Religious liberty and hatred

[Odin]

(07-01-2016, 03:11 PM)taramarie Wrote:

(07-01-2016, 07:37 AM)Anthony Wrote: "Force those beliefs"?

If a baker goes to jail because s/he won't bake a cake for a same-sex wedding, who's forcing what beliefs on whom?

Yet this opens the door for the compromise that will end this battle in the Culture Wars once and for all: Pass ENDA, which would ban job, housing etc. discrimination against gays nationwide - but in return allow people of faith to opt out of aiding and abetting same-sex weddings, and also defund Planned Parenthood so that people of faith don't have to subsidize, with their tax money, something their beliefs teach is murder (and not for nothing, but did Exodus International ever receive government funding?).

Jail? They can really send them to jail over there for that? Jail should be for dangerous criminals imho. Jail for this is laughable. However if they do not bake a cake for all who come in for the service it is being prejudiced and as i have mentioned countless times, personal belief should remain personal when working as it has a tendency to stop progress at work. You take that job you will encounter people you do not agree with. Best to find another job in that case if you cannot do it. I do not think this is worthy of jail time. The person is just an asshole. On par with the assholes who discriminate against Jews and blacks and deny service to them not too long ago. To compromise perhaps to the satisfaction of all would be for them to clearly state they do not want to serve these people so people do not go near them and go to someone who will. Within our culture to teach little ones equality (especially in service to others) and let it die out over time as you will never change those who do not want to change. Up to them not us.

No, Tony is making things up, you can't go to jail for refusing to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. The incident Tony is referring to involved some religious conservative bakers who faced a backlash from the public for refusing to serve a gay couple. The usual Religious Right scaremongering got a lot of dumb people thinking that this was somehow the government oppressing religious people.

[Anthony '58]

Quote:No, Tony is making things up, you can't go to jail for refusing to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. The incident Tony is referring to involved some religious conservative bakers who faced a backlash from the public for refusing to serve a gay couple. The usual Religious Right scaremongering got a lot of dumb people thinking that this was somehow the government oppressing religious people.

But the lefties want a law against this "discrimination."

And since laws without penalties are like bells without clappers ...

[pbrower2a]

Laws against discrimination in public accommodations and in housing have withstood Constitutional challenges. Licensed professions can remove people for discriminatory behavior. So I own a bakery shop. What sort of cake can I reasonably refuse to make? Obviously anything that violates copyright or trademark laws. If someone asks me to create a party cake that has Mickey Mouse on it and I do not have the rights to put those Disney characters on a cake that I sell, then I had better say NO very quickly to the request.

If I were asked to make a slanderous or libelous statement as a message on the cake (let us say "XXXX is a pedophile"), then I had better not make that cake.

Something utterly distasteful, as mockery of human suffering? It might be perfectly legal to create a cake with a depiction of the gate of a Nazi concentration, labor, or extermination camp and change "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" to "IT NEVER HAPPENED" on a birthday cake for Holocaust denier David Irving, which would likely get protests from Jewish organizations. I have no duty to do something that would hurt my business. Pornographic, seditious, blasphemous, racist, or extremist material might have the protection of the First Amendment, but I have no duty to create or transmit it. An insulting message like "DIE IN A FIRE!" would offend anyone who knew that I was in the business.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-02-2016, 11:04 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Laws against discrimination in public accommodations and in housing have withstood Constitutional challenges.  Licensed professions can remove people for discriminatory behavior. So I own a bakery shop. What sort of cake can I reasonably refuse to make? Obviously anything that violates copyright or trademark laws. If someone asks me to create a party cake that has Mickey Mouse on it  and I do not have the rights to put those Disney characters on a cake that I sell, then I had better say NO very quickly to the request.

If I were asked to make a slanderous or libelous statement as a message on the cake (let us say "XXXX is a pedophile"), then I had better not make that cake.

