OldEnglishSheepdog

Hello Exaeus, Can you please clarify somethings for me? 1. Are you a materialist? 2. If so, what else do you propose is responsible, other than genes, for our behavior? 3. If the answer to question 2 can all be summarized into 'environmental pressures' then aren't you a materialistic predeterminist - as in, how could we help ourselves if we're simply the product of chemical responses to environmental pressures? You see, if you're a materialist, by questioning Luftwaffle's scientific literacy (and by the way, you say his name a whole lot - what's the deal with that? Do you just really, really like writing it out?), if you're a materialist, all you'd really be able to accomplish is to push back the problem a step. Also, I couldn't be bothered to read your posts so far because they were really repetative (there's only so many times I can read Luftwaffles name in a single post before I get bored), so I missed your central argument on how there can be an objective morality without an ontological foundation - would you mind terrible recapping how you think that's possible really quick for me so I don't have to slog through all the posts that look at a glance like they're irrelevant to the op? Thanks! What about everyone who could do the following? (Check mirror) Pale skin - check Blond hair - check Blue eyes - check People have always served under rulers and gladly traded the rights of others for their own immediate gain... just like the SA and then SS. Nope, your argument doesn't hold water. If it did, then why don't the white supremasists see that, but the rest of us do? Why didn't the nations of Germany and Austria in the 30s and 40s? In fact, why has world history typically run directly upsteam of that assertion in the sense that people from almost any culture throughtout history that isn't an offshoot of Protestant values feel perfectly entitled to band together under a leader with a common us-and-them mentality trying to establish a raw survival of the fittest rule over everyone else? What makes sense is that we see the difference because of the objective moral standard found in the Bible is recognized and communicated by Protestants, and the residual effects are claimed by those dealing in post-Protestant cultures... for now (according to Nietzsche they'll dwindle and fade, and he's right that they must if atheism is to continue). By contrast your argument comes aross as some sort of psudeo-scientific speculation, mixing social darwinism with kind of a faith-based prophetic genetics that you're using to retroactively account for history while contradicting the facts of history. Fascinating as it may be, it reads more like bad fiction then a valid interpretation of reality. What's your evidence, since your speculations contradicts observation?

Anyone who has kids knows this is true. What stargazer is trying to do here is introduce Euthyphro's dilemma, which asks "Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?" Essentially the problem becomes that in either case it puts goodness outside of God's nature, and therefore God is subject to the goodness just as much as we are. The thing is that it's a false dilemma. God is the optimal standard of objective good. Goodness is therefore an inseparable aspect of His nature, and as a result of that, His commandments are inherently good.

Says who? Says God. Just try to prove Him wrong. If you can't, then all evidence suggests He's right.

How do I know God is good???? Just because he's powerful? The resurrection doesn't tell us anything except for the fact that Jesus was able to defy death. What rule of reality states that if you can defy death then you must be honest and everything you say must be true [or how does this prove you're God for that matter]. Because defying death was one of the signs outlined as the sign of the person sent by God, "Therefore I told you these things long ago; before they happened I announced them to you so that you could not say, 'My idols did them; my wooden image and metal god ordained them" (Isaiah 48:5). If you can prove that raising someone up from the dead is something that can be done at will, apart from God, then there would be no affirmation of what Shiloh is saying, but if God says that only He is able to do such a thing and that claim is true according to all the evidence we have in that no one else can seem to do it, but God does it according to how He said He would to show He can, then He's established that His claim is reliable and trustworthy in the extreme. If He's demonstrated that His claims are reliable and trustworthy in the extreme, then we have no reason to doubt them in the less than extreme assurances, such as that He is good.

I know, right? Can someone please explain to me what pretending to be an idiot is supposed accomplish? What's the rational here?

It does not look like your claim has any basis. I did not have much time to go back through the 2000 years, so I stopped at 2009 AD (two years ago) and 20 seconds google:). That does not look like it largely stopped at all LOL http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/24/hindu-sacrifice-gadhimai-festival-nepal Ciao - viole He said largely not completely. How many times will I have to point out that bragging about how little time someone spends on a google searches does not make for a meaningful contribution, I wonder.

