Anglicans exclude the US Episcopalians over gay bishops

[bluehillside Retd.]

Shakes,

This is actually a lie on your part, Vlad. Or a monumental piece of misunderstanding on the sort of scale that only you can come up with. I don't see any other options as there are no alternative explanations as to how you can be quite this wrong.

Name an "antitheist" who thought that JS:TO should have been immune from dissent. Any one. You won't be able to but you can't say you weren't offered the opportunity.

I, on the other hand, can find you any number of names of theists - largely, though not exclusively, Christians - who thought that it should have been imune from being performed, i.e. denied free artistic expression and free speech.

Vladdy telling porkies? No, surely not?!?!?!? Say it ain't so Shakes, say it ain't so...

Do you know, I genuinely can't tell whether he's so pathologically dishonest that he doesn't even know he's doing it, or whether his endless stream of mendacity is deliberately done but he just doesn't care every time he's caught out.

Very odd. 

[Hope]

Secular humanists don't want to stop religiously inclined people continuing with their usual religious practices, we only want to see the end of all religious privillages.

So,in view of the topic of this thread, are you saying that secular humanists are quite happy to allow some religious (and some non-religious) people to believe that homosexual relationships are 1) wrong, and 2) bad for society?

[Hope]

How senseless.

ippy

No more senseless than the intolerance of law-breaking, by society.

[Shaker]

So,in view of the topic of this thread, are you saying that secular humanists are quite happy to allow some religious (and some non-religious) people to believe that homosexual relationships are 1) wrong, and 2) bad for society?

Sure.

Since there's zero evidence for these beliefs just like the other set of entirely unevidenced beliefs that the first lot of beliefs are typically founded on, we'll just continue to point and laugh at them for the tiny (and ever-diminishing) rabble of pitiable bigoted cranks that they are, same as usual.

[Hope]

The not hating bit is an improvement, I admit - five hundred years ago being the wrong sort of Christian would have been a one-way ticket to being turned into crispy duck minus the cucumber, spring onions and hoi sin sauce.

Shakes, I think that the 'hating' bit came in long after the original teaching.  I'm not saying that it hasn't happened - but could that have been 'imported' into a faith (be that Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc) by human thinking?  Could it have been imported by what could be seen as then contemporary humanist thought?

[Hope]

Sure.

Since there's zero evidence for these beliefs just like the other set of entirely unevidenced beliefs that the first lot of beliefs are typically founded on, we'll just continue to point and laugh at them for the tiny (and ever-diminishing) rabble of pitiable bigoted cranks that they are, same as usual.

So typical of you to use the 'no-evidence' card when you can't even produce evidence to support your own stance - on so many issues, Shakes.

[Rhiannon]

Sure.

Since there's zero evidence for these beliefs just like the other set of entirely unevidenced beliefs that the first lot of beliefs are typically founded on, we'll just continue to point and laugh at them for the tiny (and ever-diminishing) rabble of pitiable bigoted cranks that they are, same as usual.

The only caveat on that being that they stop being quite so funny once their bigotry fucks up other people's lives.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hoppity,

So,in view of the topic of this thread, are you saying that secular humanists are quite happy to allow some religious (and some non-religious) people to believe that homosexual relationships are 1) wrong, and 2) bad for society?

It’s got nothing to do with “secular humanists” specifically, but it depends what you mean by “happy”.

I at least am not “happy” with the ignorant and intolerant content of their bigotry, but I am “happy” that they have the right to say and think whatever they want. 

[Shaker]

So typical of you to use the 'no-evidence' card when you can't even produce evidence to support your own stance

It's your belief that same-sex relationships are (1) wrong and (2) bad for society - that's your assertion, not mine, so it's up to you to back it up. It's not my belief, partly because there's zero evidence for either belief (wrong/bad for society - the first is merely an opinion and one that I don't share because I don't buy into its ultimate pseudo-basis, and in the latter case there's good evidence soundly refuting it) but largely because it's a dim-witted, ugly, narrow-minded and mean-spirited stance to take. Since I'm not the one making the assertion, and you are, the burden of proof falls squarely on you.

on so many issues, Shakes.

And yet you won't be able to name a single one of them when asked to do so, will you?

[Bubbles]

So you don't think Leonard's opinion about his own feelings is necessarily correct?

I'm sure they are, but sometimes people forget their feelings are not fact. 

[Shaker]

I'm sure they are, but sometimes people forget their feelings are not fact. 

Something that should be put on a scrolling banner in 72-point Palatino Linotype on the front page of this forum.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Rose,

I'm sure they are, but sometimes people forget their feelings are not fact.

That's theology dealt with then.

What shall we talk about now?

[Rhiannon]

Fully agree. But as the big cheese at the time he saw no other option than to maintain overall unity at the expense of - let's be blunt - decency and morality, knowing how much clout Africa has.

