Another "Straight" man caught being 'gay'

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ShellyT @ Oct 19 2007, 12:23 PM) [snapback]527861[/snapback]</div>

In an ancient culture, with the limited understanding of the time of what constitutes the "essences" of a human being, and the "common sense" notion at the time that most or all what would be important to such "essences" would be embodied in the physical, eating the corpse of a remarkable person (a leader, an artist, someone with reknown) would be a completely rational act as one doing so would hope to incorporate whatever those vital "essences" were into themselves and thus approach the greatness of the deceased.

Today we know a little more than we did then, so such a practice today could only be symbolic. But if even the symbolic nature of such cannabalism had merit, we would NOT limit it to a single human being in history. The human being is notorious for seeking every conceivable advantage, edge and break that he can, and if the "communion" act had any real promise of incorporation of essence, we would engage in similar symbolic "feasts" of others of high reknown, for precisely the reason above - to symbolically take within ourselves the mysterious "essences" of whatever it is that makes a human being great. We would have "communion" with DaVinci, Mozart, John F. Kennedy, Michaelangelo, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Einstein - there's no reason whatsoever to limit such a ritual to a single figure in the whole of human history if the ritual had any value.

But I'm sure the prospect of a "communion" ceremony with, say, Elvis, where the wafers and wine are converted to Elvis' flesh and blood, would strike most people as atavistic and barbaric. That's why I said a few posts back that the communion ceremony in ANY other context would be recognized as savagery.

Daniel made an important point, too: that the Christian's most venerated symbol is the crucifix. Not Christ's intact and shining spirit ascending into heaven, not Christ in the act of performing some beneficent miracle, not Christ smiling down at humanity, not some uplifting or inspiring image of one who is supposed to be the most remarkable human to have ever existed, no their symbol gives all its force to carping about a cruel injustice inflicted on Christ's physical body. It puts foremost not Christ's greatness, but how some bone-headed bureacracy treated its criminals. It's a whine, in short: "Waaaah, lookit what those bad people did to our hero, waaaah!" is what Christanity thinks is THE most important thing to convey. It's a priority of message childish in the extreme - something most of us outgrow by the age of 5.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Oct 18 2007, 09:28 PM) [snapback]527580[/snapback]</div>

Uh oh...

I guess I was taking it the other way, like...it doesn't matter if you're hetero- or homosexual, the important part is to not allow one's...you know...urges...to...[gulp]

[clearing throat nervously]

Let me try that again.

I was just saying that in my own naive way, I actually saw the good in that statement, and took it to mean that heterosexual and homosexual relationships were being considered as equal.

And, so, in this circumstance --because of their equal validity-- they are equally forbidden.

Maybe that's the best way to put it.

--PG

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Oct 19 2007, 06:11 PM) [snapback]527998[/snapback]</div>

Your ignorance of the subject is absolutely stunning, but not really surprising. I'm come to find that the most ill-educated about spiritual matters are those that purport to have examined them and rejected them.

I am not a Catholic, and I disagree with the doctrine of transubstantiation, but I do so knowing what the Catholics mean by it. Protestants take an entirely different view of the Last Supper, imbuing the bread and wine with more philosophical than mystical meaning.

But that's a more sophisticated argument than allowed, it seems.

 

Pinto Girl ... just needling you a bit. I get it that you are looking for intellectual consistency, and can recognize the classic definition of promiscuity and sin as being at least consistent when applied evenly to both gay and straight, even if its not something you personally agree with.

The problem for gay people, of course, is that there is no way for them to avoid what Paul called "the burning of the flesh". Paul admonished Christians to marry rather than suffer extreme horniness (uh, that's paraphrased). Christians who support gay marriage say that traditional understandings have to give way to new information about who we are and how we are created. Because of the consensus that sexual orientation is inborn or, at least, "imprinted" early on and not merely a free will choice, then it is not reasonable to consign people to the fate Paul spoke of; they should marry rather than be terminally horny.

 

Terminally horny?!? Now you're speaking to the masses!

I'm really out of my depth now.

