josie68






Yep, you don't know til you've been there.

And if you kill them in self defense, or or have them killed... you can end up in jail for life.

And yet if a total stranger comes into your house you can shoot them legally.

..unless you are married to them.

I was attacked one night while walking home from work and the first thing the policeman asked me was if I knew the attacker.

No, I didn't.

Bottom line, I soon learned that it is actually safer to be unmarried because you have MORE RIGHTS.

Truly.

Yes, of course many things come together to influence something like this. It remains true, however, that both religious and nationalistic fervor have been very successful contributors to motivating atrocious actions. The fact that 'other factors' also contribute doesn't change this.

Cowboy,

In a perfect world that might work but most men are not that responsible or perfect.

I would have loved to have found a man who was smart and kind and responsible enough to be a "leader." What I found were men who were not responsible. They were more like over
overbearing blood sucking parasites. And when the going got rough, the man would look to me to pull us out of the fine mess he had gotten us into. Yet he still wanted to pretend to be the "leader" or the "head of the house."

You have to earn that title. It does not come just because you are a man.

So I found that being alone and single was a hell of a lot easier.

Are you sure you wheren't married to my ex.

Thanks jeannie and Abracadabra, it does frustrate me when people look down on you like you are some little weak thing who doesnt have the sense to see they are in trouble.
Sometimes I would just love to be able to send people back and put them in my shoes, so they could see what they would really do.
This is part of the reason I would never judge someone, as you just dont know what they have lived through.

So you say.

Can you show us where it says in the Bible that single women should have equal rights with men?

Because it's pretty clear that the opposite can be found all through the Bible. Women are "sold" as wives in the Bible and have no say over who they are sold to. Can you site and example of where a man is ever sold as a husband to a woman with no choice in the matter?

In the Bible even when a man has sex with an unmarried virgin and is caught he must "purchase" her for 50 sheckles from her father (not even from her Mother!)

It's male chauvinism all through the Bible. Women aren't permitted to speak out on important social matters in church. And the churches were the political arena in those days. So the Bible was basically saying that women are to have no input on social politics (i.e. NO VOTE).

Yet you're renouncing what the Bible teaches in your above quote!

Which "Bible" are you talking about? Certainly not the Christian Bible!

So if you are a young man who wants to be the "leader" and wants to be "responsible" in your relationship, grow up, get a job, and provide for your family. You aren't going to get by with your good looks.

If you want a wife to be a wife, to raise your children, then provide for her, care for her, respect her. Don't demand obedience or make her into your slave.

Yes, I have an attitude, this is true. My message to most men is "GROW UP!" Stop looking for a replacement for your mama. Stop looking for a servant or slave. Be responsible, respectful and kind and loving. Be a good provider. Don't be a bloodsucking abusive dysfunctional vampire.

And for young women, don't be so spoiled and demanding or controlling. If you have a good man, appreciate him.

This is advice from a wise OLD woman... divorced twice and plan to stay single forever. I'm done with all of that.

And take advice from a twice divorced middle aged mum of 6..
Do what jeanie said cause she is right..

i dont think the bible condones or promotes the topics of loans or voting,(although it does DESCRIBE debts and how they should be handled), so IM not sure how this applies in any case,,

Well, there can be no doubt that it has women being "sold" as wives, that implies that they are then the "property" of man.

That implication alone is pretty demeaning as far as I can see.

How you people can support these ancient social traditions in the name of a "god" is beyond me.

And the fact that women weren't supposed to speak out in church was indeed the same thing as saying that they have "no vote". Because the churches were the places where the men would assemble to decide how they should interpret the scripture by which their society should LIVE.

What you people don't seem to truly comprehend is that these ancient religious beliefs of these Hebrews was their POLITICS at that time! They were using religion to create the LAWS that they must live by and pretending that their religion was the "Word of God" that no man can refute, and that no woman is even allowed to have a SAY in.

It was absolutely a demand that WOMEN HAVE NO VOTE!

That's precisely what it was. They have no voice in the discussions of interpretations of their "scriptures" which at that time was actually serving as their LAW.

Religion WAS politics in those days.

