Gay marraige? What would God say?

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Presumbaly so. You'll note that he also listed species as being a morally irrelevant characteristic, so you could get quite a bit more creative.

I am tallking about the equal consideration of interests, not in equal treatment regardless of interests. No non-human animal has an interest in marrying a human, as they lack the conceptual resources necessary to have such an interest. If we discovered that there were Vulcans, then on what justifiable grounds could be prevent them from marrying humans? There are no such grounds, just as there are no such grounds for preventing black folk from marrying white folk. This illustrates what I mean by claiming that one's species, just as one's race (and just as one's gender) are irrelevant in determining moral considerability.

Originally posted by Siebren
According to the book Leviticus, homosexuality certainly is it defined as evil. Just read leviticus 20.

I just did. How much of it did you read? Basically it's a whole list of things that you should be put to death for.

Leviticus 20:18
If a man lies in sexual intercourse with a woman during her menstrual period, both of them shall be cut off from their people, because they have laid bare the flowing fountain of her blood.

Do you agree with this one?

Leviticus 20:9
Anyone who curses his father or mother shall be put to death; since he has cursed his father or mother, he has forfeited his life.

Or this one?

Originally posted by bbarr
Yeah, well, you and I have radically different conceptions of the foundations of morality. You think that creatures who completely lack even the capacity for interests nonetheless satisfy some criterion or other (about which you have never been specific) for moral considerability (e.g., that they have a soul, or that they are genetically human, or that they a ...[text shortened]... n't see how this fact could justify unequal treatment of citizens on the part of the state.

Bbarr: "On your view, we are only free when we willingly submit to the will of God. I find this little better than slavery, as I find chains of gold no less restrictive than chains of iron."

What a warped view of what constitutes Christian freedom !!

The ignorance that speaks from these statements is really mindboggling. This once again shows how blind people like you choose to be. You simply refuse to see the difference between obeying a loving Father and obeying a selfserving dictator tyrant. How come intelligent people like you fail to see the difference ? Because you, like so many others, have a warped and obscured view of what constitutes the true Christian Faith.

You want to free yourself by doing as you please. Look around you and see how many people have tried this and failed. Look at those with their golden chains of materialism, their golden chains of self serving ideologies of Moral Relativism and Utilitarianism. The belief of being able to free yourself, being able to save yourself, is as old as human kind itself. It is one of the pillars of the Christian faith that you cannot free or save yourself. Only the God of Abraham, who is Love, is able to do that. You hate that reality, you hate to admit that, that's why you hate God.

Originally posted by Una
If you are refering to when the Elders brought the woman to Jesus and told him she was caught in adultry and according to the law she should be stoned. Jesus bent down and went to writting something in the dirt. He then told them who ever was with out sin to throw the first stone.

The point is they were trying to trick or trap Jesus. The law read "they sh ...[text shortened]... not there nor probably never was the law they were trying to get him to enforce was not valid.

What an atonishing misreading of the Gospels. Jesus didn't say "Where's the male accomplice" he said "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." The extent of to which you fundamentalists distort Jesus' message and then dare to call yourself "Christians" is truly amazing.

Originally posted by ivanhoe

Bbarr: "On your view, we are only free when we willingly submit to the will of God. I find this little better than slavery, as I find chains of gold no less restrictive than chains of iron."

What a warped view of what constitutes Chr ...[text shortened]... that reality, you hate to admit that, that's why you hate God.

If, in order to be truly free, one must submit to the will of another, be that other a loving father or a tyrannical dictator, then one is still bound by the chains of another's will. This is what I was alluding to when distinguishing chains of gold from chains of iron.

Freedom consists in the exercise of one's autonomy, and as such one can freely choose to follow the dictates of another's will. But if, contrary to this view, freedom itself consists in the following of the dictates of another's will, if it is a necessary condition on being truly free that one act in accord with God's will, then being truly free is nothing other than being truly submissive, and that is a sort of freedom that makes slaves of men.

This, of course, is part and parcel of the Christian view that humanity stands in need of redemption; that we are a sad lot of egoists when we act in accord with the dictates of secular conscience. I think this view is absurd, and that it fails to do justice to what is noble and beautiful in humanity. I would prefer to be a man that lives by my own lights, and acts in accord with the moral law as I discern it through the excercise of my rational and empathic faculties, then to be a child, head-bowed, seeking the praise of some mythical father.

I am not a materialist (neither of the normative egoistic sort nor of the metaphysical sort), nor am I a relativist, nor am I a utilitarian. I agree that these and other ideologies are, by and large, incompatible with human dignity (except for some versions of Rule Utilitarianism, which will be compatible with human dignity to the extent that the rules endorsed track deontological theory and virtue theory).

Since your God is mythical, I cannot hate your God. What I do find idolatrous and pernicious is the concept of your God, the so-called "God of Abraham", that continues to warp the way humanity conceives of itself and it's relation to the divine. The concept of God you employ is not the concept of Love, but rather of a jealous, hateful tyrant, who will kill the innocent when it pleases him, visit punishment on a man for what his father did, sanction discrimination against persons based on the possession of properties that are arbitrary from a moral point of view, and then condemn those who refuse to submit to his tyranny for an eternity. In short, the concept of God you employ is the concept of a monster. Luckily, this is not a concept instantiated in the actual world. Your worldview is nothing more than the play of ideas inside your own head. These ideas do not track reality.

