Presbyterian Church to Allow Gay Marriage?

[madd0ct0r]

Practically speaking even for atheists it might make for good intellectual exercise and debating practice. In addition there is no lack of debates concerning fictional universes here.

Oh, very. It would be nice to assume the role of a fundamentalist Christian, knowing their arguments and all that intellectually as an atheist, and then arguing against some liberal Christian who believes in "multiple paths" to salvation and other new age claptrap. T

Why not try the opposite?

Assume the role of a liberal Christian and argue against the practices of a conservative evangelical church.

It's a bit less satirical but might be a bit more of an intellectual workout for you.

Plus, there's tremendous satisfaction in proving somebody wrong, accepting and starting from their assumptions. It stops being an argument about those assumptions (eg, existence of the big beardy guy) and is instead methodically dismantling their illogical conclusions from the starting assumptions.

[Shroom Man 777]

It is harder to use rationality to make a fundie shithead think properly because they are not rational?

It is easier and more effective to project the true ugliness of fundie shitheads in distilled form, in order to disgust and revulsify liberal Christians and show them the true nature of fundamentalism and how terrible those shit belief systems really are?

[Kanastrous]

Really. Remember that old adage about wrestling a pig: you both get dirty, and the pig actually enjoys it...

[Shroom Man 777]

That analogy would be more apt when you're debating/wrestling a fundie/pig.

My analogy of acting like a fundie and debating a liberal Christian would be more like... pretending to be a pig, covering yourself up in mud, and wrestling with a clean person to make him dirty too! And THEN thanks to this experience, he will never wrestle real pigs in his life ever!

[Simon_Jester]

Though honestly I think the biblical doctrine is full of shit. Like what I heard once: I love it when people argue over religion. It's a bit like arguing over whether a unicorn can defeat a hippogriff. "My book of irrational beliefs is better than your book of irrational beliefs!"

Practically speaking even for atheists it might make for good intellectual exercise and debating practice. In addition there is no lack of debates concerning fictional universes here.

Yes, but most of them make a pretense of following the laws of physics. Though if you want a good example of how the SDN approach to setting analysis works on biblical doctrine... go read The Salvation War.

In SDN terms that's a Bible/Real Life crossover, and Real Life won. Decisively. I found it amusing and sobering, myself.

I think that if I tried, I would be a good pastor for born agains. All I need is to elocute some fancy nice-sounding Jesusy words, and all I need is a congregation of true Christians, and I can say whatever Jesusy stuff I can say, and all the true Christians can agree with me, and then through peer pressure and psychological conditioning, we can easily convert non-Christians who go into our church! Think about it. A whole lot of people who honestly believe that God and Jesus and Satan and Hell are real, that are honestly convinced that believing in Jesus is the one only way to avoid burning in Hell forever. If you're an insecure person, if you're a scared person, if you're a susceptible person, oh man. It's Jesus Time.

Well that's because you're a deeply wacky person who can say the most wacked-out stuff in the universe without even blinking. Most people actually have to believe this stuff before they can say it, but you could probably bring it off without.

Why not try the opposite?

Assume the role of a liberal Christian and argue against the practices of a conservative evangelical church.

It's a bit less satirical but might be a bit more of an intellectual workout for you.

Plus, there's tremendous satisfaction in proving somebody wrong, accepting and starting from their assumptions. It stops being an argument about those assumptions (eg, existence of the big beardy guy) and is instead methodically dismantling their illogical conclusions from the starting assumptions.

Arguing conservative evangelism from the perspective of liberal Christianity is great wholesome fun, not least because you're speaking close enough to the evangelist's language that they might actually comprehend what you are saying. Evangelists simply will not grasp the meaning of a question like "how do you know the Bible is literally true?" in terms that allow them to answer it. Their thinking on this issue is muddy, and is kept deliberately so as per doctrine. To them, that mud is the entire intellectual universe; unclear thinking is the only thinking they are allowed by the orthodoxy on this issue.

To deal with them on their level, where a meeting of the minds is actually possible, you have to be able to operate in the mud. You don't have to like it, but you do have to be able to not dissolve on contact with it.

