The Good Book and Gay Marriage

Bonnie, sometimes the truth hurts. Jesus and the disciples told the truth and were killed for it.
Jesus said: Matthew 10:34-36 "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn
" 'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law -
36a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.???

(Some will accept his message and some will reject it, even causing strife among family members)
By believing Jesus is the Son of GOD he does bring peace between GOD and Man.
Remember Bonnie, Jesus spoke much more about Hell than Heaven. Why Bonnie ?
Whether you believe its sincere or not, sharing the words of Jesus is LOVE.
If I warn someone with the exact same words as Jesus and the disciples used about hell would I be clobbering ? Jesus Christ is my only Righteousness, without him i am a filthy rag.

[Check the History Books, Yeshualover! Part Two]
You apparently failed to read the "Capitall Lawes of New-England" from 1642 as well (which cites Scripture to justify the respective death penalties) I posted here a short time ago, in which men or women who "be a Witch" are to be punished with death? Have you never heard of the Salem Witch Trials? The first of twenty people killed in Salem, Massachusetts for witchcraft in 1692 was Bridget Bishop, whose body was thoroughly searched for "witch marks." Her accusers claimed she had bewitched men and made money disappear. Bridget Bishop was found guilty of witchcraft and hanged from the branches of a large oak tree growing in a place that would later be known as "Witches Hill." The Salem Witch Trials still serve as historic examples of the extreme dangers inherent to religious fundamentalism in America, as does the "grote Sodomietenvervolging van 1730" [the "Great Persecution of Sodomites of 1730"] in the Netherlands. There are several memorial sites in Holland which my lover and I visited back in 1999, commemorating and honoring those "Sodomites" (most of whom were publicly executed during the pogroms).

To "look back on the history of homosexuality in the West," wrote Louis Crompton in "Homosexuality and Civilization," is to view a kaleidoscope of horrors: Justinian's castrated bishops; the dangling corpses of Almeria; the burning of the 'married' couples in Renaissance Rome; the priests starved to death in cages in Venice's Saint Mark's Square; women burned, hanged, or beheaded on the charge of lesbianism; men tortured and burned by the Spanish Inquisition; Indians savaged by Balboa's mastiffs or burned in Peru; the deaths at the quemadero in Mexico City; the men and boys of Faan [Holland]; and the scores of men and adolescents hanged in Georgian England [18th-century and early 19th-century England]. All these atrocities were committed with the certainty that they were the will of God, necessary to stave off the kind of disaster that had overwhelmed the Cities of the Plain."

[Check the History Books, Yeshualover! Part One]
"May I add that I have never heard of a Christian attempting to justify homophobia, witch-burnings, or slavery? I know that I have only lived for seventeen years, but I don't think that these issues can be justified."

Reason, science, the use of empirical facts to support one's claims (instead of "faith" in an invisible being to support discrimination, persecution and atrocities of all kinds), and a knowledge of history aren't exactly Religious Fundamentalists' strengths, are they?

Have you never heard of the Crusades, in which non-believers ("infidels") Moslems and other non-Christians were slaughtered in the name of your Christian God a thousand years ago?

Have you never heard of the religious fundamentalists Jerry Falwell, Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps, and countless others who have called for capital punishment for same-sex-loving men and women (a case of extreme homophobia)? Who use religion to justify vilifying and slandering homosexuals (homophobia light)?

I just got through posting parts of a Reverend's pro-slavery sermon from 1860 you apparently didn't read, or you wouldn't be asking such naive questions. (cont'd)

When a man wants something to be true far more than he wants the truth its fatal. What a great GOD we have that he will give Dean eternal life any time he wants it by just believing GOD that he sent his son Jesus Christ as savior. The world Dean describes is not the way GOD wanted it, yet man has a free will to reject GOD and thus you see the results. Good Bye Dean.

Dean, has the thought ever occurred to you that perhaps I do have very substantial truths in mind that would very simply counter your arguments, yet that I choose not to share them as I can see that no amount of intellectual debate would ever dissuade you? If G-d Himself came to you, showed you more evidence than Dean or I ever could, I have a difficult time believing you would accept it even then.
That's ok.
I feel that some of your posts have been very jumbled (leading me to believe perhaps it was spam), but I have tried to glean what I could from them. You are most definitely entitled to your opinion, and I think that you are a very strong person when it comes to your convictions. That is something I admire.

