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In a Facebook tribute, one of Leisner’s nephews--a missionary in Costa Rica--wrote in Spanish that Leisner was as “bold as a lion of God,” though some would remember him as “a flaming Elijah.” Unfortunately, an English translation on the Facebook page mangled part of the tribute. “Please pray for the family of Mike to feel the spirit of God as dildo in this time of a loss,” the Bing translation notes.

Best thing from Bing, EVER.

Melissia wrote:.

Mannahnin wrote:The problem isn't dismissing the crazies. None of us think that cheerio-burning guy is mainstream. The problem is the large number of non-crazy people who seem to be on his side, just not expressing it in his crazy way. But still bigoted enough to go out and do stuff like vote for Constitutional amendments to enshrine in state constitutions their prejudice.

State? Actually, Ron Paul and other such evangelistic nutjobs (And yet people still try to lie to themselves to claim Ron Paul is a Libertarian, go figure) are continually pushing for federal amendments.

I believe you have the wrong Paul... http://www.ronpaul.com/2012-05-09/ron-paul-on-gay-marriage-none-of-the-states-business/

Melissia wrote:

Manchu wrote:Interpretation happens inside of context. That context is tradition.

Tradition has about the same value to me as dog turds.

I can tell.

KalashnikovMarine wrote:I believe you have the wrong Paul...

No, I don't think so.

Ron Paul wrote:I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman and must be protected. I supported the Defense of Marriage Act

http://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2011/02/ron-paul-condems-obamas-decision-to-abandon-doma/

Apparently Ron Paul disagrees with himself?

Manchu wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Manchu wrote:Interpretation happens inside of context. That context is tradition.

Tradition has about the same value to me as dog turds.

I can tell.

A traditional practice has no value merely because it is traditional. Such an argument is logically fallacious. The practice/belief must have value only on its own merit, not merely because it is tradition.

Melissia wrote:

KalashnikovMarine wrote:I believe you have the wrong Paul...

No, I don't think so.

Ron Paul wrote:I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman and must be protected. I supported the Defense of Marriage Act

http://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2011/02/ron-paul-condems-obamas-decision-to-abandon-doma/

Apparently Ron Paul disagrees with himself?

Manchu wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Manchu wrote:Interpretation happens inside of context. That context is tradition.

Tradition has about the same value to me as dog turds.

I can tell.

A traditional practice has no value merely because it is traditional. Such an argument is logically fallacious. The practice/belief must have value only on its own merit, not merely because it is tradition.

Got a legit source for that? We just heard from the man himself with video, so you'll pardon me for ignoring a hard right blog.

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/169709/national-organization-for-marriage-targets-ron-paul-for-not-being-bigoted-enough/

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/07/congressman-ron-paul-says-he-supports-defense-of-marriage-act/

http://www.dailypaul.com/158515/is-paulagianst-gay-marriage

http://2012.republican-candidates.org/Paul/Same-Sex.php

Probably a dozen more at least.

Melissia wrote:http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/169709/national-organization-for-marriage-targets-ron-paul-for-not-being-bigoted-enough/

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/07/congressman-ron-paul-says-he-supports-defense-of-marriage-act/

http://www.dailypaul.com/158515/is-paulagianst-gay-marriage

http://2012.republican-candidates.org/Paul/Same-Sex.php

Probably a dozen more at least.

Two of those links say Paul is targeted for saying in short "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, but it's not my business or government's business". NOM even hates the man which is an endorsement on the other side of the fence if I've ever heard one.

Paul's repeatedly stated stance mirrors my own which is that there should be no marriage by the federal government, gay or straight.

Melissia wrote:A traditional practice has no value merely because it is traditional. Such an argument is logically fallacious. The practice/belief must have value only on its own merit, not merely because it is tradition.