[madd0ct0r]

yup, but you'll have more luck trying to get someone from the mud of fundie-mentalisim to the marsh of liberal christianity then trying to get someone to renounce god altogether.

deconversion is a long process, and a mostly internal one.


"how do you know the bible is literally true? " is not the way forward.

"Is there a perfect being outside of god?
has there been a perfect man outside of jesus?
was the bible translated or transcribed by fallible men?"

"Were we not created in God's image? Is this not generally taken to mean he gave us free will, to allow us to choose between good and evil?
So by not operating conscious choice, by exploring the world and trying to understand it so that we may make the right choice, are we ignoring God's wishes? Abandoning the gifts he gave us?"

ect

it's based as much on rhetoric and keywords as logic, but so is religion. It also gets a better reception.

[Simon_Jester]

yup, but you'll have more luck trying to get someone from the mud of fundie-mentalisim to the marsh of liberal christianity then trying to get someone to renounce god altogether.

Ultimately, why do one care to do the latter?

The harm caused by religion is caused almost entirely by the bigotry and muddy thinking encouraged by fundamentalist religion. I have a great desire to convince religious people to renounce bigotry and clean up their muddy thinking to levels more in line with functioning in civilized society. Why on Earth would I want to argue with their harmless religious beliefs?

The fact that someone believes that right action will earn them a place in paradise, or that acting according to their station in life will raise their soul to a better one in the next incarnation, or that they need to do a funky little dance every morning when they get out of bed to make the juju spirits go away... who cares? As long as they do not then take their belief in paradise, or dharma, or juju spirits, and use it as a bludgeon to attack others who fail to follow their self-imposed religious strictures, that is perfectly fine by me.

[General Mung Beans]

yup, but you'll have more luck trying to get someone from the mud of fundie-mentalisim to the marsh of liberal christianity then trying to get someone to renounce god altogether.

Ultimately, why do one care to do the latter?

The harm caused by religion is caused almost entirely by the bigotry and muddy thinking encouraged by fundamentalist religion. I have a great desire to convince religious people to renounce bigotry and clean up their muddy thinking to levels more in line with functioning in civilized society. Why on Earth would I want to argue with their harmless religious beliefs?

The fact that someone believes that right action will earn them a place in paradise, or that acting according to their station in life will raise their soul to a better one in the next incarnation, or that they need to do a funky little dance every morning when they get out of bed to make the juju spirits go away... who cares? As long as they do not then take their belief in paradise, or dharma, or juju spirits, and use it as a bludgeon to attack others who fail to follow their self-imposed religious strictures, that is perfectly fine by me.

What about religious people who do not support violence against others or force their beliefs by law on them but still wish to convert you? Would you consider them dangerous?

[Serafina]

What about religious people who do not support violence against others or force their beliefs by law on them but still wish to convert you? Would you consider them dangerous?

No, but offensive. Did i ASK them to convert me?
No, i didn't. So why the heck are they intruding into my private business?

The answer is, of course, that many religious people automatically regard people who are not of their denomination as being not as good as people who are (if not outright sinful or evil).
Atheists generally do not do that - and when they talk negatively about religious people, they generally do it based on behavior (such as proselytizing, forcing their beliefs onto others, disrupting science or keeping their children ignorant).
Meanwhile, many religious people think bad of atheists just for being atheists.

[Shroom Man 777]

What about religious people who do not support violence against others or force their beliefs by law on them but still wish to convert you? Would you consider them dangerous?

Violence is not the only way to do "harm". What if the religious people do not support violence against others, or force their beliefs by law on them, but still wish to convert you and try to do so incessantly? There are ways to mistreat people without supporting violence against others. What if the religious people who do not support violence against others end up sending homosexuals, or those who confess to homosexuality amongst them, to those Jesusy Bible Camps for de-education?

