(11-07-2014 10:03 PM)jh Wrote:  

(11-07-2014 09:18 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(11-07-2014 04:57 PM)jh Wrote:  

(11-06-2014 12:30 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Neither atheists nor fundamental Christians, nor Muslims, nor any other religion, can prove their position, yet they act as if the others are crazy.
Treating either as like a religion, yet ridiculing those whose faith is different.

I find it interesting that you treat all atheists and Muslims as a homogenous block yet are careful to distinguish yourself from fundamentalist Christians. Perhaps you should grant other groups the same charity you claim for yourself.

It is just that I am not familiar with the subgroups within those blocs, any more than I am familiar with subgroups with Buddhism or any other religion. But my premise is that all these -isms are faith-based, and so political positions based on that faith are essentially the same.

If you aren't familiar with the subgroups, you aren't really familiar with the group either. And your framing allows there to be reasonable Christian political positions, as long as the proponent isn't a fundamentalist, but no reasonable political positions based on any other ideology. While I disagree with your premise, I disagree with your framing even more.

Quote:i was raised in a fundamental church, the Church of Christ, and was very unsatisfied withthe amswers to my questions. from 18 to 27 I was an avowed athiest. Then I came backa little, joining a relatively liberal Disciples of Christ Church until i turned 39. currently, I am nominally a Methodist, but have not set footina Church since 1990, except for weddings and funerals. maybe theat will help you pigeonhole me, and give you some insight as to why inthese discussions I distance myself from the "fundamentalist" Christians of the Religious Right that seem to stirsuch ire and distaste. Hard to have a discussion when the other side assumes I am waht I am not.

I'm not sure why you would want me to pigeonhole you. I would rather take your arguments as they come, instead of fitting them into a framework already existing in my mind. That rarely aids understanding. I understood the reason you wanted to distance yourself from fundamentalist Christians was because you weren't a fundamentalist, and I have no problem with that.

I just ask for the same courtesy. I'm a godless heathen, and there are definitely crazy Christians out there, but that doesn't mean that I think all Christians are crazy. Most of the people I know are Christians of some sort or other, and I definitely don't consider most of the people I know to be crazy.

i must confess, I don't see your problem with me.


i don't care about your godlessness or Godliness. i just know from experience that if I say that atheists have faith too in their athesm that I will eventually be labeled a Religous Right Fundalmentalist by people who despise them, and I wanted to forestall that.

this conversation apparently went sideways because I tried to keep it from going sideways in a different direction.

(11-07-2014 10:03 PM)jh Wrote:  

(11-07-2014 09:18 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(11-07-2014 04:57 PM)jh Wrote:  

(11-06-2014 12:30 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Neither atheists nor fundamental Christians, nor Muslims, nor any other religion, can prove their position, yet they act as if the others are crazy.
Treating either as like a religion, yet ridiculing those whose faith is different.

I find it interesting that you treat all atheists and Muslims as a homogenous block yet are careful to distinguish yourself from fundamentalist Christians. Perhaps you should grant other groups the same charity you claim for yourself.

It is just that I am not familiar with the subgroups within those blocs, any more than I am familiar with subgroups with Buddhism or any other religion. But my premise is that all these -isms are faith-based, and so political positions based on that faith are essentially the same.

If you aren't familiar with the subgroups, you aren't really familiar with the group either. And your framing allows there to be reasonable Christian political positions, as long as the proponent isn't a fundamentalist, but no reasonable political positions based on any other ideology. While I disagree with your premise, I disagree with your framing even more.

No, I think you misunderstand both his premise and his framing.

(11-07-2014 02:52 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-07-2014 12:01 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  I strongly agree with your last statement. If the government decided to say, hey, we are done with marriages, we now only acknowledge civil unions between two consenting adults, it would, IMO, immediately end the gay marriage debate. It would remove the government from a topic that can easily be pushed in the realm of religion, and therefore, any argument for excluding couples of the same or different sex being recognized by the government for legal purposes would be immediately invalidated. There are societal benefits for encouraging cohabitation and creating a family/support system, so I think the government should continue to support it, and I think the best way to do that would be to step out of marriage and into civil unions.

I would only add a provision that the First Amendment freedom of religion provisions prohibit the government from requiring a church to perform a marriage which did not conform to the teachings of that church.

Marriage is a religious act not one of any government. In the Roman Catholic faith it is one of the sacraments of the Church. The State introduced laws long ago to license marriage which probably crossed the line separating Church and State (in the U.S.) and created confusion (imo) regarding the word "marriage". No State can marry or divorce you. If the State wants to establish its own religion then that State can marry and divorce you within the authority of its own religion. Not my idea, but one conceived by Henry VIII.

