I’ve just been sent this link, to various submissions make on the upcoming Civil Union Bill:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/PO0411/S00250.htm
Some choice, juicy extracts on the quality of arguments presented:
“[The Civil Union Bill] …will cause us to sin as a nation a curse to us all.”
“In my thinking gay people are a blot on society, unhealthy, repugnant, so why try to bring in a Civil Union Bill?”
“Heaven help us all on Judgement day”
“Two men cannot teach about sex education in relation to intercourse not backdoor course”
“In the bible…it mentions that God have the homosexuals over to a debased mind, to do things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, having evil-minds, to be proud, violent, boasters, haters of God, disobedient, unforgiving, unloving, back biters, & whisperers, it also mentions that they are worthy of death.”
If anyone wonders why I genuinely believe that non-atheists are mentally ill, this is the sort of thing I bring up. What level of cognitive dissonance is required to be able to espose this level of hate, while also claiming that you follow the teachings of Jesus? What kind of mental blocks are going on when you can quote “laws” given in a section of the bible as the literal word and order of the creator of the universe in order to justify your own prejudices[1] and also justify your failing to follow other “laws” given in the same section of the bible because they’re … well, I’ve yet to actually hear any explanation for that shit from any bible-thumper. Perhaps all the stuff in the bible that doesn’t _suit_ you right now, they’re just “analogies” or “parables” or some shit. Whatever.
These people are stupid, hateful, fearful, ignorant throwback fools. Screw em. They’re crazy. Literally, crazy. Christians are, they MUST BE, irrational. You _can’t be a rational christian_. Either you’re irrational, or you don’t really believe it, you’re just giving it lip service. It’s a hobby or a custom, not a religion. You either believe this shit AND YOU’RE CRAZY, or you don’t really believe it, and it’s an alternative to Freemasonry or the Rotary Club. I genuinely think that all deeply religious people are high-function mental patients. Let’s say some dude comes up to you on the street and starts jabbering about how he’s in touch with an invisible being in the sky and it makes his life better and protects him from evil homosexuals and stuff. If he tells you that being is God or Jesus or something, that’s somehow fine. If he told you it was Napoleon, Emperor of France, he’d BE FUCKING LOCKED UP. AND RIGHTLY SO.
I really hope that we as a species make it off this rock before Religions kill us all. Because I genuinely believe that in the end, that’s what will do it.
In case any mighty alien spacemen of the future are somehow able to ressurect old internet archives from the ashes of our civilization and are reading this, I have two things to say:
(1) Some of us really were as confused by the actions of these crazy motherfuckers as you are. We died trying. Some of us were reaching for the stars when the Jesus freaks snuck up on us and smugly hit us with rocks for Meddling In Gods Domain. Please do not judge our entire race by their actions. They needed help, but in the end there were too many of them to resist.
(2) If you’re ressurecting cloned lab/zoo subjects by time-travelling back and grabbing quantum snapshots of brain functions and tissue samples, and if one of those subjects is me, then I would like to share a lab cage with my girfriend Annette. And also Christina Ricca. I appreciate your help in this matter. KTHXBAIBAI.
[1] Your typical Christian may attempt to soften things by referring to their prejudices as “convictions”. Also watch out for the word “denomination” … this actual means “Sect”. Hope this helps!
November 30, 2004 at 1:39 am
There are rational Christians, who believe that the New Testament teachings (which boil down to ‘Love your neighbour’ and are perfectly compatible with liberalism) trump the culturally specific rules for ritual cleanliness of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Like my flatmate’s entire church, most of the Anglican communion and quite a few Presbyterians and Methodists. And in New Zealand they probably outnumber the loonies, they’re just quieter.
November 30, 2004 at 2:06 am
I’d like to think that the “nice” Christians of the world take the teachings to heart, but judge the authenticity of the source with high suspicion.