I'd like you to know that I'm praying for you.

Nope, Yeshulover. It's not "spam," just a short introduction for self-righteous fundamentalist Incorrigibles to the uglier aspects of organized religion (in the past and present), written, for your and Darin's benefit, in plain, ol' American English.
It's obvious you and Darin haven't the slightest idea as to how best to counter my accusations (aside from blinding yourselves, like Martin Luther, to the truth). Well, bud, you ain't seen nothing yet.

I can't seem to make any sense of what Dean is posting. It's not a spammer, is it?

[Stop Distracting from the Pressing Issue of Faith-Based and -Sanctioned Murder and/or Discrimination by Church and State in the Name of Your Christian God, Part Two]
STOP TRYING TO DISTRACT from far more pressing issues, all of which you obviously find extremely discomforting and embarrassing: why else would you continue to pass over in silence all those aspects of Christianity, such as the death penalty for "witches", men who bed down with men, adulterers and adulteresses in the New England colonies (all of which the Capitall Lawes of New-England justified by quoting Bible passages that represent supposedly "eternal" truths for Fundies such as you). Your "Good Book" and earlier, "faith-based" laws have proven to be a horrific guideline for human "morals".
Why aren't you bent on taking away civil rights from known adulterers such as Newt Gingrich? Why are they not only tolerated, but allowed to remarry? Why aren't you quoting Leviticus to justify the vilification, legal persecution and, yes, even death of adulterers and adulteresses (after all, LEVITICUS passages tell you so, and "God's Word" is "inerrant"! This cherry-picking of the appropriate "abominations" to fit your agenda of maintaining patriarchal power, heterosexual supremacy and the denial of equal rights to women (whether straight or not) and gay men exposes you as the despicable, power-obsessed hypocrite you are.

[Stop Distracting from the Pressing Issue of Faith-Based and -Sanctioned Murder and/or Discrimination by Church and State in the Name of Your Christian God, Part One]
Darin, I'm being quite consistent, while you are making a complete fool of yourself. It is YOU who are confusing humanism and atheism with anarchism. When referring to my conscience, I was referring to thoughts and conduct based on ethical and humanist philosophies, coupled, of course, with all due respect for, and adherence to, our country's present legal framework. It goes without saying that perpetrating acts of violence or abuse against another person are against our country's laws (which are SECULAR, and NOT based on Mosaic laws as were the New England colonies'). Sodomy laws were declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court six years ago. Why should I have to mention things that are self-evident?
On the other hand, from the 13th to the 19th centuries, men who loved and slept with men were viciously persecuted, tortured, burnt at the stake, publicly hanged, drowned or left to starve to death in cages by both ecclesiastical (the Inquisition!) and state authorities (there is enough evidence from 15th-century Tuscany, 17th-century Portugal, 16th to 19th-century England (including colonial America), as well as the sporadic pogroms in 18th-century Holland to prove my point) for victimless "crimes," consensual sexual acts that hurt no one, whilst the Church and State based their murderous actions on the very same passages you people continue to quote today in order to justify discrimination against us. (cont'd)

Dean, you disagree with your own logic. What you say are ugly acts of violence and abuse, another mans CONSCIENCE says they are ok, or moral as you say. Is Dean deciding what is moral for others? I dont think so because Dean says this is hate when someone does this. Many men have had a clear conscience when killing a homosexual because they believe the acts commited are detesable. Dean says this is moral because the killers conscience was clear, and Dean would never say dont do what is moral. There are a thousand more examples I could have used Dean, to show you how a mans conscience cannot be the ultimate arbiter when it comes to morality, yet these reveal the flawed logic most effective. A man who murders a homosexual or any other man has commited an immoral act because GOD has said so. A man who sodimizes another man has commited an immoral act because GOD has said so. God loves you Dean just as much as he loves me. What a great GOD that he would make it so clear as to the path of righteousness and the path of destruction. My righteousnees is only through Jesus Christ, without him I am a filthy rag. I went to some of your websites yet for me to argue quotes through out history from men, would get us no where. Now being the researcher you claim to be, just take a quick look at this one page summary on Biblical Reliability and tell me what you think. http://www.equip.org/site/c.muI1LaMNJrE/b.2635115/