Tradition is context. Practices make no sense outside of context. The written text of the Bible makes no sense outside of the context of the communities to whom it means something. The same can be said of religion more broadly. Robert Bellah once said:

The Latin word for faith, fides, means trust, not belief, and I think a religious life is very much a form of practice, a form of relationship. Religious truth is not something you sit in your private room and decide, “oh, does God exist or not?” You will never understand God unless you are involved in some kind of community where that word begins to make sense in the life of that community.

Hope that helps clarify the issue.

Manchu wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:I'm more concerned with the normal, nice, everyday, inoffensive Christians who oppose their neighbors' right to the same family status and legal protections in our society, and who vote that way.

I think this is what it boils down to. You insist on the distinction at issue being baseless and therefore bigotry and therefore immoral. Your everyday, inoffensive Christian neighbors consider the distinction a matter or natural law and ignoring the distinction to be an arbitrary act of political will. Just because you don't share their worldview doesn't make you enlightened and them bigots.

It's not that "I insist" based on nothing. My and my gay neighbor don't have the same rights under the law. That's demonstrable. Now why is that so? If I claim that my neighbor does not deserve the same right to get married, share retirement benefits, visit their injured partner in the hospital, (etc.) that I get, is not the burden on me to show how and why that discrimination has a just basis? The baseline should be for me and my gay neighbor to be treated equally before the law, and discrimination between us, if it exists at all, should be based on some kind of documentable evidence, which people of other faiths or no faith can also see and agree on, if we're going to enshrine it in laws which apply to all of us.

Manchu wrote:The readiness with which you condemn others as bigots undermines your claims to support the rights of others.

I don't support the "right" to discriminate based on unjust prejudice. My right to swing my arm ends where your nose begins. My religious freedom is protected except where it becomes harmful to my neighbor.

Manchu wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:I want people of different religions or no religion at all to be able to come to common agreement on laws independent of our varying religious faiths or lack thereof, based on common values and principles which hold true whether you're religious or not. This shouldn't be too much to ask.

This is incredibly disingenuous. You're saying that people should agree on values independently from their religious traditions. The values of religious people come from their religious traidtions. Whether you meant it or not, this comes off as "I want people to abandon their own values and accept mine. This shouldn't be too much to ask."

Baloney. If you think that, then it's incredibly disingenuous of you to participate in our political process. I'm a religious person. I have studied and am capable of comprehending and working with moral and ethical systems which are not dependent on my religion. Our laws apply to and bind people of many religions and of none. To make laws which justly do so, we need to be able to draw some distinction between religious strictures which apply to a given religion's members by voluntary adherence, and governmental laws which bind all of us, based on a common ground and mutual agreement on justice and societal benefit. If you're Catholic, you have the right to follow your religion's strictures by not marrying someone of the same sex. That's not a sound basis for making a law which prevents a gay person of a different religion (which allows and sancitifies marriage between gay people) from gaining the same legal rights and benefits which you or I enjoy.

Baloney. If you think that, then it's incredibly disingenuous of you to participate in our political process. I'm a religious person. I have studied and am capable of comprehending and working with moral and ethical systems which are not dependent on my religion. Our laws apply to and bind people of many religions and of none. To make laws which justly do so, we need to be able to draw some distinction between religious strictures which apply to a given religion's members by voluntary adherence, and governmental laws which bind all of us, based on a common ground and mutual agreement on justice and societal benefit. If you're Catholic, you have the right to follow your religion's strictures by not marrying someone of the same sex. That's not a sound basis for making a law which prevents a gay person of a different religion (which allows and sancitifies marriage between gay people) from gaining the same legal rights and benefits which you or I enjoy.

Nicely wrote

what did the cheerio's do to warrant such a failed torchure?

Manchu wrote:Tradition is context.

That's a novel way of defining tradition. Novel, however, doesn't really equate to good. Your definition sounds like the cop-out that it is.

In order to understand the meaning behind any text, you have to understand who wrote them, their culture, and the meaning behind what was written at the time it was written. Traditional Christian interpretations of the Bible often doesn't even bother to attempt to do that in the case homosexuality.

