I think blink is the only one who has found that argument to be clever. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone pro or con respond to it.

ZachV on January 29, 2013 at 2:38 PM

gwelf on January 29, 2013 at 5:25 PM

Plenty of Hot Air commenters have answered my question. Some confirmed support, some accepted that they were being bigoted, and others offered some lame excuses in an attempt to claim that they aren’t bigoted.

Obviously, ZachV, thuja, etc. are bigots.

ZachV on January 29, 2013 at 12:16 PM

Dang, how old are you? It’s been a long time since the South needed your tears.

What, that gives the faithful the right to discriminate? Nope. Sorry. Not in our country. No one has the right to treat an individual with prejudice.

What’s more – the greatest thing about faith is that it is not based in knowable fact, empirical evidence or proof. It actually defined as such in the dictionary and Bible.

And as such, ‘faith’ with no basis in evidence or fact, can summarily be dismissed without evidence or fact. That’s what we call the embrace of reason.

The implications? The faithful not only have no whimsical right to discriminate against any individual, but they BEYOND DOUBT have no right to discriminate on the basis a belief system that defines itself on the absence of evidence, fact or proof.

ZachV on January 29, 2013 at 12:43 PM

I don’t think you’ve thought through the implications of what you’re saying. Are you an out-and-out progressive? Unless I’m mistaken you pass yourself off as some sort of libertarian or conservative.

A libertarian or conservative could never type what you did here. You’re saying that the state gets to determine if your beliefs are reasonable or not and if and how you get to participate in the public square. You run an adoption agency and don’t want to adopt children to gay couples? Sorry, the state-sanctioned moral code trumps your own. You want to run a hospital but don’t want to provide abortion services? Sorry, you’re not morally fit to make that decision for yourself. You want to run a church university and don’t want to pay for abortifacients? Sorry, once again the state approved morality trumps your own.

This is liberty – it’s tyranny.

I think blink is the only one who has found that argument to be clever. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone pro or con respond to it.

ZachV on January 29, 2013 at 2:38 PM

The fact you and thuja don’t answer it is very telling.

Typically pro gay marriage advocated hurl all sorts of venom at those that support traditional marriage – we’re bigots full of hate and all the rest of it.

But when pressed on whether you support legalized polygamy you balk because you know that you don’t and are a hateful bigot by your own standards.

I never said anything about the freedom of worship. Catholics have the right ban marriage between non-Catholics and Catholics. There’s nothing stopping them from barring divorce. Their church, their rules.

It’s once they take their prejudice into the public square and try to impose laws upon non-Catholics, or non-Christians in clear violation of the 1st Amendment, now THAT’s a problem.

ZachV on January 29, 2013 at 2:33 PM

Here’s the context of your comments about discrimination.
It’s standard progressive pap – if you don’t bow to progressive ideology as a prerequisite to being part of the public square then you’re “discriminating”.

I’m surprised that it took this long for the racist comparison appeared.

Do you weep at all for the loss of religious freedom? Or do you agree that Catholic adoption services should be shut down completely?

I wasn’t until the late 90′s or early 2000′s when the gay community generally valued marriage at all. Before then it considered the institution of marriage a bourgeois and outdated artifact that had no meaning or relevance to gay people. Was there ever a time that blacks considered slavery or Jim Crow to be acceptable?

gwelf on January 29, 2013 at 12:33 PM

What, that gives the faithful the right to discriminate? Nope. Sorry. Not in our country. No one has the right to treat an individual with prejudice.

What’s more – the greatest thing about faith is that it is not based in knowable fact, empirical evidence or proof. It actually defined as such in the dictionary and Bible.

And as such, ‘faith’ with no basis in evidence or fact, can summarily be dismissed without evidence or fact. That’s what we call the embrace of reason.

The implications? The faithful not only have no whimsical right to discriminate against any individual, but they BEYOND DOUBT have no right to discriminate on the basis a belief system that defines itself on the absence of evidence, fact or proof.