Shiloh, you'd better slap a question mark after your statement - that'll abdicate you of any responsibilities of having made any assertions.

You're worried Jesus' blood, spilled two thousand years ago, is going to gross you out? You do understand that we don't wash in His physical blood, right? Your squeamishness is notably disproportionate considering the spiritualized nature of the blood in question. And it's supposed to remind you of those animal sacrifices, because the punishment for sin is death, which is the spilling of blood because the life is in the blood. Hebrews talks about Jesus' sacrifice was the end to all sacrifices. What He did is the reason such gross things that can't possibly atone for sin are done away with. I find it interesting that since Christ's crucifixion the world seems to have realized this. Animal sacrifices have largely stopped, when it used to be practiced by pretty much every culture. But if the consequences of sin are death, and the gift of God is eternal life through the vicarious death of His Son on the cross where He spilled His blood for you, I'm not overly sympathetic to your position of rejecting the gift over hyper-squeamishness. If I died for someone and they complained that I couldn't help that in saving them they were spashed with some of my blood, I’d be unimpressed with the ingratitude.

I'm saying I meant to put down the word "speciation" in the previous post, but since I was in a rush my hands typed down "evolution", it was a typing mistake. I did say earlier that, using creationist definitions, that observing microevolution is insufficient to accept macroevolution without other evidence, that is a very reasonable position to take IMHO. It is not word games, fact is that you don't even need speciation for it to be called "evolution", all you need is a change in allele frequencies. However creationism has taken the words used by scientists and changed their definitions to cater to the belief system. So we are starting off with the same words, but use different definitions for these words, I try to accommodate as best I can without completely loosing base with how practicing scientists use the terms. After all we are supposedly discussing a scientific topic. To say any change is evolution, we see change therefore we see evolution is simply falsely predicated. Evolution does not require just a change in allele frequency but the capacity for such changes to result in increasing complexity of organisms when left to the raveges of time and unguided natural forces, which in turn accounts for the diversity we see before us. We all believe in changes, but we don't all believe that those changes can accont for the diversity we see before us over time left to nature, so it's simply untennable to define evolution according to a definition from which evolution simply does not follow. It would be the equivalent to me defining creationism as any unobserved change, and since most changes are not admittedly not observed by scientistst then creationism is a fact. Semantically, it's putting the conversation in the bag without paying for it.

For example, if humans and chimps had a common ancestor you would expect to see genetic similarities. One of the true anomalies of science once upon a time was the fact that humans and chimps (including all of the great apes in the chimp category here) have different numbers of chromosomes. Based on evolution, biologists predicted that there was a fusion of the chromosomes since the human-chimp ancestor split. The experiment was data collection of the chromosomal sequence of chimps and humans. A chromosome is a compact molecule of DNA, and at the ends of each chromosome is something called telomeres, a specific repeating DNA fragment, TTAGGG, that keep the chromosome from unraveling. So we should expect to see telomeres in the middle of one of our chromosomes as two of them fused together according to this hypothesis. What was found was that indeed one of our chromosomes has telomeres in the middle of one of our chromosomes, chromosome #2. A successful prediction from evolutionary theory backed up by experimental data. Hey D-9, I have a question. We can see that humans and chimps are similar. That's just obvious. Therefore it stands to reason that they would be genetically similar, since our genetic make-up is what we are. It's a given. So how exactly is this proof of common decent? If we're similar, and yet there are differences in our number of chromosomes, then that is what helps genetically differentiate us. If those chromosomes are fused together, then that effects the difference. How is it not simply affirming the consequent to notice the difference in the number of chromosomes among two genetically similar organisms and identify the difference? Chromosomes do things. If you have very similar organisms then you'll have very similar designs. Since both organisms function, then the differences will have to be within a reasonable range so the designs will have to be similar enough to enable the organisms to be similar, and different enough to account for the differences. Let me put it this way. If a Creationist were to approach the difference between the genetic design of a human and that of a chimp they'd look at the number of chromosomes and notice the difference. Then they'd have to marvel that one of them has the same number of chromosomes as tobacco and think that it was odd that the organisms could be so similarly designed with such a stark difference as the number of chromosomes. To account for that difference they'd probably have to postulate that the design retained the similarities among the chromosomes so they'd have to be similar despite the difference in numbers, so some of them must be fused together to make a valid design. The account of evolution may satisfy the evidence, but it doesn't mean the evidence confirms evolution, it just simply didn't disconfirm evolution, right?

