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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bull_derrick who wrote (22205)	11/5/2004 1:06:14 AM
From: The Ox	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

Let me get this straight! You believe people caught or admitting to being a homosexual should go to jail, like burglars and public drunks? I can't recall who wrote what but someone on this thread used the term homophobes the other day in relationship to Southerners or Christians or both. The Bible teaches that this is a sin but so is stealing, lying, drunkenness and lots of other things. While all are offensive to God, it was homosexuality that prompted God to obliterate Sodom and Gomorrah. Where they stood is now a crater 300 feet below sea level called the Dead Sea as testimony to that. Someone on this thread posted that what consenting adults did was nobody else's business. Through the lens of an evangelical, Sodom illustrates that this practice can obliterate a whole city if it becomes corrupted with this practice. I believe that's why there were 17 states with anti-Sodomy laws on their books until a year ago when the Supreme Court threw them out.

To: bull_derrick who wrote (22205)	11/5/2004 10:26:05 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Respond to of 23153

Since I am the one who said what consenting adults do in their own privacy is nobody's business, let explain my position. Everyone's beliefs seems all too respectable and logical to themself. If it was not, they would not fallow it. It is natural to want a world that fits one's perceptions and enforces one's beliefs. Few things are more pleasurable than the confirmation that one has been right. However we do not all perceive the world the same way or believe in the same things. So if we insist on pushing our vision of how the world should be, we will be at a constant state of war. There are those who long for such conflicts and have become more vocal in the past few years. It is painted in various forms from Clash of Civilization, to the Final Battle with Antichrist, to some form of twisted Darwinian survival of the fittest. Left on their own, they will shape the future to their own dark vision and take the hell on earth they will create as the confirmation of their belief. But by and large, most of us wish to live in peaceful coexistence. It means a gay person will not instruct me on how to use my rear end and I will not tell him what to do with his. It is a compromise. But the only other two alternatives are "war" and "isolationism". Neither is a practical option. Religious communities who isolated themselves from the society have always been left behind and often disintegrated. But I will not stop anyone from trying. And war will not work either, unless you are willing and able to kill/convert everyone of your opponents. Even then, you have to ask yourself, "Is it worth it?" Even assuming your position that homosexuality is a disease, what of it? Are we now going to legislate or otherwise coerce sick people to get cured? Should we force Muslims to drink red wine daily for their heart condition? Should we force terminally ill patients who would have passed away years ago, if only they had been born a few years earlier, to be plugged into all kinds of machines that force air into their lungs and electro-shock their hearts until only a shadow of a being remains on a hospital bed? Where do we draw the line? To a theocratic the line should be drawn according to his faith and it should be so for everyone, even those who do not share such faith. To a libertarian, the line is drawn according to one according to his faith, but only for himself. ST

To: bull_derrick who wrote (22205)	11/5/2004 1:25:33 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

Hi Bull. Let me say that I don't believe that there is anything contrived about George Bush's religious fervor. I do think, however, that he or his election team inserted religion shamelessly into every issue either directly or through the use of code phrases and code words. The "marketing" of his religion for political purposes leaves me uncomfortable and the success of that marketing makes me believe we will see many contrived imitators. As for understanding "us," I am an agnostic. At one time in my life I was a Christian but life's lessons took me away from Christianity. I simply don't have the "faith." That doesn't mean that I'm anti-Christian and it certainly doesn't mean that I don't understand Christianity, it just means that I'm one of the undecided. I think that Christianity is a wonderful religion that helps many people and tends to make the world a better place. Having said that, I also fear that Christianity, like Islam but to a much lesser extent, is getting hijacked by the more radical religious leaders who feel the power of leadership and become swollen with their own power. The danger of mixing politics and religion is that religion lends a feeling of "rightness" to the decision making process that often impedes critical thinking, interferes with pragmatic evaluations of the realities of policies and is more likely to infringe on the individual liberties of others. That's why faith based foreign policies and domestic laws can create violent reactions and that's why those who are "wrong" in taking such actions often persist in being wrong. Ed