What if those religious people who do not support violence against others or force their beliefs by law on them, nonetheless, go on telling non-Christians or gays or whatever that they are "living in sin" and that their lifestyle choices or non-Christian beliefs are "evil paths to Hell" or "the ways of the devil" or some shit? What if those religious people who do not support violence against others or force their beliefs by law on them, nonetheless, act like total shitheads in "loving the sinner but hating the sin". Hm?

What if there is a couple who, due to life difficulties, end up having an abortion. Then this couple, who are having difficulties, go looking for emotional support amongst friends. And then a religious person (who does not support violence against others or force his beliefs by law on them, but still wishes to convert them) goes on to tell them that what they did was evil and was murder, and that he will pray for them? A couple who did a difficult thing look for emotional support, and then this asshole calls them evil/murderers and smugly arrogantly says that he'll "pray for them" or some shit. Is that good?

Hell, what if some gay man has trouble because of his boyfriend. Or a lesbian has trouble with her girlfriend. Or some transsexual has had difficulty in his/her sex change operation. And THEN a religious person (who does not support violence against others or force his beliefs by law on them, but still wishes to convert them) tells him/her/them that what they are doing is "evil" or "murder" or whatever and that he will "pray for them". How does that come off?

What if these religious people (who do not support violence against others or force their beliefs by law on them but still wish to convert you) have children. These children grow up under the religious peoples' strict religious upbringing. But one of these children begins to doubt, maybe he questions their beliefs, maybe he wants to be gay or he feels like he is gay. Maybe he gets pregnant and wants an abortion. Maybe he doesn't think god is real.

But then, these religious people (who do not support violence against others or force their beliefs by law on them but still wish to convert you) will get angry if this child reveals that he wants to be non-Christian/gay/have an abortion? What if the child feels frightened and thus cannot choose what life he wants to live because of the religious people (who do not support violence against others or force their beliefs by law on them but still wish to convert you) around him? This is unhealthy peer pressure, you know like those "don't do drug" things where peer pressure forces teenagers to commit the same mistakes his fellow friends do? Except this peer pressure forces people to believe the same believes everyone else beliefs, and he/she can't think for himself anymore.

Amongst (very) religious people, a person who wants to become non-Christian/gay/whatever will feel guilty. After all, how can you live a different lifestyle when everyone else in the world around you is so religulous, when they will all express their disappointment/disapproval/shock/horror at you if you choose to be non-Christian/gay/whatever? They all believe that if you become non-Christian/gay/whatever, you will go to hell. So you will also be afraid for your soul or whatever. You will feel guilty and scared because of their religious mumbo jumbo bullshit psychological crap.

[Simon_Jester]

What about religious people who do not support violence against others or force their beliefs by law on them but still wish to convert you? Would you consider them dangerous?

I find their attempts to convert me amusing because I often find that they have failed to address basic philosophical flaws in their own religion, preferring instead to rope others in without bothering to first make sense.

However, religious people often fail to realize that they are trying to enforce their beliefs on others; it's a common vice caused by muddy thinking. This is where we get, for example, mass opposition to gay marriage even though condemnation of homosexuality in America is very much a religious belief.

Which is where Shroom is coming from: when religious fundamentalists form great crowds around those who do not follow their beliefs and start shunning them and insulting them and getting up on their Pharisaic high horses with "I'll pray for you"s and "hate the sin, not the sinner"s...

...that's harassment. It's not as overt as a lynching, but taken to extremes (and I know victims of this process for whom it was taken to extremes), it's the psychic equivalent of being flayed alive to live in that environment year after year.

So yeah, I have a lot of contempt for people who do that. Were those the people you meant?

[General Mung Beans]

What about religious people who do not support violence against others or force their beliefs by law on them but still wish to convert you? Would you consider them dangerous?

I find their attempts to convert me amusing because I often find that they have failed to address basic philosophical flaws in their own religion, preferring instead to rope others in without bothering to first make sense.

However, religious people often fail to realize that they are trying to enforce their beliefs on others; it's a common vice caused by muddy thinking. This is where we get, for example, mass opposition to gay marriage even though condemnation of homosexuality in America is very much a religious belief.

