New member answers questions (countryboy)

[OkToBeTakei]

I said I would come back and answer so, here I am. For many reasons I did not come back, I do have a life beyond the internet, and the past months have been some of the hardest in my life as far as losses, such as my dear Grandfather's recent passing, and to be really honest, coming on here was not in my mind ;).

First off, I should have defined this discussion more at the beginning. I intended to provide sort of an "ask a fundy forum" where you could ask why we believe certain things we believe. It seems that it has gone way beyond that, more of a place for you to shred what I believe and attack me. Go ahead and shred what I believe, that is okay, but I came to answer questions, if you accuse or shred me, don't expect me to respond. I am happy to answer questions, but I will not bother with answering attacks. If I know this place well enough to say so, the above paragraph will not be taken lightly, but, hey I am one guy here, there are a bunch of you, I've got to make some rules ;)

This will come off as an insult, I write my blog for Christians, and well, Christians understand what I write. You guys don't. That is okay, we view the world from completely different perspectives. I don't pretend that I understand your perspectives on things. If what I write doesn't make sense to you, remember that you see the world from a very different perspective, and therefore you get a totally different message than I intended. I only understand this fully now, a Christian can read something I wrote and come away with the exact meaning I intended, when you guys read that same post, you get a completely different meaning. It is pretty shocking actually, lol. Like my Anne Frank post. I never intended to blame her death on her. Not at all. I was trying to encourage people to never give up on life, just fight on, even if you are terminally ill, fight as long as you can. That is all.

Some got confused about my stating that you get rid of a male animal that mates males. I would never get rid of a male animal because he mated a male, that is fairly normal on a farm. Occasionally you get a male that only mates males, and yes, we do get rid of them. Sorry for the confusion. A bit of a side note on this subject, male animals do not mate each other if they are in the presence of sufficient numbers of females. In my experience, unless they are one of the rare males that only mates males, they only mate each other when they are confined away from females or have insufficient numbers of females.

Below is some questions y'all asked, and my answers.

[beginquote=formergothardite]I don't comment on people's blogs. I find it difficult to follow conversations when they are in blog comments. He is the one bragging about how manly he is, we have a whole thread talking about his blog, he can feel free to read what sort of light on the hill for Christ he is being to us ungodly heathens and if we are wrong about him, correct us here. Though, honestly, I find him so scary I really wouldn't want him to come. No one will ban him from coming, but his blog makes him look like a serial killer who would murder me and my whole family with glee.

Your opinion, a man posing that way, modest or not? Can women pose in jeans like that, the things that draw the eyes being the rear and the friends that are posed between the legs, and still be modest?[/endquote]

In my opinion, I don't like the pose, though to me there is nothing immodest about it.

[beginquote=anniec]I have moose photos somewhere! They were taken at Skansen Park in Stockholm though and I was behind the safety fence, so that may not count... :P

Country Boy, is God's Country Boy a friend of yours then? How close are you? Was he startled to hear that you inadvertently turned him in to Free Jinger?

We are friends, more like acquaintances, by societal standards. Actually he was excited and was considering joining, but he has been too busy for even blogging, much less coming to a forum.

[queote=ShesCrafty][queote=CountryBoy] by my religion I cannot accept sodomy, and by your religion, you cannot accept that I don't accept sodomy, so, we are both exclusive. [/queote]

Your post was long, so I'm just going to address the above quote for now.

1. Sodomy =\= homosexuality. Many heterosexual couples engage in sodomy. You should learn to use the correct terms if you want to be taken seriously.

2. I'm not religious. At all. I've never been to any type of religious service ever. So it's not my "religion", it's by morality, humanity, and compassion for my fellow human beings that makes your homophobia disgusting to me. NOT religion.

3. I encourage you to go to the Snark forum and read the thread on the man who was beaten and burned to death in Mississippi. Authorities believe it is because he was gay. While I don't mean to imply you would ever do anything violent, just realize that your beliefs on homosexuality are the same as the person who perpetrated this horrible crime. Something to think about.[/endquote]

On number one, that is actually a new on for me, never occurred to me that a heterosexual would also engage in sodomy. Either way, it is still sodomy.

Number two: "Religion : an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group" By that you are religious.

Number three: There are bad apples in every bin. Just because someone who believes a certain way does something awful doesn't make everyone who believes that way bad, and it certainly doesn't mean that that belief would lead to violence. The atheist Nazis killed millions in WWII, but I know that most atheists would be very upset if I rephrased your above warning like this: "While I don't mean to imply you would ever do anything violent, just realize that your belief that there is no god is the same as the person who perpetrated this crime."

(Quote formergotherdite) I have no problem accepting that your beliefs is that sodomy(by the way I have had that, does that mean that my marriage is no longer valid?) is against your religion. In fact I would do absolutely nothing to stop you from believing and teaching that in your church. I do not believe you should have to be gay, I do not believe that your church should have to support and perform gay marriages. Therefore I am not forcing my beliefs on you. I do not want to change your beliefs at all, I just want to know why they are forced on the rest of us.

So then we are back to the fact that you say your beliefs must be forced on people who are gay.

Let me spell this out in an easy way for you:

Church A believes that being gay is a sin.

Church B believes that being gay is not a sin.

Church A would not marry a gay couple.

Church B would marry gay couples and have many in their congregation whose religious beliefs dictate that they get married.

Church B would not force Church A to marry gay couples

Church A WOULD force Church B to not be able to marry gay couples even though it is acceptable part of their religion.

