i don't believe in god. in terms of a god in the generic or deistic sense i'm agnostic, although i think there are many good reasons to believe it's almost a certainty that all gods of human tradition including yahweh are based in mythology - objective reasons external to ourselves that don't rely on faith. faith is just a positive emotional reaction to a belief that allows us to validate it when we otherwise have no rational means to do so. yes i believe we have emotional reactions to things. i judge faith to be useless as a means to any kind of objective (practical) truth, as well as potentially dangerous in the wrong hands if humans continue to treat it as a valid, justified reason to believe in anything. i think in terms of your analogy to the bible the children seem to know what's right and wrong better than the parent does. you (presumably if you're not insane) judge everyone who believes something mutually exclusive with your belief to have misplaced faith. i'm only judging one more faith than you are.
Show me one thing I've said that admits judging someone or saying Christians or Atheists have the right to judge anyone? You have become extremely myopic and stereotypical. In fact, I have been saying that it isn't our place to judge, yet you still believe; since I am Christian, I judge others like some Christians you've seen judge before. Yet you accept love and base it's logic; when we've seen all around the people using that love to kill their wives, husbands, friends or nations. Again, just picking and choosing bits and pieces of the grand scheme of things to support your argument. Every "emotional" feeling can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Someone angry can be consumed by that anger and do wrong. Someone that feels sadness can be consumed by it and do harm. People can feel "confident" and use that confidence wrongfully. You have become the bigot.
Whoah dude, read back... See the poster who brought up homosexuality in the first place. You have wrongfully accused Christians in this forum.
i'm not (in this case) talking about judging anyone's potential salvation. i'm referring to you necessasrily having to judge someone as being misled into a false belief by faith if their belief happens to contradict yours. at least one of you is wrong. i'm just taking the next step and judging you both as likely to be wrong just as a matter of statistics. agreed. but negative behavior based on faith-based religious belief has traditionally been given more of a pass in terms of what is socially acceptable than simple emotion-based behavior. that seems to be changing now. religious faith that doesn't conform to secular social moral standards is becoming less and less tollerated, which is a good thing.
I went to Church until I was about 16 or 17. By that age most of the girls in my youth group had gotten knocked up, and I sure wasn't getting any... It never really meant much to me, and I believed about as much as I didn't believe. Be good to others. Help people if you get the opportunity. Not sure what will happen when I die, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's nothing.
ABM, I love ya, man, but I must say your religiosity is surprising. You guys are more like "fans" of god, right?
I would probably qualify as "atheist" as you understand things, but still, that would be irrelevant with regard to someone bringing up homosexuality. Anyway, why not reference the nic?
James was great in many ways. If you had met him, you would probably believe whatever came out of his mouth -- he was that good. Still...his religious thought is not his best. I don't have much trouble with it when I consider the times in which he lived and the intellectual background of his day. I suspect he would have greatly modified his work if he were with us today. But even if you can't accept that, you must know that he'd never accept your appeal to authority using his name.
