More hatred from the Christians

reply to post by Shamatt


You might do well to consider that some other religions... and some governments in particular, minus any religion at all, find that homosexuality is a capital offense and can result in a death sentence. So, I question why you might single out Christianity for your own brand of hate.

We should all bear in mind that accepting homosexuality, not as a disease or an affliction but as something positive, is not going to happen over night. And if you cannot respect the views of others, regardless of whether or not they happen to agree with you, then you have no foundation on which to stand, no high ground from which to cast your stones.

Patience is a virtue... and this is not just an old axiom. It is something that we need each and every day when dealing with our fellow humans... but sadly, something very few of us have to offer anyone but ourselves.

Have a nice day

reply to post by paxnatus


You wrote:

["It's lady to you pal......"]

My apologies. I'll rephrase my intial comment to: "Well done, my dudette"

Quote: ["Yes, after reading your attack on Christians in general,..."]

I try to make it a point AVOIDING excessive generalizations as a basis for my comments. But this intention may fail to manifest clearly on all occsions, so I can only restate it: My main target-group is all kinds of elitist and exclusivist missionaries from ideological fascism.

Quote: ["Are you not capable of reading between the lines?"]

I believe I am, but this being a highly subjective interpretation method, my results may vary considerable from those of other people.

Quote: ["...but oh no not you Bogomil!"]

Yes, I can be rather irritating, can't I?

Quote: ["Perhaps sexual preference meets with your approval?"]

Perhaps I'm dumb (believe it or not...sometimes I am), but I have to read between the lines on this one. So...personally I'm a very strict hetero-sexual male (as a personal preference), with a great deal of enthusiasm for intimate lingerie. I find pornography boring, because it never can be so interesting as personal experiments. What other people prefer (as consenting adults) is none of my business, and when this is presented in various degrees in public contexts I usually just ignore it, unless it implies elements of compulsion. The former fad of fist-f..... as an exhibitionist, competive performance I consider stupid, but I wouldn't dream of suggesting censorship on it.

I do not consider nakedness, or even suggestive almost-nakedness, as immoral.

Quote: [" Before you go off on another maniacal rant, Let me pinpoint the issue."]

You use strong words, where I try to restrict myself to sarcasm. But we all have our personal inclinations.

Quote: ["Society, today has NO morals whatsoever!"]

You mean considered from the position of the self-proclaimed moral (theistic?) norms YOU have? Many of us would disagree with such an ultimate and exclusive perspective.

Quote: [" do I need to see it on a billboard?"]

You can look away. Being a pacifist myself, do I need to see messages of violence on billboards (or elsewhere in public contexts).

Quote: ["According to you and your above post if I oppose a billboard of a three-way, bestiality, or a circus clown and a monkey it's censorship!!"]

You are entitled to your opinions, as I am to mine; that's the free speech implied in liberal etc. democracy. But this thread is also about the actual intervention at a practical level including censorship.

Quote: ["It's just "Anything goes" whatever feels good do it!"]

You're confusing liberal democracy with anarchy (from ignorance or intentional?).

Quote: ["If it makes me a Christian whose a bigot so be it. If it makes me a propaganda artist so be it. If it makes me a crazed evangelical preacher, I'm okay with that too."]


Billboards with homosexual content or christian bigottery etc, it's all included in liberal principles, as long as it doesn't take extra-parliamentory forms. Even when the words/message can be offensive or painful for some, censorship is not the better way to choose.

Quote: ["If it means one less person contributing to the depravity of this world then it's worth it."]

This alleged 'depravity' is your personal perspective. There are other perspectives. And you're welcome to yours, but must be prepared for opposition and criticism, when you present it in public.

Quote: ["So, I ask you now Bogomil, what do you stand for?"]

I stand for a regression of all arguments, positions etc to the outermost reach of human understanding, called epistemology ('how do we know, what we know?').

I take a personal position of philosophical scepticism (which means, that I don't know of anything being validated as THE exclusive and absolute 'truth'), but not with a wishy-washy 'anything goes' consequence. 'Truths' can have great value, precision, impact and importance in 'local' situations/relative realities/perspectives etc.

As in the old allegory 'The map is not the territory", which can be carried further into: SOME maps are superior for their chosen territory, but invalid outside that.