Therefore church A is forcing their religious beliefs on Church B and Church B is not forcing their religious beliefs on Church A.

You are church A, you are forcing your religious beliefs onto other churchs. (End Quote)

Actually, I do not believe in forcing my beliefs on others. Church A is wrong, they can do what they want on their grounds, but they have no right to force the other church to do the same. Just as that church has no right to force them to perform gay marriages. What is your opinion on the recent case of a photographer refusing to photograph a lesbian wedding on religious grounds and getting sued and ruined because of it? Doesn't any business or person have the right to refuse to perform a service for whomever they choose? It is their loss, they lose money if they don't perform the service.

[formergothardite]

The photographer violated anti-discrimination laws. Do you think businesses should be able to discriminate based on the color of their skin because of their religious beliefs? It has been in my life time that I have seen the idea of mixed race couples being a sin gone from being commonly taught in churches to being not commonly taught in churches. And there are still people who feel like mixed race marriages are wrong in God's eyes. There really is no difference in discriminating against people based on their skin color or based on their sexual orientation.

Glad you would vote for gay marriage. Doing otherwise would be voting to force your religion on others.

By the way, it is a fundie myth that Nazis were all atheist.

And there are many, many Christians here so they are reading your blog and coming away with the idea that you are victim blaming too. This isn't an atheist forum.

And please, go visit OTBT and tell the men there that they are cross dressing. I don't think you thought that one through at all before blogging it.

[Minerva]

I’m sorry to hear about your grandfather.

First off, I should have defined this discussion more at the beginning. I intended to provide sort of an "ask a fundy forum" where you could ask why we believe certain things we believe. It seems that it has gone way beyond that, more of a place for you to shred what I believe and attack me.

You feel attacked? Alright, I’m wiling to be more gentle in my discourse. However, having one’s statements criticized is not the same as being attacked, and you simply can’t expect the latter not to happen in a forum where intellectual discussions are encouraged.

I am happy to answer questions, but I will not bother with answering attacks.

I could write this off as convenient way to avoid intellectual debate, but I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that if I keep my critique polite, you’ll address my arguments.

I only understand this fully now, a Christian can read something I wrote and come away with the exact meaning I intended, when you guys read that same post, you get a completely different meaning.

I am Christian and I got a blamey vibe from the Anne Frank post, too. I get what you were trying to say, but only because you came back and clarified. The way you wrote that post left a lot of guesswork to the reader. Unless the theme of staying alive through sheer willpower is very commonly discussed within your religious group, I think the problem lies with your vague writing style and not our religious differences. Even if it is the latter, you won’t always be writing for people who’ve heard the exact same sermons as you every week, and it would benefit you to adopt a clearer writing style. Was it you I recommended writing lessons to earlier? I still stand by that.

It is a fact that Anne Frank told her friend that she had nothing left to live for, and when someone has no hope, and no desire to live, they die. That is well known in the medical world, the people with the highest survival rates are those that never give up.

I’m willing to believe that there is a correlation between one’s hope and one’s ability to fight off disease. Why? Because I looked it up and some studies may confirm the correlation. Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of reason to believe in a correlation between other mental health/emotional factors and people’s immune response, resistance to disease, and ability to heal. The theory about hope is not as well established.

There are problems with drawing conclusions from the correlation between hope and surviving disease. First of all, the studies used a small sample size, and one of them only measured one of the many disease parameters. Plus only two such studies exist, as far as I can find. This means that the correlation itself is unreliable. Secondly, hope also correlates with how well one manages one’s disease, which can have hugely skewed the results.

There are also problems with applying this correlation to Anne Frank’s story. On one hand, we see hope somewhat improving the health and chances of survival of people whose diseases are being treated with state-of-the-art medical practices over the course of years. On the other hand, we have a girl whose body was being quickly ravaged by untreated typhus. There’s just no way, even if the correlation between hope and prognosis were reliable, that the difference caused by hope would have been noticeable in Anne Frank’s case.

Furthermore, I think you’re taking an unreliable correlation and making it out to be a predictor of an individual sick person’s outcome. People with hope die all the time, and people without hope live all the time. People with cancer often linger for months when they feel 100% ready to go and wish it was over, as you must already know.

In my experience, unless they are one of the rare males that only mates males, they only mate each other when they are confined away from females or have insufficient numbers of females.

Since you’ve seen proof that chickens can be innately gay, do you concede that the same could be true of humans? That maybe sexuality isn’t a choice?

In my opinion, I don't like the pose, though to me there is nothing immodest about it.

It’s not surprising that you don’t find the pose immodest, given that you’re a straight dude and the person posing is another dude. But do you really think your sisters in Christ wouldn’t be defrauded by that? Surely if a woman was showing off her lower quadrants in a similar way, you’d worry about yourself or your male friends being defrauded, so why shouldn’t God’s Country Boy show his female friends the same consideration?

On number one, that is actually a new on for me, never occurred to me that a heterosexual would also engage in sodomy. Either way, it is still sodomy.

Looks like you learned something big today! (Why is A Whole New World playing in my head right now?)

Given that gay people make up less than 10% of the population, that only about 60% of gay men have anal sex and that 1/5 straight people have anal sex…straight people are having more sodomy than gay people. Never mind all the fun stuff besides anal that qualifies as sodomy! Life would be so much less interesting if people only ever had PIV sex.

While we’re here, I’ve always wanted to ask this to someone who was against gay sex: if God didn’t want guys to have things stuck up their butts, why did He make the prostate such a powerful source of pleasure and orgasms?