Uh, no that doesn't work out correctly. Perhaps if you thought the sun, or any star, produced energy from chemical reactions (say combining two hydrogen atoms with an oxygen atom to produce water + energy) that might be the case. However, stars use nuclear fusion which is a much more efficient process. Actually the sun is shrinking at a measurable rate. As its nuclear fuel is slowly fused into other denser forms of matter. So yes it works. And yes it is and has been measured. Actually, the size of the sun varies according to a number of cycles. This variation in radius can be as much as 0.015%. See"On the relation between total irradiance and radius variations" by Pap et al. Hey Sam, how have you been?

How do you explain communism, fascism, and totalitarianism/despotism such as exists in North Korea that has no basis in any belief in the supernatural?? You enjoy more freedoms in the United States than you would in North Korea or atheistic China. What about what its like for a Christian to live in nations where atheism is enforced and Christianity is forbidden? All Americans, Christian or not, enjoy far more freedoms in the United States which is mostly Christian than in other nation. By the way, Christianity is not exclusivist in nature. No kidding. Why does anyone have the freedom to question religion and why does anyone have individual rights? The answer for both is the Bible expressed through Protestanism, which sought to practice what the Bible actually preaches. Atheism didn't bring freedom. Check out Dinesh D'Sousa's arguments on how atheism is responsible for vastly more bloodshed and tyranny than any religion could boast.

Are you going to answer my questions? Hi Isaiah, It may be that Stargaze is interpreting your question as a rhetorical one, or even an assertion, neither of which require an answer. Regards, UndecidedFrog So it's your assertion that in a debate an assertion doesn't require a response? I'm curious, where do you learn all these rules that only you seem to know about?

"submit is truth" is a religious term. They are three perfectly simple words strung together, forming part of a question that you're having a great of of trouble with. But now that you mentioned "faith speak". If you have a problem with "faith speak" then why on earth are you on a Christian forum? It certainly begs the question of what is this even supposed to mean? Science is the pursuit of the truth about the natural. Religion is the pursuit of the truth of the supernatural. Was anyone of the impression atheism vs antitheism was about the pursuit of the natural? To what truth would we be talking about submitting, then? What is the even supposed to indicate, do you figure?

