Christian-phobic speaker walked out on by student journalists

[Qrayze]

(05-01-2012 12:12 AM)myotch Wrote:  Um, Qrayze, it wasn't meant at you in particular, though I thought your participation in the other forum was...well, anyway.

There's a few users who post in both forums, but anyway, I know what you're talking about. I'm still a believer, but there are just so many things that make me not want to believe...things in the bible, things people say or do...I'm still trying to make sense of it all.

Quote:I take a little offense at your inference of my being anti-gay. That is not who I am, and that is not the topic or scope of the discussion here. I agree that being a believer does not necessitate being anti-gay.

My apologies. You're anti-gay-marriage, so I thought you were anti-gay as well.

Quote:FTR, I am libertarian, with the small "l", because being part of a party is a little too close to belonging to a collective I am for equal rights for everyone, fiscal conservatism, and only stray from classical liberal when the issue is a matter of pro-life, or the political redefinition of words, which I find repugnantly Orwellian.

My only stances, politically, which could be construed as "anti-gay" is in regards to "gay marriage", which seeks to redefine what a traditional understanding of marriage is (I prefer "civil union"),

"Traditional marriage" was when a father basically sold his daughter to whichever man could afford her. Traditional marriage has been redefined many times over past 400 or so years.

Quote: and I don't cotton too well to special protected classes, such as protecting specifically gay people from bullies. (I'm against hate crime legislation in all it's forms, not because I want there to be victims of hate crimes, but because defining "hate" as a special aggravating and motivating factor is, in essence, creating a "thought crime", which is another hallmark of Orwellian dystopia.) I guess I'm also for a private business's right to discriminate against whoever they want to discriminate against, because I believe that the free market will eventually punish those who deserve it. I don't mean gays in particular. If a private business does not want to employ Catholics, for instance, or bald guys, or even provide products and services to Catholic bald guys, or whatever "group" I can be put in, then let them do what they want. The market will correct them.

someone already remarked about this

Quote:So there you have it. I am a libertarian who deplores Orwellian government tactics. I'm for gays in the military. I don't much care what people do in their bedrooms as long as it is consensual. I'm all for every civil right and access to the courts available to me to also be available to gays or any other citizen.

(every civil right except marriage)

Quote:I suppose I should be totally cliche and mention the homosexuals I have in my family, friends, and sphere of influence, and whom I admire and love very much.

(they just shouldn't be able to fall in love and get married)

Quote: I won't step quite down to that level and pander to you in the impossible hopes that I may receive some of your passing, trite approval.

(but you did!)

Quote:Before you go on about finding confirmation of some narrow stereotype you have about "religious conservatives", use the forums to find out exactly who you are talking to and what they actually believe. I also hope that you see there are more than enough believers here that would stand up for the speaker and have no qualms about criticizing the teens who walked out. We Christians are definitely not a lock-step group of fanatics.

That would require a lot of "tl;dr" reading and I have ADD. I've gotten a headache from doing this post alone. (it's taken me over an hour already) Reading is only easy if it's interesting, and most of what is said on sfl (and most of the internet) isn't very interesting. (no offense to anyone here)

Quote:I do apologize for thinking you are not a believer. I really thought your participation in the other forum was indicative of your beliefs.

I posted that in the other forum because I didn't want to be criticized or scolded for saying all the things that have been swirling around my head that I couldn't make sense of. I should have used my original choice of thread title.

[myotch]

(05-01-2012 03:33 PM)greg Wrote:  Begging your pardon, myotch, I gave the Precious Word of God and His opinion on the filthy sin of homosexuality.

While Scripture is always, of course, prudent when we are developing our conscience, not every discussion needs to take a detour about what Scripture condemns, especially when the Scriptural view is already assumed by all parties.

I appreciate your knowledge of the Bible, and respect your conscience on the issue from a religious perspective. However, the scope of this discussion doesn't need the reminder.

The Bible is "a two-edged sword". I know you use to be a police officer, so I don't have to tell you that 99% of the time, you can keep your weapon holstered and still be effective. believe me, everyone is conscious of the weapon.

[Tonx]

OK, wow, this is getting ugly. I'm jumping ship. I've said what I've said and I don't want to get into this. PEACE.

[Ricardo]

"God destroyed the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of this vile wicked sin."

Greg, how can you say that? Don't you respect the bible? Why are you making things up? Isn't that worse than the speaker calling it BS?

Romans 1 is talking about the effects of idolatry. I see a lot more idolatry than one in ten. By this judgement of yours we should be seeing a lot more gays around.

Maybe the Romans 1 passage should be read like 1 Corinthians, where according to Paul anyone who partakes of the Lord's Supper inappropriately will sicken and die. At best it is a huge exaggeration. I don't see many more Catholics dying than Protestants. And we certainly believe that Catholics do not take the Lord's Supper appropriately.