I suppose that I feel like, the fundamentally procreational nature of 'approved' sexual relations would seem to always prohibit homosexual sexual activity (at least in the eyes of the Church).

It's as simple as, "if the combination of your plumbing and your partner's was not designed to allow conception, you shouldn't have sex...since sex is only for procreation."

I, personally, don't agree with this philosophy, and I'll be the first to say that I might be oversimplifying/completely off base.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Oct 19 2007, 09:37 PM) [snapback]528074[/snapback]</div>

Could be ... I'd have to ask some of my Catholic friends if the American Bishops are still enforcing the concept of sex only for procreation. Like the strident atheists, I have never understood the prohibitions about sex, even with the "nature's laws" arguments. Plumbing and procreation aside, people enjoy sex, and people in committed relationships tend to be happy with their sex lives.

There are lots of horny old men and women in the Hebrew scriptures, and even an entire book of erotic poetry that would have been banned in Boston in the 1950s had it not been in the Bible. My best guess about the prohibitions is the influence of the gnostic sect that rose from the teachings of Nicholas (Nicholeodeans? No, that's not right). They believed in a kind of 60's love in type of thing to "master the flesh", and some theologians feel the early church teachings were a reaction against that teaching.

Among the religious people I know, the Mormons seem to be the most sexually active. No coffee, no soda, no smoking, no alcohol, no tea ... maybe its all they have!

 

Sex is fun. It's even more fun if you feel guilty about it afterward. That Catholics have this one figured out:

1. People are naturally horny.
2. People also have trouble with self control (especially when drunk).
2a. People who are in traditionally Catholic countries tend to enjoy drinking, too.
3. Church teaches people that sex is bad.
4. People have sex anyway.
5. People feel guilty about the sex.
6. People go to church to not feel so guilty.
7. People hear "marriage sex is GOOD sex."
8. People get married and have sex.
8a. People still feel guilty, because they've been told so long that sex is bad.
9. People go back to church to feel not so guilty and to make sure they heard #7 correctly. They give $$$ to church in the hopes that they will feel better, and also because they hope to convince the powers that be NOT to change #7.
10. In the meantime, #8 is leading to new Catholics, who will start the cycle over again - thus perpetuating the church.

 

Fshagan asserted above (sorry, I failed to quote it) that Mark is exaggerating when calling Catholic communion cannibalism. I understand both viewpoints. The Catholic Church asserts that communicants are actually eating the body of christ, and drinking his blood. But nobody actually believes that, and the communion wafer (by all reports) does not taste like pork. (Human flesh is reported by actual cannibals to taste like pork.)

Therefore we have a ceremony where people are pretending to eat human flesh and drink human blood, under the auspices of a priest who tells them they actually are eating human flesh and drinking human blood, but the officiating priest and the people doing the eating and drinking know perfectly well that they are eating crackers and drinking wine or grape juice.

It's easy to argue it is "all in fun," but my own view is that it is horribly ghoulish to ground your most central religious ritual on make-believe cannibalism, while insisting in your official dogma that it really is cannibalism

But I will qualify this by saying that the make-believe cannibalism of communion is definitely not in the same class as actual murder. It is ghoulish and disgusting, but not in itself evil.

FWIW I have taken communion. I was at a gathering of radical pacifist peace activists where a Catholic priest performed a mass and administered communion, using a loaf of bread rather than crackers. At the time I thought this was just some guy making fun of the mass and communion. I learned later that he is an actual ordained Catholic priest, and that his administering of communion to non-Catholics could be grounds for being de-frocked, if not excommunicated. He actually believes that communion confers some kind of blessing on the communicant, and that it must be offered to anyone who wishes to participate whether or not they are catholic, or even Christian. He knew I was an atheist, even though I didn't know he was a real priest, and he welcomed me and several other atheists and Protestants into this ritual.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Oct 19 2007, 09:07 PM) [snapback]528064[/snapback]</div>

It is absolutely irrelevant to the subject of gay rights whether being gay is genetic, or a free-will choice. We are supposed to have personal freedom in this country, and that means that people have the right to choose to be gay. I don't know whether it's inborn or a choice. I do know that some people are bisexual and choose to practice gay sex or straight sex under this or that circumstance. And that is their right!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 20 2007, 10:06 AM) [snapback]528184[/snapback]</div>

