If someone is offended by another's words, why not just simply ask for clarification in order to see if the reason that the words were said match the reasons they seemed offensive?



That has all kinds of benefits attached to it.

So now you get to judge what examples are appropriate too?

No, I won't follow those biased rules... To counter the OP's claim that religious people themselves judge instead of leaving it to God, I had to prove that non-religious people judge too. I've already stated that my morals do NOT come from a book and my point is to prove that all people judge.

So with that, I'll pick underage sex and marriage. (will this be judged as being "irrelevant"?)

I know it "offends your sensibilities", but why?
Is it religious morals?
Is it human morals?
Or is it because everyone else is offended by it that you are too?


For the record, you do understand the Constitution was agreed upon by a group of people, right? It was then amended, several times, by groups of people. So one shouldn't hold the Constitution up so high, it is after all, based solely on opinion.

I find it amusing that those who cry about the "religious" judging others do more judging than the "religious" around here.

Oh my...

To respond, specifically to the OP, here is one possible conclusion.

From various historical perspectives regarding the time of Jesus, religion was not a concern of the Roman Empire unless it contained subversive elements which could threaten the peace and power of the Empire.

At the time of Jesus, the Hebrew law could be practiced and Jews who held to their Hebrew heritage agreed to be subject to those laws. However, the hierarchy of Hebrew law like our current States in the U.S. was limited in how far they could enforce their law on Roman citizens, which included the Jews under Roman jurisdiction.

The Jewish hierarchy viewed Jesus and the following he was building as an extreme threat to their religious values but they were restricted on the action they could take to stop Jesus. So they took it further by attempting to prove that what Jesus was doing was undermining the peace and power of the Empire.

Supposedly this is what led to the crucifixion of Jesus.

Now back to the present and the OP.

When the values of the Jewish hierarchy, which were strictly based on religious belief, were threatened but their power to take action was insufficient to intercede, they solicited the power of the Empire to help them enforce their moral law. Of course, at that time, the people had almost no power to ‘change’ the laws of the Empire, so their only option was to prove Jesus was a threat to the Empire itself.

Could we relate this to the questions of the OP?

I think there is enough similarity between the biblical story of Jesus, historical data, and the present situation in the U.S. to generalize.

First, our Constitution indicates that people may practice their choice of religion within the confines of Federal and State law. Of these laws, we understand that States are limited in power as their laws cannot override or interfere with Federal law.

Today we are not dealing with any single religious hierarchy, but rather with all the people who subscribe to a moral and judgmental law derived through their religious belief.

Since the religious factions are limited in how much power they have to enforce their particular moral code, like the Jewish hierarchy, they are soliciting the governmental powers to help them in their efforts.

We would not be so harsh on such action, in our current situation, if there were not other factors which tend to show that the hypocrisy of taking this action would only reflect the same hypocrisy in our Federal law. It is the purpose of the Constitution and all the laws extending from it, to prevent such hypocrisy from existing in the law.

What is the hypocrisy?

First, that within the same religious moral code is scriptures which state that the all who rule are working with the consent of God. They are in place to fulfill the will of God. Therefore, while adhering to the religious moral code is important, it is perhaps with greater priority that the same people bow to the laws of the land under which they live.

That our country allows law to be added, or amended, often at the behest of popular social conformity, there may be some argument from the religious faction that God has given them the right to bring their moral code to bear on the law of the land.

However, secondly and perhaps more to the OP’s point, there is still the one religious moral that is more often invoked than any other – Thou shall not judge.

So the question then becomes, if religious moral code is allowed to be reflected in our Federal laws, would the religious people then be the ones actually doing the judging, or would it be the State?

Perhaps that’s the view of the religious population, like the Roman-Jews, they cannot enforce their own brand of morality on non-believers but by making that morality a part of the law of the land, they would not be judging. In both cases of God’s law, ‘to follow the law of the land’ and ‘not to judge’ THEY HAVE WASHED THEIR HANDS of God’s judgment upon them as individuals.

It’s almost impossible to make believers see the lack of logic in the above, or to even make any connection between the story of Jesus and the current situation.

So we are forced to make other arguments.

The most elemental argument we, non-believers, have to put forth is the attempt to show the unethical results of including religious moral codes into a law that was created to govern a vast diversity of people and their beliefs. The law, in this case, must be a generalization that protects the rights of this vast diversity and as such this generalized law MUST necessarily limit the power of individual and groups, such as religions so that a particular brand of religiously defined moral is not forced upon those who do not accept that moral code.