Which is where Shroom is coming from: when religious fundamentalists form great crowds around those who do not follow their beliefs and start shunning them and insulting them and getting up on their Pharisaic high horses with "I'll pray for you"s and "hate the sin, not the sinner"s...

...that's harassment. It's not as overt as a lynching, but taken to extremes (and I know victims of this process for whom it was taken to extremes), it's the psychic equivalent of being flayed alive to live in that environment year after year.

So yeah, I have a lot of contempt for people who do that. Were those the people you meant?

I wasn't talking about those who ask people to believe in an abusive way like you were talking about-such as for instance holding street signs saying: REPENT YOUR SINS or THE END IS NIGH. Most fundamentalists and Evangelicals are intelligent enough to know that such tactics don't work unless you use it on people who themselves do that (ie Jehovah's Witnesses).

[Simon_Jester]

I wasn't talking about those who ask people to believe in an abusive way like you were talking about-such as for instance holding street signs saying: REPENT YOUR SINS or THE END IS NIGH. Most fundamentalists and Evangelicals are intelligent enough to know that such tactics don't work unless you use it on people who themselves do that (ie Jehovah's Witnesses).

Oh, you can't spot most of the bastards by the signs they carry. They're more subtle than that.

Look for how they behave when they find out someone in the family is gay. That's a good sign of whether the religious believer in question is abusive or not.

[Shroom Man 777]

You don't need to see Christians hold placards to see them shitting on people. Just look at how they behave towards "sinners" or to those whose practices they "disapprove" of. Passive-aggressive, subtle, insidious behaviors towards friends or family members who don't kowtow to the faith or whatever.

"I will pray for your soul" = "What you are doing/what you are is filthy, stop doing it or else you will burn in Hell because God hates you for it we hate you for it, stop doing it because God loves you stop doing it because we love you, you filthy fucking whoreslutbitchgaytheistsinner we condemn/disapprove/shit on you because our practices are moralistically superior to you subhuman shit so please act like us and be like us to make yourself bettergoodnicechristianlyjesusly and do what we think is right for you we want to impose what we think is best for you because we love you you miserable worthless fuck"

According to their beliefs without Jesus human beings are unworthy pieces of shit that deserve to burn in hell if they don't accept jesus christ as their personal lord and savior because if you are not christian then you are a miserable evil fucking sinner.

Jesus loves the little children all the little children in the world. Red and yellow black and white, they're all precious in his sight. Don't accept Jesus and all their eyeballs will boil out of their sockets while they rot in hell. Jesus loves all the children in the world!

[Mayabird]

An example from my extended family:

One of my aunts is a Bible-thumper. One of my other aunts is lesbian and in a committed relationship with her partner (and they are both awesome people and I love them). The Bible-thumper will not let my better aunt in her house or anywhere that her adopted kids could see her, lest they learn of her evil, sinful nature. The most egregious instance was when my grandmother died. After the funeral they were having an after-service dinner at the Bible-thumper's house. Their mother just died and she would not set it aside and let her own sister eat dinner in her house. Though everyone else was welcome, of course.

She would never physically harm anyone, but as Shroomy pointed out, passive-aggressive bullshit is A-OK!

[Shroom Man 777]

That's the Christian Way. Family values, Biblical morals, and the love of Christ. For god so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten son, only true Christians have accepted Jewsus into their hearts as their personal lord and savior so they will go to heaven and not burn in hell like everyone else because god loves them.

Christians are one of god's most beautiful creations.

[Lusankya]

One doesn't even need to be passive-aggressive to cause harm or risk causing harm.

The year before I arrived at the school where I taught English last year, all three of the foreign teachers were really committed Christians. As good Christians, they felt that it was their duty to spread the word of Christ and what have you, and they encouraged the students to visit the church with them, and invited the students to bible study at the teachers' homes (the students, for their part, thought it was really boring, but went for the English practice).