That’s the thing. They do. Theological scholars do a lot of rigorous textual criticism, and educated Christians don’t believe in blindly following the Bible.
I’m not religious myself, but I know plenty of thoughtful, liberal, entirely rational Christians.
72 virgins? I think the martyrs have had a raise. Didn’t they only get a couple of dozen in the old days?
November 30, 2004 at 5:35 am
So that’s where dead geeks go
So, does this hold for female martyrs too?
November 30, 2004 at 2:11 am
hehe I saw the Inside the Actors Studio – Clint Estwood on Rialto a week ago.
When asked what he wanted to hear god say to hinm, he replied “… and here’s 72 Virgins ready and waiting” 😉
November 30, 2004 at 2:36 am
I completely agree. Every Xtian/other religious person that I’ve known has had some lack of individual thinking or mental stableness.
They have to follow the trend, and honestly believe that putting a piece of meat in a differant hole will damn you for all eternity.
Honestly, I don’t see the point in spending your entire life following a religion.
If God was all knowing and all caring, full of forgiveness, if I died and God and Heaven DID exist, I would surely be allowed through the pearly gates, as I am a fair individual. I don’t even eat his other creations, am not violent or womanising, don’t kill my sould with drugs or alcohol. If I am turned away, then he is not caring and forgiving, or smart and logical for that matter.
Plus if heaven is really an eternity of worshiping God, I’d rather not be there. That sounds pretty lame.
If anything so mystical, it would surely be a more individual heaven, much like the lives we have here. Other people exist, but they always revolve around the core of life – me. So I could imagine afterlife being the same, if anything.
November 30, 2004 at 3:43 am
I’d like to put my hand up as one of the _many_ Christians out there who do not think the Bible is The Word Of God, Every Last Little Bit. To say that all christians believe every single word of the Bible, or else they’re lying and they don’t believe in God, is to ignore a vast number of Christian people, including scientists and doctors, who have made huge strides in their fields and who also take the Bible for what it is – writings about God, written by a large number of people, many of whom have very different views about what God likes and doesn’t like. Most of us believe in evolution, and laugh at those who don’t. Talk to my father, a doctor, amateur scientist and astronomer (and area man with dodgy sense of humour) who is also a devout Catholic. Tell him he’s not a real Christian just because he doesn’t fit _your_ stereotyped view of Christianity, which you have formed by listening only to the fundamentalists.
I wish I was saying this for the last time, but there’s God, and then there’s Religion/the Church. They’re not the same thing, unfortunately. I apologise for the so-called Christians who forget the big message (you know that whole ‘God is Love’ thing?) in favour of burying themselves in Leviticus et al, all those squitty little bits that conveniently give them an excuse to give free rein to their own prejudices, but they DO NOT constitute the majority. It’s just that crazy people shout louder.
November 30, 2004 at 5:38 am
Sigh… I could try to explain. Although, you have to admit, I’m not homophobic and I still believe homosexual and adulterous sex is morally wrong.
“Jesus loves the little children…”
November 30, 2004 at 6:59 am
I understand that you believe homosexual and adulterous sex is morally wrong.
How do you feel about the likelihood that inequalities for gay people under the law validates people’s prejudices and perhaps gives the wrong message about the seriousness of victimisation, stigmatisation and violent hate crimes? I think if Christians felt strongly about protecting people’s rights to be free from victimisation (I’m not always convinced that they are) they’d make sure that this would not be exacerbated first before forcing other (non-Christian) people to follow their own (Christian) moral codes in their personal lives.
November 30, 2004 at 8:08 am
How do you feel about the likelihood that inequalities for gay people under the law validates people’s prejudices and perhaps gives the wrong message about the seriousness of victimisation, stigmatisation and violent hate crimes?
I think it’s very important to stress (more than sexual morality) that abuse of people is unacceptable. However, because I see homosexual behavior as inherently damaging to the people who do it, I can’t support it, any more than I could support drug use.