They are not pretending to eat "human" flesh. That is where you both are misinterpreting the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. In Mark's case, he is using the same inflammatory language used by those who persecuted and killed Catholics in countries where they were minorities, akin to calling blacks the n-word or Jews greedy moneychangers.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 20 2007, 10:06 AM) [snapback]528184[/snapback]</div>

From a human rights and American freedom viewpoint, you are absolutely right. Our freedoms are not based on any characteristic we possess from birth, other than the fact that we believe we are born with those intrinsic rights.

Christianity, however, has to come to terms with changing social conditions, a task it has done inelegantly but, overall, pretty well in the last 2000 years (with some spectacular failures along the way). Christianity and Judiasm, along with a lot of other religions, have the ability to take in new information and form a theology that accounts for the gain in human knowledge. In the Western church's tradition, the process is often called "continuing revelation", and it is a concept shared by such dissimilar churches as the Roman Catholic Church and the Latter Day Saints (Mormons). Even fundamentalist churches, after dismissing the concept, actually practice it. An example is the expansion of knowledge about mental health conditions and situations previously thought signs of moral or spiritual deficiencies (mental illness, seizures, etc.) are now almost universally recognized as medical, not social, problems.

While the theology doesn't make a bit of difference to an American gay person who is a non-believer, it does make a great deal of difference to the thousands of religious gay people. And it makes a great difference in the acceptance and changing of laws related to the shared social compact; marriage, tax policy, inheritance, etc. Tax policy is one area where gay people can make great in-roads to expanding knowledge about the in-built prejudice against them in our society.

But you have to quit calling Christians cannibals to get them to listen.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Oct 20 2007, 10:41 AM) [snapback]528200[/snapback]</div>

Fshagan, you have twice called my statements ignorant without any evidence to prove their ignorance or mischaracterization, and here you make a claim that is flatly false. Here's Wikipedia's treatise on transubstantiation. Its meaning is quite plain.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Oct 20 2007, 10:41 AM) [snapback]528200[/snapback]</div>

That's what they say about "enablers" of drug addiction and other human behavioral afflictions, they deny there's an affliction. Now calling a practice by its actual name may be offensive, even inflammatory; but going along with all the uphemisms does nothing to call attention to the inappropriateness of the practice or behavior in contemporary society.

It is my contention that MUCH of conventional religious ritual and practice is not just inappropriate in contenporary society but generally harmful. The immense social neurosis surrounding sex, a neurosis so severe it has actually created an "inferior" class of human being based on sexual behavior that denies them not just rights and privileges but in some areas their very lives, is just one example of a sociological disorder ENCOURAGED and ENLARGED by the church. Now, you want me to mollycoddle such practitioners, tread lightly and not offend them as they give DEEP offense to others?

One of the church's most prized rituals is ritualistic cannabalism, and as a bald fact is incontrovertible.

Like Shakespeare so famously wrote: "a rose by any other name ..." still stinks the same.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Oct 20 2007, 11:27 AM) [snapback]528216[/snapback]</div>

Did you read your cite? You obviously did not, because it does not call transubstantiation cannibalism, and in fact, supports my stance. Its fairly accurate as far as my understanding goes, and even goes so far as to say WHY it is not cannibalism.

I get that you hate them, and your hate speech here against those of faith is understandable from that aspect. But what you say is simply not true, and you appear to be either blinded by your hatred or purposefully using outrageous language to inflame those who agree with you. Its a dangerous game; there are more anti-religion incidents of violence recorded in this country than there are anti-homosexual incidents. (PDF source for 2005 is at FBI's UCR). Anti-religious hate speech has to be called for its part in these incidents, and the other incidents like Columbine, where the religious aspect of the killer's intent is masked by the media.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Oct 20 2007, 11:04 PM) [snapback]528376[/snapback]</div>

No, it says why the church thinks its transubstantiation theory isn't cannibalism, as fine a piece of rationalization and euphemistic mangling of meaning as the wily mind of man can concoct (an exercise the church is WELL practised in).

