"Sex isn't necessarily sinful in and of itself but homosex definitely is."
For this belief to make even a lick of sense, you have to dismiss the science. Follow along the religious thought here if you did accept scientific evidence:
1. God created all beings in their total
2. Some beings (not just humans) are inherently homosexual, meaning they were created that way, or else developed that way long before any choice in sexual preference could be made (i.e. some scientific thought suggests that homosexuality develops between the ages of 3-5)
3. The religions of man say God says some of these inherently gay beings are not sins in and of themselves, but their natural inclinations are.
4. Conclusion #1: God created some beings flawed at their most basic level and commands them not to be who he created them to be.
5. Conclusion #2: If #1 is true, God is MASSIVELY capricious and cruel on a level shared by young children frying ants with a magnifying glass or torturing animals. This is a SHITTY God.
Or, you can take the coward's way out, throw away the scientific evidence on sexuality, and wave your hands around about faith and sin and choice and blah, blah, blah, all while the rest of the sane world passes you by.
Either way, things don't look too good for religion on the question of homosexuality. There's a good reason for this: religion is made by scared, poorly evolved primates that are subject to their own prejudices, fears, and fallacies. The problem is they seem to think they have the divine on their side, which is a kind of hubris normally reserved for sociopaths....
"The Vatican" can say whatever it wants, I've read up enough on this Pope to know what he meant, even if he isn't allowed to say it. Frankly, I highly suspect he's an agnostic...
Pope Francis has actually been relatively good on atheists, including saying that they would be able to enter Heaven as long as they lived just lives. From a pope, that's pretty solid...
"The Monroe Doctrine meant that to the exclusion of all else, the US only meddled in the affairs of its southern neighbors up until World War II."
Are you familiar with how the Louisiana Purchase actually happened? How we played the British and French off one another in order to make that deal and double the size of our country in a day?
Have you never heard of the Barbary War, when Jefferson sent our Navy to lay siege to Tripoli over what was a combination of trade issues and Islamic piracy?
Are you not familiar with the founding fathers' plans to expand into Canada by use of military force?
Do you not understand that Jefferson in particular was a vehement expansionist who believed that the United States should be actively spreading democracy and the enlightenment across the globe as much as possible?
Our operations in the 1800s against Greek pirate ships?
Our expansion expeditions into Fiji and Samoa?
The annexation of Texas?
The bombarding of San Juan?
Our meddling in the Second Opium War?
Our involvement in the Anglo-Egyptian War?
Our Navy's involvement in the Chilean Civil War of 1891?
Our meddling in Cuba that led to the Spanish American War?
The Philipine American War?
Our occupation of Haiti?
Every single one of those happened before WWII, and we're a pretty young friggin' nation. That's as isolationist as a wasp is friendly....
"People forget that the US that is deeply involved in world affairs didn't really start until World War II. Up until that point we were rather obsessively isolationist."
That is categorically untrue, particularly with regard to the founding fathers, who were mostly vehement expansionists and had no problem going to war over trade/global affairs in other nations....
Look, if you want to repeal the Patriot Act entirely and replace it with the Dark Helmet Said This Shit Act Of 2013, in which intelligence agencies can still, you know, talk to each other, as well as the other provisions I mentioned, that's fine by me too.
My point is that too many people think that the Patriot Act was all surveillance and nothing else, when that just wasn't the case.
And to anyone who thinks the changes made to how agencies speak with one another and share information were of little consequence, they seem to forget the discussion about who knew how much that occurred directly after 9/11, when a TON of people knew the guys were in the country, were taking flight lessons, heard chatter, etc. etc. etc., except they never talked to one another....
"If you want to keep The Patriot Act and FISA, vote in 2014 and in 2016 for the same moral defectives currently running this country into the ground."
Are you guys kidding me w/this? If the next time the Patriot Act came around for reauthorization, they decided to gut it to only include the provisions I mentioned, you'd have a problem with that? How is that in any way sane?
