apparently Ree and Hobbs (and others) have committed a mortal sin

[Talon]

I think Kimmik actually specifically said that no one is perfect, and that this category of non-perfect people included the Pope.

My bad, I should have been more clear. Not only is the pope far from perfect, he is an immoral charlatan who has no basis for lecturing anyone on morality. If the head of any secular organization behaved as the pope has, they would be publicly burned in effigy. Yet somehow the pope gets a free pass...

Galileo's case is frequently exaggerated. He was actually aquitted of heresy, and simply had to agree to quit publicly promoting his theory. He agreed, but kept at it anyway. That's when he was retried and actually punished.

I am well aware of that. The book that got him in trouble featured a dialogue between a heliocentrist and a geocentrist, and the latter was made to look foolish. I am also well aware he wasn't actually burned, but kept under house arrest. Are you aware that the church burned his books? Plus what sort of chilling effect do you think Galileo's sham trail had on other scientists of the time? That's my problem: the church actively impeded the growth of the knowledge of humanity. So much for the church standing for truth.

The Inquisition occured nearly 400 years ago. Referring back to it constantly is a bit like saying "The United States supports freedom? Tell that to the black slaves!" After all, our government has been in continual existence since then.

Your comparison doesn't work. I am not naive enough to think the American Civil War was only about freeing the slaves, but whatever the reasons the US took corrective action. Do you suppose the church hierarchy gladly embraced reforms that would have put an end to such horrors as the inquisition? I don't think so!

Also, the church has been persecuting the jews for the alleged death of Christ for a lot longer than 400 years.

Again I'll say that the people who make up the church are fallible.

That's the best response you can come up with to the condom lie and the sex abuse coverup? Would you continue to do business with an unrepentant con artist because "nobody's perfect"?

Don't forget that the pope has also come out blaming homosexuals for the sex abuse scandals. Yes humans are fallible, they make mistakes. But covering up those mistakes, and projecting blame onto innocent parties indicates an entirely different kind of human fallibility.

And don't blame the church for the entire epidemic.

I did no such thing.
What I was trying to say was the pope's lie about condom effectiveness in stopping AIDS transmission in the middle of an epidemic, was tantamount to lighting a match in a gas-filled room.

Lack of education about the disease is what keeps the AIDS epidemic going. In some parts of Africa, there is a belief that sex with a virgin cures AIDS. You can imagine how counterproductive that is.

How counter-productive is it when the pope lies about condom effectiveness? Given the church's track record, I imagine we'll have to wait another 500 years before some future pope apologizes for this debacle.

However, not all followers of religion are unthinking slaves to it's ideas, despite that being an insult commonly flung their direction.

So how do followers decide which religious ideas can be subjected to mere human scrutiny and logic, and which ideas must be believed on unquestioning faith, otherwise they're a sinner and bound for hell?

Both religious people and atheists can be moral or immoral, the main difference being how they justify it. Neither one is really better than the other.

I'll take godless logic-based morality over religious and/or faith-based morality any day. Infinitemonkies has already listed some reasons why religion fails as a moral guide. Here's one of mine: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". Bye bye, Salem witches

The point of religion is to provide order and reason...

Order yes, but reason? I don't think so. Reason is anathema to faith.

BTW, in case anyone thinks I'm picking on christianity, it's because that's the religion that was brought up in the OP. I could go on about the violence and misogyny of Islam, but not in this thread.

[Kheldarson]

My bad, I should have been more clear. Not only is the pope far from perfect, he is an immoral charlatan who has no basis for lecturing anyone on morality. If the head of any secular organization behaved as the pope has, they would be publicly burned in effigy. Yet somehow the pope gets a free pass...

He was voted on for his theological interpretations. I can't say I agree with his current social agenda, but his theological works are fairly brilliant. The unfortunate thing is that we needed another John Paul II, but they're rare indeed.