Something utterly distasteful, as mockery of human suffering? It might be perfectly legal to create a cake with a depiction of the gate of a Nazi concentration, labor, or extermination camp and change "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" to "IT NEVER HAPPENED" on a birthday cake for Holocaust denier David Irving, which would likely get protests from Jewish organizations.  I have no duty to do something that would hurt my business. Pornographic, seditious, blasphemous, racist, or extremist material might have the protection of the First Amendment, but I have no duty to create or transmit it. An insulting message like "DIE IN A FIRE!" would offend anyone who knew that I was in the business.

You have me imagining a skit from the old Carol Brunette Show.  Picture Tim Conway entering a bake shop set wearing a black Gestappo style severe military uniform, but the trim has been altered to show frosting style bakery decorations such as flowers and scolloped lines in pink and baby blue.  The badge would say something like "Frosting Police!"  In lots of ways, the politicization of cakes is that silly.

But I'm not sure you've got all the lines drawn in the right place.  Can a bakery refuse to sell a cake with a white bride wax figure on the top, along side a black groom?  Is this inherently different than two brides or two grooms?  Is there a compromise where the baker can refuse to put two deemed offensive figures by her perhaps bigoted standard on the cake, so long as she offers to sell figures separately?

I sympathize highly with the Awakening's lines of legal precedent.  If you are providing service to the public, you can't refuse to provide service due to racial bigotry.  We are now dealing with a different sort of bigotry.  In principle, according to law and precedent, the same lines ought to be applied in the same way.  Alas, being consistent often results in silliness, silliness unless you are the one who is the target of bigotry, silly if it isn't your happy event that is being ruined by a narrow mined judgmental (expletive deleted.)

[Odin]

(07-02-2016, 07:51 AM)Anthony Wrote:

Quote:No, Tony is making things up, you can't go to jail for refusing to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. The incident Tony is referring to involved some religious conservative bakers who faced a backlash from the public for refusing to serve a gay couple. The usual Religious Right scaremongering got a lot of dumb people thinking that this was somehow the government oppressing religious people.

But the lefties want a law against this "discrimination."

No we don't, that exists only in your imagination.

[pbrower2a]

(07-02-2016, 12:41 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-02-2016, 11:04 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Laws against discrimination in public accommodations and in housing have withstood Constitutional challenges.  Licensed professions can remove people for discriminatory behavior. So I own a bakery shop. What sort of cake can I reasonably refuse to make? Obviously anything that violates copyright or trademark laws. If someone asks me to create a party cake that has Mickey Mouse on it  and I do not have the rights to put those Disney characters on a cake that I sell, then I had better say NO very quickly to the request.

If I were asked to make a slanderous or libelous statement as a message on the cake (let us say "XXXX is a pedophile"), then I had better not make that cake.

Something utterly distasteful, as mockery of human suffering? It might be perfectly legal to create a cake with a depiction of the gate of a Nazi concentration, labor, or extermination camp and change "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" to "IT NEVER HAPPENED" on a birthday cake for Holocaust denier David Irving, which would likely get protests from Jewish organizations.  I have no duty to do something that would hurt my business. Pornographic, seditious, blasphemous, racist, or extremist material might have the protection of the First Amendment, but I have no duty to create or transmit it. An insulting message like "DIE IN A FIRE!" would offend anyone who knew that I was in the business.

You have me imagining a skit from the old Carol Brunette Show.  Picture Tim Conway entering a bake shop set wearing a black Gestappo style severe military uniform, but the trim has been altered to show frosting style bakery decorations such as flowers and scolloped lines in pink and baby blue.  The badge would say something like "Frosting Police!"  In lots of ways, the politicization of cakes is that silly.

But I'm not sure you've got all the lines drawn in the right place.  Can a bakery refuse to sell a cake with a white bride wax figure on the top, along side a black groom?  Is this inherently different than two brides or two grooms?  Is there a compromise where the baker can refuse to put two deemed offensive figures by her perhaps bigoted standard on the cake, so long as she offers to sell figures separately?

I sympathize highly with the Awakening's lines of legal precedent.  If you are providing service to the public, you can't refuse to provide service due to racial bigotry.  We are now dealing with a different sort of bigotry.  In principle, according to law and precedent, the same lines ought to be applied in the same way.  Alas, being consistent often results in silliness, silliness unless you are the one who is the target of bigotry, silly if it isn't your happy event that is being ruined by a narrow mined judgmental (expletive deleted.)

