My guess is that it is a matter of only being familiar with the types of communities you are part of, so if that is a church community you see all the benefits of a church community but have never experience another type. I have never personally experienced the kinds of communities that form around a mosque or a temple. But I would be very surprised if all the support structures that Dogggg identified that can form around church communities can not also form there. Not every isntance, of course.

Examples of places with low or poor community spirit are not evidence that what you have now is exclusive to the Church community.

I remember when one of our group had a motorcycle accident and was unable to work, my Karate club had a whip round to get him some cash. But I wouldn't make the claim that this was some property special to our dojo, even though we're a close group of good friends who support each other.

I am willing to accept that the Church is good at nurturing the kind of communities you speak of, and better at it than atheism which doesn't concern itself with group worship or whatever else. But I don't think the Christian community is any closer than Muslim communities, or smaller groups with which people associate.

Communities that help each other out can be found in family and friends. You dont even need some type of organization like mosques and temples.

Sure. i gave such an example above.

We both know that you have a dog in this fight. I do, too. The difference, ironically, is that my beliefs allow me to see the world with greater clarity. I feel like many liberal, atheist, secular-humanist types are cradled up in an intellectual bubble, or hidden within a theoretical shelter. It's like they used to say about communism: it only works on paper. So there is this naive idealism that is not practical and not applicable...

You believe in man. Good. But I've got news for you-- man is f'd up. And no amount of long-winded, sesquipedalian essaying is going to change that. Man is god. Man is moral law-giver, creator, and judge. The theoretical framework looks sound. It sounds good, looks good, and FEELS GOOD. But ultimately, it's the apple Eve plucked from the tree-- It's rotten at the core. It'll make you sick.

I think it is just a case of blind guides leading the blind. Mainly because you aren't working with the right psychological assesment of man.
I can accept and understand the naive optimism of humanist atheists, but still think it is like a form of juvenile retention. I think it is shallow, and not contextually informed. So, for an example, let's look a common, simplistic liberal declaration that is squarely an emotional plea. An atheist says:

The Christian finds the idea offensive and obnoxious. To the Christian, gay marriage is profane, an institutionalized mockery of sacred unions. Obnoxious, and offensive-- like an adolescent rebellion, or the tantrum of a brat. Juvenile retention, as I noted before. The Christian knows that the humanist is passionate-- yes -- but is not demonstrating a matured sensibility.

The Christian thinks the liberal is uninformed, because-- to a Christian, we are commanded not to commit homosexual acts -- and he understands that it is for our own sake. He sees that the opp sanctions this behavior , say, because opp feels it is harmless. The Christian knows that the people who commit these acts are harming themselves. Only Christ truly cares about the "homosexual." The Christian might feel the opp is simply using the homosexual as a pawn in an idealogical war.

I truly believe that both parties have their hearts in the right place, mostly. But you are coming at man from two different perspectives. One erects man as God. One believes in man, and allows for a blissful humanistic utopia. The other looks at man as he really is, I think. If man believes that he is god, then man usually f's up the place, like in Russia or China. But if man is thankful, and his view of himself is tempered, he can avoid this kind of extremism.

I don't think that's accurate. Where you see a world in which everything is explained by your god existing, I see a world both that's possible both with and without your god, and everybody else's gods. That necessarily is a wider and more open minded view. My vision is not clouded and obscured by having chosen one viewpoint.

You have the comfort of your religion and your explanation that god made everything and I have the comfort of our continuing search for knowledge and understanding obtained through genuinely unbiased research and study. Without god to explain everything, there's only the acquisition of knowledge. I thrive on that and I deeply resent anything that might hinder that, such as religions.


That's not news. IMO religion is one of the ways in which that expresses itself. An alien visiting our planet would be bewildered by the multitude of deity based beliefs that we are divided by. It would be very hard to explain.


Emotive words that ultimately mean nothing. Unlike you I don't need a 'moral law giver, creator and judge', I just don't think like that. I live in a reality that has no gods. I don't try to replace them with something, they just aren't.