I am well aware of that. The book that got him in trouble featured a dialogue between a heliocentrist and a geocentrist, and the latter was made to look foolish. I am also well aware he wasn't actually burned, but kept under house arrest. Are you aware that the church burned his books? Plus what sort of chilling effect do you think Galileo's sham trail had on other scientists of the time? That's my problem: the church actively impeded the growth of the knowledge of humanity. So much for the church standing for truth.

Yes, they burned his books. But please recall that this was a fairly new idea at the time. And one that was going to cause a major upheaval in the entire medieval world. Mostly because the calendar was so off it wasn't even funny. And frankly, they didn't even have to actively impede knowledge. It just had to make its way through the ever-growing bureaucracy of the Church. How long does it take the US Government to make a decision? It takes longer for the Church. Plus they had to figure out how to address the questions of biblical interpretation. This takes time.

Your comparison doesn't work. I am not naive enough to think the American Civil War was only about freeing the slaves, but whatever the reasons the US took corrective action. Do you suppose the church hierarchy gladly embraced reforms that would have put an end to such horrors as the inquisition? I don't think so!

Actually, they did. Three separate religious groups were founded to address the issues coming from the Inquisition and the Reformation. Franciscans, Dominicans, and Jesuits. These men dedicated themselves to fixing the problems the Church bureaucracy was too big to correct itself.

Also, the church has been persecuting the jews for the alleged death of Christ for a lot longer than 400 years.

So has the rest of the world. It's not right, but when the foundation of the Church is her people, unfortunately bigotry occurs.

That's the best response you can come up with to the condom lie and the sex abuse coverup? Would you continue to do business with an unrepentant con artist because "nobody's perfect"?

No, so why are you? Nobody's asked you to become Catholic. Nobody's asked you to become Christian. So why are you attacking me for my Faith when out out of a 2000 year period we've had some blips in the organization thanks to imperfect people?

Don't forget that the pope has also come out blaming homosexuals for the sex abuse scandals. Yes humans are fallible, they make mistakes. But covering up those mistakes, and projecting blame onto innocent parties indicates an entirely different kind of human fallibility.

And using one argument to discredit an entire history indicates another.

I did no such thing.
What I was trying to say was the pope's lie about condom effectiveness in stopping AIDS transmission in the middle of an epidemic, was tantamount to lighting a match in a gas-filled room. How counter-productive is it when the pope lies about condom effectiveness? Given the church's track record, I imagine we'll have to wait another 500 years before some future pope apologizes for this debacle.

You don't know that. Hopefully we'll get another young pope in next go around.

So how do followers decide which religious ideas can be subjected to mere human scrutiny and logic, and which ideas must be believed on unquestioning faith, otherwise they're a sinner and bound for hell? I'll take godless logic-based morality over religious and/or faith-based morality any day. Infinitemonkies has already listed some reasons why religion fails as a moral guide. Here's one of mine: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". Bye bye, Salem witches

First, Salem witches weren't done in by Catholics. So, I'm not even going there. Second, I'd like to introduce you to a type of studies called Apologetics. Apologetics is the study of faith and reason. Beyond the leap of faith it takes to come to the full belief of God, everything else can be explained logically from there. However, since we don't come from the same starting point (a belief in God), we're never going to come to the same logical conclusions.

Order yes, but reason? I don't think so. Reason is anathema to faith.

BTW, in case anyone thinks I'm picking on christianity, it's because that's the religion that was brought up in the OP. I could go on about the violence and misogyny of Islam, but not in this thread.

Again, apologetics. Nothing in Catholicism cannot be explained without reason. I'm still studying it, so I'll admit to not being the best, but I've yet to find something that can't be done "Because this, then that." That's basic logic, yes?

[infinitemonkies]

I think if you're going to argue that any part of the bible is valid, then you have to take the whole thing.

Other than it making a convenient lever to oppose all religion whatsoever, why?

If you pick and choose which parts of the bible are the actual will & word of god, but ignore the parts that you don't personally agree with or find inconvenient, it invalidates your whole premise. If you want to argue that action x is a sin, because the bible says so, then you have to also accept that every other action the bible calls a sin is also because god commanded thusly.