Originally posted by bbarr
If, in order to be truly free, one must submit to the will of another, be that other a loving father or a tyrannical dictator, then one is still bound by the chains of another's will. This is what I was alluding to when distinguishing chains of gold from chains of iron.

Freedom consists in the exercise of one's autonomy, and as such one can freely choos ...[text shortened]... is nothing more than the play of ideas inside your own head. These ideas do not track reality.

Thank you for elaborating on your warped obscurantist views. It confirms my analyses.

Originally posted by ivanhoe

Thank you for elaborating on your warped obscurantist views. It confirms my analyses.

If you ever get tired of being on your knees, I suggest you take the cross from around your neck and stand up straight. Until then, enjoy your apollonian fantasy world.

Originally posted by bbarr
take the cross from around your neck and stand up straight

It's interesting to note that I believe this summarizes a lot of the tenets of the (+,-) quadrant of the moral compass where I happily reside, where "cross" extends to include "your neighbors' need-based claims."

You over in the (-,-) quadrant must have much tighter, perhaps even literal, boundaries on what "cross" means.

Originally posted by Paul Dirac
The man was born a poet, I tell you!

🙂

...... lol ....... 😀

Originally posted by bbarr
If, in order to be truly free, one must submit to the will of another, be that other a loving father or a tyrannical dictator, then one is still bound by the chains of another's will. This is what I was alluding to when distinguishing chains of gold from chains of iron.

Freedom consists in the exercise of one's autonomy, and as such one can freely choos ...[text shortened]... is nothing more than the play of ideas inside your own head. These ideas do not track reality.

God gave us rules for our own rules, Rules which are consistent with his love. The bible however does not embody Gods rules. some are fabricated and i suspect homosexuality is one. Jesus gave very concise instructions on how to live. He told us to love our neighbours. Its not asking alot. He does not ask us to submit to him but in fact to ber part of him.

Originally posted by bbarr
If, in order to be truly free, one must submit to the will of another, be that other a loving father or a tyrannical dictator, then one is still bound by the chains of another's will. This is what I was alluding to when distinguishing chains of gold from chains of iron.

Freedom consists in the exercise of one's autonomy, and as such one can freely choos ...[text shortened]... is nothing more than the play of ideas inside your own head. These ideas do not track reality.

Does freedom imply the absence of consequence?

Originally posted by bbarr
Prohibiting the extension of equal rights and protections to same-sex couples qualifies as bigotry, because it constitutes discrimination based on morally irrelevant features (just as race, gender, species, and so on are morally irrelevant features).

Race, gender etc. do not constitute actions. We're not talking about people who have homosexual tendencies here, we're talking about people who practise homosexuality. The latter is an action - like publishing an editorial, giving to the poor or murdering your neighbour. Actions are not morally irrelevant. You may disagree on whether the action is morally right or wrong or neutral; but you cannot say it is morally irrelevant.

Originally posted by bbarr
Yeah, well, you and I have radically different conceptions of the foundations of morality. You think that creatures who completely lack even the capacity for interests nonetheless satisfy some criterion or other (about which you have never been specific) for moral considerability (e.g., that they have a soul, or that they are genetically human, or that they a ...[text shortened]... ittle better than slavery, as I find chains of gold no less restrictive than chains of iron.

I think there might be a misunderstanding of what ivanhoe means when (if?) he states that a person is only truly free when he submits to the will of God.

1. Naturally, a person is free to choose what he wants and whether he chooses to submit to the will of God or not, that freedom is not altered.
2. I suspect what ivanhoe means is that freedom is meaningless (interpret that term however you like) unless it is used to do something that is morally right/productive/useful. In submitting to the will of God you are still exercising your freedom (because you must choose to submit), but you are making it more meaningful than it would have been otherwise.
3. As a second-order effect, submitting to the will of God also opens oneself up to the graces of God; in turn, these graces/grace helps one overcome the deficiencies/tendencies of human nature (a la original sin). Submitting to the will of God allows one to exercise one's freedom in an environment where one is subject to less pressure to sin - in a sense, that makes one's freedom "more free".

Originally posted by Conrau K
God gave us rules for our own rules, Rules which are consistent with his love. The bible however does not embody Gods rules. some are fabricated and i suspect homosexuality is one. Jesus gave very concise instructions on how to live. He told us to love our neighbours. Its not asking alot. He does not ask us to submit to him but in fact to ber part of him.

The question is - does loving one's neighbour mean condoning everything he/she does? Look at some real-life examples:

- A husband loves his wife but does not condone her sleeping with another man.
- A mother loves her son, but does not condone his shop-lifting.
- A man loves his friend, but does not condone the latter's drug abuse.

To love someone is to take on yourself the moral responsibility of pointing out when he/she is in error.

the old testiment of the bible makes it very clear about the rules of homosexuality, adultery, bestiality and incest. i think in general you should be put to death for these things. however the rules by which someone can be put to death are very complicated, and in history, it was very rare for someone to actually be put to death for committing acts such as these, once every 30 years or so.