I love the fact that so many Christians think 'god hates ****', it's one of the things that drives thinking, compassionate people away from a church that preaches hatred, intolerance and discrimination. Keep it up.

I don't 'believe in man', this something you need to make a mental adjustment on. Atheists are not replacing god with man. If they thought like that they'd probably be Theists in the first place. I do not need a god to cope with reality, I don't need to believe there's something 'more' than me, a power guiding and protecting me. I don't need that so I don't seek to replace god. God means nothing to me at all except for the misery and suffering that accompanies the belief in god.

Wait, where did you get that from?

A teeshirt I saw worn by the child of a christian family might have been the first place I saw it.

Check out this Google image search result for 'god hates ****'

Then I saw it in photographs and video of placards at demonstrations, and on the side of the street opposite gay bars. Then there's all the times I've read about it and seen quotes from Christians, the story I read recently about a very brave young man who lived life as a gay man for a year to better understand the hatred and discrimination gays experience at the hands of Christians. He was disowned by his own mother.

Let's say I've seen it enough to use the phrase 'so many Christians' and not worry that I can be pulled up on it.

Why do you ask?

I was concerned that maybe some misguided posters here held that view. Some Christians definitely hold it (hello, Westboro Baptist), but (imo) there is more Biblical support against the notion that God hates homosexuals.

Your response is very shallow. And very indicative of everything I said in my post. Surely, you must at least suspect this.

Most Christians I know say something like: "love the sinner, hate the sin."

Not as far as I know and as a human being I hope your second point is true. Whilst there are many degrees of homophobia, I know the majority of Christians are not severely homophobic to the point they'd have their children where a tee-shirt that carries such a poisonous message.

I'm sure there are plenty of homophobic Atheists too but.... and I almost hate to do this in the middle of a rare and pleasant moment of agreement, but I have a strong feeling that the percentage of religious people with any degree of homophobia would be higher than in an Atheist population for two reasons. Firstly, Atheists tend to be more liberal in their world view in the first place, secondly, a group of Atheists wouldn't be following a tenet that they believe (as many Christians believe that the bible does) informs them that homosexuality is a sin.

I believe that religiously inspired homophobia and punishments even as severe as death are far more common in Islam, the second largest religion.

I suspect that I answered 5 of your points and you've only answered one of mine. I think the point about you believing that Atheists replace god with man is a fundamental of your outlook and worthy of addressing in more detail.

There is nothing theoretical about having friends and family who help each other in times of need. Its reality for some.


As far as the bubble its you who lives in it. Instead of seeing humanity for what it is. Good and bad and everything in between and little bit of each in everyone. You see humanity as fallen and evil ignoring the good. Its one of the uglier sides of some Christians. You have blinders on which filters out the good that is evident all around, even outside of your church.

"God Hates ****" is a Westboro Baptist slogan, a sect/hate group that trolls people in real life to obtain a physical reaction with the intent of then sueing for damages. Other Christian groups disown them. The rate of disowning climbed steeply when they expanded their modus operandi from picketing gays' funerals to picketing soldiers' funerals, though that might be attributed to the attendant rise in media coverage concerning their noxious antics.

The official stance of any other Christian church I'm aware of is that God loves gays but hates their crime of acting upon their sexual attraction. Of course, how robustly this neatly compartmentalised attitude carries over to the individual Christian varies from case to case.

Still in agreement. I would say that most Christians are homophobic to some degree. I would guess my fear of my children growing up to become homosexuals is not too different from your fear that yours grow up to become religious. (I realize that statement might offend just about everyone.)

Strange because I recently left a business forum (1st time ever) where I'd been a long term poster over a disagreement on this issue. Someone wanted advice on how to remove from a dating website that they'd bought, the Gay & Lesbian options in the site's navigation because 'I need to remove them, obviously, because it's aimed at Christians'. (paraphrase) In other words, he didn't want to cause offence amongst his target demographic through reference on the site to Homosexuality.