It's just another form of expression. Most cakes with a message will be about ordinary realities -- birthdays, weddings, wedding anniversaries, retirements, religious ceremonies, funerals, business openings... I was stretching the reality to explain something.  A birthday cake honoring Abraham Lincoln would have a very different meaning from one honoring Adolf Hitler.  I would make the Lincoln cake (or let us say the Reagan cake) without hesitation. Hitler? No way! That would be very bad business. Swastikas? Klan symbols? I'd guess that fascists would have to bake their own cakes. Celebrate the centennial of the Bolshevik Revolution? I might go so far as to make a cake with red frosting on top of it and stop there.

As for the interracial marriage, which has been legal far longer  than same-sex marriage, interracial marriage is still rare even if highly conspicuous. I doubt that I could get stock figurines of couples. Individuals? Of course. Now just think of the likelihood of getting stock figures of a same-sex couple, especially if the couple is in an interracial marriage. One might have to put two figures together. If a bakery employer is squeamish about putting a pair of women or a pair of men on top of a wedding cake, then I might have to do it myself.

Figure that in this hypothetical situation I own the bakery and all I care about is making money without doing something harmful to my business. That's how free enterprise works. A wedding cake for a same-sex couple will not cause me problems. A wedding cake with the words "F--- YOU" on it could cause problems.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-02-2016, 04:11 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Figure that in this hypothetical situation I own the bakery and all I care about is making money without doing something harmful to my business. That's how free enterprise works. A wedding cake for a same-sex couple will not cause me problems. A wedding cake with the words "F--- YOU" on it could cause problems.

Well, just anticipate that some in the government will be making practicing discrimination bad for your business.

[pbrower2a]

(07-02-2016, 08:51 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-02-2016, 04:11 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Figure that in this hypothetical situation I own the bakery and all I care about is making money without doing something harmful to my business. That's how free enterprise works. A wedding cake for a same-sex couple will not cause me problems. A wedding cake with the words "F--- YOU" on it could cause problems.

Well, just anticipate that some in the government will be making practicing discrimination bad for your business.

I so expect. An employer can make some accommodations to the religious beliefs of an employee, but no undue sacrifices of his profit or survival in business.

[TnT]

Last Saturday I worked an EMS Standby shift at our local baseball park. I had mistakenly assumed that it was a minor league baseball game followed by a fireworks display, and was looking forward to it - getting paid for five hours for watching baseball and fireworks!

Boy was I wrong!! Turns out there was no baseball. It was a large "preach to the choir" event put on by a consortium of the evangelical "Christian" churches here, complete with a windy sermon, a "Call to the Altar" to be saved, and a "Christian Rock" band.

Only after all that was there fireworks and that was, incredibly, drowned out by the amps of the band!

I figured, ok, what the heck, I'm still getting paid by the hour. So ... I'm standing there, minding my own business, which is to be ready and available to help anyone who get hurt or becomes ill.

This DOCTOR! A real, live M.D. sidles up to me and out of the clear blue looks deep into my eyes and asks, "Are YOU a BELIEVER?"

I was a bit taken back. Surprised. I guess I shouldn't have been, as one of their doctrinal principles is to try to shove their brand of religion down others' throats. I replied, "No maam, I'm not." At which she said, "Not yet!" And I said, "Not ever." And then it was on.

What IS it about these folks, that they just can't leave others the f*** alone? And then they complain that THEY are being attacked? Belief systems are incredibly strong, are they not? Folks who are so afraid of reality, and so unable to tolerate any ambiguity in the world they live in that they not only have to embrace this Down-the-Rabbit-Hole doctrine, but also have to do everything they can to inflict it on other innocents.

(Edit: Oops, just re-read this. I'm not claiming to be "innocent." But I'd take a "not TOO guilty plea.)

[Eric the Green]

(07-05-2016, 06:45 PM)TnT Wrote: Last Saturday I worked an EMS Standby shift at our local baseball park. I had mistakenly assumed that it was a minor league baseball game followed by a fireworks display, and was looking forward to it - getting paid for five hours for watching baseball and fireworks!

Boy was I wrong!! Turns out there was no baseball. It was a large "preach to the choir" event put on by a consortium of the evangelical "Christian" churches here, complete with a windy sermon, a "Call to the Altar" to be saved, and a "Christian Rock" band.

Only after all that was there fireworks and that was, incredibly, drowned out by the amps of the band!

I figured, ok, what the heck, I'm still getting paid by the hour. So ... I'm standing there, minding my own business, which is to be ready and available to help anyone who get hurt or becomes ill.

This DOCTOR! A real, live M.D. sidles up to me and out of the clear blue looks deep into my eyes and asks, "Are YOU a BELIEVER?"

I was a bit taken back. Surprised. I guess I shouldn't have been, as one of their doctrinal principles is to try to shove their brand of religion down others' throats. I replied, "No maam, I'm not." At which she said, "Not yet!" And I said, "Not ever." And then it was on.

What IS it about these folks, that they just can't leave others the f*** alone? And then they complain that THEY are being attacked? Belief systems are incredibly strong, are they not? Folks who are so afraid of reality, and so unable to tolerate any ambiguity in the world they live in that they not only have to embrace this Down-the-Rabbit-Hole doctrine, but also have to do everything they can to inflict it on other innocents.

(Edit: Oops, just re-read this. I'm not claiming to be "innocent." But I'd take a "not TOO guilty plea.)

I have to admit that it is amazing to me that some folks seem determined to live in the dark ages.

(no, I don't think that includes me )

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-05-2016, 08:06 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I have to admit that it is amazing to me that some folks seem determined to live in the dark ages.

(no, I don't think that includes me   )

The Dark Ages?  No.  That's not where I think you're at.  

The Summer of Love?  Maybe.  

It's just about a given that lots of folks believe their own culture is the best of all possible cultures.  It is very natural that individuals will want to share and spread their culture, their values, their way of looking at the world.  It might take the form of preaching to strangers, or trying to prohibit certain guns.  

From my point of view, style and civility matter.  No matter what one is advocating, if one uses hatred and disrespect as a tool to convert the enemy, one ought not to expect to get very far.

But it is hard.  No matter what culture one comes from, no matter what values one is trying to spread, no matter what flavor of love, peace and rock n roll one advocates, it's kind of hard, when the other guy is obstinate, ugly, insulting, demeaning, to resist grabbing him by the collar and shaking until all the (expletive deleted) is gone.  That's not generally for the best.  What would Janis Joplin or Jimi Hendrix do?

There are rock festivals, and then there are rock festivals...

[gabrielle]

(07-07-2016, 07:40 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-05-2016, 08:06 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I have to admit that it is amazing to me that some folks seem determined to live in the dark ages.

(no, I don't think that includes me   )

The Dark Ages?  No.  That's not where I think you're at.  

The Summer of Love?  Maybe.  

It's just about a given that lots of folks believe their own culture is the best of all possible cultures.  It is very natural that individuals will want to share and spread their culture, their values, their way of looking at the world.  It might take the form of preaching to strangers, or trying to prohibit certain guns.  

From my point of view, style and civility matter.  No matter what one is advocating, if one uses hatred and disrespect as a tool to convert the enemy, one ought not to expect to get very far.

But it is hard.  No matter what culture one comes from, no matter what values one is trying to spread, no matter what flavor of love, peace and rock n roll one advocates, it's kind of hard, when the other guy is obstinate, ugly, insulting, demeaning, to resist grabbing him by the collar and shaking until all the (expletive deleted) is gone.  That's not generally for the best.  What would Janis Joplin or Jimi Hendrix do?

There are rock festivals, and then there are rock festivals...

What would Greg Graffin do? 

[Eric the Green]

(07-07-2016, 07:40 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-05-2016, 08:06 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I have to admit that it is amazing to me that some folks seem determined to live in the dark ages.

(no, I don't think that includes me   )

The Dark Ages?  No.  That's not where I think you're at.  

The Summer of Love?  Maybe.  

Just about there in the best songs ever thread!

Quote:It's just about a given that lots of folks believe their own culture is the best of all possible cultures.  It is very natural that individuals will want to share and spread their culture, their values, their way of looking at the world.  It might take the form of preaching to strangers, or trying to prohibit certain guns.  

Or more likely, promote them, or permissiveness regarding them. The gun culture is a culture. Gun control activism is simply concern for public safety; not a culture. But oh well, back to the topic....

Quote:From my point of view, style and civility matter.  No matter what one is advocating, if one uses hatred and disrespect as a tool to convert the enemy, one ought not to expect to get very far.

But it is hard.  No matter what culture one comes from, no matter what values one is trying to spread, no matter what flavor of love, peace and rock n roll one advocates, it's kind of hard, when the other guy is obstinate, ugly, insulting, demeaning, to resist grabbing him by the collar and shaking until all the (expletive deleted) is gone.  That's not generally for the best.  What would Janis Joplin or Jimi Hendrix do?

There are rock festivals, and then there are rock festivals...

Yes, civility matters. If one is insulting the other guy, it is more-likely about arousing rage against him or her, rather than converting. The Trump technique. "They're rapists!" We'd better build a wall!

But religious conversion is civil enough; just fanatical, too insistent, and too limited in viewpoint. I have mentioned the idea of integral philosophy and spiral dynamics to you, to no avail. But it jells to some extent with what you say. We can transcend, but also include, earlier-stage worldviews, and appreciate their level of consciousness as, in its time, an advance over its predecessor.

In this case, the religious Christian worldview of the Middle Ages succeeded what you call Agricultural Age values per se, or an earlier form of them, as martial values of conquest and imperialism, and the value of iron and bronze work, etc., which held sway in the classical age (the iron age more or less) and the late archaic ages (the bronze age). Religion tempered the martial attitude with Jovian faith and morals. Religious Empires succeeded those of the Power Lords. The Church in its Middle Ages heydey was a civilizing influence, as Kenneth Clark said in that video I linked here a few days ago. Of course, back then conversion was not necessarily so civil. Crusades were armed.

Well, I don't remember where I linked it, so
https://youtu.be/MpPNbI6GcxI

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-07-2016, 10:24 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The gun culture is a culture. Gun control activism is simply concern for public safety; not a culture. But oh well, back to the topic....

A minor quibble?  I can sympathize that the gun prohibition movement is more a concern for the public good than a culture in and of itself.  However, gun prohibition is part of a larger culture where people (generally with urban life experience) are sincerely working for the public good as they see the public good.  During the New Deal through Great Society era, this work for the common good culture  was stronger.  Folks were very willing to bear burdens, pay prices, meet hardships, etc...   If something was wrong, one fixed it.  If something big was wrong, only the government was big enough for a real fix.

That aspect of the American culture has faded but not vanished.  Still, there is a definite set of opposing values which have grown quite strong.  If one buys into the Reagan memes, the government is so inefficient and corrupt that all attempts to achieve the public good though government action are presumed to be doomed to failure.  The proper action is to cut taxes and allow the private sector to address problems.  These ideas might go all the way down to allowing the private sector to shoot their own bad guys.

At a high abstract level, this conflict of values might be a basic broad brush outline of the domestic Red / Blue conflict.  The gun policy discussion is just a small portion of a much larger conflict of cultures.

[Odin]

(07-05-2016, 06:45 PM)TnT Wrote: Last Saturday I worked an EMS Standby shift at our local baseball park.  I had mistakenly assumed that it was a minor league baseball game followed by a fireworks display, and was looking forward to it - getting paid for five hours for watching baseball and fireworks!

Boy was I wrong!!  Turns out there was no baseball.  It was a large "preach to the choir" event put on by a consortium of the evangelical "Christian" churches here, complete with a windy sermon, a "Call to the Altar" to be saved, and a "Christian Rock" band.

