StSapphire

I've never seen anything wrong with your writing. Reads better than a majority of other writing on the internet, cause you know where the shift button is and know either how to spell well or know how to use spell check, lol.

Deafness

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Reba

Your English is fine.

The story just followed the pattern of writing that's used in email legends. As a former journalist, I have feelers for writing styles, and that one sent up the red flags. Especially, the "a friend told me" parts.

There's nothing wrong with your writing.

Daredevel7

Well, I meant the class English. Not English language itself. I write a lot of technical papers, so I keep up with my written English. However, when it comes to analyzing stories/poems or developing creative writing prose, it's just not my thing.

I'm a science kinda gal.

Edit: Actually, I AM good at coming up with stories, but not delivering them! But don't let that affect the integrity of the story in the OP!!!

Reba

Your writing style is better to deal with than the artsy ones who want to be creative when the article doesn't call for creativity. It was a pain to edit for writers who wanted to be the next Charles Dickens but the article was supposed to be about an annual facility inspection.

Daredevel7

I tend to agree with you. I prefer reading books that have a good and creative story written in a normal way rather than a ho hum story written in a creative way.

Frisky Feline

god, that is not right what mom did it to her own kid. His own self is the solid evidence.

jillio

You are absolutely correct. That would have been much more accurate. I stand corrected.

jillio

It absolutely does, and the specific target can be generally traced back to religious and cultural teachings.

deafskeptic

He wasn't always a Baptist. He was a Presbyterian before he converted to the Southern Baptist religion.

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netrox

I believe it would happen. We have horror stories of gays who lost their partners and their homophobic relatives took everything they worked hard to build together. I've known parents who refuse to accept their children's sexuality. Hell, I know my friend who was taken to a shrink and to Christian camps to cure his homosexuality. And he's only 22 now!

As long as homosexuality is viewed as a sin or an illness, parents can do whatever to "cure" it.

The camp that 'cures' homosexuality -Times Online

Ex-gay movements, you know the usual B.S.

flip

And those religious and cultural teachings can be traced back to real politics and secular problems. Textual criticism used on holy scriptures gives us some interesting answers.

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Reba

I wonder why he converted if he didn't believe in their doctrines? I wouldn't convert to something that I didn't believe in.

Reba

In our church, the pastor never preaches to hate anyone. In fact, hating people, individuals or groups, is a sin.

StSapphire

Um... So, which is it? You first argued with me that it had to come from religious teachings rather than non-religious preferences. Now you're arguing with jillio that religious teachings had to come from non-religious preferences (using that term as a wibbly-wobbly ball of stuff including historical politics and secular issues), which is almost verbatim what I was saying originally!

This also seems quite apt. Nobody's prevented you, Reba or any other religious person from replying for five pages, even when some of her responses were quite literally biblical. So, just for future reference, there's no need to go around preemptively name-calling your opponents.

Just thought I'd point that out, while I was already quoting another post of yours.

Reba

Hate is an innate emotion. No one needs to be taught how to hate. That's why it's such a difficult problem to deal with.

Environment and upbringing can influence who or what become targets of that innate hate.

Hate can be stimulated and encouraged by other negative emotions such as jealousy and fear.

In my opinion.

StSapphire

Independent churches are allowed to set their own doctrines, so he (presumably) had a different interpretation of that doctrine than your church. (Or, less generously, he saw more of a profit in preaching something else - many churches are not ideologically pure, especially when doctrine conflicts with sustenance.)

That's good.

StSapphire

Most of that sounds quite reasonable to me, except for "no one needs to be taught how to hate". People easily learn by observation of those around them. I would be surprised if someone who was raised in a family where there was no hate (and managed to avoid being exposed to enough of it to not pick it up via peers) later grew up to be a hateful person.

Of course, that's also just my opinion.

flip

What I am saying is that religious teachings are traceable, not that it's religious or not. If someone says that the ten commandments are similar to older laws found in other semitic cultures, there will allways be some people that jump up and say "I knew it! It's all fake! No God involved.". Sigh.

