---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote :
C: Fair enough. Let's tighten it up a bit. Although polls have reflected American's recent shift away from denying a small group civil rights, your point supports mine. 35 out of 50 states in the US now allow some form of same sex marriage, but can you name how many churches will allow them to celebrate their union in their building with an officiating priest or minister? S: Yes, if you take the majority of that subset, you are absolutely right. Seems we might still be a long way from most clergy climbing aboard to that extent. But really, so what. Gay sex, for example, doesn't strike me as very normal, but I'm not going to judge it, nor am I going to go out of my way to endorse it. But it is between two consenting adults, so most people accept it, as that, even if they don't find it as particularly appealing. If people of the same sex want to get married, I think they can find clergy members who will perform that ceremony, no problem. In same cases, that might be easier than finding someone willing to bake their wedding cake. You have brought up the distinction between our civil rights and religious intolerance, which are still at odds. It underlines that the opposition to the expansion of civil rights for gay people has been religiously based throughout history. And this is only Christianity in the US we are talking about so far. How about the billion people practicing Islam? In the countries where religious law dominates civil law homosexuality is a crime, sometimes a capital one. Putin's recent attack on gay people in his country was wrapped in religious rhetoric. Members of Congress refer to the Bible repeatedly when they try to block civil rights of gay people as they did when they passed the odious Defense of Marriage Act. This federal law basically says that if the mob in your state wants to deny a minority their civil rights that is okay dokey. I could go on and on with examples throughout history of people using religion to oppress gay people but if you were interested in the topic you could read up on it yourself. S: My comments were in reference to the US, and perhaps most western countries. Globally, the treatment of gay people is abysmal when considering Muslim countries, or non democratic countries. C: Before we pop the champagne concerning the advances religious people have made concerning the long history of religiously based gay rights oppression, perhaps it would be a nice gesture if religious people would denounce as a majority, the shaming language toward gay people used in religious teaching about it. Maybe they could let gay people have the same rights as others in their religion to enjoy the sacrament of marriage as equals IN their churches and mosques. Or renounce in the Catholic Church for example that gay people are OK as long as they do not do any gay things with each other which is a mortal sin sending them to an eternity in a fiery hell. This is over 1.3 billion people who accept the following as an article of faith: S: Do you really think all 1.3 million people accept what you have below as an article of faith? The parish me wife and kids belong to is quite liberal. I am not sure you could find 10% of the congregants who would go along with this. But evidently they find enough in the Catholic teaching to remain a member. Not everyone needs to be an activist to promote change. I think that is an unfair onus to put on people. Whether one likes it or not, most change along these lines is pretty gradual. Excepting the acceptance of gay marriage. That happened lightning quick, at least from the civil right perspective. I would say nearly every court ruling has affirmed what might be considered, the gay rights agenda, if there is one. "3. All sexual acts between persons of the same gender are intrinsically evil and always objective mortal sins. 4. Sins are acts involving the intellect (knowing) and the will (choosing). An orientation is not, in and of itself, an act or a sin. 5. The homosexual orientation itself is intrinsically evil, but is not itself a sin. 6. Since the homosexual orientation is intrinsically evil, any and all acts, whether sexual or not, by which a human person knowingly chooses to move toward, cooperate with, reinforce, or act upon, a homosexual orientation is itself a sin, either venial or mortal. 7. All human persons are children of God. No human person is intrinsically evil, even if he or she has an intrinsically evil sexual orientation. 8. All human persons inherently deserve just and merciful treatment. 9. The promotion and spread of homosexuality is offensive to God and is gravely harmful to families, the Church, and society in general. 10. Society has the right and the duty to make laws which discourage sinful acts that cause serious harm to society. The reason gay rights are advancing is because religion is waning. In every country where religion has a strong voice in government, gay people are oppressed. In countries where religion has a weak voice, gay people are treated like other human beings. This was my point which as not only not a cheap shot, I went easy on them. Now lets talk about how religious people who believe that their God book is absolute truth have effectively shut down abortions clinics around the country by enacting local laws making it impossible for them to operate, effectively reversing Roe V Wade in some areas because of religious beliefs... S: What you say is true, but there are plenty of non religious people who find abortion to be something very undesirable. I find it so, but neither am I ready to oppose what is the law of the land. I am not sure equating opposition to abortion as strictly a religious issue accurately portrays it. Does a person really have a good claim that the experience of unity consciousness is fundamentally different from being saved for example? No. But believing oneself "saved" or experiencing "unity consciousness" are very different from our everyday experiences which lead some to resign themselves to accepting they are nothing more than a jumped-up simian. C: I am not sure what lines you are drawing here. Again, my point was aimed at the charge that atheists objections to theism are intellectually seriousness. The issues concerning the reliability of subjective knowledge is a profound one and I appreciate your recognizing the issues with it. As far as our relationship to simians, we left that group 50 million years ago. We still share most of our genes with them. But the differences in our development are also profound in the last 2 percent or less that we deviate from them. I m very pro human and proud to be a member of the club. Our intellectual and artistic gifts are unmatched on the planet. But that doesn't mean that we have the ability to know everything about how reality functions or that we can live after we die any better than chimps can. We obviously have a self reflective quality that you and I appreciate. So I am not resigned to anything concerning my connection to other primates on the planet. I am a sad that we are completely wiping out their cultures and eating them! So what other distinctions are you referring to? Perhaps we would find different lines there. Is darshan from their master different from what people experienced around Sun Young Moon? How do they know? How, even in principle, can someone claim to make such distinctions? "By their fruits ye shall know them." (Matthew 7: 20) C: Then Mao is the greatest person in history because by the numbers he was judged by his countrymen as having the most divine fruit. Judging fruits is subjective. That was my point. And it was next on my list of objections that are not simply dismissed with a catch phrase from the Bible. My points were aimed at Bentley but thanks for keeping it going. He is wrong about atheists objections to religious beliefs. They are not glib, superficial or stupid. Whether or not they are delivered in a shrill manor has no bearing on the content. I believe that his objections had all the qualities he tried to pawn off on atheists. Your responses were way more thoughtful. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <jr_esq@...> wrote : Dr. David Bentley Hart criticizes the new atheist movement. He calls their arguments to be shrill, shallow, glib and stupid. <snip> C: Notice that none of those qualities actually address the content of the atheist objections to the claims of theists. It is a "you are a poopy pants" based argument. There is nothing shallow or glib about the epistemological objections to people claiming to know things about the nature of the universe that have poor supporting reasons. Here are a few atheist objections to theist claims: Why do you consider one book of human literature to be different in its source than others so that they are considered "scripture?" I get it that you may not feel this way about any book, but most theists do. Their reasons for assuming that their scripture should be taken more seriously than other literature are not solid. They do no KNOW that God had a hand in any human book. How do people distinguish the epistemological solidity of subjective experiences well enough to separate their reasons for believing in their own but to deny others? Does a person really have a good claim that the experience of unity consciousness is fundamentally different from being saved for example? Is darshon from their master different from what people experienced around Sun Young Moon? How do they know? How, even in principle, can someone claim to make such distinctions? These and many other questions lie at the root of atheist thought.They are not silenced or answered by making comments about atheists being too much of one thing and not enough of another personally. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <jr_esq@...> wrote : Dr. David Bentley Hart criticizes the new atheist movement. He calls their arguments to be shrill, shallow, glib and stupid. However, he recognizes that Europe has entered the post-Christian era, which he believes, will not disappear anytime soon. On the other hand, he states Nietzsche is dead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYWEYuhiWzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYWEYuhiWzE
