Pardon the long response, but this thread really took off since I last posted in it yesterday. Also, forgive me if others have covered any of the ground I'm retreading here.
You don't get to claim to be respecting people's free will while espousing beliefs, voting for laws, and financially supporting an organization that actively seeks to oppress a group of tens of millions of people simply because of how they were born, thanks to the very God whose apparent wisdom you keep second guessing.
The hateful stance you're advocating in this thread is immensely more destructive and offensive than anyone calling you names, especially ones like "closed-minded" and "bigot" which are quite simply factually accurate. So, drop the victim routine --which by the way you adopted right from the start in this thread and before anyone called you any names directly-- and quit pretending that you're all about respect, because you aren't respecting others with your beliefs and actions.
No more needs to be said... so here are more of my sermons on homosexuality nine pages later which still manage to completely miss the point of this issue. Believe what you want about gays in your own home or church, but when you seek to impose those beliefs on others through discrimination and the law (as Chick-Fil-A has done as well), I will fight you every step of the way.
If you sin every day, as does everyone else on Earth, why do you get a pass on going to Heaven but gays do not? According to your beliefs they are simply another person, brought into this world the way they are by God, who are also sinning every day. What makes you qualified for Heaven while they are condemned to eternal torment?
If you loved others here, you wouldn't be seeking to deny many of the people on this board their rights. Aren't you usurping God's role in judging people when you seek to codify those judgments into human law? If God is the ultimate arbiter of what happens to gays, why do you feel the need to interfere? Isn't eternal damnation enough; do you really need to make things more difficult for them in life as well?
Besides being a slippery slope fallacy, this shows a profound misunderstanding of your opponents since I think most of them would be fine with incest being legal if it were between two consenting adults and certain assurances were made against inbreeding of subsequent generations to avoid genetic abnormalities in the long term. The problem is, as of now, many if not most cases of incest involved people who are coerced or abused by the very family members they are sleeping with.
And that's the key in all the ridiculous slippery slope arguments you make. Coercion. Most cases of incest are not consensual. Rape is not consensual. Molestation is not consensual. Bestiality is not consensual. Learn the difference between non-consensual acts and two adults having consensual gay sex or desiring to have their partnership legally recognized.
Yes, I find incest gross, but that doesn't mean I'm going to impose my beliefs on two consenting adults as a result. You however, try and use discrimination and the law against homosexuality and falsely hide behind the Bible to claim some sort of moral authority, when in actuality it's just your bigotry about something you find gross. You can't even be honest about that much, but your comparison here to mostly illegal acts you label "gross" makes it clear.
So, again, what's the difference between their choice to "sin" by having gay sex and your choice to sin everyday along with everyone else, as you've already admitted? What's the cut-off point on when you get sent to Heaven or get sent to Hell? Because it seems completely arbitrary to me, and also something you should be leaving in the hands of God to decide instead of trying to enforce on your own here on Earth.
Others asked for clarification, and since you haven't given any and agreed with everything that was said above I'm just going to have to assume you truly do support treating women as second-class citizens who should be confined to the home, and think that children should suffer and die from illnesses we've developed vaccinations for. But again, we're not supposed to call you a close-minded bigot, because THAT would be wrong. Not all this other stuff, though. Why is my belief that your a bigot worse than the evil, backwards, bigoted ideology you support here?
Other than reappearing after people thought you were gone, you don't have much in common with Jesus. You're not even Jesús or "Hey, Zeus," so spare us the proselytizing.
Let's say I'm wrong and God exists and I find myself facing his judgment. If God is truly an all-knowing, all-seeing being, shouldn't he know the life experiences that led me to choose to be an atheist? Shouldn't a wise, forgiving, and benevolent God be understanding of how those experiences shaped my beliefs and take that into account? According to your twisted and evil view of God, he doesn't give a damn about all that and instead condemns people to eternal torment simply because they grew up in a different religion or didn't see any evidence of his existence. Why should I care about the judgment of such an evil being any more than I should care about being judged by Hitler?
I'd rather be condemned to suffer an eternity of torment than pledge my loyalty to any being that would condemn good people to suffer an eternity of torment just because of who they are or what they believe, which is a result of his actions and which he should be able to understand the reasoning for, respectively.
Fuck your evil version of God. I fart in his general direction.
You don't get to claim to be respecting people's free will while espousing beliefs, voting for laws, and financially supporting an organization that actively seeks to oppress a group of tens of millions of people simply because of how they were born, thanks to the very God whose apparent wisdom you keep second guessing.
The hateful stance you're advocating in this thread is immensely more destructive and offensive than anyone calling you names, especially ones like "closed-minded" and "bigot" which are quite simply factually accurate. So, drop the victim routine --which by the way you adopted right from the start in this thread and before anyone called you any names directly-- and quit pretending that you're all about respect, because you aren't respecting others with your beliefs and actions.
No more needs to be said... so here are more of my sermons on homosexuality nine pages later which still manage to completely miss the point of this issue. Believe what you want about gays in your own home or church, but when you seek to impose those beliefs on others through discrimination and the law (as Chick-Fil-A has done as well), I will fight you every step of the way.
If you sin every day, as does everyone else on Earth, why do you get a pass on going to Heaven but gays do not? According to your beliefs they are simply another person, brought into this world the way they are by God, who are also sinning every day. What makes you qualified for Heaven while they are condemned to eternal torment?
If you loved others here, you wouldn't be seeking to deny many of the people on this board their rights. Aren't you usurping God's role in judging people when you seek to codify those judgments into human law? If God is the ultimate arbiter of what happens to gays, why do you feel the need to interfere? Isn't eternal damnation enough; do you really need to make things more difficult for them in life as well?
Besides being a slippery slope fallacy, this shows a profound misunderstanding of your opponents since I think most of them would be fine with incest being legal if it were between two consenting adults and certain assurances were made against inbreeding of subsequent generations to avoid genetic abnormalities in the long term. The problem is, as of now, many if not most cases of incest involved people who are coerced or abused by the very family members they are sleeping with.
And that's the key in all the ridiculous slippery slope arguments you make. Coercion. Most cases of incest are not consensual. Rape is not consensual. Molestation is not consensual. Bestiality is not consensual. Learn the difference between non-consensual acts and two adults having consensual gay sex or desiring to have their partnership legally recognized.
Yes, I find incest gross, but that doesn't mean I'm going to impose my beliefs on two consenting adults as a result. You however, try and use discrimination and the law against homosexuality and falsely hide behind the Bible to claim some sort of moral authority, when in actuality it's just your bigotry about something you find gross. You can't even be honest about that much, but your comparison here to mostly illegal acts you label "gross" makes it clear.
So, again, what's the difference between their choice to "sin" by having gay sex and your choice to sin everyday along with everyone else, as you've already admitted? What's the cut-off point on when you get sent to Heaven or get sent to Hell? Because it seems completely arbitrary to me, and also something you should be leaving in the hands of God to decide instead of trying to enforce on your own here on Earth.
Others asked for clarification, and since you haven't given any and agreed with everything that was said above I'm just going to have to assume you truly do support treating women as second-class citizens who should be confined to the home, and think that children should suffer and die from illnesses we've developed vaccinations for. But again, we're not supposed to call you a close-minded bigot, because THAT would be wrong. Not all this other stuff, though. Why is my belief that your a bigot worse than the evil, backwards, bigoted ideology you support here?
Other than reappearing after people thought you were gone, you don't have much in common with Jesus. You're not even Jesús or "Hey, Zeus," so spare us the proselytizing.
Let's say I'm wrong and God exists and I find myself facing his judgment. If God is truly an all-knowing, all-seeing being, shouldn't he know the life experiences that led me to choose to be an atheist? Shouldn't a wise, forgiving, and benevolent God be understanding of how those experiences shaped my beliefs and take that into account? According to your twisted and evil view of God, he doesn't give a damn about all that and instead condemns people to eternal torment simply because they grew up in a different religion or didn't see any evidence of his existence. Why should I care about the judgment of such an evil being any more than I should care about being judged by Hitler?
I'd rather be condemned to suffer an eternity of torment than pledge my loyalty to any being that would condemn good people to suffer an eternity of torment just because of who they are or what they believe, which is a result of his actions and which he should be able to understand the reasoning for, respectively.
Fuck your evil version of God. I fart in his general direction.
