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What do you think of the mainstream religions that are homophobic and misogynous?

Gnostic Christian Bishop September 08, 2019 at 14:33 10525 views 83 comments
What do you think of the mainstream religions that are homophobic and misogynous?

I think they are stuck in the past and refuse to grow their moral sense to a higher level as they continue to discriminate and denigrate against gays and women without a just cause.

Should secular law do something against the religions that preach and teach poor morals and laws that are the opposite of the better secular law we live by?

We seem to be coming down on Islam and demanding they reform, but we seem to be ignoring Christianity’s efforts to make the world a worse place with homophobia and second class women.

Thoughts?

Regards
DL

Comments (83)

bert1 September 08, 2019 at 15:25 #325972
This is too general. Christianity is not homogenous enough to say it is homophobic and misogynistic.
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 08, 2019 at 15:35 #325978
Quoting bert1
This is too general. Christianity is not homogenous enough to say it is homophobic and misogynistic.


What denominations of the, what, 3,000 or so Christian sects, have taken their homophobic and misogynous writings out of the bible they use?

What small % of Christianity is not homophobic and misogynous in your estimation?

Regards
DL

bert1 September 08, 2019 at 15:49 #325984
There's nothing wrong with selective readings of holy texts.

I don't know how many Christians are not homophobic or misogynist, but I've met plenty who don't seem that way to me.
NOS4A2 September 08, 2019 at 15:50 #325985
Reply to Gnostic Christian Bishop

The reason they go hard on Islam in this matter is that homosexuality is punishable by death in countries with Islamic law, and women are basically treated like chattel. Christianity is far more advanced in this respect. A friend of mine, a lesbian, got married by a Christian minister last year.
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 08, 2019 at 16:04 #325994
Quoting bert1
There's nothing wrong with selective readings of holy texts.

I don't know how many Christians are not homophobic or misogynist, but I've met plenty who don't seem that way to me.


I agree with your first and also with the fact that the left of Christianity has progressed to recognizing they should not be like the right wing.

I speak more against the right wing here but all Christians who do not rip the homophobic and misogynous text out of their bible are contributing to the problem.

Regards
DL
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 08, 2019 at 16:09 #326004
Quoting NOS4A2
The reason they go hard on Islam in this matter is that homosexuality is punishable by death in countries with Islamic law, and women are basically treated like chattel. Christianity is far more advanced in this respect. A friend of mine, a lesbian, got married by a Christian minister last year.


I went to such a wedding myself. Outside and not in the church. I give the preacher some points but not for teaching his flock that they are being immoral in their discrimination against gays.

Things are getting better but slowly thanks to Christian intransigence.
As to Christians v/s Muslin ways that lead to death. I do not see much of a difference.
Let me know if you do.

Death to Gays.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyuKLyGUHNE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYV7KWQ-fY4

Regards
DL
Tzeentch September 08, 2019 at 16:29 #326033
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
What small % of Christianity is not homophobic and misogynous in your estimation?


100% of the Christians I have met in my personal life.
NOS4A2 September 08, 2019 at 16:29 #326034
Reply to Gnostic Christian Bishop

The rise in acceptance among Christians is quite amazing, even within the last few decades.

As for Islam:

The death penalty for homosexuality was historically implemented by a number of countries worldwide. It currently remains a legal punishment in several countries and regions, all of which have sharia-based criminal laws.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_penalty_for_homosexuality
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 08, 2019 at 17:24 #326078
Quoting Tzeentch
100% of the Christians I have met in my personal life.


Good for you to live in a progressive area instead of a fundamental literalist area.

Anecdotal information, while interesting, has little value as compared to stats and the evils that the majority continue to do.

Regards
DL
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 08, 2019 at 17:28 #326080
Quoting NOS4A2
The rise in acceptance among Christians is quite amazing, even within the last few decades.


Yes. Secular law has brought Christianity to heel. Finally.

Your focus is Islam, which I agree is worse than Christianity these days, but let's not forget that the link I gave was to Uganda, a Christian nation, urged to kill gays by a U.S. Christian church..

Regards
DL

S September 08, 2019 at 17:29 #326081
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
What do you think of the mainstream religions that are homophobic and misogynous?


I think they're great. Don't you? Who doesn't love homophobia and misogyny? :roll:
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 08, 2019 at 17:59 #326094
Quoting S
Who doesn't love homophobia and misogyny?


Moral people.

Regards
DL
Tzeentch September 08, 2019 at 18:06 #326096
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
Anecdotal information, while interesting, has little value as compared to stats and the evils that the majority continue to do.


I put more value in my own observations and personal experiences. Statistics can be (ab)used for anything, and as a result I'm rather skeptical of those. Especially when they concern purported "evils of the majority".
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 08, 2019 at 18:28 #326107
Quoting Tzeentch
I put more value in my own observations and personal experiences


Ok. That would be you ignoring evil and the golden rule.

If you think you should live by the Golden Rule, change the labels in this quote to women, minorities, gays or children being brainwashed by religions and it shows what we should be thinking and doing for each other.

