Tbickle wrote:
So, which is it ? Can we, as humans, judge others or not I understand that judging people based purely on basic emotional responses is not always the best course of action, but we generally tend to judge both people AND their actions using a combination of emotion and logic Stealing is bad why ? Well logic tells me that it is an improper thing that the person has done that has caused harm to the other person My emotional side is the one that makes me want the person to suffer a punishment for their crimes or to incarcerate them due to my emotional response at this logic

The point is that it s all great and happy to pretend that we shouldn t judge others, but we' re humans and we do judge others Sometimes these judgements are beneficial and sometimes they are not but the best thing we can do is apply this judgment to incidents that impact the well being of others or yourself using a controlled emotional response and a solid rationale I can judge religion based on its negative impacts on human existence and the continued grasp it has on the large portion of society. An infection that pits man against man and teaches people that rational thought and logic are traits to be avoided Homosexuality isn t even close to being comparable

amkerman wrote:
*I want to make this absolutely clear for some of you atheists out there, who I can feel are ready to pounce. Theists cannot choose not to believe in God the same way one cannot choose not to believe the sun rises in the East. It is self-evident to some theists that God exists the same way God not-existing is self-evident to some atheists.

Hnau von Thulcandra wrote:

iam43 wrote:

Hnau von Thulcandra wrote:

Godless Infidel wrote:Saying "I'm not against homosexuals, just the act" is the same as saying "I'm not against a albinos, just hate that they stay out of the sun". If anyone thinks there is a difference because the sun could hurt or even kill an albino, Consider whether it would hurt to lose your sex life. Consider the suicides.

I've never even heard of people dying because they couldn't have sex... but I suppose there might be some nymphomaniacs who would.

We all die if we can't have sex.

Haha well yeah if you're talking about the species as a whole. But even then, we can just grow ourselves from test tubes nowadays, ya know.

Zwaarddijk wrote:

iam43 wrote:

Hnau von Thulcandra wrote:

iam43 wrote:

We all die if we can't have sex.

Haha well yeah if you're talking about the species as a whole. But even then, we can just grow ourselves from test tubes nowadays, ya know.

Not without the aid of masturbation which, as I'm sure your aware is a bit of a no-no in a doctrine or two..

AFAICT, Orthodox Judaism does permit it in that particular case (but not in other cases). I would be surprised if Islam or Catholicism were more strict in the case of artificial insemination.

Zwaarddijk wrote:
yeah but see, artificial insemination enables those sperms to actually have an effect, whereas in cases where natural insemination just doesn't work, their "sacredness" is wasted on sex.

xtraordinaryevidence wrote:Whenever I read or hear someone who's religious say that they aren't against homosexuals themselves, just the act, I immediately assume they are just hiding their bigotry or rationalizing so that they feel better about themselves. But are some atheists any better? Many atheists (including myself on occasion) use the phrase "I don't hate religious people, just their religion."
...

For this reason, the man who lives by God's standards and not by man's, must needs be a lover of the good, and it follows that he must hate what is evil. Further, since no one is evil by nature, but anyone who is evil is evil because of a perversion of nature, the man who lives by God's standards has a duty of "perfect hatred" (Psalm 139:22) towards those who are evil; that is to say, he should not hate the person because of the fault, nor should he love the fault because of the person. He should hate the fault, but love the man. And when the fault has been cured there will remain only what he ought to love, nothing that he should hate. - Augustine