The arugment is still that the gay issue comes from a religious mindset that once ruled the western world, and is a part of our heritage. Wether this mindset is man made or from God, don't matter. The claim is that the AD ban of religious discussions are hard to handle because of this, and this creates threads that are religious in the nature, but at the same time, belivers are not allowed to tell their versions. That's all I'm saying, nothing more or less. I think the fact we are discussing something like this in the thread, and not which mindset is superior, is the reason Reba have been allowed to make "religious" replies, but not sure. There is a religious ban policy on AD, so you know.

You have been allowed to express that your worldview is superior, as it includes some math that you claim some religions don't. This is an example of how the religious ban on AD allows seculars to express how right they are and how wrong religious people are, while religious people aren't allowed to explain why their faith is the best one. This is close to ethical monoism, and as unappealing as ethical relativism.

I'm a agnostic atheist, btw.

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jillio

Hate is not innate. It is a learned emotional response.

Banjo

I beg to differ, hatred is a learned emotional and behavioural trait.

StSapphire

I'm confused, then. On this specific topic, do you think that homophobia is (exclusively?) based upon religious thinking? And if you think it is, do you think that that religious thinking is traceable to pre-religion thought processes (ie a non-religious foundation)?

And for that last point, that's often merely mentioned because so many religious people make some sort of claim that their holy book wasn't written by humans, but that it "came from God" and does not contain influences from wicked, sinful humans, as a basis for its infallibility.

It does matter where the basis is. If a religious mind set is man-made, then there are non-religious explanations and we can discuss those. If the religious mind set is purely "divine" or otherwise not "of man", then it's purely a religious discussion, just as much as asking whether the host during a Catholic mass is really Jesus's flesh or if it's just a cracker.

And of note - we've discussed all sorts of things, including each others' opinions on who is "right" and why (well, as far as I can tell, you've refrained from posting what your own opinion is, but nobody except yourself is preventing you from having done so).

I'm well aware of the policy, and it would appear that the primary injunction is "keep it civil and don't get personal", (which, to the best of my knowledge, we've been doing here) with a bit of leeway appearing to be allowed since we're specifically in the "On-topic Debates" forum, which seems to be given much more leniency than, say, the Current Events or General Chat sections.

Uh... everyone who expresses their opinion thinks that their worldview is superior to the ones they don't hold. If they did think someone else's opinion was superior... presumably, they would hold that opinion, then.

However, I didn't explain (in very much detail, at least) how my worldview was formed or "defend" it in much of any way, other than saying "well, duh I think I'm right". That was no more "preaching secularism" than Reba being allowed to say that she thinks homosexual activity is immoral because God says so.

Why? (No, not being flippant, I'm actually curious why.)

Reba

Yes, I know that each church can have its own set of doctrines and statement of faith. However, Camping has specifically said that he believes the church age is over, and that, in his opinion, the faithful shouldn't belong to any church.

That's why I use the term para-church. It's an organization that fulfills some of the functions of a church but not completely.

StSapphire

Sorry, that bit you quoted was in response to your comment about Billy Graham, not Camping. Or at least, I thought your comment I was responding to was about Graham (and infant baptisms).

StSapphire

I think you made the same mistake I've almost done several times, we seem to be mixing up this topic and the one about Camping,

Reba

Sorry about that. I'm bouncing back and forth on these posts and threads too much.

About Graham and baptism: Yes, independent churches can set their own doctrines. However, if Graham claims to be a Southern Baptist preacher, then he's not an independent and he should be following SBC doctrines. As far as I know, SBC doctrine still teaches that baptism is for believers only, and that would exclude infants. (I'm not a member of SBC, so I don't keep up with all their changes but I doubt that they've changed on that one.)

Reba

StSapphire

Haha, I know the feeling.

Ah. Yeah, I dunno how that stuff all works. It's well beyond both my level of interest and caring, lol. That was just my slight 0.01 cents (not 1 cent, but 1/100th of a cent) based on the minuscule knowledge that I had, lol.

jillio

Back to homosexualty: a naturally occurring phenomenon or a sinful choice?

deafskeptic

People don't always follow doctrines to the letter and i assume that's the case here.

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Reba

The doctrine of believer's baptism is what makes a Baptist a Baptist. Infant baptism vs. believer's baptism is not a minor difference of not following to the letter. A Baptist preacher knows the significance of the difference. That's why I'm surprised about Graham. I knew he had compromised a lot in recent decades but I didn't know that he also quit following the doctrine of baptism. He's really changed since his early evangelistic years.