Now, the thing is, apart from the fact that I personally consider attempting to convert ones students to a religion to be an abuse of power is that evangelism is illegal in China. While nothing eventuated from their attempts at conversion, they were skirting dangerously close to engaging in illegal activity which would not only have affected their legal status in China (not a real problem, except for the whole "lying on the arrivals card at the airport" thing, but whatever - it would only really affect them), but also could have resulted in legal consequences for the school, which would have had to explain to the central government why, exactly, a public education institution was allowing its teachers to convert its students. Needless to say, legal consequences for the school would not have had a good effect on the educational environment of its students, of which there were over 2,000 in the English department alone.

So there you have it: a few religious people decided that they should risk adversely affecting the education of some 2,000 students, almost all of whom were relying on their education to escape from peasantdom, because they considered spreading their religion more important than that. Personally, I consider their actions to be on the same level as that of the person who regularly drink drives, but hasn't gotten caught yet: recklessly dangerous to the lives of others.

[Shroom Man 777]

It makes perfect sense for them. Christians idealize spreading the good word despite of persecution and evil governments. They adore their little history of martyrs and whatevers. Frankly, the prospects of preaching and spreading the word of god in an oppressive government where their activities might lead to their punishment by the law gives Christians raging boners.

[Lusankya]

If it just led to the punishment of the Christians, then I really couldn't give a shit, especially when they tell you that going around and bothering people with your religion is illegal in both your employment contract and your arrivals card. What pisses me off about their actions is that they were illegaly evangelising while representing another organisation (in this case the school) and that shows a callous disregard for the way their actions could adversely affect others.

[Kanastrous]

Because what they're doing is so important that the welfare of those others doesn't matter. And perhaps if those others suffer as a consequence of Christian evangelizing, well, that'll get 'em into heaven by association, or something...

[Shroom Man 777]

Actually, by inadvertently - or advertently - getting the school and other students into trouble, the Christians are only showing how oppressive and anti-Christian the Chinese government are, so if their actions cause the Chinese government to punish more people, then they will think it is a good thing because the Chinese government is being Satan while they are being Jesus.

[Kanastrous]

So no matter how you slice it, endangering others is all to the good...man, what amazing fucking narcissism.

[Lusankya]

To be honest, I would imagine they didn't even think about the potential problems that the school could face. Plenty of Westerners are so accustomed to the idea that "freedom of religion" includes "freedom to go and publicly bother people with your religion", and are also so accustomed to thinking that they are right that they wouldn't think that "hey, let's have bible study with your English teacher" would be a problem.

Which makes it worse in some ways, really.

[Kanastrous]

I don't know. It's tough to be sympathetic to an Ignorance Defense.

[Shroom Man 777]

So no matter how you slice it, endangering others is all to the good...man, what amazing fucking narcissism.

To them, faith in God and faith in Jesus is far more important than human life. To them, all that matters is the afterlife, and to go to heaven you need faith in God and faith in Jesus. Even if human lives are extinguished, or otherwise harmed, as long as the goal of God and Jesus is achieved, then the Christians believe that they did good.

Replace God and Jesus with Suicide Bomb Turban Allah, and you see just how any die hard religious zealot sees things.

This stuff happens when you value any belief (re: religion, politics, whatever) over human life.

I don't know. It's tough to be sympathetic to an Ignorance Defense.

It's kind of cute though. When it's cute girls doing it harmlessly. Born again Christian girls who're so serious about their faith are so adorable! And I can't help but admire the vicious sincerity of these people. I find them more beautiful then, for example, blubbering Catlicks who try to make rationalizations or try to write new books in the Bible or go on about limbo or purgatory when Jesus says so-and-so is really going to burn in hell with no ifs or butts or limboes. The insane faith of true believers is really amazing.

I admire their purity... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality. I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my shroompathies.

I mean, man. When my auntie (a Catlick) said that those Indonesians got what they deserved when thousands of them got killed by that tsunami, I got pissed. I mean, what kind of decent human being would say that about the mass suffering of innocent people, that they deserved it just because they didn't believe in your blubbering vagina of a god? But looking back at it, man. What she said was just so wonderful.

Christians are amongst god's most beautiful creations.

EDIT:

Man, the ability to hate and hurt and loathe other people so fucking much without even knowing you are hating or hurting or loathing them is a great gift of god.