Posts Tagged ‘bible’

Nancy Goldfarb Thinks (about homosexuality a little too much for a straight person)

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

If you look in my links section you’ll see a link to a blog by a woman by the name of Nancy Goldfarb. She has views that are exactly opposite of my own. But thats no reason not to read her blog. Dissenting points of view are welcome in my world. I probably won’t agree most of the time but I certainly am interested in opposing views.

I commented on one of her articles saying that homosexuality is prevalent in 5% of all populations - animal and human. This is her response.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with homosexuality. It hurts no one. Gays want the same rights every other minority has been afforded and now there is a group of people (mostly Christians unfortunately) who want to take rights away from them. The nation’s constitution as well as every state’s constitution has only afforded people rights. Never until prop 8 has a constitution actually taken rights away from a protected group. And this is being done in the name of religion and this is being done for a variety of reasons. To defend marriage. So that children won’t be confused. Because someone cherry picked passages from the bible that they interpret to mean homosexuality is… bad for lack of a better word.

If a gay couple’s marriage somehow harms your marriage then you have another problem altogether. This marriage defense is total bull. The definition of marriage has changed many times over the course of human history. It used to be acceptable to buy your wife. It was common at one time to marry many wives. Marriage itself didn’t come about until middle ages. And these days marriage is not a religious practice. Its part of the laws of the state. You can have a priest marry you live on TV during the super-bowl with millions of witnesses and it wouldn’t count. You have to file the correct papers with the state. So since this actually a legal argument its clear that gays should be afforded the right to marry. But the anti-gay movement wants to define the argument in religious terms because they get more traction that way. Don’t be fooled. As long as you have to go into city hall to get married its a legal matter. Now as far as I know the law applies to those who are gay, straight, black, or white. If gays can’t get married under the law like anyone else then no one should be able to get married. These people who rail against gay marriage are just like those in the past who were against blacks and whites (or even asians, latinos, or whomever) getting married. Its straight up prejudice and there’s no excuse for it. The religious argument against gay marriage is crap as well. Your beliefs do no give you the right to persecute a group of people. Face it. Gays cannot and will not be “cured”. They are all around you. They work with you, ride the subway with you, they are customers, employees, brothers, sisters, musicians, actors, newspaper writers, entrepreneurs. They are everywhere and you probably interact with one or more homosexuals every day without knowing.

If one were to think rationally they would come to the conclusion that homosexuality is in no way threatening to anyone or any institution. I think that those that are so passionate about taking away homosexuals’ right to marry should find out what being gay is all about. These people are fed stereotypes and then form negative opinions of homosexuality. Let me clear a few things up. I’m not gay, but I lived with a gay roommate in college and did some research.

Homosexuals are no more promiscuous as heterosexuals
Gays are not trying to indoctrinate your children
Homos generally don’t go around doing drugs and sharing needles
etc..

I don’t know what else to say except that these are people just like you and me. You wouldn’t know they were gay unless you asked.

This hatred is irrational. This idea of extending every right to every group then extend all right except the right to marry to homosexuals is irrational. Take the time to find out the truth behind the stereotypes.

I see this hate speech almost every day. Its sad. I feel so bad that people go around hating other people because they don’t understand them or simply don’t want to understand them.


The Smelly Carcass of (all) Religion(s)

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Why do I call it a carcass? Because I think its dead. I think that religion is beginning to be replaced by spirituality. What’s the difference? Well religion is more like a club that you get initiated into. Some ancient dudes took spirituality from the people, organized it into a set of rules and rituals, then put themselves in charge and passed down its leadership from generation to generation. If you wanted to have power over people you wouldn’t become a politician. You would become a priest. So you join the club, get initiated, then you meet every Sunday and sometimes on special days that aren’t Sunday but are even more special than Sunday. You do everything as a group. You listen to what the man performing the weekly ritual tells you. Sometimes he tells you what to think. He might say “Abortion is wrong because thats how I interpreted such and such line from my 2000 year old book written by people looking to serve their own agenda just as I am today”. Well, maybe he’s not that blunt about it but you know Thats what he means.

Now spirituality is not something created by man. Its harder to grasp. Its different for everyone but the same in that everyone can be in touch with their own spirituality if they wanted and if you have a conscience or instincs (I hope to hell you have both or your a poorly put together person) then you can be spiritual. Spirituality is about acknowledging imperfection and seeing the beauty in it. Its about understanding that there is something out there greater than ourselves. A spiritual person does the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing, not because he or she is afraid of going to hell. Spiritual people don’t have an infantile image of god as a man or being of any kind really, that is on a cloud watching what we do. To the spiritual person God is a force like a wind that blows down a tree or the electricity running my computer. Spiritual people acknowledge and more often are more aware that they and every other person ARE God. Now I won’t explain that last statement that everyone is God because its a perfect example of the difference between religion and spirituality. Those who are spiritual will understand what I mean and those who are deeply religious will believe that I am arrogant and actually believe that I have godlike powers.

I’ve always had a distaste for religion. I’ve always felt it was disingenuous. My father always told me that its always the ones who are in church every week giving the most to the collection plate and playing the role of the perfect christian that are the biggest hypocrites of all. And I saw exactly what he was talking about when something was revealed about one of those people he was talking about. What she did was not a very christian thing to do. I know its bad for the argument not to explain what happened but I don’t care I just don’t want to say what happened.

Religion is dangerous. It teaches people to simplify life into black and white terms. Its been 2000 years since Jesus. His teachings are timeless but to dig into specific details of the bible and say that what you read is proof positive that something is wrong or right is ludicrous. We’ve grown so much as humans since then and some of us are trying to hold us back with their ancient book and their newfound 2000 year old mindset. I hope some of these people move on over to the side of spirituality. For the spiritual person there is room for faith AND knowledge. You can believe in God and you don’t have to reconcile science and your faith with ridiculous pseudo-science like creationism. 

You CAN keep your faith and you don’t have to believe that dinosaurs were here 4000 years ago. I mean c’mon. Some of the things these people say are… well there’s just no word for how retarded it is.