The issue started out as me suggesting that this seemed to be discriminatory not in that he was preventing Gays from using the site but that he was supporting the idea that being gay is something that should cause offence, and escalated to becoming a formal complaint to the forum owner who left it to the members to decide. I encountered so much scorn and antipathy that I felt I just didn't want to post there anymore. Only two other members agreed that it was implicitly supporting intolerance, bigotry and discrimination.

I don't fear either of those things and the difference between my children and most children who become religious as adults is that they will have made their own, well informed decision and not had it urged on them at too young an age for them to be capable of resisting being indoctrinated.

I want my children to be happy, if they turn out to be gay and are happy, I will be too. If they turn out gay and religious, I'll probably have a quiet chuckle to myself.

Most strongly religious people have to live their life in fear and shame.

Just the fact that masturbation is a no-go topic with these people, yet they are not strong enough to suppress the urge to have sex or masturbate (Usage of internet porn is highest in Utah and Mississippi within the US), instead of getting pleasure from a natural thing, they suffer from shame and fear for all their life.

People who are unhappy in their marriage go trough with it for decades because of shame to tell their community they are getting a divorce.

Religion hurts people more than anything else in this world.

Your preface indicates you take issue with what I said, however I'm trying to work out what part of that anecdote contradicts me and came up blank. Could you give me a hand here please?

At first that's where it was going but then on rereading your post I realised that I was headed off in the wrong direction and just forgot to change that bit. Probably should have just deleted the whole post but I guess I wanted to see what reaction it got. I'm still pretty bummed out about it, as the Americans say.

[It might be better to start a new thread for this topic]

I don't see anything particularly egregious in removing a relationship option on a Christian dating site.

I don't know, we were talking about Christianity and Homosexuality, it's on topic, or at least it's on the topic the thread had wandered into

Removing the Gay/Lesbian options because you don't want to offend Christians is discrimination. It's supporting the idea that Homosexuality is offensive. Whether or not Christians would agree is immaterial. Pandering to offensive belief systems is also not acceptable.

If I made a website aimed at the Westboro Baptist church and removed the gay options would you say 'fair enough, the target demographic wouldn't find that useful'?

I think you are correct here Mr. Beer.
Christians that openly spread hate toward homosexuals are anti Christian in their behaviour. Biblically homosexuality is not noted as a "supersin". Therefore because everybody sins, including Christians, everyone is essentially on even moral ground. There is no theological grounds for looking down one's nose at the evildoer next to them.

Largely Christians have failed at loving the sinner and hating the sin. IMO this is not an indictment against Christianity. Christians should be more Christian not less Christian. If people were more like Christ in their thought and behaviour homosexuals would not feel judged, but rather they would know they are valued and loved as people.

Yeah, but it's not with the thread topic, and I have a feeling this is going to be a rather long tangent.

So, they discriminate...and? There are already race/sex specific and fetish specific dating sites which you likely have no problem with, so discrimination, in and of itself, isn't necessarily objectionable. Regarding your offensive claim...so what? I, of course, don't find homosexuality offensive or objectionable in any way, but that is immaterial. The owner of the site is allowed to run it in such a way as to be in line with his moral standards or what he perceives to be the most profitable business model given its target audience. It's a private (I'm assuming member based) site, and as such, can be ran in a discriminatory manner, e.g. Augusta. Lastly, you say 'pandering to offensive belief systems is also not acceptable', but they could say the same thing about you.

Yes.

ASDF is probably right here. Likely the site owner is running the site with a focus on the bottom line. Everything else is details.

Fair enough, this is my last post on this here then.

I've failed to clarify my point. Whether or not the owner is allowed to discriminate is not what I objected to. I objected to that discrimination being ignored to by other members of the forum rather than them suggesting that the guy go elsewhere for the advice he needed to be able to carry out actions that perpetuate intolerance and bigotry. I felt that by offering that advice without comment, the members were implicitly supporting such a hateful attitude.

I objected to it taking place on our forum without any criticism of why it was happening.

Do you think that if I started a thread here asking for advice that had the effect of helping to perpetuate Homophobia directly caused by religious beliefs, people would offer me friendly and helpful advice on how to achieve that? What if it had been based on race? Or gender? Again, I get objective helpful advice and no criticism?