I personally have no problem if the citizens of a particular state vote to allow same sex civil unions. If not then I guess a common law 'marriage' between the same sex would not be recognised by the individual state, but could be recognised by the federal government. This could be evidenced by federal tax returns, but obviously the 'Filing Status' would need to be amended with something like, "Cohabiting filing jointly". In fact maybe "Married filing jointly" and "Married filing separately" should be axed altogether in favour of "Cohabiting...".

If someone is looking for a same sex marriage then it's the respective religion's decision whether it wants to offer that or not. No governmental unit be it local, state, or federal should be able to force an established religion to go against its beliefs with respect to marriage.

(11-08-2014 10:41 PM)MerseyOwl Wrote:  

(11-07-2014 02:52 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-07-2014 12:01 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  I strongly agree with your last statement. If the government decided to say, hey, we are done with marriages, we now only acknowledge civil unions between two consenting adults, it would, IMO, immediately end the gay marriage debate. It would remove the government from a topic that can easily be pushed in the realm of religion, and therefore, any argument for excluding couples of the same or different sex being recognized by the government for legal purposes would be immediately invalidated. There are societal benefits for encouraging cohabitation and creating a family/support system, so I think the government should continue to support it, and I think the best way to do that would be to step out of marriage and into civil unions.

I would only add a provision that the First Amendment freedom of religion provisions prohibit the government from requiring a church to perform a marriage which did not conform to the teachings of that church.

Marriage is a religious act not one of any government. In the Roman Catholic faith it is one of the sacraments of the Church. The State introduced laws long ago to license marriage which probably crossed the line separating Church and State (in the U.S.) and created confusion (imo) regarding the word "marriage". No State can marry or divorce you. If the State wants to establish its own religion then that State can marry and divorce you within the authority of its own religion. Not my idea, but one conceived by Henry VIII.

I personally have no problem if the citizens of a particular state vote to allow same sex civil unions. If not then I guess a common law 'marriage' between the same sex would not be recognised by the individual state, but could be recognised by the federal government. This could be evidenced by federal tax returns, but obviously the 'Filing Status' would need to be amended with something like, "Cohabiting filing jointly". In fact maybe "Married filing jointly" and "Married filing separately" should be axed altogether in favour of "Cohabiting...".

If someone is looking for a same sex marriage then it's the respective religion's decision whether it wants to offer that or not. No governmental unit be it local, state, or federal should be able to force an established religion to go against its beliefs with respect to marriage.

The state absolutely handles marriages and divorces. These are legally binding arrangements.

I don't care what you or your religion believe, but to deny people STATE given rights of marriage, such as tax filing status, inheritance, hospital visits, and ultimately divorce for legal separations assets, is unacceptable.

(11-09-2014 12:29 PM)lou Wrote:  

(11-08-2014 10:41 PM)MerseyOwl Wrote:  

(11-07-2014 02:52 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-07-2014 12:01 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  I strongly agree with your last statement. If the government decided to say, hey, we are done with marriages, we now only acknowledge civil unions between two consenting adults, it would, IMO, immediately end the gay marriage debate. It would remove the government from a topic that can easily be pushed in the realm of religion, and therefore, any argument for excluding couples of the same or different sex being recognized by the government for legal purposes would be immediately invalidated. There are societal benefits for encouraging cohabitation and creating a family/support system, so I think the government should continue to support it, and I think the best way to do that would be to step out of marriage and into civil unions.

I would only add a provision that the First Amendment freedom of religion provisions prohibit the government from requiring a church to perform a marriage which did not conform to the teachings of that church.

Marriage is a religious act not one of any government. In the Roman Catholic faith it is one of the sacraments of the Church. The State introduced laws long ago to license marriage which probably crossed the line separating Church and State (in the U.S.) and created confusion (imo) regarding the word "marriage". No State can marry or divorce you. If the State wants to establish its own religion then that State can marry and divorce you within the authority of its own religion. Not my idea, but one conceived by Henry VIII.

I personally have no problem if the citizens of a particular state vote to allow same sex civil unions. If not then I guess a common law 'marriage' between the same sex would not be recognised by the individual state, but could be recognised by the federal government. This could be evidenced by federal tax returns, but obviously the 'Filing Status' would need to be amended with something like, "Cohabiting filing jointly". In fact maybe "Married filing jointly" and "Married filing separately" should be axed altogether in favour of "Cohabiting...".