Those of us who were involved with the liberal wing of the church at the time expected that Williams would hold out given that he initiated the situation through his approval of Jeffrey John's appointment. Whether he underestimated the African and Australian influence and homophobia I have no idea but I believe he thought a fudge deal could be done as with women priests that would keep everyone happy. I think the feeling at the time was that Williams was the best hope for LGBT Anglicans to gain full acceptance and equality, especially within the CofE, and given the numbers that left and are still leaving I suspect that the liberal wing of the Church will be all but dead within a few years.

[ippy]

I feel you are sloganeering..........a bit. It all hinges IMHO on this business of Freedom from religion and how it sits with freedom of expression and speech.......after all anti theists thought that Jerry Springer the Opera should have been immune from dissent.

Don't tell me Vlad, you're still not getting it, (secular humanism)?

It's worrying, do you drive on the roads anywhere?

ippy

[Leonard James]

I find your human/subhuman divide rather troubling Len.

I should worry! Your inability to read what's written is renowned.

[Shaker]

I should worry! Your inability to read what's written is renowned.

Back of the net!

[ippy]

So,in view of the topic of this thread, are you saying that secular humanists are quite happy to allow some religious (and some non-religious) people to believe that homosexual relationships are 1) wrong, and 2) bad for society?

" are you saying that secular humanists are quite happy to allow some religious (and some non-religious) people to believe that homosexual relationships are 1) wrong, and 2) bad for society"?

Well Hope I hope you can always say and think anything you like, that's within the law of course, it's just that I wonder why whenever this particular subject comes up, it gives me the impression that you are unable to think for yourself and you go into some sort of blind mental shutdown and give no end of responses that would make the most ignorant of morons extremely proud of you.

Your views on this are contemptible Hope. please don't take the bother to address me about this subject anymore I would rather you didn't; have a chat with that other moron that agrees with you.

ippy

[ippy]

I'm sure they are, but sometimes people forget their feelings are not fact. 

Like you Rose very often.

ippy

[Leonard James]

Leo,
"primitive tribes"? Thank God you are no historian. No, the fact is the Bible was not written by primitives.

Oh gawd, another one who can't read what is written! I didn't say the stories were written by primitive tribes. I understand that the stories of the OT were invented by primitive tribes long before they were written down. Is that not true?

[Hope]

Oh gawd, another one who can't read what is written! I didn't say the stories were written by primitive tribes. I understand that the stories of the OT were invented by primitive tribes long before they were written down. Is that not true?

Depends on what you mean by 'primitive', Len.  They, like the Assyrians, Egyptians and Babylonians amongst whom they lived at various times, had complex social structures that would, in many ways, pass muster today.

[Shaker]

Depends on what you mean by 'primitive', Len.  They, like the Assyrians, Egyptians and Babylonians amongst whom they lived at various times, had complex social structures that would, in many ways, pass muster today.

"Pass muster" in what sense exactly how, please?

[Hope]

"Pass muster" in what sense exactly how, please?

  - family structures that are supportive and protective of children

 - education processes

 - family structures where the elderly are respected and perhaps even venerated

 - legal systems that have complex forms

and that's just 4 examples.

[Shaker]

  - family structures that are supportive and protective of children

 - education processes

 - family structures where the elderly are respected and perhaps even venerated

 - legal systems that have complex forms

and that's just 4 examples.

Every single one of which of those occur today, vastly more so than they have ever done before in human history, in vastly more sophisticated forms. No need to hark back to your favourite source, something something something or other thousands of years ago for which we have at the very best tenuous documentary evidence from fragmentary sources; they're right here, happening and going on now in (literally) countless homes across the globe, not in theory or in prospect but in actuality this very second. 

The salient difference is that "primitive" by definition refers to an earlier state/stage of development than that which by implication exists at time of writing.

"Pass muster" is a phrase which entails passing/exceeding a prior arbitrary degree of acceptability (a "muster" which must be "passed"). I see that you've failed to substantiate this. I'm not amazed.

[Shaker]

Shakes, I think that the 'hating' bit came in long after the original teaching.  I'm not saying that it hasn't happened - but could that have been 'imported' into a faith (be that Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc) by human thinking? Could it have been imported by what could be seen as then contemporary humanist thought?

What is humanist about heaping faggots of wood against the feet of a human being in order to kill them by being burnt alive because they didn't believe the correct things, please?

[Hope]

What is humanist about heaping faggots of wood against the feet of a human being in order to kill them by being burnt alive because they didn't believe the correct things, please?

OK, answer me this question: what is Christian about "heaping faggots of wood against the feet of a human being in order to kill them by being burnt alive because they didn't believe the correct things"?  Whilst the atheist Soviet and Maoist authorities may not have used faggots and fire, they used incarcaration, torture and often death on those  "who ... didn't believe the correct things".

Are you saying that the teachings of Marx and Engels, on which these regimes were based, included these as standard?

I am not suggesting that the Church should not be judged on what it has done over time - and of course that will include both positive and negative things; but should the faith itself be judged by the deeds of those who claim to adhere to it?