If you can make the claim that times have changed, and it's not really a sin to touch the skin of a dead pig, how can you refute the argument that times have changed, it's not really a sin to practice homosexuality?

If you want to lobby the government to disallow same-sex marriage because the bible describes it as a union of one man and one woman, shouldn't you also be lobbying for the right to bury your child up to the neck, and throw stones at his or her head until they die because they disrespected you? God says that's the appropriate course of action to take.

[Kheldarson]

I think if you're going to argue that any part of the bible is valid, then you have to take the whole thing.



If you pick and choose which parts of the bible are the actual will & word of god, but ignore the parts that you don't personally agree with or find inconvenient, it invalidates your whole premise.
*snip*

So...what about the Catholic Church which teaches that it's the divinely inspired Word of God? As in, God inspires man with the message, but it's still man's word as much as God's?

Doesn't mean any of it is invalid per se, but does mean that context is everything and not everything in there is to be meant literally.

[Hobbs]

I am well aware of that. The book that got him in trouble featured a dialogue between a heliocentrist and a geocentrist, and the latter was made to look foolish. I am also well aware he wasn't actually burned, but kept under house arrest. Are you aware that the church burned his books? Plus what sort of chilling effect do you think Galileo's sham trail had on other scientists of the time? That's my problem: the church actively impeded the growth of the knowledge of humanity. So much for the church standing for truth.

As it's been mentioned, that was hundreds of years ago. Since the time of-at least- Pope John Paul II, the Church has been taking an active role in scientific pursuit. As this article mentions, the Church doesn't even perscribe to Intelligent Design, and the Church also has no problem with teaching evolution. So how's that for impeding knowledge?

Your comparison doesn't work. I am not naive enough to think the American Civil War was only about freeing the slaves, but whatever the reasons the US took corrective action. Do you suppose the church hierarchy gladly embraced reforms that would have put an end to such horrors as the inquisition? I don't think so!

They did, actually. Just because you think the Church is evil doesn't make it so. In fact, it was John Paul II-again-who imposed a lot of the reforms we're seeing in the Church now. It was back during WWI (I believe) that Pope Pious XVI(?) proclaimed that the Jews were not responsible for the death of Christ and that persecuting them was sinful in the eyes of God. In fact, the Church teaches to be respectful of the Jewish faith, as it is our "parent" faith and the Jewish people are our separated brothers.

I'll take godless logic-based morality over religious and/or faith-based morality any day. Infinitemonkies has already listed some reasons why religion fails as a moral guide. Here's one of mine: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". Bye bye, Salem witches

That's just dumb. The Catholic Church had nothing to do with the Salem witch trials. Now you're just grasping at straws.

Order yes, but reason? I don't think so. Reason is anathema to faith.

BTW, in case anyone thinks I'm picking on christianity, it's because that's the religion that was brought up in the OP. I could go on about the violence and misogyny of Islam, but not in this thread.

Tell me how reason is anathema to faith. Because I don't think so. Reason is just as necessary in faith as...well, faith is. And that's the thing, I never hear athiests rail on Buddhism or Shinto or any other religion other than the Abrahamic religions. Is it maybe because of their acting out? I think so.

[wraiths_crono]

I am a firm believer that if Jesus came back today he would weep at what his teaching has wrought.

I have no idea why, but I had a thought that if Jesus came back just to prove a point of love and understanding, what if he came back gay?

[Plaidman]

I have no idea why, but I had a thought that if Jesus came back just to prove a point of love and understanding, what if he came back gay?

He be killed on sight. The churches (Ones that are hardcore antigay) would proclaim it was the devil, and not God's son.

[HYHYBT]

If you pick and choose which parts of the bible are the actual will & word of god, but ignore the parts that you don't personally agree with or find inconvenient, it invalidates your whole premise. If you want to argue that action x is a sin, because the bible says so, then you have to also accept that every other action the bible calls a sin is also because god commanded thusly.

