Originally posted by Jay PeateaInterestingly, it is also right around this age that the capacity for moral and abstract reasoning matures in children, a process that continues into adulthood.
Christian researcher George Barna has found that the chance for an individual to accept Christ greatly diminishes after the age of 14.
Originally posted by bbarrInterestingly also, people who WERE brought up to "believe in Jesus" start questioning at (if not a little before) this age.
Interestingly, it is also right around this age that the capacity for moral and abstract reasoning matures in children, a process that continues into adulthood.
Originally posted by checkbaiterHah! I was wrong by one page! When i saw this thread start i bet myself that by page 4 some moron would trot out this tired old 'as clever as christians can invent' phrase. I nearly got it right. I bet some of you guys were bursting to use this.
You get a rec for that one...good point...why can't I marry a donkey and adopt 4 chimpanzee's...could I get a tax deduction here?
And I seem to remember God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.
😉
If you had been paying any attention whatsoever, you would have noticed the complete refutation of the 'marry a donkey' argument. But I guess you weren't. I suppose you just had faith that whatever you said would be right.
So you REMEMBER that created Adam and Eve? Wow! You are old! And completely mythical.
Answer me this please, aren't you supposed to leave the judging to God? So why are you dictating faith-based principles on Earth? Is it because your appalling cult can't handle any disputation?
Humanity will not forever be afraid of the lightning, which is all religion is based upon. Fewer people today believe in any kind of God, less than 20 years ago, which was less than 20 years before that etc. Hopefully your blight on reason and progression will exponentially increase in its decline, until it is gone.
People of reason and compassion can only hope.
Funnily enough, I find that reason and compassion rarely go together in people regardless of their religious or atheistic views.
Certainly you're not showing a lot of compassion for those poor, misguided 'souls' (sorry, that wouldn't be the right word - what's a nice word for 'bag of chemicals'?) who need to be rescued from their tragic belief in a power beyond themselves so they can proceed to live meaningful lives in the real world.
Originally posted by orfeoPeople. That's a nice word for those bags of chemicals.
Funnily enough, I find that reason and compassion rarely go together in people regardless of their religious or atheistic views.
Certainly you're not showing a lot of compassion for those poor, misguided 'souls' (sorry, that wouldn't be the right word - what's a nice word for 'bag of chemicals'?) who need to be rescued from their tragic belief in a power beyond themselves so they can proceed to live meaningful lives in the real world.
And, no, I'm not showing a lot of compassion for the deluded. I did try in this thread to keep entirely to the point, but have been brought gradually off it by responding to ever more ridiculous arguments. I do apologise for wandering off the point of this thread, but I just found myself unable to turn the other cheek(sic)
Originally posted by checkbaiterOne more vote for tolerance......
Your question , "Why can't we allow homosexuals to live thier..."
Not only is it immoral, but it( The lifestyle) has consequences on society as a whole.
This site has some facts, but the list is far from exhaustive.
http://www.straight-talk.net/gay/facts.shtml
the website referenced above is quite a whopper. I have just perused it briefly and found so many items either taken out of context or just plain incorrect that any careful thinker would be well advised to take their info with a large pitcher of salt. However, for the sake of let's take as given that 'homosexuals' are detrimental to society, even though they tend to be better educated, more cosmopolitan and less of a burden on society than heterosexuals. What are we to do about it? Make it illegal? Forcible conversion? What about all the other groups one could argue are also detrimental such as the morbidly obese or mentally retarded. Certainly they consume more resources than they produce, at least as a whole. Should we get rid of them also? How about anybody the majority feels doesn't pull their weight? Sounds a bit like Nazi germany and other totalitarian regimes. You can see the ridiculous conclusion this approaches. So give it a rest.
Originally posted by kn195I agree. But the original question on that site was whether homosexuality was "immoral", not whether it should be "illegal".
the website referenced above is quite a whopper. I have just perused it briefly and found so many items either taken out of context or just plain incorrect that any careful thinker would be well advised to take their info with a large pitcher of salt. However, for the sake of let's take as given that 'homosexuals' are detrimental to society, even though ...[text shortened]... otalitarian regimes. You can see the ridiculous conclusion this approaches. So give it a rest.
There are any NUMBER of things which I feel are either morally wrong or morally ambiguous that I do NOT think should be made illegal. Law and morality are two wildly different issues and I don't think comparisons to the Nazis are at all helpful for that very reason. It's one thing to have a moral position, it's quite another to force everyone else to live in accordance with your moral position by giving it the force of law.
well, then let's address the question of morality. is homosexuality immoral? in other words does it contravene moral behavior? Moral is defined (dictionary.com) as 'Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character'. So we would need to decide as a society what makes good or bad behavior. How does love for ones own gender define itself as bad behavior any more than love for another gender? Aside from biblical/koranic/toric (spp?) teachings which to my opinion are outdated (to say the least) and hardly based upon scientific thinking, one could presuppose that loving another gender is actually more harmful than homosexuality. Afterall, the world has enough people. Any look at Rwanda, latin america, india or even the US with it's overcrowded cities, unemployment and resource extraction far beyond sustainable means in addition to massive deforestation and extinction of endangered species, etc, etc., should lay to rest any doubt of the need for more people. If any doubt that, read Jared Diamond excellent book "Collapse".