"First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I'm not a Jew. Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I'm not a socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I'm not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me." – Pastor Father Niemoller (1946)”

Regards
DL
jorndoe September 08, 2019 at 18:29 #326109
Edward Feser and other Christians have published quite a bit against homosexuality.
fresco September 08, 2019 at 18:30 #326111
Reply to Gnostic Christian Bishop
A major societal function of religion is rationalize and regulate the sexual behavior we inherit as primates. This accounts for the 'sanctification' of male chauvinistic and polygamous tendencies.
Even those dissenting cults like gnosticism tend towards male-female dichotomy in their mythology ('logos' versus 'eros' being the Jungian subtext) even though those labels are more nebulous in their application with respect to biological gender, thereby conforming to modern pc trends.
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 08, 2019 at 18:33 #326113
Quoting jorndoe
Edward Feser and other Christians have published quite a bit against homosexuality.


Many immoral thinkers have.

Gays and women have been targets for the immoral who do not like the notion of equality for many years.

Regards
DL
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 08, 2019 at 18:41 #326116
Quoting fresco
A major societal function of religion is rationalize and regulate the sexual behavior we inherit as primates.


Something worthy of an answer.

I generally agree with what you put, although you end with language I do not like. P C means many things to many people.

At one time, when we lived in city states with finite resources, the church may have had good reasons for controlling, not so much sex but reproduction.

That kept fewer babies from being sacrificed.

In modern days, religions should keep their Jesus off of our penises. They have no business in the bedrooms of the nation.

Regards
DL


BC September 08, 2019 at 19:00 #326122
Reply to Gnostic Christian Bishop Yes, there are many flavors of Christianity, everything from Mormons to Old Calendar Bulgarian Orthodox; and a lot of members -- 2.4 billion, give or take a dozen. Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism comprise billions more. Characterizing these religions as one thing or another is risky, because there is going to be variation on each facet of faith and religious behavior. You know that, of course.

That said, I have had quite a bit of experience with Christian anti-gay attitudes and policies, both pro- and con. The Methodist Church in which I was raised is coming apart right now over the issue; my siblings are in the anti-gay camp. On the other hand, there are Methodist congregations that are gay-affirming. One of the strong drivers behind my effort to pursue atheism was the impossibility of affirming my gay sexual being within Christian Theology. Catholics, Anglicans, and others are also having difficulty finding an accommodation for gay people and women who want an equal share of participation and power in the Church.

Some churches are misogynist too. Methodism has done better on this score, electing women bishops before many denominations accepted women as pastors. One of my sisters belongs to a Baptist church that is remarkably antediluvian in its attitudes toward women in the church.

Most Christians can be faulted on their failures to even remotely approximate the performance that Jesus Christ established as the standard (I was naked and you clothed me, I was hungry and you fed me...) and believers in every other religion similarly fail to meet whatever mark is expected of them. That's just normal human behavior.

Billions of automobile drivers fail to faithfully follow the rules of the road, for instance, even though it raises their personal risks substantially.

The primary task of civilization is to corral our inconvenient primate urges as well as we can so that the better angels of our Homo sapiens nature can come to the fore. It's a messy business everywhere for everybody.
fresco September 08, 2019 at 19:02 #326123
"Jesus" is a red herring. Jews and moslems don't do Jesus!
I suggest gnostics want their cake (belief in a supremo aka 'God') and eat it (without any strings attached of 'rule following'). The anti-homophobia and anti-mysogeny of modern times serves their parasitic activities vis-a-vis the denigration of mainstream religions, without which the alternative mythology of gnosticism would be meaningless
BC September 08, 2019 at 19:07 #326127
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
In modern days, religions should keep their Jesus off of our penises. They have no business in the bedrooms of the nation.


Christians could make some progress in that direction by recognizing that Jesus had a penis himself, and probably employed it in activities besides urination. He was an embodied being, after all, with all the urges contained therein. Many Christians have difficulty with embodiment -- including their own. Some seem to want to be above the physical, somehow being etherial disembodied beings.
Deleted User September 08, 2019 at 19:25 #326132
Reply to Bitter Crank Yes, and oddly I think this is something they share with many people supposedly on the other side of the divide. Very mentally focused, detached intellectual types, technocrats and others. One group thinks it'll be great only when the body is finally shed, and the other group is busy trying to create technologies to replace bodies to 'improve' them.

And both groups have incredible problems with emotions.
BC September 08, 2019 at 19:47 #326140
Reply to Coben Good observation. Thanks.
Deleted User September 08, 2019 at 22:53 #326185
This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.
T Clark September 08, 2019 at 22:57 #326186
Quoting NOS4A2
The rise in acceptance among Christians is quite amazing, even within the last few decades.


Yes, my head is spinning. Here's a map.

User image

Good old Mississippi and Alabama.
BC September 09, 2019 at 00:06 #326205
Quoting tim wood
Anyone here able to cite those parts of the Bible...


Everyone who can use Google can do it.

I encountered this biblical material back in 1978, particularly in the book, Is the Homosexual my Neighbor? by Letha Dawson Scanzoni and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott. Since then many books have been published on the topic.

Leviticus

"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." Chapter 18 verse 22[2]
"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them." Chapter 20 verse 13[3]

Genesis

Sodom and Gomorrah have been used historically and in modern discourse as metaphors for homosexuality, and are the origin of the English words, sodomite, a pejorative term for male homosexuals, and sodomy, which is used in a legal context to describe sexual crimes against nature, namely anal or oral sex (particularly homosexual) and bestiality.

