The Bible condemns selfishness and greed “every single time bar none that it mentions” them, and it mentions those things a heck of a lot more often.
The Bible also states “render unto Caesar…” which seems to be a big problem for U.S. Christians (usually not for Christians from other countries).
I dabble in theology and have read the Bible many times.
Jesus said you must set no other gods before him, and therefore if you venerate the Bible above the teachings of Jesus, you are not a Christian. He said “whomsoever believes in me”, not whomsoever believes in some book partially about me. Worshiping a book is really quite specifically forbidden; it’s idolatry. You can’t give credence to a graven image over the living spirit of God that dwells within you (remember, Jesus also said “I am with you always”) and still validly claim to be any sort of Christian.
Yes, I understand there is only one hard, set requirement for being a Christian.
Yep. It’s actually a problem for the religion as a whole. The pope tried to claim he was allowed to say who was or wasn’t Christian, and that resulted in hundreds of years of slaughter that didn’t solve anything. Even today modern Christians will try to claim that the World Church of the Creator or the Latter Day Saints aren’t really Christians, but that simply isn’t a decision they ever get to make. Jesus was a very disruptive individual, and it’s painful for the hierophants of his cult.
But, why should the beliefs of another religion affect me? I’m a gay, married, committed Jew and my religion is a-OK with same sex marriage. But you would put me in a position in which I would be forbidden from marrying, even though my religion permits it, the law of my state permits it, and federal law permits it. Under your regime my religious rights would be infringed by my not being permitted by a county clerk to undergo a religious ceremony.
It cuts both ways - I should not attempt to infringe on your religious freedom, so I won’t ask you to perform or participate in my wedding ceremony. But you should not attempt to infringe on my religious freedom, by forbidding me from practicing my religion.
We gay folks are done asking you to accept us, or even tolerate us. Just leave us the hell alone - we’ll live our lives, get married, raise children, and you can go live yours.
Edit: Oh, and don’t bring your biblical literalism and “based on any logical and rational evaluation, they stand” to a Jew buddy. We’ve spent 6000 years arguing with each other, the Torah, and God. Biblical literalists don’t seem to acknowledge the entire foundation of your religion. The very name Israel means “to wrestle with God”. Until very recently there was never any idea of a literal interpretation of the bible. It could be argued (and has been by far better scholars than myself) that to attempt to use the scriptures as a sort of bludgeon like this is to disrespect God and each other. We would not have been made reasoning, intelligent beings in order to not use that reason.
Yeah but Jesus, the guy we should probably pay the most attention to*, ya know because the whole “son of god” thing, never said anything about homosexuality.
All of the other occassions are based on Paul (the guy who ursurped the early Christian church :P) and his followers. And I’ve heard it argued that those lines are referring specifically to certain Pagan rites, and not homosexuality in general.
Jude 1:7 mentions Sodom & Gommorah, so, yeah, not specifically homosexuality either, and again a probably a dig at Pagans.
So, I’m going with @anon61221983’s assertion with the caveat
.* if, indeed, we should pay attention to a 2000 year old book of bedtime stories.
We used to have one who was never without her fire marshalls jacket (I think she actually slept in it) and used to leap out at people and yell at them if they weren’t walking down corridors on the right hand side…
Boom! Fucking mic drop people!!!
It’s very doubtful that you’ll ever get an answer to that question but if you do let me know. I’ve asked that dozens of times and it always seems to shut the debate down.
Inorite?
Science reportage really does suck. The article says prions can end up in wastewater sludge, but doesn’t tell us whether or not plants are able to take it up, or if they can be detected in veg grown in fields that have been sprayed with wastewater sludge.
I recall hearing (way back before google) about a vegetarian in the UK who got CJD from bonemeal fertilizer. Though when I think of it, I’m not really sure that the contention was they got it from eating the food that was fertilized rather than from exposure to the fertilizer itself.
It’s an important distinction. Same with milk from infected cows. There’s a rather large difference between “we suspect there are prions in infected cow’s milk” and “we’ve found prions in milk from infected cows.”
Too bad she’s not performing a religious ceremony, then. Her job is to certify civil contracts. The government institution of marriage and the religious one are two different things. It’s amazing how many people don’t seem to realize this fact.
My church performed same-sex marriages before they were civilly legal. And to this day I, a woman married to a man, could not get married in the Catholic church (we’ve both been divorced) or the Mormon Temple (he’s an apostate). Churches get to say who meets their requirements for a marriage. This does not affect the validity of my civil marriage contract.
Not a lot of fact there, though.
A British coroner ruled Monday that a 20-year-old vegetarian who died of the brain-wasting Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease caught it from eating beefburgers as a child.
The verdict is the first to legally link a human death to mad cow disease.
Coroner Geoffrey Burt said in North Durham in northeast England that Peter Hall died last February of a new variant of CJD.
“I am satisfied that it is more likely than not that Peter contracted this disease prior to 1990 through eating some form of contaminated beef product, such as a beefburger,” Burt said in his verdict.
In March, British government scientists said they had identified a new variant of CJD, and said it was likely people caught it from eating beef infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (or mad cow disease).
The inquest heard that Hall had been a vegetarian since the age of 16. But his father Derek said he had earlier been fond of beef, eating burgers frequently as an after-school snack.
A Health Department spokesman said a coroner’s opinion did not constitute scientific fact.
Holy crap, that’s a good point! I’m stealing it, if you don’t mind!
ON POINT!!! Fuck the bigots!
You couldn’t find that animated to add to our BBS gif bank?
Not without a down payment of the fee.