November 30, 2004 at 6:54 am
I don’t think religious people have any monopoly on madness. I can’t think of anyone troubled by no inconsistencies or internal conflict. If it isn’t god/s it’ll be some other thing.
November 30, 2004 at 10:25 am
Of course. People are, after all, only human. No-one is perfect, no-one is entirely constant, rational or unconflicted.
I am occasionally quite irrational, but none the less I try to think things through, judge things as fully as I can with, use the tools that I have been given and that have been proven to make a call on it. Sometimes that has resulted in calls on things that have been unpleasant for me, especially when I’ve decided that my own behaviour has been very poor, or uncalled for, or just plain bigoted or wrong or stupid or driven by testosterone or hate or some other damn thing. But I don’t just throw my hands up and say “Sheesh, I am so damn human. I surely am flawed. I guess I’d better believe in invisible spacemen who watch my every move and will damn me to an eternity of hellfire when I die for a variety of infractions.”
Just because we can be irrational and believe bollocks, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive not to.
November 30, 2004 at 10:52 am
I’ve always tended to think people had a right to having their own beliefs/faiths/traditions treated respectfully by others. The point of conflict for me is that some belief sets include disrespecting the rights of others to their own beliefs. I suppose it makes sense that if a person has a strong commitment to their belief set, they’re also going to assume it’s better than any other belief set, and sometimes they’ll go as far as assuming this is the case for other people too.
I used to find this merely annoying, but I end up in a sort of circular problem, because if I believe in people’s rights to having their own beliefs/faiths/traditions treated respectfully by others, then I have an internal inconsistency to my view, because it would seem to require me to respect people’s right to think everyone else should be just like them. And I don’t respect that at all, I know it to be morally wrong, deeply arrogant and extremely dangerous. Just as some people would claim homosexuality to be morally wrong. So really, I’m just as arrogant and self righteous as they are.
November 30, 2004 at 11:00 am
Also, I don’t believe anyone should be locked up for talking about believing in fairies, space monsters, giant friendly insects or anything else, unless they’re likely to harm other people. Admittedly there’s a minority of religious people who would fit this category (abortion clinic murderers and arsonists etc).
December 1, 2004 at 12:21 am
Ahem…
Hints on Healthy Living
by Dr. Ulric Williams
Printed by the Wanganui Chronicles Company, Ltd., Wanganui, New Zealand.
Distributed by South’s Book Depot, 21 Willis Street, Wellington.
(Quote the first pararaph)
Forward to Previous Editions
It can no longer be denied that the GREAT cause of sickness is disobedience to natural law — wrong habits of living. A very large proportion of diseases from which mankind sufferes is IMMEDIATELY PREVENTABLE. There is nothing arbitrary or accidental about the incidence of disease. We are sick simply in proportion to the extent of infringement of natural law. Sickness is the natural consequence of disobedience. We are excused by ignorance or incredulity no more than by neglect. Turn from wrong habits of living, comply with the law, and consequences of deflection disappear.
(end Quote, emphasis is original)
This is a _cookbook_, but it is full of lots of loverlies.
on Mental Disease:
“Due to Wrong Thinking; and resuling, besides progressive mental deterioration and possible final collapse, in endocrine and sympathetic dysfunction; externalising as discordant physical vibration and physical disease.”
on Public Health or ACC:
“This country has been threatened with a National Health Insurance Scheme similar to that now operating in England. To adopt it would be almost as unwise as offering permanent free charter to the money power. The logical insurance against disease is to enable, teach, and encourage people to observe the laws of health.”
and most excellent:
“Man makes his body the repository of decaying flesh and denatured foods; he introduces into it poisons in the form of tobacco, tea, alcohol, sugar, sera, and drugs; he stuffs and gluts it with almost incredible quantities of rubbish, got up to appeal to his sensesl he no longer eaths to live, he lives to eat; and the temple of the Holy Ghost is befouled.”