Prop 8 Oral Arguments

[Raveen]

QUOTE (Vortrog @ Apr 17 2013, 10:47 PM) it was solely for the references to husband and wife inferring the ancient concept of marriage between a man and a woman.
The problem will always be you can change the legal definition of marriage, but not the definition in the bible. I should have been more specific.
Adept, you have become so self righteous it is pretty unbelievable.
As to why there should be a seperate word, its because you cant change the bible frs like you can laws!
Hey, lets not talk about islam here though. Islam condemns homosexuality so i womder how this topic is broached against the koran's definition.
Please read gandys post again.

Again, i am all for gay 'marriage' just there is too much religious baggage with the word marriage evolve it into something else for all gender matches.

The definitions of marriage in the Bible are famously varied and in some cases quite unpleasant. However, even if we stick to the Man+Woman formula we should consult with the appropriate experts in the field of Christian theology for a definitive view of whether or not homosexuality and homosexual marriage are acceptable to God.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chris...n_homosexuality

Hmm, there's a lot of different attitudes there. It seems to me that "It says so in the Bible" is maybe not as solid an argument as some people think.

[notjarvis]

QUOTE As to why there should be a seperate word, its because you cant change the bible frs like you can laws![/quote]
But my core point is many don't believe in the bible, and have no real interest in what it says. Indeed the numbers who do believe (at least in this country) are decreasing markedly.
People are not saying the church must change it's understanding of what marriage is, though - no-one should be forced to change their beliefs.

But if a fair proportion of society understand something different to the church when it comes to marriage, marriage law and the state should be agnostic in these areas, if we want a fair society.

If there was a state civil partnership open to all which wasn't called marriage, and no legal institution of marriage - most people would still call it marriage so what is the difference?
Switching over to such a thing would be a much larger societal change to marriage laws that opening it out IMO, but hey what do I know.

The complication in Britain is that the Church of England has been privileged in being able to perform full legal marriages for many years, alongside a completely secular "Registry Office Marriage".

The government here has proposed changing the secular state marriage which can happen in registry office and rather strictly has nothing to do with religion (you can't even have songs with a religious connotation), and the CofE has argued that this would affect all marriage I guess.

[TangoVictor]

QUOTE (Adept @ Apr 17 2013, 05:58 PM) Paul's letter is old, but marriage itself is older than Christianity. Aren't these anyway the views of an early leader of the church, not Jesus or revelation from on high even according to scholars of Christianity?

I feel I'm bumping against religious sensibilities here. It's very hard to see how straiht couples are harmed in any way by gay people beng able to get married. The message of Jesus is love thy neighbor and judge not. Why would any christian want to deny people in love getting married?

Paul expresses lots of the prejudices of his day in his letters, but those are the views of a jewish religious leader of his day, not attributed to the new covenant of Jesus.

/addition I think the current anxiety over the word marriage will pass quite quickly. In ten years people will be quite used to it, and no harm will have been done to straight people's marriages.

Ok so without freaking out at Adept. A common Christian belief is that all of what's in the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God. So what Paul says, while it isn't what Jesus said, is also considered truth. The main point I'm making here is that, with this mindset, you cannot pick and choose what parts of the Bible to believe in. This even holds true for those who are gay and Christian. If one is serious about reconciling homosexuality within the Bible then that assumption is part of the argument.

Really y'all, keep the yelling to a minimum. If someone says something you think is outrageous then it would probably be more productive for everyone if you point out what you think wrong with their thinking calmly.

Also, oog.

[Raveen]

QUOTE (TangoVictor @ Apr 19 2013, 07:18 AM) The main point I'm making here is that, with this mindset, you cannot pick and choose what parts of the Bible to believe in.

Well, there's a number of different ways of looking at that. There's quite a lot of Leviticus that Christians don't adhere to, so there must have been some picking and choosing going on there (if someone can fill in the historical details I'd be genuinely interested). Not to mention the very literal picking and choosing that went into selecting the texts for the New Testament in the first place (Council of Nicea, or was that something else?).

I don't really want to labour the Christianity point because I don't want to be seen to be bashing Christianity, particularly when there isn't a clear cut answer within Christianity in the first place.

My real concern is that the Church of England is going to totally marginalise itself in UK society over this issue and women bishops. It seems likely that two things will happen, firstly that the Church will split over the internal rifts on these issues and secondly the Church will increasingly be seen as an irrelevance to British Christians which could open the door to some even less liberal Churches. I don't think that either of those things are terribly helpful.

