cherry pick the shit out of it to justify their own fears and hate. Of course it is retarded for people to do such a thing but when you have sooo many people that believe it and quite a few prominent people given a soap box(fox news) from which to prey on peoples fears, this shit happens. As Jim Jefferies points out the bible mentions god hating people eating shrimp eight times and hating homosexuality only twice.
EPT