Manchu wrote:The written text of the Bible makes no sense outside of the context of the communities to whom it means something.

The written text of the bible can mean someone to anyone who makes the effort to read it and has the linguistical knowledge to understand it. Claiming that only your community really understands it is arrogance of the highest order.

In fact, I would argue that someone who goes in to reading the text without any such base assumptions would have a good chance of understanding it FAR better than someone who has been indoctrinated by their community's traditions.

brainscan wrote:what did the cheerio's do to warrant such a failed torchure?

That has been explained a couple of times in this thread already.

Mannahnin wrote:discrimination between us, if it exists at all, should be based on some kind of documentable evidence

You don't think that the difference between two people of different sexes marrying one another and two people of the same sex marrying one another is documentable? I mean -- clearly there is a difference. What you are really saying -- assuming actually -- is that the difference does not matter. You are further assuming that anyone to whom the difference does matter opposes gay marriage as a matter of bad faith -- clearly they are just willfully blind to the correctness of your position.

we need to be able to draw some distinction between religious strictures which apply to a given religion's members by voluntary adherence, and governmental laws which bind all of us, based on a common ground and mutual agreement on justice and societal benefit.

That's not actually how it works. It works like this: a "nebula" of cultural values heavily inspired by Christianity is the majority position and that gets enacted. The connection between Christianity and that majority position is getting (1) harder for contemporary people to understand and (2) less and less fashionable. Your appeal to "justice and societal benefit" cannot exist outside of a cultural context, which will be inevitably shaped by religion -- most likely Christianity in the West. (As Habermas said, you might not like Christianity but the truth is no one has come up with a better set of values.)

If you're Catholic, you have the right to follow your religion's strictures by not marrying someone of the same sex. That's not a sound basis for making a law which prevents a gay person of a different religion (which allows and sancitifies marriage between gay people) from gaining the same legal rights and benefits which you or I enjoy.

As you well know, you are preaching to the choir. But what you and I agree is not a sound basis for a law is not necessarily the only possible reasonable position in this pluralistic society we're touting. We can't have our cake and eat it, too. We can't say that we value the diversity of our society and then bully all the people who disagree, assuming they have no rational basis for their beliefs and act partly, mostly, or even wholly from ignorance and hatred.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Melissia wrote:

Manchu wrote:Tradition is context.

That's a novel way of defining tradition.

No it isn't. This has been the basis of Christianity since its beginning: that religion is relational, that God exists in communities, that the experience of those communities -- like the experience of the man Jesus -- is primary to its account, whether in scripture, or doctrine, or law. But I don't think there's much point continuing this line of thought with you here. You seem committed to a different understanding of tradition as an a priori limitation rather than as an essential context for understanding. Suffice it to say, we're talking about different things.

Manchu wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:discrimination between us, if it exists at all, should be based on some kind of documentable evidence

You don't think that the difference between two people of different sexes marrying one another and two people of the same sexes marrying one another is documentable? I mean -- clearly there is a difference. What you are really saying -- assuming actually -- is that the difference does not matter. You are further assuming that anyone to whom the difference does matter opposes gay marriage as a matter of bad faith -- clearly they are just willfully blind to the correctness of your position.

In some cases I do think the blindness is wilful. In others I think it's sincere ignorance. In others I think it's an unwillingness or inability to separate their religious restrictions, which should apply only to themselves, from the laws which apply to us all.

I've yet to see any real evidence that discriminating in this way, which is manifestly harmful to gay folks, has a benefit. There are numerous real world examples of this harm. For example long term gay couples who were in their own eyes married, but couldn't get that recognized legally, then had the situation arise where one of them was hospitalized and the other could not access them or act as a spouse in that situation because they were not legally a spouse. There is clearly a harm here in preventing them from getting married. Where is the societal benefit to this restriction which justifies what appears to be a harmful injustice? If it can't be demonstrated, then the discrimination appears to be unjust and based on prejudice. This particular subject is one I've had some interest in and studied for a decent length of time (15+ years). I'm not basing my judgment on assumptions. I put in a decent amount of work and reading to study a problem in our society, and came to a conclusion.