Therefore, non-believers, not only have every right to require logical substantiation of any ethical changes suggested for the law of the land, but we also have the responsibility, as citizens, to protect the rights of our diverse culture.

So when the substantiation of requested changes in law conclude solely from religious moral, we must determine if that moral can be generalized in the law of the land such that the rights of all people will not be limited further.

At this point, there have been no substantial arguments or evidence submitted to indicate that religious moral code should be introduced into the law of the land, not in the same-sex marriage debate, nor in any other debate that I am aware of.

True. And as we continually try to justify things that have no immediate harm. We are simultaniously breaking down the moral and spiritual values of our society.

"All the ways of man are clean in his own eyes but the LORD weigheth the spirits." Proverbs 16:2

"There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death (pestilence or ruin)."
Proverbs 16:25

And yet, life expectancies are at an all time high and in the Western world, people are healthier and freer of disease than at any time when "Holy Men" ruled or were in league with the rulers.

The verses quoted? They are PERFECT examples of humans putting a sock puppet on their proverbial hands and speaking thru it as if they were speaking for a deity.


-Kerry O.

If you want to get technical, "holy men" have recorded lifespans of 900+ years. What book have you been reading?

"Holy Men" can record _anything_ in their "Holy Books" and the guillible can yammer all they want about the veracity of things they can't prove.

In the end it all amounts to the same thing...

"...full of sound and fury, signifing nothing." -Shakespeare


-Kerry O.

Well, not only that, but a simple calculation clears things up completely. Just divide 900 by 12 and you get 75.

Still confused. Read some ancient history. It was well-known that ancient people often kept track of things using the lunar cycle rather than solar cycles because the lunar cycles are far more evident on a small scale. So those records of people being 900 "years" old, were most likely actually 900 moon cycles or months, which comes out to be about 75 years.

So the numbers recorded in those ancient stories were most likely translated into the wrong units of measure. In fact, if you study the history of mathematics you'll see that this was indeed the most likely scenario.

Also, going back to the the idea of quoting Proverbs. The author of Proverbs could not have had any clue that their writings were going to wind up in a cannon of stories that were collected together thousands of years later and proclaimed to be the "Holy Bible"

What does that mean?

Well, it should be obvious. The things that are mentioned in Proverbs do not necessarily support or imply anything else that might be written in the Biblical cannon.

People keep acting like as if the Bible is some sort of "Book". But it's not really. That's an illusion that came into being when all these stories were placed into a cannon and called the "Holy Book" or "Holy Bible". But in reality there's really no reason to believe that any of the authors of these stories had any clue that they their writings were going to end up supporting a larger cannon of stories. Stories which these particular authors may not even support at all.

I think it's also crystal clear even from the gospels themselves that Jesus did not agree with the bulk of moral values that were in the Torah, yet look at how he was made into the "Son of God". The very God that Jesus obviously didn't even agree with!

This biblical cannon of stories that has become known today as the "Holy Bible" is nothing more than a bunch of unrelated authors who may not have even supported some of the other stories in the cannon.

The gospels clearly show that Jesus most certainly didn't not.

Jesus didn't support judging others (which the Old Testament teaches people to do, because you can hardly stone a sinner to death until you've first judged them to be a sinner.

Yet Jesus did not support judging others and taught people not to judge others.

Jesus also did not support stoning sinners to death. On the contrary he objected to it using the clever trick, "He who is without sin cast the first stone", knowing FULL WELL that the religion already states that no man is without sin.

Jesus didn't support the seeking of revenge either, as taught in the old stories via an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Instead Jesus taught to turn the other cheek and forgive.

So even the story of Jesus is in total conflict with the rest of this cannon of stories.

Referring to the "Holy Bible" as the "Word of God" is a joke. It's just a collection of stories that don't even agree with each other.

So the bottom line is that even if we wanted to turn to some "Divine Knowledge" we would have no way of knowing where to find it. It most certainly can't be found in man-chosen collection of self-conflicting stories.

If there exist a "Divine Consciousness" it's way past time for that consciousness to wake up and make clear its wishes. Because the Holy Bible is a collection of horrible, gory, male-chauvinistic, and bigoted stories that even the gospels reveal that Jesus himself did not agree with.