OK. I've typed out a long reply, and then realized I may have misunderstood you in the first place. If you only mean that saying we must obey some laws found in, for example, Leviticus solely because they're there then you cannot turn around and say that the rest of them don't apply, then we agree. For that matter, so does, I think, Paul: somewhere in one of the letters is something along the lines of if you hold to part of the old law then you are under all of it. But if you mean what I took you at first to mean, well, I still wish you'd explain why you hold that view, and here goes that long reply.

+++

I suppose it depends on how you look at it. You seem to be falling for the fundamentalist trap that, in order to be a Christian at all, you must swallow the Bible whole as being flawless in every way and direct from God Himself. Now, I would agree with you that those who claim to believe exactly that *are* being hypocritical when they then ignore parts of it. But the premise is all wrong.

Look at it this way: find a topic you're interested in and believe to be important. One that's not hard science would work best for this; surely there's *something* you're interested in that fits the bill. Now go collect a hundred or so books on that subject from different authors, (sometimes within the same book), written in different time periods in different genres for different purposes. When you read through all this, do you not find yourself agreeing with some parts and/or believing them to be true or correct, but not others? Are there not even likely to be points where you could not pinpoint concretely a reason for saying "this, but not that?" That's essentially what the Bible is, and that's pretty much how I read it. Actually, there's quite a lot of it where I go "I have no idea what this is all about" and skip over entirely. Ezekiel, for instance. Why is this not a valid way of looking at things?

If you can make the claim that times have changed, and it's not really a sin to touch the skin of a dead pig, how can you refute the argument that times have changed, it's not really a sin to practice homosexuality?

Well, first off, you would NEVER hear me claiming "practicing homosexuality" (still a very bizarre way of putting it) in general to be sinful. But again, if someone is looking at the Bible as a collection such as I described, then, for example, looking at Leviticus is very much like looking at some other ancient book of laws. The first thing to do would be to examine, as best you can, *why* they required this and prohibited that, how the punishment fit in with other common punishments of the time, what it meant in their society, etc. THEN you have better grounds to decide whether it ought to apply for all time or not. As I see it, the last verse says something to the effect of "these are the laws for ancient Israel" so no matter how you view the Bible none of them would carry over to anyone else without an outside reason.

Of course others see it differently. Some would reverse that and say that all laws which are not contradicted later are still in effect; which leads back into the bit I quoted from you. For example, (I'm never good at this, so if I get a detail wrong please ignore it; the point should be clear enough) the Old Testament declares certain animals "unclean" and prohibits eating them. But later on, in the New Testament, God basically tells Peter to forget about that one. Not all of them are that clear (and even in that example, you could argue, if you wanted, that God was only making an exception for Peter, not recalling the law generally) and many of the explanations I've heard make no sense, but hopefully you get the idea.

[Kheldarson]

He be killed on sight. The churches (Ones that are hardcore antigay) would proclaim it was the devil, and not God's son.

Killed on sight? Geez, have a little faith, would you?

I'd give him at least another three years.

[jedimaster91]

I think there would be less hate in the world if we focused more on how we are the same rather then what makes us different.

This.

It's not that being gay or having feelings for the same sex is inherently sinful. The belief is instead that acting on those desires is sinful, and generally it's held pretty much on-par with adultery, because really, that's what it boils down to. The Catholic Church holds that a same-sex marriage is not a valid union (in the religious sense), and as such any same-sex intercourse is by definition outside of marriage.

Perhaps it is. Perhaps it's a challenge for them to overcome. Perhaps the majority are entirely wrong and it's perfectly acceptable. The church is comprised of people, and people are fallible. They simply try to interpret the commands of, and emulate, the infallible as best they can. In any case, the choice isn't in who you are attracted to, but instead whether or not you act on that attraction.

Hello, long lost twin.

Also, the church has been persecuting the jews for the alleged death of Christ for a lot longer than 400 years.

