A brief plea

[adderslj]

Folks,

I know many of you are very upset by the election result, but please bear in mind that "Christian" and "right-wing Christian conservatives" are not synonyms.

Thank you.

Comments

[adders.livejournal.com]

And I really don't feel the gay marriage thing is terribly complicated.

Just to clarify, I was talking about it being complicated within Christianity - is homosexuality a sin? Can a church justifiably bless a gay marriage? - and there are strong arguments for and against. Personally I tend towards the "yes" camp. My wife is strongly in the "no" camp.

As far as disenfranchising the religious...I dunno, man. I see religion getting used as a crutch, a tool and a dodge far more often than anything else.

And I see people using it as a tool to disregard opinions from believers that they don't want to hear. I suspect we're seeing the exact same human behaviour from different sides of the coin.

[yangti.livejournal.com]

I may be opening a can of worms here, but I have a question you may be able to answer for me, Adam. Does the Bible have any passages within it that explicitly forbid woman/woman sex? I read an assertion some time ago stating that only man/man sex was addressed in the Old Testament. I looked and couldn't find anything, but frankly was too lazy to plow through the whole thing looking for a single passage that may not exist. Not that I would care personally one way the other, as many of those Old Testament injunctions strike me as fascinating but irrelevant, but when I'm talking to someone who is a Bible literalist and is against homosexuality on those grounds I'd like to use that as a talking point, if it is in fact true.

[innocent-man.livejournal.com]

Just to clarify, I was talking about it being complicated within Christianity - is homosexuality a sin? Can a church justifiably bless a gay marriage? - and there are strong arguments for and against. Personally I tend towards the "yes" camp. My wife is strongly in the "no" camp.

Mmm. As a member of no church, I couldn't care less what churches think of gay marriage except where it impacts the vote. If we're going to be a free country, let's be free (and yeah, I'm for legalization of drugs and guns and a bunch of other things, too). As you say, you can't legislate people into faith.

And I see people using it as a tool to disregard opinions from believers that they don't want to hear. I suspect we're seeing the exact same human behaviour from different sides of the coin.

Yep. I will say, however, that in any religious/faith-based discussion there comes a point where I'll hit the wall, because the final, underlying issue - I don't believe in god - means that after that point discussion is pretty useless.

That doesn't mean that believers don't have anything worthwhile to say. I know that. It's very difficult for me to really listen when people use faith or the Bible as their justification for action or thought, but I conciously strive to listen anyway.

[oakthorne.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

All too often, we find politicians whose sole justification for certain intiatives and endeavors is their religion. I find this patently unacceptable. I could never be an effective politician because I have certain closely held beliefs that I would have to compromise in order to effectively lead a group made up of people who don't necessarily believe that, and I'm not willing to do so.

Frankly? Make laws based on solid reasoning, rather than "because I am a member of X Religion, and you shouldn't do that in my religion." If someone proposed to me that I shouldn't murder because its a sin, I'd tell them where to put the concept. Tell me I shouldn't do that because of human rights, etc, then we're talking.

Regards,
Joseph

[adders.livejournal.com]

I'm beginning to wonder why I bothered.

I agree with you.

Not all Christians think like those politicians, which is point I was making in the first place.

*head in hands*

[oakthorne.livejournal.com]

No, no. My apologies - I obviously did a poor job of communicating what I meant. Our points were the same: I know that not all Christians think that way, nor would they try to legislate their faith over those they'd been elected to lead.

The point that I was trying to make was that anyone who entered a political position when he knew his own belief systems might not enable him to either lead impartially or would force him to try and overlay his faith over those who aren't interested in such are inherently unethical.

It's not Christians I distrust, brother - its politicians.

Regards,
Joseph