Judges 19 has a very unhappy tale similar to the one in Sodom and Gomorrah.

The relationship between David and Johnathan has been interpreted as homosexual (and as not homosexual)

1 Samuel 18:1:

And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. (KJV)

Another relevant passage is 2 Samuel 1:26, where David says:

I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. (KJV)

Book of Ruth

The relationship between Ruth and Naomi has been interpreted as a lesbian relationship (and as not a lesbian relationship)

Paul Romans 1:26-27

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.[25]

arsenokoitai gets mentioned in the Corinthian quote, and is a good example of why all this is difficult. We don't have numerous dictionaries, many volumes of secular writing, and so forth to interpret the New Testament. We have what we have and it is often a struggle for scholars to determine what, exactly people meant.

It seems to me quite likely that the ancient Jewish authorities did not like homosexuals. Their competitors in the land of Israel, the heathens, pagans, and uncircumcised Philistines practiced male prostitution in some temples. Why? Fertility. Don't ask me -- I don't know whether the temple prostitutes were gay or not, and nobody else does either.

In one passage (can't remember) the Bible says that the wages of a dog may not be offered in the temple. Dogs got paid? No, "dog" was a term for a male temple prostitute.

Did homosexuality exist in ancient Israel? As far as I know, it did. BUT the given form male homosexuality would have taken would depende on the options available and what was tolerated. We really don't know much about it.

Quoting tim wood
anyone here care to venture a definition of what homophobia is?


In the context in which it was used, it means someone who has a fear of their own homophobia. It was theorized that men who could not accept their sexual attraction to other men would react to it with fear, loathing, and sometimes, violence directed at a suspected or known homosexual. Many gay men have experienced this reaction to actual or suspected homosexuals before they openly accepted their own sexual attraction to men. This was true for me at one period of time, also.

This kind of phobia and self-hatred is dispelled by self-acceptance.

The homophobia model has since been applied to hatreds for which the mechanism of 'homophobia" doesn't exist in any way, shape, manner, or form. So, heterosexual people are accused of being homophobic because they intensely dislike homophobia, not because they recognize any same sex longing in themselves.

Better to call hate hate, then adopt a term for an anxiety reaction for plain old hatred.

Xenophobia doesn't exist because people secretly fear that they are foreigners or something strange. Some people just fear and hate strangers or foreigners or anything that is strange or foreign. We seem to be primed for this, and in some communities xenophobia is encouraged and strengthened by group behavior.

Arachnophobes do not suspect they are really spiders. Spiders simply scare them to an inordinate degree.

Get the picture?
Possibility September 09, 2019 at 01:24 #326212
Quoting fresco
A major societal function of religion is rationalize and regulate the sexual behavior we inherit as primates. This accounts for the 'sanctification' of male chauvinistic and polygamous tendencies.
Even those dissenting cults like gnosticism tend towards male-female dichotomy in their mythology ('logos' versus 'eros' being the Jungian subtext) even though those labels are more nebulous in their application with respect to biological gender, thereby conforming to modern pc trends.


A major societal function of religion is to regulate or structure the effect of internal experience on external behaviour. Moral law seeks to impose a single value structure upon all subjective experiences, and disseminates this law by reducing it from a complex and fluid five dimensional nebulous structure to a two-dimensional structure of words (eg. book or stone tablet). To then impose this structure onto the experiences of others, one must either:

- continually negate, oppress or eliminate those subjective experiences that challenge the 2D structure’s accuracy; or

- continually re-interpret the words in relation to the subjective experiences.

Alternatively, we could recognise the 2D structure as one of many reduced interpretations of a five dimensional, nebulous value system that is relative to the observer (pointing to an overarching sixth dimension of pure relationship between all matter).
3017amen September 09, 2019 at 02:04 #326215
Reply to Gnostic Christian Bishop

This is very very sad particularly when you hear or read reports about gay people committing suicide. To say the very least, the right-wing Fundies should be ashamed of themselves.

The level of ignorance is baffling. When did the Bible become a 21st century medical science book...
Deleted User September 09, 2019 at 02:39 #326220
This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.
TheMadFool September 09, 2019 at 03:53 #326238
Reply to Gnostic Christian Bishop While religion stands out for its organized discrimination of gays and women I think the root of the problem has more to do with the male psychology than God per se. This means homophobia and misogyny are connected at some level in the goings on of the male brain.

I guess I'm saying homophobia and misogyny are primeval instincts that couldn't be purged from more intellectual enterprises like the holy scriptures of, especially, the Abrahamic religions.

To tackle the problem it's not enough to just oppose it and immediately attempt to demolish religion itself. That would be killing a man to cure the tumor growing in his testicles which probably is an apt analogy.

We need to be more reasonable than the opposition lest we become them just dressed in different colors and that surely requires more than marching, waving flags and chanting on the streets.
alcontali September 09, 2019 at 04:35 #326244
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
Many immoral thinkers have. Gays and women have been targets for the immoral who do not like the notion of equality for many years.