[Martin Luther: "Men of simple understanding ??? make good Christians", Part Three]
French philosopher Michel de Montaigne stated in his "Essais" in 1580 that: "Des esprits simples, moins curieux et moins instruits , il s'en fait de bons chrétiens." ["Men of simple understanding, little inquisitive and little instructed, make good Christians."]
As someone born into a family with Lutheran roots, as someone who was baptized, went to Sunday school and went through Lutheran Confirmation, I was appalled to later discover that Martin Luther himself praised stupidity and closed-mindedness: he called reason "des Teufels Braut" ["the Bride of the Devil"] and "Gottes aergste Feindin" ["the worst enemy of God"]. He also claimed that, "Auf Erden (ist) unter allen Gefaehrlichkeiten kein gefaehrlicher Ding denn eine hochreiche sinnige Vernunft". ["Among all dangers on Earth there is no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason."]
Reason "muss geblendet sein" ["must be blinded"] and "der Glaube (muss) alle Vernunft, Sinne und Verstand mit Fuessen treten." ["All reason, the senses and common sense (must) be trodden underfoot by faith."]

Throughout time, willful ignorance, narrow-mindedness, bigotry and cruelty have been the hallmarks of Christianity.

[Martin Luther: "Men of simple understanding ??? make good Christians", Part Two]
Fourthly, I mentioned ethics in the first paragraph, a subject that has nothing specifically to do with any religion, or Christians' sacrificing of goats, or even their own CHILDREN, in order to appease what these superstitious people feared to be a wrathful, violence-prone Christian "God"!
Like atheism, humanist and utilitarian philosophies THRIVE without the need of any authoritarian fantasy figure hidden away somewhere up on Cloud Nine. We are free of, and have no need for, your oppressive and thought-numbing religion. Unlike Christian gullibility (child-like "faith" in something that is intangible, belief in fables that are unbelievable, and praising "inerrant" truths, such as God's flat-earthism, that are just plain wrong), atheists and humanists prefer to use reason, to seek truth and beauty based on one's love for humankind and the rest of nature, and to trust tangible evidence.
"Secular humanism does not have the essential attributes of a religion: belief in a deity, the wish for some sort of afterlife, 'sacred' dogma or texts, or an absolutist moral creed. Instead, it expresses a philosophical and ethical point of view, and it draws upon the scientific method in formulating its naturalistic view of the nature." explained Paul Kurtz and Tim Madigan in "Eupraxophy and Secular Humanism." (cont'd)

[Martin Luther: "Men of simple understanding ??? make good Christians", Part One]

Firstly, you seem to have trouble sticking to a given subject, whilst conveniently ignoring those parts of my posting (mentioning philosophies such as atheism and humanism) that pose an ideological threat to your dogmatic religious beliefs and prejudices. How dare you insinuate that atheists and humanists have no sense of ethics!?

Secondly, two adults of the same sex who love (or merely desire) each other, and express that love (or desire) physically, have NOTHING to do with the ugly acts of violence and abuse perpetrated AGAINST another person that you listed. Stop insulting us (gay men and lesbians), and our intelligence! Religious fundamentalists' incitement to acts of hatred against minority groups (in the past: lynchings of blacks, today: queer bashings), on the other hand, can hardly be called "moral." As writer Gore Vidal pointed out in 1995, and gay/lesbian history has amply proven, "Once people get hung up on theology, they've lost sanity forever. More people have been killed in the name of Jesus Christ than any other name in the history of the world."

Thirdly, atheists don't fret about God's non-existence day in, day out; the subject of invisible deities is a non-issue, simply irrelevant to the everyday reality of life. (cont'd)

Dean says...---As an atheist and humanist, I need only two simple words to answer your question: "My conscience."
So by Deans logic, whatever a person deems moral (by their conscience) is moral. Dean says if your conscience is fine with murder, rape, child molestation etc. then your ok, its moral. of course Deans conscience may not be ok with these yet a man so concerned with the rights of others to freely decide and practice what is moral to them based on their conscience would never take away their rights, right Dean ! This is FATAL Logic. GOD determines what is moral and immoral and Dean can say God does not exist a thousand times a day for the rest of his life yet nothing will change, GOD remains.