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Oct 20 2007, 11:04 PM) [snapback]528376[/snapback]</div>

Watch it bub. I don't hate worshippers, I despise the institution. That's an extremely important distinction, and in failing to recognize it you make a particularly vile inference:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Oct 20 2007, 11:04 PM) [snapback]528376[/snapback]</div>

Your implication is that the irreligious are the instigators of this anti-religious violence; in fact it is the RELIGIOUS who overwhelmingly commit this type of violence, and the fact that the percentage of this kind of violence is quite HIGH further indicts religion as a truly malign institution.

Alcoholics also hate it when their affliction is pointed out to them before they've accepted it themselves, but that does not excuse failure to point it out, especially when its effects are so damaging.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Oct 21 2007, 01:20 AM) [snapback]528392[/snapback]</div>

The perps of the most high profile attacks on Christians have indeed been atheists, well schooled in the radical atheist rhetoric. Its fine that you won't temper your remarks, but just as you point out your disdain for religious institutions, I'll point out statements I feel feed the prejudice and hatred against religious minorities.

Take a close look at the sought out victims at Columbine, the Texas church shootings and others, and you find anti-Christian bias and rhetoric much like yours by the perps. I temper my remarks about groups because I don't want to feed the lunatic fringe that inhabits my side of the aisle; it would be a good thing if you did too.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Oct 20 2007, 10:41 AM) [snapback]528200[/snapback]</div>

Christians don't listen to me anyway. But I am very grateful to Richard Dawkins: He pointed out that if someone asserts that the problem with the world is that the moon is over-run with polka-dot elephants and the noise of their trumpeting keeps him awake at night, we say forthrightly that he's delusional; but if someone says that the world was created by an invisible man, 6,000 years ago, and because he loves you he'll torture you forever if you don't believe in him without any evidence whatsoever, we're supposed to respect his "belief" because it's "religion." Delusion should be called delusion.

I personally do not regard Christians as cannibals, because the eucharist is, after all, crackers and wine or grape juice. I just say it's pretty darn creepy to make believe that they're eating some guy.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 21 2007, 02:12 PM) [snapback]528542[/snapback]</div>

But they don't believe that they are "eating some guy".

While you didn't use the code words that have been used to persecute Christians and do them harm, its important to consider what the people who believe in transubstantiation actually believe. They do not believe they are "eating some guy" ... they believe they are eating God. And it isn't cannibalism, because no part of God is diminished, stripped off, or taken away by the action.

"You are what you eat" is a concept closely allied to the fellowship they seek by "eating God".

I happen to believe that communion is a symbolic reminder that Jesus paid the price and bridged the gap for me. In taking the bread and wine, I am identifying with my knowledge of that, and accepting greater intimacy with God. That is far different than the Catholic interpretation, and I'm critical of their theology in this matter.

But I try to learn different views and understand where they are coming from, and if I have misrepresented their views, I try to correct that. Hyperbole and hate-speech does not bridge understanding; at the very least it polarizes and at the most, causes harm to people.

 

Have you read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man? James Joyce gives the hell-fire sermon delivered from the pulpit by a priest. I am an atheist and don't believe a word of it, but even I found the passage terrifying.

Many Catholic and many Protestant priests/preachers dump that stuff on children and terrify the crap out of them. Nobody can tell me that is not the sickest, most vile kind of child abuse.

While I would not use precisely the language that Mark does, the fact remains that in the name of "Christianity" perverts are permitted to scar children emotionally for life by telling them that they are born sinners and condemned to an eternity of torture worse than any possible mortal torture (by a god who "loves" them, no less!) unless they conform to a list of impossible commandments such as never even thinking "lustful" thoughts, and because it's "religion" and we're supposed to respect "religion" they can get away with it.

Everything about religion is vile, from the way it teaches people to think irrationally to the way it teaches them that their body is evil, sinful, and unclean, to the way it creates animosity and hatred, leading to war, between nations who chance has led to practice different religions.