Another thing I’m curious about: Do you consider clitoral stimulation to always be sodomy? Could it be ok during straight missionary sex?

Number two: "Religion : an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group" By that you are religious.

Let’s put that definition in context, shall we?

http://www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/religion

re·li·gion /rɪˈlɪʤən/ noun

plural re·li·gions

1 [noncount] : the belief in a god or in a group of gods

â–ª Many people turn to religion for comfort in a time of crisis.

2 : an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods [count] â–ª There are many religions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. â–ª Shinto is a religion that is unique to Japan. â–ª I think that children should be taught about different religions. [=faiths] â–ª It is against my religion [=my beliefs do not allow me] to drink alcohol. [noncount] â–ª They advocated for freedom of religion. [=the right to choose what religion to follow and to worship without interference] â–ª She no longer participates in organized religion. [=a belief system that has large numbers of followers and a set of rules that must be followed]

3 informal : an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group [count] â–ª Hockey is a religion in Canada. â–ª Politics are a religion to him. [noncount] â–ª Where I live, high school football is religion. â–ª Food is religion in this house.

The informal definition of a word describes its use as a figure of speech not to be taken literally. Therefore atheism, agnosticism and secularism are not religions, nor are compassion, morality, disgust for homophobia, hockey, politics, football or food*.

*A possible exception being the FSM.

I’m trying not to be harsh here, but taking the informal definition out of context like that was intellectually dishonest.

The atheist Nazis killed millions in WWII[…]

What?

The what Nazis?

You’ve got some reading to do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_ ... _of_Nazism

In case you don’t have time to read the article: higher up Nazis were into paganism and Christianity. Germany was a majority Christian country; therefore most of their supporters would have been Christian. There wouldn’t have been a whole lot of atheists among them.

Actually, I do not believe in forcing my beliefs on others. Church A is wrong, they can do what they want on their grounds, but they have no right to force the other church to do the same. Just as that church has no right to force them to perform gay marriages.

Another vote for the legalization of same sex marriage! If only all fundamentalist Christians were like you. Seriously, though, you realize this makes you in favour of marriage equality, don’t you?

What is your opinion on the recent case of a photographer refusing to photograph a lesbian wedding on religious grounds and getting sued and ruined because of it? Doesn't any business or person have the right to refuse to perform a service for whomever they choose? It is their loss, they lose money if they don't perform the service.

One’s answer to this question shouldn’t pertain to whether or not one is homophobic.

If you believe a business’ freedom to serve whomever they want should trump anti-discrimination laws, then you will logically be against this lawsuit’s outcome. However if this is your belief, you would logically have felt the same way if the photographer had refused to serve them because they were black, or Asian, or young, or old, or Muslim, or Christian, etc.

If you believe anti-discrimination laws should limit the freedom of business owners, then you’re be in favour of the lawsuit, and would be no matter which group was being discriminated against.

I fall into the latter category, and I am satisfied with the lawsuit and its outcome, and I would be no matter which marginalized group was being discriminated against.

[Megan]

What I was saying was that a Christian even when they have nothing earthly left to live for, they still have Christ, and for us, he is worth fighting for. If she had Christ to live for, maybe she would have lived longer, I will not say that is a fact though.

Minerva has covered the whole "well known fact" issue already, as well as addressing some fallacies in the argument, but I have a few additional comments.

I am going to do you a favor and recommend you not repeat this. I don't think you've considered how deeply offensive this comment is. First off, people of other religious groups could easily have something to "fight for". Secondly, your argument doesn't necessarily run true - presumably someone who believes in an afterlife would not necessarily feel that fighting to remain in this life has any particular benefit (since there is something after death). I'm also going to go ahead and point out that thousands of Christian clergy died during the Holocaust, including many in concentration camps. Also, you know, the whole concept of martyrdom.

While I'm at it, here's some demographic info regarding Nazi Germany.

"A German census in May 1939, completed more than six years into the Nazi era[2] and incorporating the annexation of mostly Catholic Austria into Germany, indicates that 54% of Germans considered themselves Protestant, (including non-denominational Christians) and 40% considered themselves Catholic, with only 3.5% claiming to be neo-pagan 'believers in God,' and 1.5 % non-Christians, or 'non-believers'".

I sourced this from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany) but the original data can be found here: http://books.google.com/books?id=gmuw9T ... &q&f=false

I'll also go ahead and note that the religious beliefs of leading Nazis are debatable AND that much of Nazi ideology is derived from religious or pseudo-religious sources, so referring to "atheist Nazi Germany" is hardly accurate. The Nazis targeted organized Christianity as a challenge to their hegemony.

[Megan]

Also, it's been over half a year. Can I get some answers to my KJV questions? Because I can never get an answer regarding this from anyone.

How did the KJV manage to overcome the "satanic corruption" of previous texts, especially given that the KJV depends upon documents that have clearly changed over time? Particularly since the KJV includes verses that many believe were added later on (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bi ... anslations). What about the issues with translation that people have found and attempted to address with latter translations?

How do you justify the selection of books into the KJV Bible, considering the biblical canon derives in large part from Catholic councils?

please note the selection I bolded above. This would better be expressed as "as my religion believes marriage is defined by god", which highlights the imposition of your religion on the rest of us.

[CountryBoy]

I’m sorry to hear about your grandfather.

You feel attacked? Alright, I’m wiling to be more gentle in my discourse. However, having one’s statements criticized is not the same as being attacked, and you simply can’t expect the latter not to happen in a forum where intellectual discussions are encouraged.