Manchu wrote:

we need to be able to draw some distinction between religious strictures which apply to a given religion's members by voluntary adherence, and governmental laws which bind all of us, based on a common ground and mutual agreement on justice and societal benefit.

That's not actually how it works. It works like this: a "nebula" of cultural values heavily inspired by Christianity is the majority position and that gets enacted. The connection between Christianity and that majority position is getting (1) harder for contemporary people to understand and (2) less and less fashionable. Your appeal to "justice and societal benefit" cannot exist outside of a cultural context, which will be inevitably shaped by religion -- most likely Christianity in the West.

Christianity is a massively influential cultural force, but it's certainly not the only influence our modern society and laws are based on. In studying ethics and morality one can easily go back to the ancient Greeks, the ancient Chinese, and others, and study concepts and practices which predate Christianity. Some of the concepts Christianity has passed on to our modern society predate it, such as the Golden Rule.

Manchu wrote: (As Habermas said, you might not like Christianity but the truth is no one has come up with a better set of values.)

If that were true, people wouldn't dislike Christianity. In reality, I don't dislike Christianity in general but I disagree with Habermas.

Manchu wrote:

If you're Catholic, you have the right to follow your religion's strictures by not marrying someone of the same sex. That's not a sound basis for making a law which prevents a gay person of a different religion (which allows and sancitifies marriage between gay people) from gaining the same legal rights and benefits which you or I enjoy.

As you well know, you are preaching to the choir. But what you and I agree is not a sound basis for a law is not necessarily the only possible reasonable position in this pluralistic society we're touting. We can't have our cake and eat it, too. We can't say that we value the diversity of our society and then bully all the people who disagree, assuming they have no rational basis for their beliefs and act partly, mostly, or even wholly from ignorance and hatred.

Is it bullying to stand up to a bully? I don't think I'm bullying them. They've got the position of power. Jim Morrison sang "They got the guns, we've got the numbers"; but in this debate, as demonstrated in the alteration of quite a few state constitutions in 2004 (and other elections), the folks who want to enshrine prejudice against gays appear to have the numbers. I'm trying to stand up to them on behalf of the people who have fewer rights and less power. I'm trying to talk them out of that prejudice. Maybe I get too strident and judgemental at times. Maybe that's my sense of morality and passion for justice talking. Maybe it's something less noble, like a prejudice against bullies, and a sense of satisfaction gained from fighting them. I do think I'm fighting the good fight. I do think I can objectively demonstrate that the position I'm arguing would result in less harm and greater benefit, for society and individuals.

WAT

What I think we need to remember, especially us younger folks, as homosexuality becomes more and more socially acceptable is that no one who has ever been part of a marginalized group can be safe in a society that considers marginalization a valid means to the end of social change.

Mannahnin wrote:

Manchu wrote: (As Habermas said, you might not like Christianity but the truth is no one has come up with a better set of values.)

If that were true, people wouldn't dislike Christianity.

People dislike good things all the time.

I think think it's not bullying to stand up to a bully.

It's not prejudice to say you don't like the KKK and that their ideas are immoral and objectionable.

Bullying a bully is still bullying. I agree that there's a difference between standing up to a bully and bullying him back. The turn in the public rhetoric seems a lot more like the latter than the former to me.

Melissia wrote:

In a Facebook tribute, one of Leisner’s nephews--a missionary in Costa Rica--wrote in Spanish that Leisner was as “bold as a lion of God,” though some would remember him as “a flaming Elijah.” Unfortunately, an English translation on the Facebook page mangled part of the tribute. “Please pray for the family of Mike to feel the spirit of God as dildo in this time of a loss,” the Bing translation notes.

Best thing from Bing, EVER.