ZachV on January 29, 2013 at 12:43 PM

It’s once they take their prejudice into the public square and try to impose laws upon non-Catholics, or non-Christians in clear violation of the 1st Amendment, now THAT’s a problem.

ZachV on January 29, 2013 at 2:33 PM

So Catholic adoption services should be allowed to only provide services to straight couples?

A Catholic university shouldn’t be forced to pay for birth control?

A craft store owned by evangelicals shouldn’t be forced to pay for abortifacents?

I know when I am beaten.

ZachV on January 29, 2013 at 3:51 PM

Then you should know that I’ve proven you to be a bigot.

You just “found” this out after 10 years as an evangelical? Your sister suceeded in derailing you because you wanted to. With shallow roots, you either fall for lies and misinterpretations or you seek to bury your roots deeper and more firmly. You quoted 1 Tim 2:11-12 which is about women who desire piety. Digging deeper, you will find Paul also lauding Christian women in leadership roles. Contradictory? not at all – more the crawl, walk, run progression in faith. But i get how this out of context is used to protray us as cavemen.

But back to the reason for your falling away, I give you Ephesians 6:10-18.

Bottomline, Paul did meet Jesus, Acts 9. Prior to meeting Him, Paul had a license to kill Acts 9:1-2 (Paul was motivated to do this after witnessing the stoning of Stephen by the members of the Sanhedrin, Acts 6-7).

Converting after Jesus’ death? The majority of Christians are/wer converted after His death. What’s the point here?

As for “unnamed”, “unreliable” authors, how so? The critics weren’t there to provide a counter-account of events.

AH_C on January 29, 2013 at 3:29 PM

I believe in being right. I am stubborn, but I know when I am beaten. Learning a fact or truth that cannot be denied, and then “bury[ing] your roots deeper and more firmly” is ignorance. I was forced to face the fact that Biblical values do not reflect current social values, nor do they reflect mine. The Bible outside of Jesus’ teaching (i.e. Paul, Peter, John) is violent, doesn’t respect women, pro-slavery and contradictory.

” Converting after Jesus’ death? ” — his letters are taken as the standard for moral judgement when they contain repulsive moral statements that are ignored by Christian, who pick and choose the goods ones only.

The Gospels are written by numerous authors at multiple times, decades (40+ years) after the death of Christ. EG, Matthew never wrote anything down.

In addition there are writings that provide counter point, but many were burned by the early Church as heresy. Writings that have survived today, like the non-canonical gospels, are attacked by Christians as untrue. Other documents like the ones that describe the half-dozen other Messiah claimants who were waltzing around Judea healing people and resurrecting themselves are flat out ignored.

was in response to

Pfft. I was dragged kicking and screaming into non-belief earlier this year. I was not the one to question or challenge held beliefs. I spent 10 years as a non-denominational Evangelical Christian.
ZachV on January 29, 2013 at 2:45 PM

I started learning things like how Paul never once met Jesus (converted after Jesus’ death) or how the Bible was written decades after the fact by unnamed, unreliable authors. It was all downhill from there.

You just “found” this out after 10 years as an evangelical? Your sister suceeded in derailing you because you wanted to. With shallow roots, you either fall for lies and misinterpretations or you seek to bury your roots deeper and more firmly. You quoted 1 Tim 2:11-12 which is about women who desire piety. Digging deeper, you will find Paul also lauding Christian women in leadership roles. Contradictory? not at all – more the crawl, walk, run progression in faith. But i get how this out of context is used to protray us as cavemen.

But back to the reason for your falling away, I give you Ephesians 6:10-18.

Bottomline, Paul did meet Jesus, Acts 9. Prior to meeting Him, Paul had a license to kill Acts 9:1-2 (Paul was motivated to do this after witnessing the stoning of Stephen by the members of the Sanhedrin, Acts 6-7).

Converting after Jesus’ death? The majority of Christians are/wer converted after His death. What’s the point here?

As for “unnamed”, “unreliable” authors, how so? The critics weren’t there to provide a counter-account of events.