Long-term survival is the overriding concern here. Few people would deny that the religious communities are at a very visible advantage on that matter. For everybody else, long-term survival is increasingly turning into an futile exercise in squaring the circle. In other words, you have to solve your own problems first before trying to advise anybody else.
TheMadFool September 09, 2019 at 04:44 #326247
Quoting alcontali
In other words, you have to solve your own problems first before trying to advise anybody else.


This is relevant to me! Thanks.

I actually think it's good practical advice. I can't lift the Earth but I sure can wash off the dust in my eye.

What about leaders? Every global movement is headed by someone. Could we tell him/her to set his/her house in order before attempting to lead the flock? Nobody's perfect I guess.

Thanks.
BC September 09, 2019 at 05:25 #326265
Quoting tim wood
slave-dealing


Slave dealing was not a problem for the Jewish authorities until some point which I can't identify, just now. Slavery was during some OT periods was quite common.

Quoting tim wood
what do I think of religions that push fear and hatred? I think they're ignorant and stupid.


Your phrasing has come out of my mouth on a number of occasions, but I am not sure the problem is ignorance and stupidity. The targets for hate are many and varied, and most of us are capable of hating people who, to our minds, are really loathsome, but who, to themselves, are perfectly lovable and decent folk.

One of the big problems of Christians & Moslems is the idea that people who violate the holiness code are spectacularly evil. Therefore, Jews, homosexuals, apostates, heretics, adulterous women, and so on have been the objects of focused hatred and violence. But to repeat, "homophobia" doesn't fit these situations.

People don't hate Jews because they fear they are Jews. The self-righteous religious haters usually do not think they are deep down, homosexuals. Or apostates, heretics, adulterous women, and more. Hatred has other sources than what drives the properly diagnosed homophobe (which is the fear he is queer). People who hate blacks usually have some picture of the uppity Negro who is violating the proper order of things: he or she is not being submissive. NO, he and she are out there integrating the schools, the pool, the shopping center, and the neighborhood; marching, yelling, getting the federal government involved, and... and... there goes our way of life!!!

People sometimes hate the people over whom they have absolute power. It's not a phobia, it's a more complicated reaction.
fresco September 09, 2019 at 06:04 #326282
Reply to Possibility You application of 'societal function' to 'self' tends to be circular from the pov of 'self' as a social acquisition, constructed by a value laden communal language.
I can't make sense of your 'dimensions' analogy. Maybe you could rehash what you are saying in terms of 'nested domains' ....e.g. personal, group, societal, national etc ...in which different rule mechanisms operate ?
alcontali September 09, 2019 at 06:06 #326283
Quoting TheMadFool
What about leaders? Every global movement is headed by someone. Could we tell him/her to set his/her house in order before attempting to lead the flock? Nobody's perfect I guess.


Well, after negotiating with the Taliban for over a year in Doha, Qatar -- the deal was finally going to be announced this week -- the Donald still managed to flake out last minute.

He had first said that he was going to do it, before backpedalling and not doing it, because hey, "I have changed my mind and I am not going to do it!".

To tell you the truth, I knew that he was going to do something like that.

The Donald never really liked the idea of making a deal, but he wanted to do the negotiations because there is nothing to lose by merely sitting at the negotiation table. Still, when push came to shove, I knew that he was going to bail out, because that was the plan from the very start; and now he did.
TheMadFool September 09, 2019 at 06:10 #326288
fresco September 09, 2019 at 06:16 #326291
To all.
This is NOT a thread aimed at tackling 'the problem' laid at the doors of traditional religions, other than by promoting of 'gnosticism' as the 'most enlightened' alternative religion. The fact that the mythology of gnosticism also involves a male (wise) female (fallen) dichotomy albeit at the 'spiritual level' rather than a 'bodily level' implies that their claims for moral superiority are dubious.


TheMadFool September 09, 2019 at 06:54 #326300
Quoting fresco
To all.
This is NOT a thread aimed at tackling 'the problem' laid at the doors of traditional religions, other than by promoting of 'gnosticism' as the 'most enlightened' alternative religion. The fact that the mythology of gnosticism also involves a male (wise) female (fallen) dichotomy albeit at the 'spiritual level' rather than a 'bodily level' implies that their claims for moral superiority are dubious.


:smile: :up:
Possibility September 09, 2019 at 08:06 #326321
Quoting fresco
You application of 'societal function' to 'self' tends to be circular from the pov of 'self' as a social acquisition, constructed by a value laden communal language.


The way I see it, awareness of ‘self’ as a subject and source of value preceded the language, and contributed to its development as a system for structuring value. This appears evident from a distinct lack of ‘communal’ language, despite the translatability of ‘I’ across human experience.

Quoting fresco
I can't make sense of your 'dimensions' analogy. Maybe you could rehash what you are saying in terms of 'nested domains' ....e.g. personal, group, societal, national etc ...in which different rule mechanisms operate ?


Nested domains are inaccurate as a structure for value systems, because some people will attribute more value or significance to their national identity than their personal one, or vice versa, for example.

Value systems are a five-dimensional structure: they relate subjective experiences to each other and to events and objects in time not necessarily according to spatial or temporal structure, but according to hierarchies of significance.