Mistranslation strikes again.

Manchu wrote:This has been the basis of Christianity since its beginning:

The basis of Christianity is... the teachings of Christ. It's in the name. These teachings are contained in the various excerpts that have been put together in various vetted books that collectively are referred to as "the bible", and whose number and content have occasionally changed over history due to political reasons.

Unless you think the changes made for political reasons are somehow motivated by god-- to which I would gladly laugh in your face-- I would still suggest that the only meaningful way to understand the gospel of Christ is through trying to understand what was actually said, and the context of what was said.

Not through ecclesiastical tradition, which has oftentimes been motivated more by politics internal and external than theological accuracy.

Manchu wrote:Bullying a bully is still bullying. I agree that there's a difference between standing up to a bully and bullying him back. The turn in the public rhetoric seems a lot more like the latter than the former to me.

As a pagan and a gamer, I remember and experienced active oppression of myself and people like me by Christians in my youth. Maybe this has made me overly sensitive to it happening to other people. I really try to make a point of not judging all Christians by the hateful, ignorant and harmful ones.

Mannahnin wrote:

Manchu wrote:Bullying a bully is still bullying. I agree that there's a difference between standing up to a bully and bullying him back. The turn in the public rhetoric seems a lot more like the latter than the former to me.

As a pagan and a gamer, I remember and experienced active oppression of myself and people like me by Christians in my youth. Maybe this has made me overly sensitive to it happening to other people. I really try to make a point of not judging all Christians by the hateful, ignorant and harmful ones.

As much as I hate to go off topic, you're pagan?

My only experience with pagans are teenage girls or general crazies (live alone, have lots of cats and cover every possible shelf with fairy/dragon statues) but you seem quite well adjusted, care to talk about your beliefs a little?

As a pagan and a gamer, I remember and experienced active oppression of myself and people like me by Christians in my youth. Maybe this has made me overly sensitive to it happening to other people. I really try to make a point of not judging all Christians by the hateful, ignorant and harmful ones.

But when they find out your a "pagan" its more of a curousity questions then actual being informed we're (pagans) are wrong in our belief. Also though there's the maturity level involve.

Corpsesarefun wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:

Manchu wrote:Bullying a bully is still bullying. I agree that there's a difference between standing up to a bully and bullying him back. The turn in the public rhetoric seems a lot more like the latter than the former to me.

As a pagan and a gamer, I remember and experienced active oppression of myself and people like me by Christians in my youth. Maybe this has made me overly sensitive to it happening to other people. I really try to make a point of not judging all Christians by the hateful, ignorant and harmful ones.

As much as I hate to go off topic, you're pagan?

My only experience with pagans are teenage girls or general crazies (live alone, have lots of cats and cover every possible shelf with fairy/dragon statues) but you seem quite well adjusted, care to talk about your beliefs a little?

As with most groups, the silly ones are the most visible. You may know other pagans who are perfectly sensible and ordinary people, who you just don't notice because they don't feel the compulsion to broadcast about their beliefs.

I've talked a bit about my beliefs in the past. Maybe I can dig up a couple of links to older posts and send them to you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jihadin wrote:

As a pagan and a gamer, I remember and experienced active oppression of myself and people like me by Christians in my youth. Maybe this has made me overly sensitive to it happening to other people. I really try to make a point of not judging all Christians by the hateful, ignorant and harmful ones.

But when they find out your a "pagan" its more of a curousity questions then actual being informed we're (pagans) are wrong in our belief. Also though there's the maturity level involve.

Nowadays, as a confident adult, nobody attempts to browbeat me or tell me I'm a tool of Satan. But that's partially because I don't go around telling everyone I meet about my religious beliefs, and because I live in the relatively-secular Northeast, and because I mostly socially associate with gamers and other open-minded types.

I'd appreciate that.

Maybe start here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/268286.page#1162456

And read through that thread/my posts in it? Sorry to not be in a mood for a capsule summary.