[Adept]

QUOTE (TangoVictor @ Apr 19 2013, 09:18 AM) Ok so without freaking out at Adept. A common Christian belief is that all of what's in the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God. So what Paul says, while it isn't what Jesus said, is also considered truth. The main point I'm making here is that, with this mindset, you cannot pick and choose what parts of the Bible to believe in. This even holds true for those who are gay and Christian. If one is serious about reconciling homosexuality within the Bible then that assumption is part of the argument.

Really y'all, keep the yelling to a minimum. If someone says something you think is outrageous then it would probably be more productive for everyone if you point out what you think wrong with their thinking calmly.

Also, oog.

This isn't actually how people seem to be reading the bible though, as they definitely pick and choose.

If it's all divine truths, then a christian has to be pro-slavery, as the bible is ok with it. The bible is also ok with rape, and the proper punishment of a rapist is making him marry his victim. Also you're not allowed to wear clothes with several kinds of thread in them... you get the picture.

I'm not making any of this up. Either it's not all literal word of god, and eternally good and true (in which case people do need to pick and choose, and interpret stuff) or proper Christians need their own "sharia law" councils and should start killing adulterers and such. Except... Jesus stops the stoning of an adulteress. God seems to be contradicting himself here... unless the cast the first stone business was literally about only the sinless being allowed to perform the execution in which case you'd think Jesus would have done it himself.

Seriously. The bible is a huge pile of contradiction. I don't think many serious scholars of Christianity think it's all 100% accurate divine revelation.

[TangoVictor]

QUOTE (Raveen @ Apr 19 2013, 02:39 AM) Well, there's a number of different ways of looking at that. There's quite a lot of Leviticus that Christians don't adhere to, so there must have been some picking and choosing going on there (if someone can fill in the historical details I'd be genuinely interested). Not to mention the very literal picking and choosing that went into selecting the texts for the New Testament in the first place (Council of Nicea, or was that something else?).

Historical context (simplified):

The Old Testament is a little different. The rules given to Israel through Moses are the Jews part of the deal in the covenant that God made with them. As a part of this covenant, they were made to set Israel apart, which is why they're so weird and specific. In that covenant, Jews were granted acceptance into heaven only through strict adherence to the law, a task that was pretty much designed to be impossible. Christians believe that God forged a new covenant with humanity when Jesus died on the cross, and humans were no longer bound to all of what went into that system. There's a very specific (and consistent) way of deciding which laws Christians should pay attention to from the OT, but it's 3 am and I can't remember what it is exactly. As for the Council of Nicea, I can't give a Biblically based answer, because obviously it was after the NT was written. What the belief probably is, is that the men who picked the books of the NT were also divinely inspired to pick those specific books. From a strictly Catholic point of view, I know they believe that the Church, and not just the Bible, is infallible, and so that's what they would also point to (again probably). And the Church of England is basically the Catholic church without the Pope, and with divorces, so they (PROBABLY) would say the same.

As to your concern with the Church of England in the UK, AND getting back to the actual discussion, I agree that the rifts will happen, but I guess I don't see that as a bad thing. Considering the Church of England came from a split, and tons of liberal churches also come from splits, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[Adept]

QUOTE (TangoVictor @ Apr 19 2013, 10:09 AM) As to your concern with the Church of England in the UK, AND getting back to the actual discussion, I agree that the rifts will happen, but I guess I don't see that as a bad thing. Considering the Church of England came from a split, and tons of liberal churches also come from splits, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I'd go even further. I don't think worrying over much about specific churches or religions is that relevant anymore, as religion itself is on the wane.

[TangoVictor]

Oooh the source for that fact is an interesting read actually.

Anyway, when did UK get here? I thought Prop 8 was in America

[Adept]

QUOTE (TangoVictor @ Apr 19 2013, 10:34 AM) Oooh the source for that fact is an interesting read actually.

Lol? You think that article is the source, or do you mean the viewpoint expressed in that article? The article doesn't give any statistics to back up it's claims. It's basically the subjective view and wishful thinking of one individual.

Tell you what. In 10 to 20 years we'll see who is right.

For now, let's go back to discussing live on the other side of the rainbow.

[notjarvis]

QUOTE (TangoVictor @ Apr 19 2013, 08:34 AM) Oooh the source for that fact is an interesting read actually.

Well, as far as the UK is concerned, Religious belief is dropping, as shown rather recently by the latest census.


QUOTE Anyway, when did UK get here? I thought Prop 8 was in America [/quote]

We are having a very similar debate at the moment :-)