So one’s subjective value structure develops from their most significant or valuable relationship interactions. This can sometimes appear as ‘nested domains’ when viewed logically, but in the midst of an emotional interaction, for instance, this apparently rational structure in theory can go out the window in practice.

Religions, like most societies, make use of significant and valuable relationships to try and homogenise this value structure, but as numbers grow and diversity in experiencing spacetime events and objects threatens homogeneity, the social ‘entity’ protects itself by creating or manifesting some sense of continuity in experience to unite observers and minimise change across spacetime.

Tradition, ritual, symbolism, mythology, language, art and written texts are all attempts to ‘realise’ a more universal value structure. Four dimensional structures such as rituals and spoken language, as events recurring in time, lend themselves to a certain amount of fluidity. Two dimensional, written declarations from significant ‘authority’ are less flexible. They’re more effective in terms of reach, but decidedly less effective in terms of an accurate account of the value structure as it pertains to three or four dimensional reality.

Sorry, it’s a tricky concept - is that any clearer... or less so?
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 11:46 #326384
Quoting Bitter Crank
That's just normal human behavior.


Informative post. Thanks.

There is no normal that says that one should discriminate without a just cause.

Normal, especially in religions, seem to change on the whim of whoever is in charge at any given point in time. Check this out.

http://christianity-revealed.com/cr/files/whensamesexmarriagewasachristianrite.html

As to your family, ask the men if they like that their church says they must marry second class citizens.

Tell the men in the churches you know, that do not put women and children above themselves, that they are inferior men.

Regards
DL




fresco September 09, 2019 at 11:49 #326385
Reply to Possibility If by 'dimensions' you mean 'independent (orthogonal) factors', as in 'factor analysis', then that might make sense. However, whether you concur on that or not, I suggest you need to take care, for example, with your analysis of 'text' as '2-dimensional', because contrary to the religious viewpoint (set in stone), post modernists claim that text shifts its 'meaning' over time, even for its author.
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 11:53 #326390
Quoting fresco
I suggest gnostics want their cake (belief in a supremo aka 'God')


Your suggestion is foolish as we show our disrespect for supernatural stupid thinking and Christianity by insulting Yahweh, a genocidal prick, demiurge that is, whom you, like Christians, seem to think is worthy and good.

All the gods come out of human imagination and mine just happens to have morals and is supreme to me.

I hope whatever ideal example you follow, that is god to most, in laws and rules, is so as well.

Best to ask a Gnostic Christian what he believes as the inquisitors put a lot of lies out here to try to justify their many murders.

Regards
DL

Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 11:59 #326392
Quoting Bitter Crank
Many Christians have difficulty with embodiment -- including their own. Some seem to want to be above the physical, somehow being etherial disembodied beings.


They forget that the most Christian nation in the world, the U.S apparently, --- if not a U.S. joke, --- has the highest abortion rates in the world as well as the highest sexually transmitted diseases stats going.

It seems that Christian nations have a hard time walking their talk.

Regards
DL

Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 12:05 #326395
Quoting tim wood
Another thread that has a definition problem


In philosophical discussions, it is well known by the intelligential, that definitions happen at the end of a general discussion and not before as people will not agree on firm definitions.

If you cannot think analogically you might want to get oyt of philosophy forums.

I am not inventing new definitions and if you cannot use dictionary definitions, go argue definitions with someone else. I am here to talk issues.

Regards
DL
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 12:11 #326400
Quoting Bitter Crank
Get the picture?


Thanks for having more patience than I.

I just tell such to do their own research as when I supply mine, Christians especially just discard them due to the source.

They deflect by attacking the messenger and ignore the message.

Regards
DL
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 12:14 #326403
Quoting Possibility
nebulous value system


Nicely put.

Regards
DL
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 12:18 #326404
Quoting 3017amen
This is very very sad particularly when you hear or read reports about gay people committing suicide. To say the very least, the right-wing Fundies should be ashamed of themselves.

The level of ignorance is baffling. When did the Bible become a 21st century medical science book...


Shame is what they should feel, but that would displace the contempt they prefer to feel without a just cause.

"Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God, holds other people in contempt.
Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there is in that man no spirit of compromise.
He has not the modesty born of the imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance.
Believing himself to be the slave of God, he imitates his master, and of all tyrants, the worst is a slave in power."
--Robert Ingersoll

fresco September 09, 2019 at 12:22 #326408
Reply to Gnostic Christian Bishop A mythical rose, by any other name, would smell just as phoney to atheists ! ...Indeed, in terms of Shakespeare milking....'A plague on all their fairy tale houses' !

But I suppose we are doomed to continue to suffer your futile trolling which has no more substance than its turgid 'anti-yahweh' moaning.
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 12:25 #326410
Quoting tim wood
And insofar as they act on those bases, ought to be subject to corrective action, probably through criminal and civil law, as appropriate.


I have suggested a governmental revue of the religions to decide which is more moral and to help guide the population. That would help show the garbage religions. Scientology comes to mind.

To do less, is to ignore fraud.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg

My taxes, --- and yours, --- keep those G D liars in business and I don't like my money being used for evil.

Regards
DL


Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 12:33 #326417
Quoting TheMadFool
I think the root of the problem has more to do with the male psychology than God per se.


A good post.