E.g. do you find it impossible to switch maps between the objective science/logic behind the computer you're using now, and the subjective 'faith' map you're using in other parts of existence. Is the political map 'liberal democracy' inferior to the political map 'theocracy'? These positions can be evaluated quite well inside their own perimeters.

Originally posted by Shamatt
There is probaly a lot of uneducated opinion causing small minded people to say "Eww". I have seen this first hand. When I point out to the hipocrites that do this that they would have said "Phwaoor" if had been a lesbian kiss, but we got "Eww" because ot was two boys, they sometimes even see this double standard.

No, I think that this is a natural biological hardwired reflex. Men are wired to find young attractive women ( smooth skin, healthy hair, hips to waist to bust ratio). When men see two attractive women kissing the minds tell them that they're seeing two women (better odds) who appear to be sexually active. That's like hearing your favorite song but only in stereo now. The male mind can easily substitute himself into the position of either female and it doesn't matter. It's a win-win scenario that has reproductive possibilities no matter how you approach it.

Seeing two men kissing doesn't gather the same response. On one hand you see the obvious sexual behavior and biologically want to be involved but when your mind tries to insert yourself into the scenario it's a short-circuit either way. Neither possibility results in reproduction. The mind is saying "sexual scenario" but there are no winning combinations available so it the obvious outcome is rejection.

I submit that this sign is protested for more biological reflex reasons than religious reasons. That's why billboards with girls in bikinis holding beer bottles stay up despite the fact that both these scenarios are against most religious views. Sure drinking and loose women is considered immoral but people won't make a big fuss about it since it's a naturally attractive scenario. Why does Axe body wash feature commercials with women in bikinis chasing men? Why don't they show a commercial of men putting on Axe cologne and then having a swarm of attractive men chasing them? I'll tell you why, hardly anyone would buy that crap if they featured it that way. Is Axe bigoted for promoting this view that men only want to attract women? Na, they're just using a natural phenomenon to sell a product.

We can't on one had tell people to accept homosexuals because they can't help it and then trample the involuntary reflexes of people who say "ewww" when they see two males kissing. Can sexual attraction be taught or is it something we can't help? You can't have it both ways. The day that the Dallas Cowgirls are all fired and replaced with men in shorts and half-shirts is the day I'll believe that humans naturally want to see two men together in a sexual scenario.

Using religion as a scape-goat (ha ha, I'm so funny) is just avoiding the underlying issue. People protest because it's a huge turn-off not because they're bigots. Put up a billboard of two unattractive women kissing and you'll get the same response.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


You wrote:

["There are many distractions that pull us away from our source.
There are people who are so insecure that they need attention and get it no matter how.
They are like vampires sucking life out of us if we invite them.
They appear without our permission, however we can turn the cheek and make them disappear."]

And by presenting the overall situation and the methodology for approaching it on your terms, you arrive at the answers you find 'absolute'. It's just a eloborate circle-argument.

Quote: ["However, i live in a culture where everyday i am forced to see naked women, billboards, magazines, tv."]

You are not more 'forced', than I am to go into a church or accept your specific position.

Quote: ["Who makes it this way?"]

The general principles of liberal, egalitarian, secular democracy.

Quote: ["These images that are being flashed into your mind are subliminal messages that do something to the system, the robotic unconscious human."]

In various degrees. And it's a part of ideological/theistic procedures also.

Quote: ["These messages tell you that it is not safe. The world feels unsafe when the body keeps firing off at the images."]

As the alleged 'spirit' fires off on 'original sin', redemption and the sometimes resulting divine threats of retribution.

Quote: [" The result is us not trusting anything"]

Who are 'us'?

Quote: ["These feelings that the body gets from the images would not be experienced very often if there was not all this imagery around."]

I have no idea of the extent of your sexual experiences, but from my own, I can tell you, that 'reality' is much more interesting than images and impacts more.

Quote: ["The mind then runs on the script that has been fed in."]

As do most minds , especially the ideological/theist ones.

Quote: ["If the thoughts are not holy, which they won't be, we then start to hate ourselves."]

Again: Who are 'we'. Speak for yourself, and do not impose your perspectives/conclusions on the rest of us from a position of self-proclaimed 'truth'.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by bogomil

 

Ridicule can be a sub-set of the category 'persecution'. People can be intimidated into silence or their positions can be turned into seemingly idiocy through it.

