" I don't hate gay people, and God doesn't hate them either...but it's up to them to follow what the Bible says instead of their own selfish desires"

^ this line has me so confused. so this person does not have a problem with gay people.....but feels that they have selfish desires??? WHAT???

...are basing their values and morality on that piece of crap literature, there is no hope. Words written by a bunch of self loathing, repressed old men thousands of years ago that tell everyone to hate their genitals, hate gays, women, and anything else that is not part of the patriarchal power structure cannot be upheld as "the whole truth" by any sane person in this day and age. Sorry to all the Christians out there that aren't full of hate but your book was meant to be the whole package. Take it or leave it but don't preach your hypocritical views to me. When people take responsibility for their own right and wrong by thinking for themselves, then there is hope. This includes all the organized religions of the world.

Rant over.

I say we take the warning labels off everything and let nature take it's course.

There, I said it.

Religion is nothing more than the worship of Death, turning an inability to deal with the finiteness of life into a sick cult..

....that I sounded so heavy handed. But all of the fundy wing nuts I've ever encountered are thumping on the new testament not the old. The nit wit holding a "hate" sign as my town pride parade goes by is clutching a new testament to his chest. If it's all open for interpretation then what the heck's the point? Make up your own code of ethics and then live a good life, is what I say.

I say we take the warning labels off everything and let nature take it's course.

According to the makers of the Implicit Association Test the percent of Americans that have a prejudice against gay people is 68%.  That's approximately the same number that voted for state constitutional amendments banning same-sex couples marriage rights.  Coincidence?  The makers of the test also said that people with implicit prejudice against gay people are much more likely to say it openly and act on it than for any other group (blacks, Jews, women etc.).

You can take the sexuality version of the Implicit Association Test as well as a number of other bias tests here.

Dismissing religion as an entity of complete worthlessness is both foolhardy and impractical. All of our ancient literature, our original moral systems, our philosophical tracts are, essentially or in one way after another, religious texts. Religion is like any given tool in this world, or any given thing, really. It's a system of belief, and taken to an extreme, it is damaging. Not taking it all can be damaging as wel, but using it in moderation can create a better world and enrich the lives of billions of people.

One of the reasons I am so fond of my own religion, Judaism, is that part of our shtick is to question God's will. The heart and soul of the Torah (old testament) is a philosophy of life, one that is based on love and law. I think Rabbi Hillel said it best, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and study it." I mean, there is this thing called the Golden Rule, and it shows up in nearly every religion on the planet, and that's basically it, do unto others as you want done unto you. All the other crap has been added by haters, and should be ignored. Bigotry can still be alive and well without religion. Racism was originally justified by religion (and proto-anthropology like Cecil Rhodes idea that Africans have less brain space than Europeans) but it's still thriving in places without any religious justification, at least in America. I know there are places where racism is still religious motivated, or at least benefits from persecution, but over all, if people want to hate, they will hate with whatever tools they have at their disposal, and ignore anything that stands in the way of their hate.

Religions have their rules because of how life was back when they were created. What's important now is to move forward with a modern sensibility in regards to religion, to take what is applicable and what is not to leave behind. Dismissing religion as an entire entity cannot be done, and doing so is counter-productive. You attract more flies with honey than vinegar, or somesuch. And religion has a great deal to offer us, it's through religion that most of our greatest and beautiful art came about (and just how much of it was created by gay men we may never know, but the contributions we have made historically are massive in this realm) and even if we no longer need religious dogma to survive the next wave of Caananite attacks, or something, dismissing so callously something that billions cling to with fervor just doesn't make sense to me.

My belief in God is pretty ontological. I believe that the idea of God exists, and while that does not mean that God exists per se, I think it's undeniable that the idea of God does, and how powerful are ideas? They seem fairly omnipotent to me, and to a certain degree ineffable because how well can we truly know each other's concept of a deity? Ideas can shake the world, and the ideas of religion have more than once. I would not give up the Torah, the gospels, the Bagahvad Gita, the Ramayana, the Tao te Ching, the Illiad etc... for anything. It's part of our history, and part of us, and it's going to be part of our future. Learning to work with religion and to have respect for it is important, because it's not going away. As always, feel free to disagree with me.

 The older I get the less I believe in, magic, ghosts, UFO's ~ God! I miss that not believing! And I used to be Agnostic but I am slowly moving towards being an Atheist. Seems like, since the menopause hit, I have a much lower threshold for BS. AH, the many prices of getting old!

"You bit the hand, Marty, You bit the hand!"

. . .or has Proctor & Gamble totally forgotten that it was these conservatives types that accused them of their moon-and-three-stars logo was the mark of Satan back in the 1980's???

I remember that brouhaha well. . .

*sigh!*

Been there, done that, bought the soundtrack!

...for your thoughful post on religion. I do, however, feel compelled to disagree with you. At this time in history, millions of people are breaking free of the mind and thought control attributed to organized religion with intelligent and rational free thinking. The deceit of the institution by influencing all aspects of peoples lives with hypocrisy, doctrine corrupted by centuries of translation, murder for any who choose free thinking and domineering patriarchy is being exposed for what it really is. The destruction of indigenous religions alone is an example of the horrific atrocities committed by those in the name of their god. The Inquisition continues in different and more insidious ways but still continues. Christianity used any means to convert the common folk by hijacking their own festivals and traditions and weaving them into the christian dogma and when they couldn't convince them, they resorted to the sword, the gun, the bomb. The worst wars of this planet have been fought over "god's word" and are still being fought every day on every corner of the planet. The Hindus and Sikhs, the Catholics and Protestants, the Jews and Muslims, (Muslims and just about everyone) are only a few examples. You can argue that it's only the extremists but the fact that millions upon millions of people cling to their religion with fear based reasoning, using the bible as their only tool of understanding, as opposed to intellectual investigation and discernment of the natural world is not enrichment of those lives. It's terrorism.

Now this is not spirituality. I am not dismissing spirituality as an important facet of human existance. When all people evolve to understand the thread of energy that connects all things animal, plant, mineral on this planet and beyond, when they can feel that intense connection and realise that for every thought and action is reflected back at them, then there is hope. Each person can welcome deity into themselves in whatever form they envision, god/goddess or the creator. Each must come to understand the balance of light and dark, that for each incident of the rot of death comes the fecundity of birth. Night for day, sorrow for joy, ignorance for enlightenment.

The hope for our future is true individual spirituality where each person recognises that God is only *their own* god, and not anyone elses. In this enlightenment, bigotry will cease to have power.

I expect many to disagree with me, this debate will rage on and on. But that in itself is part of the evolution of the human species.

I say we take the warning labels off everything and let nature take it's course.

....Mark Morford says this from today's blog. He says these things quite well...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/03/05/notes030508.DTL&nl=fix

I say we take the warning labels off everything and let nature take it's course.