Only after all that was there fireworks and that was, incredibly, drowned out by the amps of the band!

I figured, ok, what the heck, I'm still getting paid by the hour.  So ... I'm standing there, minding my own business, which is to be ready and available to help anyone who get hurt or becomes ill.

This DOCTOR!  A real, live M.D. sidles up to me and out of the clear blue looks deep into my eyes and asks, "Are YOU a BELIEVER?"

I was a bit taken back.  Surprised.  I guess I shouldn't have been, as one of their doctrinal principles is to try to shove their brand of religion down others' throats.  I replied, "No maam, I'm not."  At which she said, "Not yet!"  And I said, "Not ever."  And then it was on.

What IS it about these folks, that they just can't leave others the f*** alone?  And then they complain that THEY are being attacked?  Belief systems are incredibly strong, are they not?  Folks who are so afraid of reality, and so unable to tolerate any ambiguity in the world they live in that they not only have to embrace this Down-the-Rabbit-Hole doctrine, but also have to do everything they can to inflict it on other innocents.

(Edit:  Oops, just re-read this. I'm not claiming to be "innocent."  But I'd take a "not TOO guilty plea.)

In their minds they are trying to help you by saving you from damnation.

[TnT]

[quote pid='4512' dateline='1467923036']
and that is the scary thing about some religions. It teaches people that if they do not continue to believe they will be damned for all eternity. Telling that to kids. That is some messed up sh*t.
[/quote]


And THAT is one of the things that offends me the most ... these self-righteous sanctimonious asses accost people who perhaps aren't very good at critical thinking, including truly innocent children, tell them fairy tales about heaven and hell and then convnce these folks to live out their lives in a pinched, myopic, limited, and hypothetical style.  Designed to "get them to heaven."

Meantime, they are regaled with the concept of Prosperity Gospel while the big shots in the "church" take their money and piss it away on whatever ...

And when you really delve into the doctrine?  Well, I've got a few questions ...

Do demons and angels exist?  If so, are they immortal?  Do they live in dormitories and eat dining hall food?

Who supervises Limbo?  Does someone have to change the diapers on the babies there?  Does someone come and rock them to sleeep at night?

Is Purgatory kind of a farm team of Hell?  Do Satan's demons run it?

Let me get this straight, are we to believe that this "infallible god", in his very first try, is unable to successfully pull of the  creation an Adam and an Eve who almost immediately turn renegade, get 86'd out of Eden and then have two kids, after which the first death is not only a murder, but a fratricide ... what?  We're supposed to look up to and admire a superior intelligence who lacks the competence of a mediocre factory supervisor?

Being submerged in a huge tub of water three times, in public, is needed to access heaven?

Baptizing the long-dead saves them from perdition?

Oh, yeah, and don't forget, as my Doctor friend told me the other night ... We are living in THE END TIMES!!!  Oh, my god, where have we heard that one before?

And I asked her to explain Leviticus to me if she truly believed in the divinely inspired Bible.  So, says she, that was meant for a different audience under different circumstances.  Oh, ok, then what about Genesis?  Well that's still true today, says she.  Oh, ok, how do you tell the difference?  Well, says she, you have to know "HOW" to read the Bible.  Oh, ok, how does one learn?  Well, says she, we'll teach you.  Yeah, I'll bet you will ...

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-07-2016, 03:23 PM)taramarie Wrote: and that is the scary thing about some religions. It teaches people that if they do not continue to believe they will be damned for all eternity. Telling that to kids. That is some messed up sh*t.

That's close to where I parted with a lot of the main line Christian denominations.  The central point for me though is that the laws to be followed aren't made overly clear.  Every denomination has different opinions of what God wants.  Yet, if you don't follow the laws you get tortured eternally?  If so, that's not a god that I'm going to worship.  

I still call myself a devout agnostic.  Agnostic, rather than atheist.  There is an awful lot in the Jewish / Christian / Muslim tradition that can be admired, respected and even lived if the old Agricultural Age autocratic terrorist world view gets edited out.  While I try to put Newton and Jefferson ahead of Jesus, that doesn't mean there isn't a lot to respect in Jesus.