You seem to think that I want to keep the entire Patriot Act intact. I don't. I was responding to someone who said repeal the entire law. I don't want that either.
It is possible, you know, for a law to be bad without being ALL bad. Keep the good bits, throw out the bad. It really ain't that hard to understand if you can keep your emotions in check....
"They are unconstitutional. Complete eradication of those laws is the only way out. In fact they should have never come into effect in the first place."
That's simply not correct. PARTS of them are likely unconstitutional. But the Patriot Act did accomplish several things that needed doing, namely in streamlining the way various domestic and international agencies communicate intelligence with one another. Other parts of the Patriot Act include:
1. Giving the USAG authority to offer rewards to the public for information that stops terrorist plots
2. Changes in how aid money from VOCA can be more quickly distributed to the families of terrorism victims
3. Tighter controls on who can have certain equipment domestically, like hazmat suits, as well as grants for first responders and stricter punishments for anyone found laundering money for terrorist groups.
Now, a giant, menacing razor blade should indeed be taken to a large portion of the Patriot Act, but you don't want to lose everything in there, trust me.
Taken to an extreme, your argument is the same as saying that the anti-slavery folks loved violence, obviously, because of slave revolts against their oppressive masters. Obviously we shouldn't take into account that their crimes (murder) may not be crimes in the context that they were driven to it, we should only look at the uprisings and insist they're wrong.
On the post: Fire Sale: Pope Francis Trades Indulgences For Twitter Followers
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
For this belief to make even a lick of sense, you have to dismiss the science. Follow along the religious thought here if you did accept scientific evidence:
1. God created all beings in their total
2. Some beings (not just humans) are inherently homosexual, meaning they were created that way, or else developed that way long before any choice in sexual preference could be made (i.e. some scientific thought suggests that homosexuality develops between the ages of 3-5)
3. The religions of man say God says some of these inherently gay beings are not sins in and of themselves, but their natural inclinations are.
4. Conclusion #1: God created some beings flawed at their most basic level and commands them not to be who he created them to be.
5. Conclusion #2: If #1 is true, God is MASSIVELY capricious and cruel on a level shared by young children frying ants with a magnifying glass or torturing animals. This is a SHITTY God.
Or, you can take the coward's way out, throw away the scientific evidence on sexuality, and wave your hands around about faith and sin and choice and blah, blah, blah, all while the rest of the sane world passes you by.
Either way, things don't look too good for religion on the question of homosexuality. There's a good reason for this: religion is made by scared, poorly evolved primates that are subject to their own prejudices, fears, and fallacies. The problem is they seem to think they have the divine on their side, which is a kind of hubris normally reserved for sociopaths....
On the post: Fire Sale: Pope Francis Trades Indulgences For Twitter Followers
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In the eyes of the Church, of course. Which is why religions are inherently prejudiced. Some of us don't care for prejudice....
On the post: Fire Sale: Pope Francis Trades Indulgences For Twitter Followers
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On the post: Fire Sale: Pope Francis Trades Indulgences For Twitter Followers
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http://www.catholic.org/hf/faith/story.php?id=51077
Anything else?
On the post: Fire Sale: Pope Francis Trades Indulgences For Twitter Followers
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On the post: Fire Sale: Pope Francis Trades Indulgences For Twitter Followers
Re:
On the post: Lindsey Graham: Boycott The Olympics Because Snowden, Putin, Hitler And Stalin (Oh My?)!
Re: Re: Re:
Are you familiar with how the Louisiana Purchase actually happened? How we played the British and French off one another in order to make that deal and double the size of our country in a day?
Have you never heard of the Barbary War, when Jefferson sent our Navy to lay siege to Tripoli over what was a combination of trade issues and Islamic piracy?
Are you not familiar with the founding fathers' plans to expand into Canada by use of military force?
Do you not understand that Jefferson in particular was a vehement expansionist who believed that the United States should be actively spreading democracy and the enlightenment across the globe as much as possible?
Our operations in the 1800s against Greek pirate ships?
Our expansion expeditions into Fiji and Samoa?
The annexation of Texas?