There is definitely a language barrier. I also don't usually assume that when I find the truth of a matter, that it's going to be what I currently believe now. If there is a God then there is an ultimate truth, so if we're right then truth is established by our proposition. If we're wrong then there is no truth, so your worldview contains no frame of reference for what such a term could possibly entail. Ergo you have to borrow the meaning of truth from our worldview, simply in order to bicker over it and nit pick at it. Super. But look at the results of this supposed language barrier. You guys claim you don't understand the simple, and accepted connotations and denotations of universally understood words... then we show you what they mean from the dictionary and how we're using them according to their accepted and universally understood connotations and denotations... I'd say that's not helping the case for atheism seem any more compelling. Anyways, it seems strange to me how supposedly ex-Christians so frequently say that there's no god, nothing to disprove, etc. over something they once accepted. If there's nothing to it, then what did you accept in the first place? Why were you Christians? Because you knew.... nothing about Christianity and nothing about it's antithesis? That's why you were Christians? Because you knew the sum total of nothing about anything? That hardly seems likely and if it's true then how about entertaining for a second that some of us actually do base our faith on something more substantial than nothing, and find out what that is, instead of simply boasting about being the least informed ex-Christians and then presenting the lack of evidence that seemed compelling when you'd neither read the Bible nor seriously considered any of the issues? We'd like to move this conversation along to a meaningful level. If you'd like to talk about the ontological evidence for God, we can do that. We could go into teleology, cosmology, etc, and after we demonstrate that there's very good evidence for God's existence and none to support the assertion that He does not exists despite all appearances that He does (a fact that's even acknowledged by raving atheists like Dawkins who reminds his audience that despite the appearance of design we must repeat the mantra that there is no design), then we can move onto why it has to be a Judeao-Christian God because of the evidence that all other religions are man-made but not this one, and then we can examine the claims, life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth to demonstrate that He was who He claimed to be, confirming that our God is the God. Not ever argument is designed to fulfill the conclusion of this cumulative case, so it's silly to dismiss the individual arguments that collectively confirm this case for not demonstrating everything all at once. And finally stargazer, when I converted from an angry naturalist to a Christian, do you suppose that I was simply submitting to the concept of truth as I already supposed it to be? You guys, could you please come out from behind the thin smoke screen of skepticism and rationally and honestly approach these issues with some consistency and openness? (Don't worry, according to UF I'm not making any assertions by asking that question)

So, do you think you would have become a Christian if you did not have any access to any Bible or if you could not read? (question, obviously). Ciao - viole Yes. Just because that is how I became a Christian doesn't mean that's how I had to become a Christian. I'm compelled to follow the evidence because I'm not content to live in delusion or hide behind the pretense of skepticism, and I already pointed out that the invisible attributes of God are manifest in nature and if you draw near to Him then He will draw near to you.

U.F. What's important isn't that you admit that you're dishonest, but that your dishonesty is revealed. The pages on this forum do just that, and the great thing about internet forums is that the content remains for a long time. Luftwaffle, The pages on this forum do indeed expose your duplicity and your evasion (challenge, fallacy) when I have called you on your original mistake (assertion). I agree that your dishonesty remains in these pages for a long time. Regards, UndecidedFrog So, is it your position that no assertion can be made at all if it is followed by a question mark, no matter what? Even if the question asserts something? If so, could I push back a little and suggest that this assertion is not correct? Wouldn't you agree that I am now asserting that you're wrong, because I'm asserting you're wrong even though this followed by a question mark?