It is all psychology for sure. Not the sexual part of it. The peer pressure and desire for tribal security is. All a religion is is a tribe.

That is pure self-centered selfish behavior which profits the immoral church to grow.

Here is a quick look at our hivish tribal natures that religions have used to divide us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T64_El2s7FU

Regards
DL
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 12:37 #326420
Quoting alcontali
In other words, you have to solve your own problems first before trying to advise anybody else.


Did you have something specific in mind?

I don't think I agree at all with your view as I have known doctors addicted to drugs who are quite good at helping others in ridding themselves of their addictions.

Sure, every psychologist may need their own psychologist but that does not mean that they cannot be effective psychologists.

Open your closed mind a bit and think of idiot savants.

Regards
DL
alcontali September 09, 2019 at 12:49 #326427
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
Did you have something specific in mind?


Societies who in all practical terms are no longer making children are at a distinct disadvantage in spreading the very ideas that cause their problem. Why would anybody else believe a word they say? Seriously, that is what explains why they don't. There is little need for further analysis because these things are getting increasingly obvious. Just look around you, and then confirm that the mess will not be fixed any time soon, if ever.
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 12:59 #326432
Quoting fresco
The fact that the mythology of gnosticism also involves a male (wise) female (fallen) dichotomy albeit at the 'spiritual level' rather than a 'bodily level' implies that their claims for moral superiority are dubious.


LOL.

Again you speak out of ignorance of Gnostic Christianity.

Gnostic Christians are universalists and have tied equality to righteousness.

This following needs an update in terms but shows that equality under the law for all us is paramount.

http://gnosis.org/library/ephip.htm

Further, modern male Gnostic Christians take it further by applying the law of the sea where women and children and their needs are always put above us men, where we men think they should be.

Regards
DL



Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 13:01 #326434
Quoting TheMadFool


Please read my reply to our friend and repent for your reaction to B.S.

Regards
DL

Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 13:09 #326437
Quoting alcontali
Societies who in all practical terms are no longer making children are at a distinct disadvantage in spreading the very ideas that cause their problem. Why would anybody else believe a word they say? Seriously, that is what explains why they don't. There is little need for further analysis because these things are getting increasingly obvious. Just look around you, and then confirm that the mess will not be fixed any time soon, if ever.


I do not measure the worth of an ideology on whether the speaker has children or not. Noye how prolific Muslims are yet they presently have the most immoral ideology on the planet.

If I were to give credence to your words, then all Buddhist monks should all be ignored.

Regards
DL


Possibility September 09, 2019 at 14:29 #326461
Quoting fresco
If by 'dimensions' you mean 'independent (orthogonal) factors', as in 'factor analysis', then that might make sense.


From what little I understand about factor analysis, I would say no. By dimensions, I do mean dimensions. But then, I’ll admit that my ability to grasp mathematics is limited. So you might have to explain what you mean in plain English.

Quoting fresco
However, whether you concur on that or not, I suggest you need to take care, for example, with your analysis of 'text' as '2-dimensional', because contrary to the religious viewpoint (set in stone), post modernists claim that text shifts its 'meaning' over time, even for its author.


If you read it again, I did say the written ‘word’ or ‘declaration’ (not text) is 2-dimensional - as in, it has a fixed relative shape on a plane. The words, once written, don’t change. Meaning, on the other hand, can be up to six dimensional. This is why I said that one of the options was to:

Quoting Possibility
- continually re-interpret the words in relation to the subjective experiences.
alcontali September 09, 2019 at 15:36 #326489
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
Note how prolific Muslims are ...


Yeah, they do not believe it, and they have lots of kids.
Everybody who believes it, does not.
So, let's conclude that not believing it, is a prerequisite for successful sexual reproduction.
TheMadFool September 09, 2019 at 15:39 #326493
Reply to Gnostic Christian Bishop Thanks for the link. :up:
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 16:08 #326500
Quoting alcontali
So, let's conclude that not believing it, is a prerequisite for successful sexual reproduction.


Reproduction decision usually have more than one issue, so no, I do not agree.

Further, most theists are not really believers in their religions and are just following tradition, culture and peer pressure.

A Muslim in the M. E, will likely have more children than a U.S. Muslim.

Regards
DL
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 16:09 #326501
Quoting TheMadFool
Thanks for the link. :up:


My pleasure buddy.

Regards
DL
alcontali September 09, 2019 at 17:15 #326518
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
Reproduction decision usually have more than one issue, so no, I do not agree.


Why do some belief communities reproduce while other ones do not? I think that the question is rather interesting. If you believe the wrong things, you will not reproduce. If you believe the right things, then you will. So, listen to people whose sexual reproduction is falling apart, and then don't believe them. Take note of what they say, because it is wrong.

It is the best "How Not To Do It" manual.

On the other hand, it is preferable not to convince them of the fact that what they believe, is wrong, because the problem is clearly solving itself.
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 09, 2019 at 21:00 #326600
Quoting alcontali
433


If you look at the stats, you will find that reproduction drops when contraceptives are available, when education and health care improve, or the standard of living is enhanced.

Because of that, I do not think beliefs, other than right wing fundamentals, has much of an effect.

Mind you, when education goes up, beliefs go down.