I could write this off as convenient way to avoid intellectual debate, but I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that if I keep my critique polite, you’ll address my arguments.

I am Christian and I got a blamey vibe from the Anne Frank post, too. I get what you were trying to say, but only because you came back and clarified. The way you wrote that post left a lot of guesswork to the reader. Unless the theme of staying alive through sheer willpower is very commonly discussed within your religious group, I think the problem lies with your vague writing style and not our religious differences. Even if it is the latter, you won’t always be writing for people who’ve heard the exact same sermons as you every week, and it would benefit you to adopt a clearer writing style. Was it you I recommended writing lessons to earlier? I still stand by that.

I’m willing to believe that there is a correlation between one’s hope and one’s ability to fight off disease. Why? Because I looked it up and some studies may confirm the correlation. Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of reason to believe in a correlation between other mental health/emotional factors and people’s immune response, resistance to disease, and ability to heal. The theory about hope is not as well established.

There are problems with drawing conclusions from the correlation between hope and surviving disease. First of all, the studies used a small sample size, and one of them only measured one of the many disease parameters. Plus only two such studies exist, as far as I can find. This means that the correlation itself is unreliable. Secondly, hope also correlates with how well one manages one’s disease, which can have hugely skewed the results.

There are also problems with applying this correlation to Anne Frank’s story. On one hand, we see hope somewhat improving the health and chances of survival of people whose diseases are being treated with state-of-the-art medical practices over the course of years. On the other hand, we have a girl whose body was being quickly ravaged by untreated typhus. There’s just no way, even if the correlation between hope and prognosis were reliable, that the difference caused by hope would have been noticeable in Anne Frank’s case.

Furthermore, I think you’re taking an unreliable correlation and making it out to be a predictor of an individual sick person’s outcome. People with hope die all the time, and people without hope live all the time. People with cancer often linger for months when they feel 100% ready to go and wish it was over, as you must already know.

Since you’ve seen proof that chickens can be innately gay, do you concede that the same could be true of humans? That maybe sexuality isn’t a choice?

It’s not surprising that you don’t find the pose immodest, given that you’re a straight dude and the person posing is another dude. But do you really think your sisters in Christ wouldn’t be defrauded by that? Surely if a woman was showing off her lower quadrants in a similar way, you’d worry about yourself or your male friends being defrauded, so why shouldn’t God’s Country Boy show his female friends the same consideration?

Looks like you learned something big today! (Why is A Whole New World playing in my head right now?)

Let’s put that definition in context, shall we?

http://www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/religion

The informal definition of a word describes its use as a figure of speech not to be taken literally. Therefore atheism, agnosticism and secularism are not religions, nor are compassion, morality, disgust for homophobia, hockey, politics, football or food*.

*A possible exception being the FSM.

I’m trying not to be harsh here, but taking the informal definition out of context like that was intellectually dishonest.

What?

The what Nazis?

You’ve got some reading to do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_ ... _of_Nazism

In case you don’t have time to read the article: higher up Nazis were into paganism and Christianity. Germany was a majority Christian country; therefore most of their supporters would have been Christian. There wouldn’t have been a whole lot of atheists among them.

Another vote for the legalization of same sex marriage! If only all fundamentalist Christians were like you. Seriously, though, you realize this makes you in favour of marriage equality, don’t you?

One’s answer to this question shouldn’t pertain to whether or not one is homophobic.

If you believe a business’ freedom to serve whomever they want should trump anti-discrimination laws, then you will logically be against this lawsuit’s outcome. However if this is your belief, you would logically have felt the same way if the photographer had refused to serve them because they were black, or Asian, or young, or old, or Muslim, or Christian, etc.

If you believe anti-discrimination laws should limit the freedom of business owners, then you’re be in favour of the lawsuit, and would be no matter which group was being discriminated against.

I fall into the latter category, and I am satisfied with the lawsuit and its outcome, and I would be no matter which marginalized group was being discriminated against.

I'll freely admit that, no I am not always the clearest communicator, I even confuse my own family on a regular basis :) That is one reason why discussions like this tend to frustrate me, I spend so much time trying to tell people what I mean, that I never get to the meat of the discussion or, I get totally overwhelmed when the discussion flies past me. Sometimes some people understand me and others don't, and for some reason Christians seem to understand me a little better than non-Christians. Thank you for your consideration, and trying to be gentle, though the harsh attacks where from other members. An aside on that, I am sick of people jumping to conclusions about me, if they misunderstand me that is my fault, but so often on here, folks just decide that I believe something even when there is no proof of it. Back to writing, I might consider writing lessons, though, I am improving quite a bit, you should have seen my writing from four years ago haha, I confused everyone all the time back then. I do still have a long way to go :).

Your discourse on Anne Frank is certainly quite interesting, and I can completely see what you mean there as far as the studies go. I didn't even know that the studies existed, my proof for my argument comes from my mother, who is a nurse. She saw it a lot in the hospital, as did other nurses. The fighters tended to live through more than those who everyone else had to fight for.

I got my definition of religion here: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion Did not mean to sound dishonest. That dictionary does not say that definition is informal so I don't know lol.

Once again, I failed to communicate, I was not trying to say the Nazis were all atheists, I was just using that as an example for the sake of argument. Sorry I didn't make that clear. Germany was mostly Lutheran, and on top of that the Nazis came up with their own strange religion. I suppose a better example would have been China. Though later on they weren't even really atheist, seeing they basically demanded the people worship the state.