Then they didn't understand the purpose of Christ's death. If they did, they'd be thanking the Jews.

I think if you're going to argue that any part of the bible is valid, then you have to take the whole thing.

Well, yes and no. Now this is doctrine according to Jedi, so I don't profess to be completely in the right about it, but it makes sense to me. The Mosaic law and Levitical laws of the Old Testament was strict because they had to be. There was no intermediary between man and God, so man was responsible for paying his own price for sin. In the New Testament, Christ took upon Himself the sins of the world and in so doing paid man's price for him. Thus the Mosaic law was fulfilled and man had a buffer between him and God's punishment. Mercy and Justice really can't coexist unless someone is paying a price. Christ's Atonement allows God to be a merciful God because the price has already been paid. That doesn't mean we won't have painful consequences when we make bad decisions, but it does mean the repentance process is less brutal.

Not to mention with the lack of sanitation in those days, certain foods really could kill you. They still can if not cooked/prepared properly, but instances of that are more rare these days. Some of those laws existed to keep the people safe and healthy until technology could catch up. Personally, I don't think the people of ancient Israel were ment to execute someone who ate pork, but rather there was a good chance that person would get horribly sick and die anyway. Thus the penalty for eating pork would be death, but not necessarily from execution.

[BigGiant]

Why would you think it would be punishable, by anyone, for having a fantasy?

Can be answered here:

There's sin of action and sin of thought. Both are sinful, both are wrong.

Which is what I was asking. So what is being argued is that "since I'm not god and I don't know what someone is thinking, it isn't a sin to be gay unless you poke someone in the butt"....

That doesn't jive with me. What you are saying is that it is wrong to be gay, but using the "I don't REALLY know what someone else is thinking, so who am I to judge" card to skirt the issue.

You basically DO think that it is a sin to be gay, but are hiding behind, "If I don't see it or know about it, it's okay because only god can judge what you are thinking....Even though I think it's wrong and sinful to think that way..."

See what I mean?

[Hobbs]

See what I mean?

Nope. As I've said before in a previous post (perhaps it was in a different thread, and if so I'll link it) the Church teaches that homosexuality is not a sin.

[smileyeagle1021]

the Church teaches that homosexuality is not a sin.

I remember that link, there is some very interesting reading in it.

Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.

Great, it's not a sin, it's a disorder... that is so much better...

Paul uses homosexual behaviour as an example of the blindness which has overcome humankind. Instead of the original harmony between Creator and creatures, the acute distortion of idolatry has led to all kinds of moral excess. Paul is at a loss to find a clearer example of this disharmony than homosexual relations.

And now we aren't sinners, we're "disharmonious" with the Creator.

A person engaging in homosexual behaviour therefore acts immorally.

And immoral

This does not mean that homosexual persons are not often generous and giving of themselves; but when they engage in homosexual activity they confirm within themselves a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent

Once again, disordered.

This is done in order to conform to these pressure groups' concept that homosexuality is at least a completely harmless, if not an entirely good, thing. Even when the practice of homosexuality may seriously threaten the lives and well-being of a large number of people

And we're a threat to the lives and well being of a large number of people... wow, I must be a lot busier than I though.

No authentic pastoral programme will include organizations in which homosexual persons associate with each other without clearly stating that homosexual activity is immoral

There we go again with being immoral...

One thing I can agree wholeheartedly on with this letter

The human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation. Every one living on the face of the earth has personal problems and difficulties, but challenges to growth, strengths, talents and gifts as well.

That I can agree with.


Overall though, the gist of that letter is that the state of being homosexual is not a sin, but actually being a homosexual is.

[Hobbs]

I didn't get the "gist" as saying being homosexuality is a sin. You can slant it any way you want, but your hostility is your own.

[smileyeagle1021]

They have the same stance that the Mormon Church has, if I read that letter correctly, that homosexuality is not a sin as long as you are celibate your entire life.
Forgive me for being hostile to someone who says that I can only be a good person if I repress part of who I am.