Well the idea of a woman voting back then would have been laughed at. A woman was more like a piece of property or a slave. Sold as wives, with no say even who she would marry most of the time. Women who spoke their minds were often murdered by the church. Even TODAY in some cultures a man is expected to keep his woman quiet and sometimes woman are killed for disgracing the family. Christianity is a male dominated society. I still see evidence for this in my own parents generation.

Things are changing fast. The church even claims that when women begin asserting their power and dominance it will be the beginning of the end of the Church's power... hence the end of male dominance. They attribute this development to the anti-Christ and indeed it is, because anti-Christ means anti-Christianity.

There is a lot more to this scene than you suspect. You will notice women of the next generation are naturally more dominant, and the men will be naturally more subservient to women. The female will be worshiped as the female deity becomes the dominant force of religion.

religion was not so broadly defined as it has become now, if it was defined at all

there were customs and traditions AND the word of God, all customs and traditions did not have to come from God to be existent or covered in the Bible

so what that men bought women, the evils we associate with money and the way we look at women NOW hamper our ability to consider any other type of mentality,,but the truth is the man had to be a provider, HAD TO BE , paying the family was a great indicator of how well he was able to be such a provider,, it doesnt require that man to see the woman as property, anymore than a man who takes a woman to a fancy dinner or on a fancy vacation is necessarily considering her 'property'

OUR current egos make it impossible to fathom having such an arrangement, but the culture worked for the environment and resources available during those times

Even today, IF I have a man who is going to cherish and provide and protect, I have no issue with his having the AUTHORITY over the household,,,not merely because he is born with a penis but because of the RESPONSIBILITIES he has agreed to take on as a consequence,,

this idea of women being property being an automatic indication of their inferiority, is not thinking that is alluded to in the Bible, it is the interjection of modern mentality regarding women and how it must therefore have been the same mentality with the men and women of those times,,

in any case though, no mention of voting in elections in the bible as that was not yet a custom


There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ then you are… heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:28-29).

I would be the very FIRST to agree with your view stated above.

But can you not see how that very observation destroys the doctrine entirely.

The reason being quite simple.

If you conceded that the Bible is a mixture of social customs and traditions AND the word of God, then all a gay person needs to do to validate their sexuality in the name of God, is to simply reject the part of the Bible that claims that God hates homosexuality as being a part of the bible that is mere social customs and traditions of the time.

Because that's basically what you are doing for the PARTS of the bible that you prefer to reject as mere "social customs of the time".

So once the doctrine has been recognized to basically be contaminated with the social traditions and opinions of men who lived at the time they wrote this stuff, then it become virtually meaningless as a doctrine that could be said to be "God instructions to mankind"

So you can't get anywhere with that argument, other than renounce the validity of your own religious doctrine.