I am NOT for gay marriage, but, in a free country, as long as you are not hurting someone, then you can do what you like. In my opinion, the government should have nothing to do with marriage whatsoever, then all of this fight would be over. It is a fight over benefits, you get certain benefits if you are married under the current system, and the gays want to tap into that. I think the government should just get out of the way and let people make their own choices in the matter.

Yes I believe a business or individual has the right to refuse to provide services for, or associate with any person or group they want to. No one should ever by forced to provide services for anyone by the government. I don't really want to get into the whole racist thing, this discussion is complicated enough without that, just one note on that though, racism is stupid :P We all come from Noah, we are all of the same blood, there is not really any such thing as a "race". There is just humankind. Evolution really paves the way for racism because logically with it, some people would have to be inferior to others, that is what fueled Hitler. He thought the Jews and those nations with dark skin where somehow inferior and needed to be weeded out.

As far as gay chickens, all of the chickens that I have ever seen act gay were malnourished. I have never seen a healthy rooster do it. So no, I don't think being gay is something you are born with. I was born with blue eyes. I can't just decide to have brown eyes. Just like a black person cannot just decide to have light skin. If it is possible to change those features, you must do so surgically. Many people have stopped being gay, and they didn't need any operations to stop. Anything you were born with requires an operation to change, but turning from being gay requires a decision and sometimes counseling. Sounds like a choice to me. You choose to quit and you choose to start. Some physical things do make you more prone to be gay, health and how you were raised, but ultimately it is a choice.

As far as this section:

Given that gay people make up less than 10% of the population, that only about 60% of gay men have anal sex and that 1/5 straight people have anal sex…straight people are having more sodomy than gay people. Never mind all the fun stuff besides anal that qualifies as sodomy! Life would be so much less interesting if people only ever had PIV sex.

While we’re here, I’ve always wanted to ask this to someone who was against gay sex: if God didn’t want guys to have things stuck up their butts, why did He make the prostate such a powerful source of pleasure and orgasms?

Another thing I’m curious about: Do you consider clitoral stimulation to always be sodomy? Could it be ok during straight missionary sex?

I am not quit sure what you mean with some of your terms, but that doesn't really matter, for me, I stick with the Bible. Read Romans. The whole book. Sin is fun, but it is still sin. Just because something is fun doesn't mean we should be doing it, some people find it fun to murder others, yet I think you would agree that it is wrong to murder others. I am not trying to get simplistic here, but really it seems the same to me.

I hope I didn't miss anything here, if I did speak up, and I'll try to get to it in the next post.

[CountryBoy]

I'll get to the KJV questions tomorrow. Sorry I missed those for so long.

[Megan]

I don't really want to get into the whole racist thing, this discussion is complicated enough without that, just one note on that though, racism is stupid :P We all come from Noah, we are all of the same blood, there is not really any such thing as a "race". There is just humankind. Evolution really paves the way for racism because logically with it, some people would have to be inferior to others, that is what fueled Hitler.

No. Evolution would not say this. I am not the most qualified person to explain this (I grew up in an area that doesn't teach evolution and I didn't take high level science in college), but here's a super basic explanation of why this does not agree with evolutionary logic.

The simplified "survival of the fittest" description of natural selection leaves a lot of people with inaccurate understandings of what happens with evolution.

Evolution absolutely does not naturally support social darwinism or eugenics or anything. Evolution suggests that TRAITS that provide a benefit are more likely to be passed on to future generations as these traits are likely to prolong the lifespan, and thus increase the likelihood of the creature possessing the trait to reproduce. So animals whose genes mutated in a way that made the animal more camoflagued, for example, are more likely to reproduce than those whose mutations made them more visible, on the whole (there will always be an outlier who gets eaten early or who lives longer than one would predict).

As such, species will evolve over time. Sometimes these will lead to divergence - apes and humans, for example, share a common ancestor but humans are not evolved from apes (common misconception!).

Genetically, the differences between "races" are less than the bio-diversity within a race. Claiming that modern evolutionary thinking supports racism is a dramatic bastardization of evolution.

[Megan]

addition, since I wasn't necessarily clear.

Human traits that survive today were "the fittest". As in, fittest for survival. The "fittest" mutations (opposable thumbs!) survived into making us what we are.

[formergothardite]

The fact that you would be okay with businesses refusing service to people because they are black explains where you are coming from with being upset over the photographer. Most people today are not okay with businesses being able to ban black people from their stores, but 50 years ago it wasn't that way. I think in another 50 years the same will be said for gay people.

Have you heard of being bi-sexual? I think that most of the people who "stop being gay" are really bisexual.

ETA: For the sake of your future wife, if you don't know what clitorial stimulation is, please find out before you attempt to have sex. It is important. In fact, most of those terms will make your sex life better.

[formergothardite]

Here are some words from Hitler on why he wanted to get rid of Jewish people. There is a shocking lack of evolution mentioned.

From Mein Kampf:

I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord's work

From his "My New Order" speech:

My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.

In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison.

[thoughtful]

First off, I should have defined this discussion more at the beginning. I intended to provide sort of an "ask a fundy forum" where you could ask why we believe certain things we believe. It seems that it has gone way beyond that, more of a place for you to shred what I believe and attack me. Go ahead and shred what I believe, that is okay, but I came to answer questions

You may get some people taking you at your word, to "ask a fundie."

But, most people who read and post here on a regular basis have read reams and reams of what fundies believe. Not to be insulting, but just to help you understand, I will tell you that everything you've said so far, most of us have read or heard hundreds of times.

