Gay marriage thread

[amateur51]

Neat summing up. The bible is everything and anything to religious cults, who make it mean whatever they wish, or else ignore it completely. One example that I raised earlier is that the bible says nothing at all about souls going to heaven. In fact, it clearly says several times that no-one will enter heaven until the end of all things, when the dead are raised. Irenaeus, for instance, in the second century wrote (Against Heresies) that those who believed the soul goes straightaway to heaven are heretics. This is consistent with the bible, but most churches (certainly the Catholic Church) ignore this - in fact they adopt the Gnostic (or even pagan) view of souls going to heaven straightaway.

Many thanks Pabs - I shall hug this precious knowledge close to my apatheist bosom

[amateur51]

http://www.viyella.co.uk/fcp/categor...mens-vy-shirts

That's a lot of moolah for a shirt with advertising on the front

But then I've never understood 'labels'

[amateur51]

But does sc hold those beliefs because the CC tells him he should? Would he change his beliefs if the CC abandoned them, or does he believe they are immutable, whatever the church says? I would assume that he believed in Limbo; has he decided that it doesn't exist now that the Vatican has abolished it, or does he insist that it still exists?

I wonder if Limbo is like a European City of Culture? Who decides? Maybe Walsall is Limbo this year? (it certainly isn't European City of Culture, tho the Epstein collection is fascinating )

[amateur51]

There's a bit more, Flossy. Can a person choose to hold a belief anyway? "Now, I think I'll start believing that..." seems strange to me. Either you believe something or you don't (I don't think there's a third option). It seems to me that there's no choice in the matter.

This raises the obvious point that anyone's beliefs will actually differ - at least slightly - from anyone else's (because we are individuals and give different emphases to different things), so that it must be the case that a group of people who profess to share the same beliefs (let's call them the Catholic Church) cannot actually be sharing true 'beliefs' entirely, but rather are accepting some degree of dogma from authority.

Makes sense to me.

Scotty believes in Truth

He told me

[MrGongGong]

'Gay Marriage' strikes at the very heart of the meaning of the centuries-old institution.

It's NOT a "centuries-old" institution in the way that we understand it today
and allowing equal marriage doesn't "strike at the heart" at all

The church can pretend that somehow there is a "centuries-old institution" if it likes but even a cursory knowledge of history shows something else entirely.

[amateur51]

The 'equality' claim is entirely bogus. Some of us are not quite as stupid as Flossie and others blissfully believe.

Just a little bit less, then scotty.

The greatest motivating force in human relations in not sex.

It is not money

It is the power and the opportunity to alter someone else's copy

[amateur51]

But what is the 'heart'? Nobody seems able to explain, unless the 'heart' is procreation, nothing else.

That leads straight to the Church's formerly considering all non-procreative sex as at least a venial sin.

(Actually I just discovered this messageboard, which appears to indicate that they still do.)

The heart of marriage is surely the certain transmission of DNA and property rights.

[amateur51]

You post a link to a piece about Chavez written by a speechwriter for an American President who supported a military coup to oust (the elected) Chavez and you really can't see there might just be something the teensiest bit doubtful about the reliability of said piece?


Are you Homer Simpson, by any chance?

I suspect that Homer Simpson is based on Baldrick ... who in turn was based on Mr Pee

[Mr Pee]

Interesting interview with Alan Bennett in last week's Radio Times, that I've just got around to reading. Unlike certain posters here, he hasn't got his knickers in a twist over gay "marriage":-

A remarkable social shift in Bennett's lifetime has been the possibility of first, civil partnerships- as Bennett and Rupert Thomas have done- and now, gay marriage. But Bennett says he won't be rushing to get the upgrade. "No, I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about over gay marriage. I haven't met anyone who cared one way or the other.....the whole thing seemed to me a storm in a teacup." But supporters of the reform argued that it brought total equality? "I felt that I had total equality anyway."

I suspect that Bennett probably speaks for the majority of gay people who just wish to quietly get on with their lives rather than the politically motivated and loud minority who so often drown out such voices of reason and moderation.

[Mr Pee]

I suspect that Homer Simpson is based on Baldrick ... who in turn was based on Mr Pee

Yet more coruscating analysis from Amateur. We are not worthy.

[MrGongGong]

The heart of marriage is surely the certain transmission of DNA and property rights.

"we live on a bloody swamp, we need all the land we can get"

[jean]

I suspect that Bennett probably speaks for the majority of gay people...

It would help if you'd looked at what he was actually replying to.

He's already in a civil partnership, and he was asked if he would upgrade.

Everyone knows that civil partnership was chosen as a term for what might just as well have been called marriage at the time, had the horses not been still quite susceptible to being frightened.

The idea of upgrading involves accepting that marriage and civil partnership are essentially different things, which they really aren't.

Unlike certain posters here, he hasn't got his knickers in a twist over gay "marriage"

That's certainly true, but I think we would disagree about who it is on this thread whose knickers are most twisted.

[amateur51]

Interesting interview with Alan Bennett in last week's Radio Times, that I've just got around to reading. Unlike certain posters here, he hasn't got his knickers in a twist over gay "marriage":-



I suspect that Bennett probably speaks for the majority of gay people who just wish to quietly get on with their lives rather than the politically motivated and loud minority who so often drown out such voices of reason and moderation.

And where do you encounter such people, Mr Pee?

Not here I assure you

[Ferretfancy]

Can one of the eminent theologians explain something for me? It's a fact of biology that more than a third of natural conceptions fail to begin development, and are miscarried at a very early stage, even before the potential mother is aware that she has conceived.

However, the sperm has successfully fertilised the egg, and so, if we are to assume that a soul has been miraculously created, where does it go ?

[amateur51]

Yet more coruscating analysis from Amateur. We are not worthy.

Well I don't have access to you bewildering array of emoticons, Mr Pee.

Pee-world, where graphics speak louder than words