Our creator can't be that stupid. Something's wrong, either the Bible has nothing at all to do with any "Divine Consciousness" and we need to be looking at other potential sources of wisdom, or there is no "Divine Consciousness" at all and we're all that exists in the way of "consciousness". If the latter is the case then we can be the only "judges" of what is or isn't moral.

But in any case, the Bible is OUT. It's simple too self-contradicting, and clearly highly immoral itself in many places, even by its own standards.

And did you ever notice that there's no mention of any females on that list of long-lived folks? Not really surprising, I guess, when you consider how misogynistic the early Abrahamics were. Having a few uppity crones to keep the Village Elders in check would have crimped their style, no doubt. Women were like the Red Shirts in early Star Trek episodes in the myths.

"Do what I say, or the woman gets it."

But there's another fly in the ointment re. longevity-- if Adam was really the First Man, born fully adult, who invented the calendar by which he reckoned his life clock? Did the Serpent slip him a Timex?

Inquiring minds....


-Kerry O.

I can agree with you 100% here, Redy.

I also believe that their rush to judgment at a personal level shows their lack of faith in their god to do his job and/or worse, their enjoyment of falsely justified torture of fellow humans on the fake moral stance.

Showing that man should leave judging to their god or they may suffer the hell they fear.

Excellent interpretation as well.

Aren't religious hypocrites the greatest of all oxymorons?

Jesus certainly thought so. He ranted on and on about how hypocritical the scribes and Pharisees were. But who were the scribes and Pharisees but the religious clergy of his day.

I feel totally confident that if Jesus were alive today he would be calling the Christian scribes and Pharisees hypocrites as well, and he'd rebuke almost everything they preach in HIS NAME.

When they go to cast their metaphorical stones at the homosexuals Jesus would again say, "He who is without sin cast the first stone".

People don't realize that they are indeed casting stones at other people when they judge their lifestyles. The Christians haven't learned a damn thing from Jesus. They ignore his teachings more than anyone. All they use Jesus for, is to prop up the bigotry and hatred in the Old Testament, a Testament that Jesus clearly didn't even agree with.

Saying Homosexuality is against the bible isn't judging someone. It is revealing how God sees it. And God is against it, so therefor we inform them that same gender sex is against God's will. Not saying they ARE going to hell for it, just trying to help them out by opening their eyes to their actions.

Are we missing something here? I mean, obviously the OP is questioning why people, not just Christians imo, ground judgment in religious belief. In reality all judgment is grounded in prior belief about the situation being judged. This notion underwrites the topic, although it offers more as well.

I believe 'X' means I believe 'X' is true.

Therefore we can know that we all think that we have true belief because of that and because it is humanly impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood, or knowingly make a mistake.

Because we all base our judgments on prior belief, in order for the judgment to be true, it must either be based upon true premisses and have a valid construct(be logically consistent) or be based upon false premisses and have an invalid construct(be logically inconsistent). The construct represents the line of reasoning involved. Now if the latter is the case, unless the conclusion(judgment) is self-evident and obviously(undeniably) true which needs no argument to begin with, then we must throw out the reasoning and therefore the argument as well.

So, in order to have some reasonably persuasive value, an argument(for or against) must be based upon adequate evidence and the reasoning must be logically sound. I see no such evidence for gay marriage being 'wrong' or 'immoral' because all of the evidence thus far has been based upon belief in the God of Abraham. That God, according to the words attributed to 'him' has long been shown as fallible. There is also overwhelming evidence to the contrary concerning some/many things in the Bible.

Having faith that a 2,000 plus year old piece of literature is the word of God does not constitute being adequate evidence to logically ground suppressing another's rights to be married. I mean, where and how do we verify that the Bible is the word of God, and therefore must be followed? I do not think that anyone who has read it would deny that there are some valuable things contained in it, however, we cannot believe that it is God's words simply because the book itself says so. In order to do such a thing, one must override all common sense reason in order to justify what it claims.

Faith without adequate evidence does not constitute sufficient reason to suppress another's rights to freedom, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

For those continuing on pursuing the Bible as grounds by which to draw conclusions(judgment), the Bible must be proven to be the word of God. The evidence must be adequate, that is real and true. Obviously the Bible is a real book. That is not in question. It even happens to refer to some real events, that is not in question either. It needs to be shown as being the word of God in order to base judgment upon it's contents.

If "The Bible is the word of God" can be reasonably and logically demonstrated as being true, I'll grant the rest.