The bombarding of San Juan?
Our meddling in the Second Opium War?
Our involvement in the Anglo-Egyptian War?
Our Navy's involvement in the Chilean Civil War of 1891?
Our meddling in Cuba that led to the Spanish American War?
The Philipine American War?
Our occupation of Haiti?
Every single one of those happened before WWII, and we're a pretty young friggin' nation. That's as isolationist as a wasp is friendly....
On the post: Lindsey Graham: Boycott The Olympics Because Snowden, Putin, Hitler And Stalin (Oh My?)!
Re:
That is categorically untrue, particularly with regard to the founding fathers, who were mostly vehement expansionists and had no problem going to war over trade/global affairs in other nations....
On the post: Lindsey Graham: Boycott The Olympics Because Snowden, Putin, Hitler And Stalin (Oh My?)!
Re: hmmmm
Closeted? From his appearance, I always assumed Lindsey Graham was America's first openly gay lesbian Senator. What am I missing here?
On the post: NJ Congressman Rush Holt Is Attempting To Repeal The Patriot Act And FISA Amendments Act
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
My point is that too many people think that the Patriot Act was all surveillance and nothing else, when that just wasn't the case.
And to anyone who thinks the changes made to how agencies speak with one another and share information were of little consequence, they seem to forget the discussion about who knew how much that occurred directly after 9/11, when a TON of people knew the guys were in the country, were taking flight lessons, heard chatter, etc. etc. etc., except they never talked to one another....
On the post: NJ Congressman Rush Holt Is Attempting To Repeal The Patriot Act And FISA Amendments Act
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Grrrr, all I'm saying is keep the good parts and get rid of the bad. You agreed the parts I mentioned were good. How are we even arguing about this?
On the post: NJ Congressman Rush Holt Is Attempting To Repeal The Patriot Act And FISA Amendments Act
Re:
Are you guys kidding me w/this? If the next time the Patriot Act came around for reauthorization, they decided to gut it to only include the provisions I mentioned, you'd have a problem with that? How is that in any way sane?
On the post: NJ Congressman Rush Holt Is Attempting To Repeal The Patriot Act And FISA Amendments Act
Re: Re: Re:
It is possible, you know, for a law to be bad without being ALL bad. Keep the good bits, throw out the bad. It really ain't that hard to understand if you can keep your emotions in check....
On the post: NJ Congressman Rush Holt Is Attempting To Repeal The Patriot Act And FISA Amendments Act
Re:
That's simply not correct. PARTS of them are likely unconstitutional. But the Patriot Act did accomplish several things that needed doing, namely in streamlining the way various domestic and international agencies communicate intelligence with one another. Other parts of the Patriot Act include:
1. Giving the USAG authority to offer rewards to the public for information that stops terrorist plots
2. Changes in how aid money from VOCA can be more quickly distributed to the families of terrorism victims
3. Tighter controls on who can have certain equipment domestically, like hazmat suits, as well as grants for first responders and stricter punishments for anyone found laundering money for terrorist groups.
Now, a giant, menacing razor blade should indeed be taken to a large portion of the Patriot Act, but you don't want to lose everything in there, trust me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act
On the post: The Internet Is Trying To Send A Late-Thirties Man To Smell Taylor Swift's Hair
Re: Re: old guy?
On the post: Pulling Music Off Spotify Sends Exactly The Wrong Message
Re:
Must be tough living in such a myopic world....
On the post: DRM-Plus, Or How Eidos Is Treating Anyone With A Jail-Broken iPad Like A Criminal
Re: H2
So you know the life of every H2 Hummer owner?"
Take it easy there, champ. It was just a joke...
On the post: 'Cyberbullied' School Administration May Have Violated Student's First Amendment Rights By Suspending Him
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On the post: The Colonel vs. Adolf Hitler In A Trademark Extravaganza
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Well...not really
On the post: Brooklyn City Council Member Wants The Police Invited To Any House Party
Re:
My monthly orgies are going to get waaaaaaay more awkward....
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