This link might help you understand my stance on this issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ezVk1ahRF78

Regards
DL
Drazjan September 09, 2019 at 21:41 #326627
A phobia is an irrational fear. The disapproval of a practice is not a phobia. Terms like Islamophobia and Homophobia are more often used in rhetoric and sophistry to defend those groups.
alcontali September 10, 2019 at 00:13 #326676
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ezVk1ahRF78


The video shows exactly what is wrong with his views.

It takes over thirty pages of annotated first-order logic to prove just one single, knowledge claim such as the Banach-Tarski paradox, while the speaker in the video spouts claim after claim in a 13-minute talk, each of which would be several orders of magnitude harder to provide evidence for. He still does not hesitate to call all of that science. So, my question becomes: Has he ever seen any real science?

The audience is obviously not capable of assessing that. When the ignorant populace listens to someone like him, how are they supposed to verify justifications that he does not even provide for his long string of conjectures? Just like the speaker, they are also not familiar with legitimate knowledge justification. Of course, nobody asked him how he has experimentally tested any so-called scientific claim he mentioned, simply, because nobody in the audience even knows that this is the question they should ask him.

His talk nicely shows what is wrong with the state-run education system. What he claims, are not justified beliefs -- because serious justification is hard stuff -- but it is exactly what the schools teach, and what they ask their hapless students to memorize, not because these things would be legitimate knowledge, but because it is what the ruling elite wants them to believe.

Behind every lie of the United Nations you will find a New-York bankster.

Only people who can resist the onslaught of indoctrination will keep reproducing. Everybody else will slowly but surely drift to a fertility rate of zero.
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 10, 2019 at 00:21 #326680
Quoting Drazjan
A phobia is an irrational fear. The disapproval of a practice is not a phobia. Terms like Islamophobia and Homophobia are more often used in rhetoric and sophistry to defend those groups.


If not fear, what motivates homophobes to discriminate against gays without a just cause to the point of wanting to deny them a lifelong loving relationship?

Or do you think homophobes have a just cause to put sex above love?

Regards
DL
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 10, 2019 at 00:25 #326681
Quoting alcontali
alcontali


That gentleman headed up a whole university department and is an expert demographer.

Do you have better statistics to refute him?

If not, talk to the hand.

Regards
DL

alcontali September 10, 2019 at 00:38 #326684
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
That gentleman headed up a whole university department and is an expert demographer.


Of course, I am sure that there is a state-run university that will pay him good money for spreading his highly ideological views. The ruling elite invests quite a bit of money in their lies. When a manipulative lie suits the New York banksters, then all the money in the world will be available for it, simply, because it is them who print the dollars.

You see, the very first thing to understand about knowledge, is that it does not matter who says it. The only thing that matters, is its justification. The reverse is also true. If it matters who says it, then what he says cannot possibly matter.

Look at the difference with something like the 1905 special relativity theory. It does not matter that Einstein said it. If John Doe had said it, it would have made no difference. In fact, before 1905 Albert Einstein was still some kind of John Doe.

Or in a more recent example, look at the MimbleWimble white paper. Just like for the Bitcoin white paper, the author chose to remain anonymous. It caused a stir, because the math is provable and compelling.

That so-called "head of a whole university bla bla ... expert bla bla" is just a monkey pulling prostitution tricks. Seriously, I spit on him. He is just a filthy whore of the New York banksters.
Hanover September 10, 2019 at 01:01 #326686
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
Should secular law do something against the religions that preach and teach poor morals and laws that are the opposite of the better secular law we live by?


I think the state should lay out in a book what is right and what is wrong and make it required reading regardless of the views of the student and his family. That sounds like a great idea.
alcontali September 10, 2019 at 01:04 #326687
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
Do you have better statistics to refute him?


A Powerpoint presentation with some Excel sheets in it?
Come on, what a circus monkey!
Drazjan September 10, 2019 at 04:12 #326716
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
A phobia is an irrational fear. The disapproval of a practice is not a phobia. Terms like Islamophobia and Homophobia are more often used in rhetoric and sophistry to defend those groups.
— Drazjan

If not fear, what motivates homophobes to discriminate against gays without a just cause to the point of wanting to deny them a lifelong loving relationship?

Or do you think homophobes have a just cause to put sex above love?


You are still mixing two things up. Disapproval is not phobia. What actual casebook Homophobes do or think is another matter, and I would not even guess. However, today we see branded as irrational anyone who does not condone homosexual practices. How homophobes rate sex and love I would not guess. Love is intangible. Sex happens between genders. These aspects of the human condition are hard to escape.
alcontali September 10, 2019 at 05:46 #326728
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
Mind you, when education goes up, beliefs go down.


Where indoctrination goes up, net assets go down, and even get wiped out by student loans.

You can see these idiots paying inordinate amounts of money to watch live circus monkeys, the kind of which the academia are so exceedingly well endowed, farting bullshit.

Knowledge requires justification, and justification is incredibly hard to pull off, and even notoriously hard to verify. It may take dozens of pages of annotated first-order logic that keeps chaining until it reaches a conclusion that objectively only allows for less than an inch of progress, and all of that about an abstract, Platonic world, because we are not even truly capable of doing that about the real, physical world.

