Ultraconservatives pretend homophobia/racism doesn't exist

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To be blunt it takes just as much faith to not believe in God as it does to believe in him. God is addressed as 'masculine' not femine. If God was femine it would be Goddess...

Also, it is you that want to change existing law, so try to be accomodating to people that disagree with it on religious and moral grounds instead of behaving in an immature manner of your way or the highway routine. That is not how compromise occurs...

^BS.
There is just as much evidence for fairies as there is for any gods. It does not take 'faith' to disbelieve in gods any more than it does to disbelieve in fairies.

Actually, there is more evidence to support God's existence than there is for fairies.


Quite frankly I'm getting rather disgusted with the blatent attempt to bash at least two major Religions.

@ adifferentname

Part of the reason why I'm not budging on my stance and am getting seriously annoyed is your attitude and blatently trying to start a flame war. I have seen these kind of tactics before and quite frankly it isn't going to work cause I'm not falling for the same trick twice.

@ Ikorack

Sorry if I mispelled your name, not all denominations of a church are against Gay Marriage but the overwhelming majority is. You can write in the legislation that it has the same rights and penalties (sry but married people get taxed more if I remember correctly) as marriage and call it something entirely different. I'm not saying it to encourage discrimination, I'm saying it would be a good way to go about the situation without causing a lot of people to go ballistic whom actually would be willing to allow "civil unions."

Oh? I challenge you to open a new thread presenting this supposed evidence.

Go find the book, A Case for Faith. It was written by an Atheist who became a Christian after doing his research.

Wedded couples get tax breaks up the ass.

I agree with you on disbelieving god requiring as much faith as believing god though. Also do you have any statistics to back your claim that the majority of denominations are against gay marriage? Also your way isn't acceptable in a government that isn't supposed to cater to any one religion. It would undermine American principles and thats just not right.

So believing that some sort of disemobided Cosmic Santa Claus utterly concerned in humanity's affairs and with ineffable and unknowable creative mecahnisms fashioned humanity from dirt takes as much faith as not entertaining the notion?

Wow!

That's sort of like claiming the belief that there's monsters in the closet that disappear everytime we look requires just as much faith as the lack of such belief. Except there's actually positive historical reasons to disbelief in the dirty creation myth whereas the vanishing monsters belief is much less falsifiable.

You do not need faith to not believe in the existence of a deity.

And the word 'God', just like the word 'Man', can apply to fictional beings of either gender. Incidentally, trying to undermine a viewpoint based on a word definition - especially when you're mistaken - is a fairly pathetic way to state your case.



The changing of a law is constitutionally not the business of any church or religious organisation in the USA. You can argue religious grounds all day, and me and everyone else will tell you that it's completely moot, that your religious viewpoint is irrelevant.

If you wish to argue morality you're going to have to do a lot better than "I don't want people I don't agree with to do something which doesn't affect me and is none of my business."



Just so we're clear, are you suggesting that I'm being immature or advising me not to be? If the former then I advise you to keep to the discussion rather than attempting to insult me. If the latter, I suggest you refrain from trying to tell me how I should or should not behave.

You do not compromise on the subject of equality.



Challenging what you state and what you believe is not flaming, it is called 'debate'. Trying to undermine my opposing views by crying 'flame' is a genuinely transparent 'tactic'. If you believe I have broken any rules of this forum then I suggest you take it up with a mod.

I don't expect you to budge on your stance. I do expect you to learn that your religious views do not entitle you to set policy for another human being, nor enforce your morals and beliefs on the larger percentage of the population. This is precisely what churches who oppose same-sex marriages are trying to do.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/paul_doland/strobel.html

No believing in something when you have no empirical evidence requires faith and that is exactly what people who instead of not bothering with faith insist that god doesn't exist. If you want to throw away faith and trust yourself to complete empiricism(which is probably a very tough thing to do) you wouldn't bother stating whether or not god exist because we have no tools to test something like that.

I could argue that Atheism can't exist in a civilized society because there is no such thing as morality without God. Morals are all relative unless there is a clear cut right and wrong. An extremely example is you can kill someone whenever you fell like it cause it is survival of the fittest. Whereas from a Religious standpoint at least in Christianity and for people of the Jewish Faith that would be a crime.

Religion is not the bastion of civilized behavior, atheists are not animals simply because they do not proscribe to god. Not everyone needs to be told to control themselves.

The problem I have with the sort of "morality" that arises out of an organized religion arranged around an omnipotent deity is that, essentially, all morality arises out of the expectation of some sort of reward or the fear of the consequences of misbehaviour, rather than out of compassion for one's fellow man. In this case, for example, heaven and hell are supposed to serve as dual catalysts for carrying out God's will, which includes all of the moral foundations of Christianity-- not killing others, not stealing, etc. I acknowledge that it might not appeal to everybody, but for me, the Golden Rule is enough of a guide: treat others the way I myself would want to be treated. And that doesn't necessitate the belief in God-- all it requires is a feeling of responsibility as part of a larger society.

Besides which, professed belief in God and His moral imperatives doesn't seem to be much of a retardant against clearly immoral behaviour, if you've been following the scandals within the Catholic Church recently.

Morality exists because without it humans wouldn't. And people who are supposedly religious have been engaging in immoral behavior since religion started.

"not bothering with faith" would suit me just fine if faith would stop bothering with secular society.

as to the bolded statement, i agree. however, people who reject the idea of a deity do not need to disprove said deity. rather, it is the believer who carries the burden of proof. it requires faith to believe in something when you have no empirical evidence. it does not require faith to require more than "faith" as evidence.

This is a classic case of semantic confusion. The word 'faith' has several homonyms, some of which have the following meanings:

1: Belief that is not based on proof: "He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact."
2: Belief in god or in the doctrines or teachings of religion
3: A system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
4: Christian theology - the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved, etc.

Disbelieving the existence of a higher being is an example of #1. However, when Christians talk about faith they usually mean one of the other 3.

To 'have faith' in a religious context is to have a specific, irrational belief that is based on nothing tangible.

To disbelieve the existence of a higher being is to deny something which lacks any supporting evidence, which is generally considered to be more logical and scientific.

Note that choosing to disbelieve the existence of a deity without proof is not the same as ascribing to total empiricism.

Most hypotheses are formed on the basis of observation and experience. For students of history, sociology, anthropology, etc, there are multiple explanations for the existence of religion and belief in a god or gods that are far more rational than any counter-argument. Science has done far more for the personal health, comfort, security and happiness than any alleged god has managed to achieve. The theory of God is well past its sell-by date.