On another thread recently I talked about how Stalin, Saddam, Assad and ISIS fit a basic Agricultural Aage pattern where the only way to get peace and plenty is for a really strong leader to terrorize everyone into doing what the leader says.  Many older interpretations of how God works fit this.  God is the ultimate strong man.  If you don't do what he says you will be tortured for eternity.  The demons are kept at arm's length for plausible deniability, but God is at the center of the coercion by terror schtick.

I am quite willing to believe that Jesus's message got corrupted somewhere along the line, that the modern big bureaucratic denomination haven't got the message right.  I still hypothesize occasionally about how exactly an all powerful all knowing and all merciful being can exist.

But there are enough paradoxes and mysteries involved that I've given up on solving them.  There are reasonable enough reasons to be moral as a secular person, no God required.  If one of God's attributes is mercy, I'm hoping honest secular Golden Rule living will be enough, that He won't go crazy nuts because I've eaten pork, or eaten any sort of meat on Friday, or eaten at all during daylight during Ramadan, or whatever other rules exist that seem more reminiscent of Man's folly than God's alleged wisdom.

(In parting, I'll mention a minor spell check silly.  I misspelled denominations and got demonizations instead.  Do spell checkers do Freudian slips?)

[Eric the Green]

(07-07-2016, 11:37 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-07-2016, 03:23 PM)taramarie Wrote: and that is the scary thing about some religions. It teaches people that if they do not continue to believe they will be damned for all eternity. Telling that to kids. That is some messed up sh*t.

That's close to where I parted with a lot of the main line Christian denominations.  The central point for me though is that the laws to be followed aren't made overly clear.  Every denomination has different opinions of what God wants.  Yet, if you don't follow the laws you get tortured eternally?  If so, that's not a god that I'm going to worship.  

I still call myself a devout agnostic.  Agnostic, rather than atheist.  There is an awful lot in the Jewish / Christian / Muslim tradition that can be admired, respected and even lived if the old Agricultural Age autocratic terrorist world view gets edited out.  While I try to put Newton and Jefferson ahead of Jesus, that doesn't mean there isn't a lot to respect in Jesus.

On another thread recently I talked about how Stalin, Saddam, Assad and ISIS fit a basic Agricultural Aage pattern where the only way to get peace and plenty is for a really strong leader to terrorize everyone into doing what the leader says.  Many older interpretations of how God works fit this.  God is the ultimate strong man.  If you don't do what he says you will be tortured for eternity.  The demons are kept at arm's length for plausible deniability, but God is at the center of the coercion by terror schtick.

I am quite willing to believe that Jesus's message got corrupted somewhere along the line, that the modern big bureaucratic denomination haven't got the message right.  I still hypothesize occasionally about how exactly an all powerful all knowing and all merciful being can exist.

But there are enough paradoxes and mysteries involved that I've given up on solving them.  There are reasonable enough reasons to be moral as a secular person, no God required.  If one of God's attributes is mercy, I'm hoping honest secular Golden Rule living will be enough, that He won't go crazy nuts because I've eaten pork, or eaten any sort of meat on Friday, or eaten at all during daylight during Ramadan, or whatever other rules exist that seem more reminiscent of Man's folly than God's alleged wisdom.

(In parting, I'll mention a minor spell check silly.  I misspelled denominations and got demonizations instead.  Do spell checkers do Freudian slips?)

Like the typo I caught myself where I typed gin instead of gun. Falls right into your trap.

You still left off the s from denominations.

I probably have it figured out, but it still gives me troubles occasionally. Whatever such God exists, for starters, is not separate from me. I am one with God. Starting there, a lot of the nonsense goes away, knocking down all the authoritarian stuff in one stroke, without leaving me in secular land that ultimately has no life and denies my consciousness. Obviously too, the stories told by one religion or another are not relevant except perhaps as symbolic myths about our journey in life. Still, I am also an individual, although not separate, and clearly I make mistakes, even though I am one with the Perfect One that is all. So, no words can really get it right. Only the inner-knowing.