Once in a blue moon, someone pulls it off anyway, and publishes something original that resists extensive testing in the real, physical world. That is newspaper-grade news, because it almost never happens.

So, concerning so-called "education", what they are doing is just not hard enough. That is just one, good reason why their degrees are worthless. Furthermore, their beliefs do not go down, because they still believe that they will find a real job after memorizing phone books full of conjectural nonsense, sponsored by the New York banksters who will also be cashing in on the student loans, while only Starbucks will be willing to conditionally employ them. So, no, the false beliefs do not go down. They go up! And up! And up!

Of course, the United Nations wanted their head quarters to be in New York, not too far away from the scheming bankstering cartel that tells them what to do. It is a gigantic scam fest, the goal of which is to make the false beliefs go up, and up, and up; and money in the idiots' pockets go down, and down, and down. A fool and his money are easily parted. He will get a useless degree instead.
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 10, 2019 at 13:08 #326857
Quoting alcontali
You see, the very first thing to understand about knowledge, is that it does not matter who says it.


You say after a character assassination while having nothing to refute anything.

Go away.

Regards
DL
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 10, 2019 at 13:11 #326858
Quoting Hanover
I think the state should lay out in a book what is right and what is wrong and make it required reading regardless of the views of the student and his family. That sounds like a great idea.


A good beginning that. Let's be led by the best while showing why we reject the worst.

The world wants to move left as the maximum freedoms we can have come from that side.

Regards
DL
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 10, 2019 at 13:13 #326859
Quoting alcontali
Come on, what a circus monkey


--- you are.

Regards
DL
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 10, 2019 at 13:16 #326862
Quoting Drazjan
However, today we see branded as irrational anyone who does not condone homosexual practices


Not so.

We brand them as immoral and bigots as they discriminate without a just cause.

Irrational might apply but a persons morals, to me, are more important than if he is rational or not.

Regards
DL
Drazjan September 10, 2019 at 21:02 #327083
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
However, today we see branded as irrational anyone who does not condone homosexual practices
— Drazjan

Not so.

We brand them as immoral and bigots as they discriminate without a just cause.

Irrational might apply but a persons morals, to me, are more important than if he is rational or not.


It is so. And you have been doing up until this post.
Hanover September 10, 2019 at 22:55 #327110
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
A good beginning that. Let's be led by the best while showing why we reject the worst

I was being sarcastic. But, should it have been for real, I get to be the decider of right and wrong.
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 11, 2019 at 17:34 #327495
Quoting Drazjan
It is so. And you have been doing up until this post.


If I read you right, make your case case or stop insulting like a G D child without showing the reason for the chastisement.

Chastisement without correction just shows the hate in your heart.

Regards
DL

Gnostic Christian Bishop September 11, 2019 at 17:35 #327497
Quoting Hanover
I was being sarcastic. But, should it have been for real, I get to be the decider of right and wrong.


If onl;y sarcastic, then you do not live by the Golden Rule and do not care that your friends are being led astray by immoral ideologies.

You might want to get more moral.

Regards
DL
Hanover September 11, 2019 at 20:23 #327552
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
If onl;y sarcastic, then you do not live by the Golden Rule and do not care that your friends are being led astray by immoral ideologies.

You might want to get more moral.


You advocated a rule that the state should dictate right and wrong. I've asked to chair the committee so that I can pack it full of those who follow my lead. That you don't like my sense of morality sucks for you. You're not on the committee. And that was my point about sarcastically suggesting that the state should be in charge of dictating morality. It's the very reason we don't have a state run religion. It seems hardly relevant whether we call our religion Christianity or Secularism. The objection is in trying to enforce morality on the public. Your personal belief that the Golden Rule is the sole correct moral ideology seems awful Christian of you.
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 11, 2019 at 20:49 #327568
Quoting Hanover
that the state should be in charge of dictating morality.


They do it now with secular law.

Quoting Hanover
The objection is in trying to enforce morality on the public.


Which is already being done to some extent by all governments via their laws.

Quoting Hanover
It's the very reason we don't have a state run religion.


If an American, you should recognize that you have a religion run government. You just won't admit that you live in a Hypocrisy and not a Democracy.

You do have state run religions as your government has passed a number of laws that inhibit religions and outlaws some of their tactics and policies.Quoting Hanover
Your personal belief that the Golden Rule is the sole correct moral ideology seems awful Christian of you.


LOL.
Why? They plagiarized it from older and wiser ideologies.

There is almost nothing unique in Christianity that has not been plagiarized.
I E. Jesus was what, the sixth deity born of a virgin?

Regards
DL


alcontali September 12, 2019 at 06:04 #327720
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
You say after a character assassination while having nothing to refute anything.


What is there to refute in his Powerpoint presentation? It is obviously not even wrong.

It is simply not possible to make that kind of far-reaching claims, merely by brandishing a few Excel sheets.

If you believe it is, then you are obviously not familiar with any real knowledge claims. In other words, what you think you know, is not knowledge. It is mere bullshit. Review everything that you think you know, and search -- possibly in vain -- for something that is not completely worthless.
Gnostic Christian Bishop September 12, 2019 at 14:37 #327867
Thanks for the worthless garbage.

Regards
DL