And a great deal of what you have said was not only bingo-card predictable (if you don't know what I mean by that, ask and I'll explain) but factually inaccurate.

This will come off as an insult, I write my blog for Christians, and well, Christians understand what I write. You guys don't. That is okay, we view the world from completely different perspectives. I don't pretend that I understand your perspectives on things. If what I write doesn't make sense to you, remember that you see the world from a very different perspective, and therefore you get a totally different message than I intended. I only understand this fully now, a Christian can read something I wrote and come away with the exact meaning I intended, when you guys read that same post, you get a completely different meaning. It is pretty shocking actually, lol.

Well, I'm not insulted. There's nothing insulting about being thought of as a non-Christian -- it happens to be true of me. And I understand what you write, I just disagree.

There are many Christians posting here, including people who have posted on this thread, challenging you. We may have a Christian majority on this board, in fact.

Of course, if you have something in mind when you write "Christian" other than "a person who believes in the divinity of Jesus," that's another matter. If you think of the Christians here as not True Christians like you, you may have to answer to them for that - they are Christians, and they are not agreeing with you; what do you do with that information?

And, regardless of one's beliefs, if you post something that is flat-out inaccurate, you are not making a very good show of who you are and why you believe what you do.

Like my Anne Frank post. I never intended to blame her death on her. Not at all. I was trying to encourage people to never give up on life, just fight on, even if you are terminally ill, fight as long as you can. That is all. It is a fact that Anne Frank told her friend that she had nothing left to live for, and when someone has no hope, and no desire to live, they die. That is well known in the medical world, the people with the highest survival rates are those that never give up. I also never intended to say she would have lived if she was a Christian. I don't know that. What I was saying was that a Christian even when they have nothing earthly left to live for, they still have Christ, and for us, he is worth fighting for. If she had Christ to live for, maybe she would have lived longer, I will not say that is a fact though.

Again, you are talking as if you have some deep, fabulous knowledge of what it is to be Christian, and all Christians would agree with you. Clearly, that is not the case.

You didn't just say "maybe she could have made it if she had something more to fight for" which would be silly but not quite so offensive.

But you specifically wrote about Anne Frank thinking she had nothing left to live for, then wrote "never forget, my friends, we have Christ." That clearly implies that Christ is the only thing that would keep someone going who thought she had nothing else left.

If you said that anyone who is suffering would automatically feel better if they believed in the divinity of Jesus, I would find even that mildly offensive. Humans are wonderfully, amazingly diverse, and what heals and comforts someone, or gives them the strength to fight for life, is their own business, not your place or mine to dictate.

To say that someone who is deathly ill from typhus and starvation would have actually lived longer if they only believed that they "had" Jesus, is even more offensive.

To say that Ann Frank, or any other Jew killed by the Nazis, might have lived longer if they believed they "had" Jesus, is mind-bogglingly offensive. And, even in defending yourself (see the bolded, above, in which you contradict yourself), you did say that.

If you don't understand why saying it about a Jewish victim of the Nazis is even more offensive than saying it about just anyone, ask me -- I can explain in more detail.

Oh, and of course she would have lived if she was a Christian, because the Nazis would not have killed her for being a Jew! :angry-banghead:

Sorry, but the whole idea is so disgusting. If you really meant that innocently, as you have claimed in your defense of it, and there was no thought in your mind that belief in Jesus might have saved her, then you really need to plan what you write much more carefully.

You say you want to write better. Here are some suggestions:

1. Be aware that your age and upbringing may have limited what you have learned. Tropes, phrases, and assumptions that might get an "Amen" at home won't fly in the larger world.

2. Really look at what you have written. Is it concise and not repetitive (I admit this is not my strong suit either)? Is it clear? If you made a claim, have you researched whether it is true?

Even if you have said something "as an example," if it is not true, your argument will fail, and only make you look silly. The Nazis were not Atheists, evolution does not support racism, gay people cannot simply make themselves straight -- you end up backpedaling from totally untrue statements, or destroying your own arguments with things that are clearly myth.

3. If you are saying what you believe, qualify it that way. Whether you like it or not, many other people do not believe everything you do, and many of your beliefs are not backed up by fact. There is a difference between "God says ______" and "I believe that God wants ______."

4. Knock off the smilies, winks and attempts to paint yourself as one poor little guy against a gang, or just a pleasant fellow who means no harm and has no biases. You are not a martyr being shredded and attacked for his beliefs -- you are a person in an online conversation.

5. Please start new paragraphs more often -- the "wall of text" comes off as desperate, and is just hard to read.

6. Re-read before posting. Step into someone else's shoes and think about how it will come off from their perspective -- yes, even if that perspective is of someone who is Not Your Brand of Christian.

7. If you were wrong, realize it, admit it and apologize -- not "oh, if you were a Christian you'd get it, I didn't mean to come off that way," but a real apology.

[Minerva]

Too much vagueness is definitely a problem I have when speaking.

Your discourse on Anne Frank is certainly quite interesting, and I can completely see what you mean there as far as the studies go. I didn't even know that the studies existed, my proof for my argument comes from my mother, who is a nurse. She saw it a lot in the hospital, as did other nurses. The fighters tended to live through more than those who everyone else had to fight for.

That’s interesting that your mother is a nurse. Do many of the women in your religious community work outside the home?

I wonder how she defines a “fighterâ€. The problem with basing a conclusion on an individual’s (and especially many related individuals’) observations is that there is no mechanism to counter human failures such as confirmation bias and hindsight bias, and no reliable way of correcting for interference from other factors (such as the fact that “fighters†are usually not as injured/ill in the first place, or the fact that they are more likely to comply with their treatment).