All your saying is that each individual must choose which PARTS of the Bible are the "Word of God" and which PARTS are mere opinions of men that can be ignored or rejected.

~~~~~~

Given that freedom I choose the following:

1. The story of Adam and Eve is a PART of the bible made up by men.
2. The story of the Great Flood is a PART of the bible made up by men.
3. The story of Jesus having been born of a virgin is made up by men.
4. The story of God speaking from a cloud is made up by men.
5. The story that Jesus rose from the dead is made up by men.

Where does this approach end?

I may as well just dismiss the whole thing as being made up by men if I'm going take that approach.

we can dismiss or accept whatever we want. My doctrine, as you call it , is in tact. It is a resource for learning which includes Gods commands, Jesus sermons, and the customs and traditions of those who lived in the time. I learn from the direct words of God and Jesus, and I also learn from the experiences of the people who lived in the times. Some actions seemed to end well for them, I would not be hesitant to emulate those actions. Some actiosn didnt end too well and I would be hesitant to duplicate those.

There is debate on why sodom was destroyed , and what is meant by 'sexually immoral' behavior, which Jesus condemned.

I believe it refers to homosexual activity, and so I err on the side of steering clear of it.

Is that the only reason? Are you saying that if it wasn't for a religious taboo against it you would personally find it appealing?

I'm personally not attracted to the idea of being sexual with another man. It's just not something that personally interests me. Therefore I'm simply not interested in that behavior. I don't "avoid" it on moral grounds. I'm simply not interested in it.

However, if I were sexually drawn to other men, then I would highly question any religion that claims that God would be against something that I would feel so natural drawn to.

This is why I don't "judge" other people's homosexual desires or lifestyles. Clearly they must be drawn to them. Surely they aren't just doing something they aren't interested in to "spite" some God who commands them that they shouldn't do this.

There mere fact that some people claim to truly be drawn to and in love with other members of their own sex must have "merit", based on the above observations.

Unless they truly are just lying about it and they don't even like the act themselves and are just doing it to "spite" a religion or God.

I find that hard to believe.

Hi Message,
We had this discussion quite some time ago and I've learned a great deal since then. I argued then, that atheism is neither strong, mediam or weak - it is simply having a lack of faith in any particular god-head model.

The main point being that there are multitudes of definitions of and characteristics assigned to the various god-heads that people tend to put their faith in. The fact is that we don't have all the answers to all the questions that perplex humanity, but I don't consider that to be a reason to choose one of the many thousands of man-made religions.

I am an athiest - my faith runs to the depth of believing that there are many unknowns, and that the emergent qualities that are charateristic of a universe in constant flux and motion, will continue to keep humans clueless until our present state is no longer recognizable - whether the reason will be extinction or evolution.

Some poeple tend to think, as many studies have claimed, that 'belief' is a motivator of behavior. Actually, I think cognitive dissonance is the motivator because it makes us choose to adjust belief or behavior so we can be happy with ourselves.

The only behavior that my faith invokes is the desire to keep searching for knowledge and greater inforamtion in an effort to discover more about the unknown. While faith, that is guided by the model of a god-head, often seeks to explain things in ways that make it acceptable for individuals to stop seeking knowledge and (or) to avoid or discredit any information that might conflict (cause cognitive dissonance) with the god-head doctrine.

I consider my way, as an athiest, considerably more open to all the possibilities, while others think that I am entirely too 'closed' to god-head beliefs only becasue I am far more discerning as to what I consider to be information that has test-retest ability and has been proven to be consistent, valid, and reliable.

Perhaps it's the staunch requirements of proof that lead you to think that atheism is some type of continuum that can be adopted by degrees. I don't think there is anything in the traditional definition of atheism to indicate it has degrees of 'lackings', one either has or lacks, and sometimes people questions if they have or have not but that's a different word altogether.

Bummer I am getting a little tired of having to agree with you all.
I do believe the Bible and have faith in God, I have no idea why and dont really want to know. and I seem to be continually agreing with the wrong side of this debate.

There cannot be two sides.
If God is God then he knew that we would be reading his word hundreds of years down the track.
Would it just be relevant to the times.. No that cant be otherwise his word is completely useless.
Is his word changeable ,,, Nope it cant be otherwise it is still useless.

So whether you believe or dont you have to still say that it would carry through time.

If God is the Alpha and the omega the beginning and the end, then he knew the mess that we would make of the world and the dumb things we would do.. There is no point in him being God if he doesnt know.

This. It makes no sense that God would give us attractions to someone of the same sex only to tell us we couldn't use them ever. God makes no such mistakes, if someone has attractions towards the same sex, they were born as such just as those who have attractions towards the opposite sex, or those that have attractions to both.

And even if there WERE other factors that may influence same sex attractions, that's not the fault of the people that have them so we shouldn't be judging them. Not like they chose it, it just happened one way or the other. Straights don't choose to be attracted to the opposite sex, so what makes you think gays or lesbians do?

Well, I'm basically agreeing with you on that. I don't thing gays or lesbians "choose" to be attracted to each other, it's just their natural desire.

Moreover, I see absolutely no "harm" in it.

And even Jesus used this kind of excuse when the Pharisees accused him of healing people by the power of Satan. Jesus said that nothing good can come from Satan lest Satan be divided and his kingdom fall.

Well, there's no "harm" in people of the same gender loving each other and being sexually intimate with each other. Therefore it cannot have come from Satan. It can only have come from God.

Besides, the biblical tales in their totality are a bit paradoxical when it come to this issue. From what I understand most everything I've read about God's angels is that they are bisexual. They can't have anything but homosexual sex if they are bisexual.

So if God is so homophobic why did he create homosexual angels?