LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

Well, regarding Mary Magdalene - I did an assignment on her once for school, and people have suggested that she was probably old enough to be Jesus' mother. She's mentioned first among the women, which seems to suggest that she was the most senior - maybe a rich widow or something. She also isn't the same person as the woman caught in adultery or the woman who poured perfume on Jesus' feet.

I honestly don't think there is any evidence for Jesus being either gay or married to Mary Magdalene.

edited 2nd Apr '13 9:29:01 PM by LoniJay

Be not afraid...

And there ain't enough evidence to say that Jesus was anti-gay. Anti-marriage though..., lol.

By the way, I think Jesus spending his childhood in Egypt was a factor. The Ancient Egyptians were pretty modern in how they treat their women.

Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.

I don't know if I would call practicing female genital mutilation "modern".

Not really. His first miracle involved conjuring booze to keep a marriage party going, after all

He said that it is better not to marry than to marry, for the people who are called to this choice; and He was definitely very serious concerning the importance of the obligations that marriage puts a person under. But that's different than being "anti-marriage".

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Woah, they were more gender-equal than I thought. I was referring to how they gave their women so many rights that other cultures complained that the Ancient Egyptians were doing things backwards. Plus, they had a considerable number of female pharaohs.

Btw, I tried to look up on the sources on that Wiki tidbit, but they're all paid sources, so yeah, not happy that I have to Google for free sources.

As for Jesus and marriage, I'm afraid he did say some stuff that can be too easily interpreted as anti-family and anti-marriage. Particularly, how he recruited his Apostles.

Gimme a sec, will copy-paste some sayings from elsewhere on the internet.

edited 3rd Apr '13 2:35:41 AM by probablyinsane

Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.

Context.

But putting that aside, theologically speaking, Christianity (and in fact all Abrahamic religions, dating back to the story of, well, Abraham) is very clear: love for God should trump love for family. In practice very few Christians live up to that ideal, but that's Christian doctrine.

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

And we should be glad they don't, I think.

It's a less realistic idea when you don't literally have God in front of you.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

@majoraoftime: Why? If you think a real, devoted love for God could be a bad thing, then you haven't made a serious study of Christianity. It's been used to justify a number of abuses of power over the years, but a perfect Christian (Jesus is canonically the only one) would never be harmful to anyone.

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

Jesus was a Jew.

Perhaps I'm wrong. I know that one form of FGM is called "pharaonic circumcision" and is said to have originated in Ancient Egypt, but I will admit I have not studied the matter in detail.

Love for family is a great thing. One of the greatest, in fact.

But if taken as an absolute, as something valuable-in-itself, it can and will degenerate into clannishness and possessiveness. The same can be said about romantic love, or about love for one's country, or so on. The special relation that I have with my family, and that I cherish, cannot hold except as a consequence of the relation that I and my relatives have with the Source of all love. Only through the grace of God I can love my family; and only through the grace of God they can love me back. Love, true love, is a supernatural gift.

Obviously, I am not saying that non-believers are incapable of love, or less capable of love than believers: that would be patent nonsense. But I am saying that any love towards any created object or being, if elevated to the rank of an absolute, will turn sour and degrade into mere attachment.

edited 3rd Apr '13 3:01:23 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

@Elfive: Fair enough. But it's the same story of Abraham and the same doctrine of loving God first either way.

edited 3rd Apr '13 2:58:25 PM by Ultrayellow

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

Ok, so this has always bugged me a bit. If God is the source of all love, what is the source of all sadness? Or all happiness? Or all anger?

Why do emotions even need a source?

Guys, we're going to get angry Shima in a few. When's that religion thread going to be launched? I think we can honestly sustain it without fighting, as long as it's about the content/message of religions, not weather or not religions are valid/true/beneficial.

I don't think love (at least, most varieties of love, there are different classifiable types) is actually emotion.

But that's just me. I'm not qualified to give a definitive answer for all Christianity.

Edit: Fixed subject-verb agreement.

edited 3rd Apr '13 3:04:39 PM by Ultrayellow

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

Love is far more than a mere emotion, even though it may manifest as an emotion.

These are matters about which I am not nearly knowledgeable enough to discuss well, to be honest; but when I say that love is a supernatural gift, I do mean this absolutely literally.

EDIT: Ninja'd. And goodnight, everybody!

edited 3rd Apr '13 3:04:40 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

...

what

Homosexuality and Religion, guys. Time to re-rail.

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

Off-topic post redacted.

edited 3rd Apr '13 3:17:58 PM by majoraoftime

Anyone know if there's a Daoist position on homosexuality?

edited 3rd Apr '13 3:19:20 PM by Ultrayellow

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

Daoism stresses the idea of balance and oneness. Daoism also stresses our being is beyond this body, therefore homosexuality can be legitimately accepted. However there isn't an authority on Daoism so it is up to individual interpretation.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

Yeah, it's a stretch to say it qualifies as a religion.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

It is a faith. More Philosophical than others, but its a faith by all academic definitions.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

Every time a news channel interviews a fire-n-brimstone preacher over gay marriage, I want to stick something in my eye.

FFS, Sodom and Gomorrah wasn't even about homosexuality. What few details about it that weren't removed from the Talmud and Mishnah for the Christian Bible (which in their original form focused mainly on general cruelty to outsiders) are about war rape and sexually hazing foreigners. Saying that it's about homosexuality is like saying Lord of the Rings was about elves. Yes elves happened in the process but they weren't the point.

While I can see a layman getting caught up in propaganda, one would hope a fucking priest would know his own material at least that well.

edited 4th Apr '13 1:57:54 AM by Pykrete

Choosing God over family is what leads to "devout" parents casting their gay children onto the street, so I'm not too hot for this doctrine either. Plus, your family is proven.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."