I still think the eucharist is ghoulish, as is the symbol of a cross (one of the most horrible instruments of torture ever invented) as their most holy insignia. But these things are minor compared to the damage religion has done to countless generations, and the endless death of religious wars.

I hate religion, and I hate the people who tell children that they will go to hell if they make the innocent and well-intentioned mistake of believing the "wrong" religion, or even of practicing the "right" one in the wrong way.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 21 2007, 09:00 PM) [snapback]528659[/snapback]</div>

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, and I can respect that. However, I suspect I've heard more sermons from a wider variety of Christians, than you have. And I have not heard anyone, Catholic or Protestant, tell a member of a congregation anything of the sort (and that includes a brief survey of the sermons of colonial America). If they do say such things they are not adhering to basic Christian doctrine, either in the Catholic or Protestant traditions.

Most children are bored in church, not scared.

Joyce may have heard it, and his recounting may be accurate. But like many of our great artists, Joyce's personal life was a tough one, and he was subject to his own demons, and works of fiction are allowed a certain amount of poetic license. In judging the theology of a major religion, I would look to its theological works, and analysis of the theology by experts, not fiction writers like Joyce.

Everyone has to decide their own path, and they are free to use whatever criteria they want to in doing so. But it is disheartening to see misconceptions and lies about Christian doctrine spread about as the reason.

When people say to me that they would be Christian except for "item X", I ask them if I showed them a significant branch of Christianity that didn't accept "item X" if it would change their mind. Invariably, the answer is no, because the objection stated is rarely the real objection. The real objection is that they simply don't believe in it, and they may be incapable of believing it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Oct 19 2007, 09:11 PM) [snapback]527998[/snapback]</div>

What of the historical context of the cross? The Jesus fish is not a recent creation. Back when Christians had to worry about dancing with lions, they needed to be low key about gatherings and worship. A fish drawn on a wall wouldn't bring much comment from a non-believer. Neither would a cross hidden in an anchor. The cross is easy to hide. It is also easy draw, or even make. It is even easier to recognize. By the time the Christians were able to practice without worry, the symbol was already established.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Oct 21 2007, 10:57 PM) [snapback]528690[/snapback]</div>

I look at its actions. Crusades, Inquisitions, witch hunts, burnings and torturings and wars and bombings, all in the name of one god or another.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ShellyT @ Oct 22 2007, 08:26 AM) [snapback]528834[/snapback]</div>

This is a common misperception: a long history of persecutions and being fed to the lions. The Romans never fed Christians to lions. They did feed people to wild animals for entertainment, but Christians faced other fates. And the persecutions of Christians were sporadic. From the time of Jesus's death to the adoption of Christianity by Constantine, Christians were mostly left more or less alone, with the exception of a few periods.

However, the real hazard to life and limb if you were a Christian was the other Christians. Christians started killing each other over minor points of dogma almost from the day Jesus died, and far far more Christians were killed by Christians than by the Romans.

They've been a bloodthirsty lot, by and large, throughout their history. And they kill each other as happily as they kill non-Christians.

But to answer one of Fshagan's points above, I have never said that I would believe in any religion were it not for some detail or other. I don't believe in religion because I think it's all poppycock from top to bottom.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 22 2007, 12:11 PM) [snapback]528959[/snapback]</div>

That's certainly a fair enough criticism of religion, and Christianity in particular for the case we are talking about. And a much more effective criticism than the insulting mischaracterization intended to inflame. Now you just have to find a secular or non-religious society that did any better! (Insert stupid song: "Imagine" here).


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 22 2007, 12:11 PM) [snapback]528959[/snapback]</div>

I think it was more dangerous to be a Jew than a minority Christian, just in terms of sheer numbers and length of persecution. We are better now (and have been for the last 400 years or so), but that could revert again if the right conditions present themselves. Combine political and religious power and you have a powerful cocktail for evil. (Power + almost anything equals evil).

I can respect your opinions because they always seem well reasoned, even if I don't think they are "reasonable" from my perspective. And you treat people well. Many of us can learn from you in terms of debating style.