Total nonsense.What did Jesus tell the woman who was about to be stoned "Sin no more".What would Jesus have done or said if that woman went right back to being a prostitute?He would be upset and I doubt he would even say anything to her and walked away.

You are the one who doesn't understand Jesus and his teachings.You will not find a single verse where Jesus accepts or embraces sin including those people he chose to associate with.Everywhere he went he was telling people to change their ways,turn away from sin,do what God commands you to do.


Why don't you ponder these questions...

Would Jesus keep unrepentant sinners as friends and associates?

Would Jesus ever approve of people living a sinful lifestyle such as homosexuals,liars,thief's,etc?

Did Jesus ever tell anyone that any or all sins from the Old testament were no longer sins?Did Jesus ever say any sins were null and void for what ever reason?

Did Jesus ever has conflicts or disagreements with God or the Old testament?

Was not everything Jesus spoke of coming from the Old testament?


If Christians are judging people using the bible to determine who is immoral and moral and who is evil and who is good are you saying Jesus would tell us what we were doing was wrong?Would Jesus say we should never use the hundreds of biblical verses he specifically told us to use to avoid sin,unrepentant sinners,temptation,people who do evil works,and others?


If Jesus was here today on this planet he would be saying the exact same things he said over 2,000 years ago.

Do what the bible tells you to do.
Do not associate with sinful,evil,and unholy people.
Do not sin and if you do confess your sin and do not do it again.
Follow the ten commandments.
etc,etc,etc,.

What "Overwhelming evidence to the contrary concerning some/many things in the Bible" are you speaking about?

Your turning this topic into something so simple into something so complex it is like a dog chasing his own tail.

I have said this many,many,times that you keep making this a religious issue when clearly it is a problem the entire world is dealing with.I keep saying that because you have countries all over the world who do not approve of gay marriage or anything gay related many of them are Atheist including the biggest one in the world.

You are also dodging something you and the other gay rights can't seem to understand or admit.That the only nations that are tolerate of gays and gay marriage are Christian ones.Considering you have a overwhelming majority of Christians living in America and certainly with out a doubt over 50% of the population.You have to come to the conclusion that any issue concerning gay marriage or any gay issue will be left to the Christians to decide since they will always have the majority of the vote.Gay marriage has been voted on at least 30 times in various states and struck down every time it was voted on.However many of these votes were extremely tight with sometimes only a few percentage points different.

Christians are voting in favor of gay marriage even though they should not be doing so nearly half the time.And to blame Christians for the problems of gay marriage is a flat out lie since if all the Christians were against gay marriage you would see at least 70% voting against it.If gay marriage will ever be legal then it would have been the result of Christians voting for it.


Since you can't seem to understand why other countries including Atheist countries are against homosexuality I will spell it out for you.

They think it is unnatural.
They blame gay men for the Aids crisis and believe they are spreading the disease.
The thought of sodomy between two men is repulsive.
They do not like the idea of having a gay bar or club in their neighborhood.
Straight men feel uncomfortable in mens locker rooms and taking showers next to a horny gay man.
The idea of a man dressing like a woman and talking like a woman is unnatural and gives the entire neighborhood a bad image.
Women dressing like men and acting like men is strange and not acceptable.
Gays can't have children.
Gays don't ask but demand you accept them.
Gays believe they are special,above the law,and should have more rights then straight people.

Oh absolutely.

The Old Testament taught that people should judge others and stone sinners to death.

But Jesus was in total conflict with that. Jesus taught not to judge others and only those who are without sin should cast the first stone. But that second part basically states not to ever stone anyone sinners because the assumption of this entire religion is that no mortal man can even be sin free.

The Old Testament also taught that people should seek revenge via an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

But Jesus was in total conflict with that. Jesus taught to turn the other cheek instead and to offer forgiveness rather than seeking revenge.

So Jesus wasn't anyone near being in agreement with the teachings of the Old Testament.



No not at all. If you look closely at the moral values that Jesus taught they are more in line with the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism and completely opposite of what had been taught in the Old Testament.

Jesus didn't support the moral values of the Old Testament at all.

I agree completely.

In fact, as far as I'm concerned "the Bible" (which is actually a collection of conflicting stories) has already been proven to be false. So waiting around for it to be proven to be the "Word of God" would be a total waist of time.

Not ONE person yet has been able to show these things of which you call conflicting stories. And what has been proven false? Noting in the bible can be "proven" false or true.