I agree. That's exactly why I became a Christian. I didn't grow up in a Christian home. In fact, I hated Christians and Christianity. It seemed naive, oppressive and repressive to me. I thought the Bible was a collection of fairy tales. Quite differently from your experience, however, when I actually started to read the Bible I was amazed at what I read. Jesus' words had a clear ring of truth to them that I could not deny. When I read the Old Testament, I was greatly troubled by many passages and struggled with them for years. In hindsight it's amazing how many misconcpetions I had not about what the text said, but what I assumed it said as I was reading. But, I realized that if something is demonstrably truth, you have to change to accept the truth, the truth won't change to accept you. So, to make a long story short, after numerous periods of doubt and skepticism, during which time I studied practical logic and world religions, I found that the evidence pointed firmly in only one, clear direction. I think the evidence is clear, so I accepted it regardless of the fact that most people around me have not. That wouldn't even account for the rise of Christianity in the first place, but if I may suggest, I think you're looking at it entirely inappropriately. Most people just accept whatever they're spoon fed. Therefore, statistically most people will adopt whatever their immediate culture tells them to adopt. Now, if the masses are simply content to be complacent the above does nothing whatsoever to establish either ontological truth, or epistomological access to that truth. What the above statement demonstrates is only that most people are complacent, not that most people are earnestly seeking truth nor the extent to which that truth is revealed or hidden from them. Given the background information that we see in Romans, that God's invisible characteristics are clearly seen in nature, the observation that most people accept whatever they're spoon fed in no way contradicts that they don't have to be if they'd just seek the truth and look at the invisible characteristics of God as expressed by nature. If they do, we have no reason to suppose that God is lax on His promise that if we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us and will make Himself known to us. If the numbers of Christians looks skewed in some regions, remember that Jesus told us in Matthew that many will say "Lord, Lord" and He will reply "I never knew you", so not all who claim to be Christian are truely followers of Christ, and not all those living in other cultures are not, but we are told not to expect that many will actually seek the truth: "But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it" (Matt. 7:14). So it seems to me that pointing out an observation with which we both agree really lends no support to either case if the relevant background information is considered. Can you please clarify for me what you mean? What are these contrasts as you see them? viole makes this point repeatedly, and it was that to which I was initially responding, but since I've already addressed that, please let's look at the points you're making. There is actually very little debate on how to be saved "if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9), but once again you're presupposing that everyone who calls themselves a Christian actually is, even though the Bible says that such is not the case. Vastly more importantly, however, is that God never said that you will be saved by listening to Christians. What He says "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (Isaiah 1:18). Those who call themselves Christians do so for many reasons, some political, some familial, some cultural, some economical, etc. People are flawed and can choose to ignore the revealed truth for delusion for any number of reasons, so of course epistomology is going to depend on the extent to which we actually seek truth instead of pay lip-service to truth, and people package and sell versions of the truth for personal gain - the Bible presupposes as much "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of and through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you" (2 Peter 2: 1-3). How could it be otherwise? Aren't there people who seek their own gain over the truth? Aren't most people complacent? How do those things negate that the truth is available to those who seek it, earnestly and rationally? But the good news of salvation is simple, according to the Bible (2 Cor. 11:3). Sure, but the big difference is that if there is an objective truth that's been revealed, and to which we have access then for the Christian something transcends those memes so there's an objective, anchored lifeline. By contrast, the atheist is totally at the mercy of those memes, and nothing more than those memes. The naturalist's worldview permits nothing more than that the naturalist is entirely a product of their environment and could not possibly transcend simply, environmental stimulous response. Therefore the naturalist cannot but think what they do, regardless of the nature of truth. There is no transcendent logos, not access to objective reality and reason, simply the responses determined by environmental pressures. Therefore, if the naturalist is right, it's only by wild conicidence and therefore totally implausible, but if the Christian is right our worldview contains the necessary preconditions to account for why would could trust our conclusions. The atheist must steal from the worldview of the theist, in order to simply make any intelligble use of their own worldview. I don't use a god. I followed the evidence where it led and it was logically and inescapably to Christian theism. I didn't like it. I hated conforming. I hated changing my values. I hated bowing down. I hated giving up my selfishness. I hated losing all my arguments about evolution until I could no longer accept that it was scientific fact. But hey, I recognized the the truth wasn't going to change for me, I'd have to change for the truth, and Jesus Christ is the Son of God, come in the flesh. He died for me to pay for my sins and rose again to defeat the curse of sin and death so that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life. So I had to follow the truth and I had to give credit where credit was due, and now I'm an enthusiastic defender of Christianity.

Viole said in response to the answer (which was not the answer she was hoping for), "But I am pretty confident that the default position of a Viking was to believe in Thor and Odin". It's really quite obvious that it was a loaded question. Viole may be confident of the answer, but that does not make her question an assertion. She may be asking for the opinion of the person to which she directed the question, regardless of her confidence of the answer. I often ask questions of others, even when I am confident of the answer. It is a good thing to ask questions and confirm things to avoid misunderstandings. Asking questions is not asserting anything. Regards, UndecidedFrog Uh, UF... are you really not understanding what viole's asserting there with that question? Can you describe to me how viole was asking for clarification by stating "But I am pretty confident that the default position of a Viking was to believe in Thor and Odin"? How is that really similar to when you ask for clarification?