I hope you won’t take this as me doubting your mom’s professionalism. Everyone has opinions that are based on their observations as opposed to studies, and everyone repeats memes as facts when they come from authority figures, and people simply can’t do the work computers can do. No one’s immune from it, which is why we need studies. Hell, sometimes even scientific studies are found to have hindsight bias.

I got my definition of religion here: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion Did not mean to sound dishonest. That dictionary does not say that definition is informal so I don't know lol.

My bad, then. It’s odd that the learner’s dictionary specifies which definitions are informal and which aren’t, but the main one doesn’t. Anyway, now you know.

Once again, I failed to communicate, I was not trying to say the Nazis were all atheists, I was just using that as an example for the sake of argument. Sorry I didn't make that clear. Germany was mostly Lutheran, and on top of that the Nazis came up with their own strange religion. I suppose a better example would have been China. Though later on they weren't even really atheist, seeing they basically demanded the people worship the state.

Well, the example was incorrect. China under Mao is a better one. Though I think ShesCrafty was arguing that religion-based homophobia causes atrocities, not just that you have something in common with someone who committed an atrocity.

I am NOT for gay marriage, but, in a free country, as long as you are not hurting someone, then you can do what you like.

Again, if only more people followed this logic. Prop 8 wouldn’t have happened, among other things… I can see the use of the government granting benefits to people who’ve decided to pool most of their resources and live together long term, but I don’t think marriage should be that line. Marriage isn’t neutral – many people don’t believe in it, and they shouldn’t miss out on benefits when they’re living no differently than married couples.

Yes I believe a business or individual has the right to refuse to provide services for, or associate with any person or group they want to. No one should ever by forced to provide services for anyone by the government. I don't really want to get into the whole racist thing, this discussion is complicated enough without that, just one note on that though, racism is stupid We all come from Noah, we are all of the same blood, there is not really any such thing as a "race". There is just humankind.

I mentioned racism assuming you were against it, ftr. We don’t come across too many fundies who are racist (not blatantly and intentionally, anyway).

Edited to cut the post in half because I think my original one broke FJ. It's shown up with overlapping text in every browser I've tried.

[Minerva]

Evolution really paves the way for racism because logically with it, some people would have to be inferior to others, that is what fueled Hitler. He thought the Jews and those nations with dark skin where somehow inferior and needed to be weeded out.

No…….. That is not a logical conclusion of Darwinian evolution at all. Evolutionary theory says that every species, subspecies, and phenotype that exists today descends from a long line of individuals whose genetic traits made them successful at survival and breeding.

The extent to which the Nazis had to twist Darwin’s theory to make it fit their politics clearly shows this. They even relied, to an extent, on Lamarckism, an evolutionary theory that had once competed with Darwin’s, as it was far more compatible with their politics.

Also, racism predates Darwin’s theory by a long time. Darwin was a mere twinkle in his father’s (and grandfather’s) eye when early scientists and anthropologists were writing heavily biased screeds about the inferiority of non-white races.

I was born with blue eyes. I can't just decide to have brown eyes. Just like a black person cannot just decide to have light skin. If it is possible to change those features, you must do so surgically. Many people have stopped being gay, and they didn't need any operations to stop.

That is incorrect. There are many inborn traits that are not physical: intelligence, personality, mental illness, autism, synesthesia, personality disorders, learning disabilities, learning styles, speech impediments, etc. I’m sure you don’t claim that these things are choices as well. There’s no reason gender identity and sexuality are any different.

Anything you were born with requires an operation to change, but turning from being gay requires a decision and sometimes counseling. Sounds like a choice to me. You choose to quit and you choose to start. Some physical things do make you more prone to be gay, health and how you were raised, but ultimately it is a choice.

Here’s the thing: the people who claim they were able to choose to be straight are a teeny tiny minority compared to the people who are gay and say they can’t help it. Plus there is evidence that “ex-gay†people are either of the following: 1. Secretly still gay and just gritting their teeth and marrying someone they’re not attracted to, out of fear and social pressure. 2. They were bisexual all along and have chosen to pretend they are only attracted to the opposite sex, our of fear and social pressure. The evidence for this is that a growing number of “ex-gay†people, including prominent movement figures, are coming out and admitting this to be true.

I assume you are a straight guy – your romantic interest lies in women and not men. Suppose you grew up in a community where there was a great stigma attached to being interested in women and not men. You were told that men who like women go to Hell. Men who like women are treated badly. You might very well end up gritting your teeth, denying yourself true love, and marrying a man. You might not. But you must at least be able to understand how it’s possible to make such a choice, and how it’s possible that ex-gay people are doing this.

Finally, if being gay is a choice and not inborn, why do twin studies show it to have a genetic component? Why are people out all over the world, even in places you can be killed for being gay? You must know some gay people. Do you really think they’re lying?

I am not quit sure what you mean with some of your terms, but that doesn't really matter, for me, I stick with the Bible. Read Romans. The whole book. Sin is fun, but it is still sin. Just because something is fun doesn't mean we should be doing it, some people find it fun to murder others, yet I think you would agree that it is wrong to murder others. I am not trying to get simplistic here, but really it seems the same to me.

Let me know which words you don’t understand and I can clarify. And, trust me, you’re not the only one here who’s read the Bible.

I can see how, by your interpretation of the Bible, it’s bad to stimulate one’s own prostate or clitoris, or to have an unmarried partner or a partner of the same sex do it for you. But I don't think you can argue that God didn’t want husbands and wives to use those organs.