[greg]

Ricardo - You are completely dead wrong. We have been here before, and I hesitated to address it again. I have correctly exegeted the passages on homosexuality in the past on here, and you can hunt it down yourself. I will provide scriptural evidence once again that S&G were destroyed for filthy, wicked homosexual perversion, I will not go into the detail that I have in the past, because you obviously paid no attention to it then.

Here is the unfiltered message of God's Holy Word:

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. for certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord."

"Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home - these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. they serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire." Jude 4-7

See Romans 1 for the type of sexual immorality and perversion they were involved in.

This is a scary passage of scripture.

[myotch]

I would think the woman at the well would be much scarier to you. Jesus named her sins without judgement, and even asked her to draw water for him while offering her something better.

[Ricardo]

So you ignore the S&G story now? Where does the bible say it is about homosexuality? God had already decided to destroy them before the attempted gang rape incident. Homosexuality is NOT in the lists of sins attributed to S&G, no matter what you would like to use it for.

Jude 4-7's words are EKPORNEO and HETEROS SARX. There are many different theories about how to translate these words. How have you decided on "sexual immorality and perversion"? This is not just a matter of going to a dictionary or a lexicon and finding the words. Where are the authors of these dictionaries getting their information from? Unless it is fairly recent, you and me have better information than the authors of books written before 1972. See http://www.tlg.uci.edu/

How do you conclude that Romans 1 is remotely describing what happened in S&G? In the long lists of sins of S&G, I don't remember Idolatry being mentioned.

You have some way of respecting the Scriptures... Translate it in whatever way you want, make connections that are NOT THERE, and then use Gen 18-19 to attack a modern practice that has NOTHING to do with S&G.

Oh and when I ask you about one specific text, you ignore the problems I posit and simply go on to another text, you keep jumping from one text to the next.

We could go on like this forever.

Meanwhile, the issue here is bullying. The speaker at that conference seems to have made a case for how to attempt to bully people into accepting his beliefs. The issue is not whether he was right or not but the fact that he was being a bully.

[Ricardo]

"Here is the unfiltered message of God's Holy Word."

Except it is filtered when it was translated from Greek to English.
Except it is filtered when it was selected as part of the Canons. (Five major canons out there.)
Except of Jude's 28 verses, 28% have variances. (We are not sure which variance is the correct one.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Testamentum_Graece
Except it was men who decided to declare this or that canon as "God's Holy Word."
(And now if we ask anything about it we are brow-beaten with a "How do you dare question God Himself?")

By the way, I have no problem having a conversation about what God may be trying to tell us through this or that interpretation, this or that variance, this or that patristic writing.

But I most definitely object you trying to pull rank declaring as God's own, YOUR version, YOUR translation. (Nothing prevents me from choosing a different canon, variance, translation and/or interpretation and declaring mine as God's own also.) With the difference that in my case, I've got God's own version...

[mrmody]

(04-30-2012 02:18 PM)Darrell Wrote:  

Quote:The students were cowards for leaving.

Would they have been equally cowardly if he had been advocating some other point of view? Is it always cowardly to walk out of a presentation that you find offensive?

Darrell, I believe the students left, not because they were offended, but because they did not want to hear other point of view that disagreed with their own. They are practicing confirmation bias. Being a former fundie myself, I use to be this way. And many of the fundie relatives are still like this. If evolution is ever mentioned on television, my mother instantly chances the channel. My sister and her family did not attend my birthday because of something I posted on Facebook.

Even if Dan Savage had toned down his speech many of these students would have left. They just do not want to hear that there are many laws in the Bible that modern Christians ignore. I do understand why Dan Savage was angry. Conservative Christian leaders have blamed gay people for the financial crisis, Hurricane Katrina, child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and bird and fish kills in the south.

Yes, I have sat through speeches I found offensive. I was also forced a child to attend a church that Sunday school was like “Jesus Camp” and I did not have a freedom to walk out and leave or I would have been spanked leather scrap from a conveyor belt then grounded!

Right now, many teens are fighting and dying trying to overthrow the government of Syria, and yet these future “journalists” can’t sit through a ten minute rant. Maybe they need to find a job at McDonalds instead.

[FmrMarine]

(05-01-2012 07:51 PM)greg Wrote:  Ricardo - You are completely dead wrong. We have been here before, and I hesitated to address it again. I have correctly exegeted the passages on homosexuality in the past on here, and you can hunt it down yourself. I will provide scriptural evidence once again that S&G were destroyed for filthy, wicked homosexual perversion, I will not go into the detail that I have in the past, because you obviously paid no attention to it then.

Here is the unfiltered message of God's Holy Word:

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. for certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord."

"Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home - these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. they serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire." Jude 4-7

See Romans 1 for the type of sexual immorality and perversion they were involved in.

This is a scary passage of scripture.

I assume by "filthy, wicked homosexual perversion" you mean steamy man-on-man action, right? I mean everybody's cool with lesbians.