I know this is a response to viole but I'm curious about the part that I bolded. How would Izdaari necessarily "come to realize" that these other gods would be untenable and that there "must be a true God" who provides salvation? I'm lost on that. Agnostos Theos was specific to the Greeks I'm not sure what that would have to do with Izdaari if she were born into the ancient Norse culture. Paul was trying to introduce his version/understanding of God into the dialogue of the Greek listeners at the time [using this "unknown" God of theirs]. I don't believe the Agnostos Theos is a catch all for anything, Odin and Thor etc are not unknown vague gods, at least not to the vikings. Allow me to cut in here for a moment. First of all, viole's question is fallacious because it is a genetic fallacy. A belief may be true regardless of the origins of a belief. Secondly, viole's question is silly because it suggests that the tenants of Judeo-Christianity would not be accepted by individuals in other cultures if those cultures didn't hold to such beliefs. The simple fact of the matter is that the argument simply fails on the grounds of consistency. If I'm only a Christian because of exposure to Christianity, then you're only an atheist because of exposure to atheism, so your belief is no more valid or independent of cultural bias than mine. Ergo we divert back to the first point and this is simply a genetic fallacy. The third point is that there are notable examples of people coming to believe such things despite cultural objections. Socrates was executed for disowning the Greek pantheon and advocating a less material deity, for example. The explanation for how this was possible is revealed, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1: 18-22). If God makes Himself known by revelation then that's how people who seek the truth come to realize the truth. So, the point is fallacious, inconsistent and falsely-predicated. It seems to me then that the Christian has a perfectly consistent reason to suppose that God can and does make the objective truth of Himself known through the revelation of nature and special revelation of scripture, which transcends immediate cultural values. By stark contrast, all the atheist could possibly boast is cultural memes. Therefore, the atheistic view contains a defeater that the theistic view lacks in this regard. By definition then, our position is sound, but you've demonstrated by the point that you press exactly how yours is inescapably self-defeating. In conclusion, we have good reason to suppose that you’d be worshipping Oden, but not such as strong case that we would be.

So they're the exceptions to the exception. Valid policies are never based on nested series' of exceptions. But D-9, that presupposed your metric upon which you gauge the qualitative value of "doing better". If homosexuality is indeed a preversion, then are they really doing better? Do these studies factor in the extent to which these children are influenced by their parents homosexuality, or do they presuppose that homosexuality is not an negative influence? Rearing children is not actually procreation. Orphanages, foster homes or even single parents all rear children, as you've just pointed out, but that does not mean any of them are procreating, and likewise none of them are included in the definition of marriage. I'm saying the exact opposite. Those people who can't or don't want kids are the exceptions within the rule. They are the people who do not or cannot respond to the encouragement to reproduce, despite their participation in the marital contract. To hunt them down would be not only economically unfeasible, but impossible since you couldn't possibly demonstrate they weren't ever going to have kids since intentions change and even marvels of medicine or miracle can increase fertility. Those who're fundamentally incapable of participating due to physical definition of being same-sex partners are the exceptions outside the rule. So, you make a rule and deal with the exceptions (those who can't or don't want to have children despite technically fitting the description of marriage), you don't make a rule based on the exception (include in the definition of marriage those who just don't match the criteria for procreation - even if there's a nested series of exceptions among them who could with technology and persistence). It's the law of diminishing returns. You don't bankrupt yourself for exceptions. You don't spend 10 dollars to save two cents, even if you could reinvest one of those cents and get back one dollar. It's just not about rights and freedoms when everyone is going around doing whatever they want, calling themselves whatever they want, etc. It's about someone trying to grab something that doesn't belong to them. This is a political move. The homosexual community refers to itself as a "lifestyle choice". That's not a term I applied to homosexuals. Your identity as a heterosexual may not be as grounded in objective fact as you think. You and I may not struggle with homosexual lusts, but what if our circumstances were very different? What if we were raised by homosexual parents and taught from a very young age that it didn't matter? Can you say for an absolute surety that it wouldn't have made any difference? How would you know? What about the gender confusion that can follow sexual abuse? The emotional and even physical repercussions that accompany that level of guilt, pain, and even stimulation can be very confusing and misleading. It's easy for some of us to know we're straight, but I submit, we don't know where, if not for the grace of God, go we. We'd have to establsh that there is no possible connection between someone's circumstances and their sexual preference, which I think would be totally disconfirmed if sought honestly and objectively. But I've had my own struggles with things in the past. Am I an alcoholic because excessive alcohol was a temptation for me, or am I a smoker because it was hard to quit? No. Because I control my choices and behavous, despite what feels good, despite what I want, despite what I'm drawn towards. Since I control those choices and they don't control me, then my identity is most certainly not established by my temptations by my triumph - which in my case is in Christ. Desire doesn't excuse behaviour and choice does not dictate identity. Because again, we're not talkking about banning or penalizing anything, but whether or not to put a cultural stamp of approval on something. People are working against alcohol and smoking, and everyone's behind it, but the penalties for disagreeing with homosexuality are becoming increasingly sever. Honestly, I'm anticipating losing this fight but what's worse than the widening of the definition of marriage is the censorship of those who disagree, regardless of how respectfully or thoughtfully. The reason why is because this is not about increasing freedom - quite the contrary. It's a political move, and it's going to hurt all of us. Once again, it's not about banning something, it's about not needlessly expanding the definition of something to include something else that's and exception and a potentially harmful one. It's like expanding the definition of motorist to include those who don't have a license because it's certainly possible that some people who don't have licenses are better drivers that some who do. Sure it's possible - but the exceptions would make a terrible rule.