The Bible is silent on the clitoris, yet most sex advice given to Christian fundamentalists implies that stimulating it is bad. They say that sexual pleasure is only ok during baby-making, yet God chose to give women clitorises, and he chose to put them well out of the way of the baby-making act, and he chose to make them useful for only one thing: sexual pleasure.

It’s the same with the prostate. Not only is butt-play not part of baby-making, but it’s considered sodomy by most definitions. Yet the prostate is a powerful source of pleasure when stimulated, and there’s no explanation for this except that God intended for it to be used that way. And God decided to make it accessible to men only through their butts.

Does your branch of Christianity have an explanation for these things, or are they just ignored?

[Minerva]

I've got some "ask a fundie" type questions! I wasn't around for KISA, so this is my chance.

1. I know you weren't raised exactly as the Duggars raise their kids (I get the distinct feeling you come from a more liberal home than theirs), but I'm interested to hear your opinion on this. In the episode of 19 kids and counting where Josh Duggar married Anna Keller, it was heavily implied that they knew very little about sex before their wedding night. It was implied that they were even ignorant about the mechanical aspects of it, with Josh saying he thought it was "like legos". Here on Free Jinger, some people have speculated that this was set up by TLC to make the show more interesting. Others believe the Duggar kids are kept ignorant about sex until their wedding nights. Based on your knowledge of the Gothardian community, do you think this is possible?

2. Were you ever taught evolutionary theory in full? What do you know about it?

3. Does your community believe in relativity (like as opposed to Newtonian physics...with Einstein and black holes and e=mc^2)?

4. You're homeschooled if I recall correctly. What's the highest level of math you took? Did you make it to calculus, with differentials and integration? Advanced functions, with polynomials and logarithms and trigonometric functions and the quadratic formula? Trigonometry and algebra? Statistics? Could you have taken these things if you wanted?

5. Had you chosen to attend college or university, were there limits on where you could go?

6. How far did your science curriculum go? Did you take chemistry, biology and physics separately? Did you get to do experiments? Did you learn about Mendel's peas in biology? Did you learn about taxonomy and phylogenetics and DNA? Did you learn about Bohr and Rutherford, and protons, electrons and neutrons in chemistry? Did you learn how the periodic table is organized, and about Avogardro's number?

[thoughtful]

On 9/30,

I'll get to the KJV questions tomorrow. Sorry I missed those for so long.

u6BN0B0Rks8

[formergothardite]

On 9/30,

u6BN0B0Rks8

:lol:

[formergothardite]

When he comes back I hope he will be willing to share what most fundie guys think of Miss Raquel. Do people find her constant picture taking a turn off? Do they find her modest in the way she dresses? What about her "From a guy's point of view" post that seem to be fishing for a husband? Is her twittering about men and how she is sad because she doesn't have one looked down upon? What about her bucket list and how she want to be put in a compromising situation so she can slap a guy? I would love to know the real opinion fundamental Christian guys have about Raquel.

[Minerva]

:( And here I was hoping to return from my hiatus and see that he'd paid us another visit. Maybe I scared him away by talking about buttplay...

[formergothardite]

I saw this thread bumped and got all excited. He's not coming back is he?

[thoughtful]

I saw this thread bumped and got all excited. He's not coming back is he?

Me, too.

Ah, well. I guess he gave up on persuading us.

[formergothardite]

I think running away and pretending to himself that this never happened is less humiliating than facing that he cannot answer the most basic questions about his beliefs. I got the impression that he thought he was extremely knowledgeable about all these subjects and it has to hurt to find out that he actually knows nothing.

[thoughtful]

No, he's not back. I just had this pop into my head, so I came here to post it:

Well, let me tell you of the story of a boy named Country

On a tragic and fateful day

He turned on his old computer, tried to save some heathens,

Left some posts here at our FJ.

But, did he ever return?

No he never returned, and his fate is still unlearned.

He may mourn forever that we're doomed to Hell now,

He's the man who never returned.

Just one verse -- that's all he gets!

aP1bvY7IqZY

[formergothardite]

I just checked out his friend's blog God's Country Boy and he is beating Miss Raquel when it comes to posting pictures of himself. Those two really need to meet up. He also seems to not be very secure in his manhood because he is constantly going on about how women need to be protected. I do give him credit for admitting that most men won't have to take a bullet for their wife, so if you want to be a manly hero for your wife you should go clean the kitchen and give her a break. But he mostly gets upset about any movie that shows a woman not being helpless because his manhood is so weak that it falls apart if he has to watch a woman be brave and strong.

I don't know how to get the picture to show up here, but scroll down on this post:

godscountryboy.blogspot.com/2013/11/thanksgiving-in-country.html

and check out the picture of them with the Bible. Nothing says God's love quite like, "I'll kill you with an arrow if you come between me and my Bible." I guess the women are in the background because they too need to be guarded.

[formergothardite]

I just checked out Country Boy's blog and he has a message for Free Jinger and it is:

You are going to burn in hell

I am not even kidding. :lol:

He also isn't going to come back because it isn't productive for him to debate these things. I will translate the fundie speak into what it really means which is: I can't answer any of these questions and if I try to debate them I am going to have to face truths about my belief system that I don't want to face. So I will push all these things to the back of my mind, try to forget them and go back to only thinking shallow thoughts about what I have been told I need to believe because it is scary to have my beliefs challenged.

http://flameofjah.blogspot.com/2014/03/ ... ssage.html