If someone is looking for a same sex marriage then it's the respective religion's decision whether it wants to offer that or not. No governmental unit be it local, state, or federal should be able to force an established religion to go against its beliefs with respect to marriage.

The state absolutely handles marriages and divorces. These are legally binding arrangements.

I don't care what you or your religion believe, but to deny people STATE given rights of marriage, such as tax filing status, inheritance, hospital visits, and ultimately divorce for legal separations assets, is unacceptable.

Exactly. This is why I think the state should remove itself from "marriage" and deal solely with civil unions. Seriously, it is, in essence, just semantics that gets people up in arms on the religious side, since the state deals with "marriage." By removing the word marriage, and describing all legally acknowledged unions between two consenting adults as "civil unions," you would make it very difficult to argue against extending rights associated with these unions to anyone of any sex, since you couldn't rely upon the religion argument (which I don't think you should be able to rely on anyways).

This is encouraging. Dan Patrick supporters apparently assaulted a reporter covering his election night rally. Another got in a reporters face and called her "a f***ing b***". Ironically, this apparently happened because they felt the reporter shouldn't have gone on air during a prayer from the stage. I'm sure that's exactly how Jesus would have wanted them to react...

http://tfninsider.org/2014/11/10/reports...reporters/

(11-11-2014 09:40 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  This is encouraging. Dan Patrick supporters apparently assaulted a reporter covering his election night rally. Another got in a reporters face and called her "a f***ing b***". Ironically, this apparently happened because they felt the reporter shouldn't have gone on air during a prayer from the stage. I'm sure that's exactly how Jesus would have wanted them to react...

http://tfninsider.org/2014/11/10/reports...reporters/

This is encouraging?

I think JAAO is being sarcastic.

(11-11-2014 11:21 AM)Barrett Wrote:  I think JAAO is being sarcastic.

I hope so. I have always lamented the lack of a sarcasm emoticon.

(11-11-2014 11:27 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(11-11-2014 11:21 AM)Barrett Wrote:  I think JAAO is being sarcastic.

I hope so. I have always lamented the lack of a sarcasm emoticon.

Sorry, I thought the incident was so ridiculous, the sarcasm was obvious.

But for the record, I am against assaulting people and hurling obscenities in the name of Jesus. Or really, for any reason.

(11-12-2014 10:24 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(11-11-2014 11:27 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(11-11-2014 11:21 AM)Barrett Wrote:  I think JAAO is being sarcastic.

I hope so. I have always lamented the lack of a sarcasm emoticon.

Sorry, I thought the incident was so ridiculous, the sarcasm was obvious.

But for the record, I am against assaulting people and hurling obscenities in the name of Jesus. Or really, for any reason.

The bolded part could have been left out completely.

Given some of the extreme attitudes I have heard on both sides of the political spectrum, I thought it was at least questionable. So I questioned.

(11-12-2014 11:10 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(11-12-2014 10:24 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(11-11-2014 11:27 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(11-11-2014 11:21 AM)Barrett Wrote:  I think JAAO is being sarcastic.

I hope so. I have always lamented the lack of a sarcasm emoticon.

Sorry, I thought the incident was so ridiculous, the sarcasm was obvious.

But for the record, I am against assaulting people and hurling obscenities in the name of Jesus. Or really, for any reason.

The bolded part could have been left out completely.

Given some of the extreme attitudes I have heard on both sides of the political spectrum, I thought it was at least questionable. So I questioned.

Yes, but the Jesus part is what made it more ironic and amusing/depressing and worth noting. Same deal as a peace protestor deciding to start throwing some punches.

(11-13-2014 10:38 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(11-12-2014 11:10 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(11-12-2014 10:24 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(11-11-2014 11:27 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(11-11-2014 11:21 AM)Barrett Wrote:  I think JAAO is being sarcastic.

I hope so. I have always lamented the lack of a sarcasm emoticon.

Sorry, I thought the incident was so ridiculous, the sarcasm was obvious.

But for the record, I am against assaulting people and hurling obscenities in the name of Jesus. Or really, for any reason.

The bolded part could have been left out completely.

Given some of the extreme attitudes I have heard on both sides of the political spectrum, I thought it was at least questionable. So I questioned.

Yes, but the Jesus part is what made it more ironic and amusing/depressing and worth noting. Same deal as a peace protestor deciding to start throwing some punches.

As a young adult in the sixties, I saw plenty of that.

I sure wish ISIS had your attitude.