So far, no one's advocated shunning of anyone for any reason. Not according to anything empirical. You're simply asserting that such is the case. But that's not what's happening here, you see. No one's presenting evidence that it really would be good for society. The thrust of the arguments in favour of homosexual marriage is entirely the supposition that it's their right to get married because heterosexual marriage already exists. If the thrust of the argument is simply that it's discrimination not to extend the definition of marriage to include homosexual couples, then its discrimination to deny anyone else any other definition as well. No one's even tried to provide evidence that it is a benefit to society to allow homosexual marriage, it's simply asserted that it will help, just as any other 'group' could insist that marriage with children, polygamy, inter-species marriages, etc. would be good for society. And if we continue in the direction we're going, we'll lose that vibrancy entirely. Heterosexuals are being discriminated against, labeled as bigots and hate-mongers, and even sued for enormous sums of money for simply demanding the right to respectfully disagree on this issue. We're rapidly losing freedom of speech as this movement advances, and it's the published agenda that it's going to get worse from here.

I agree completely with this.

Hey Neb, The rational is that God in the flesh would need a pure (sinless) vessel to usher Him into the world. The idea is that an impure vessel would be unworthy and incapable of bringing perfect purity into the world, because otherwise Christ would be born of a sinful vessel and then sort of by/in sin. Got a Scripture for that? Nope. It's not in scripture. It's a rational that was designed to explain what was already accepted, retroactively. The cult of mother goddess worship was superceded by the RCC, and the names of the various mother goddess deities were simply replaced with 'Mary' and their worship continued similar to how it had during overt paganism. It's something that's believed, and then doctrines such as these were developed around the belief as apologetics and rationals were devised and stuck to the doctrine. Now, that's most certainly not what anyone who accepts the doctrine would agree with, but I think it's very clearly the case.

You said it yourself, why should we allow people to benefit from marriage if they're not going to conform "to the nuclear family unit that's set up to encourage procreation?" Right. Encourage, not enforce. Because it is more economical to make a rule and allow the exceptions than make the exceptions the rule and eat the cost. Not to keep the species going. Civil law has to do with citizen and their compatibility with the structure of a society, not with the overall species at all. I strongly disagree that same-sex unions will promote bonds within the community. It's a lifestyle choice, and as such is subject to the same kind of scrutiny and disagreement as any other choice. If that choice is deemed to be corrosive, then it can be categorized with other poor lifestyle choices that serve to deteriorate the community, such as drug or alcohol abuse, smoking, etc.