Look, while it is in fact very popular here on ATS to ridicule Christianity/Christians for our beliefs that in no way means it's legitimate 'persecution'.

Appeal to ridicule arguments carry no weight. They only bonus to making them here is you will get a great number of stars or flags for your stats.

Nothing more.

It's also popular to go the opposite direction, from the theist 'black/whiters'. Are you suggesting a "But they started it"-scenario, in an over-all perspective? Going a couple of thousand years and trans-culturally back?

And whatever semantic intricacies you want to create, I say: Let the ridicule/persecution continue without censorship, only limited by excessive and abusive character-defamation as defined by ATS administration.

I can not force you to regress your chain of reasoning, I can only boringly and repeatedly insist on your doing it...which you can ignore. So we can stay here in semantic blind alleys or re-introduce a regressive chain of reasoning, where factual elements on different levels can be approached.

Appeal to ridicule carries no weight rationally, but it can have other impact, as e.g. profiling unsubstantiated postulates.

Quote: ["They only bonus to making them here is you will get a great number of stars or flags for your stats."]

Which may be interesting for those seeking popularity or safety in numbers. Personally I couldn't care less.

Originally posted by Shamatt
reply to post by bogomil

 

All very interesting but what is your point? We shoudl all just stay at home and have a cupof tea? Waht?

edit on 2-6-2011 by Shamatt because: (no reason given)

Philosophical scepticism is very useful, when self-proclaimed 'absolute truths' clash.

In more daily concerns, specific 'local' truths are better. You don't pray for a dysfunctional car, you repair it.
One notch up: Materialist reductionism is useless for evaluation of ideological positions, the estetics of a symphony or the pleasure of sex.

I've run an ecological farm for some 25 years and a fair-price healthfood import-firm for 10. And not from behind a cup of tea. It's not all ivory-tower.

reply to post by dbates


Yo make an elequent and convincing argument. But you forget that there is so much more to us as humans than just the animal urge to procreate. We are emotional too, and intelligent. We have empathy, (Google mirror neurons, it's fascinating!) So when looking at your scenarios empathy would play a large part. So when you see two girls it doesn't matter who you empathise with it's a winner, and of you see a boy and a girl then you can empathise with the boy and put yurself into the possition of kissing the girl. This I understand. But when seeing two boys together we have our intelligence, we get to make a chice. At best, we can accept the bahaviour as normal and no big deal and not have a problem with it, at worst we can tollerate it, even though we don't like it very much. I don't think it acceptable to make negative comments, or dissaproving sounds, that is just rude.

I find very fat people a sexual turn off. Is it OK for me to say "EWWWW" when I see very fat people kissing in the street?

Raise of hands.

Who cares about a bus stop advertisement of any kind being pulled for any reason?

Christian homophobes don't want Gays to practice safe sex? Really? Do gays need special advertisements that are gay in nature telling them to practice safe sex? If they don't have the gay advertisements do they think safe sex only applies to the straight population? Do they need a Trojan man commerical to tell them that they should wear condoms?

Originally posted by bogomil

Philosophical scepticism is very useful, when self-proclaimed 'absolute truths' clash.

This sentance I like. It is a very likeable sentance. I will remember this sentance, I hope, for a long time.

Originally posted by bogomil

In more daily concerns, specific 'local' truths are better. You don't pray for a dysfunctional car, you repair it.
One notch up: Materialist reductionism is useless for evaluation of ideological positions, the estetics of a symphony or the pleasure of sex.

True. You can't explaine with logic what a peanut tastes like. But I wouldn't put an ideological possition on a par with the pleasure of sex. One surely is the culmination of learning, prayer and insight, where the other is often the result of two pints of larger and a packet of crisps.

Originally posted by bogomil

I've run an ecological farm for some 25 years and a fair-price healthfood import-firm for 10. And not from behind a cup of tea. It's not all ivory-tower.

You see you loose me again here.

reply to post by dbates


I wholeheartedly agree with your observations, and on this quote I only have an additional comment of my own:

You wrote: ["Using religion as a scape-goat (ha ha, I'm so funny) is just avoiding the underlying issue. People protest because it's a huge turn-off not because they're bigots. Put up a billboard of two unattractive women kissing and you'll get the same response."]

All these polarized issues, ethnic, religious, ideological etc., are incorporated formally in the principles of liberal society. And the liberal principles are pragmatically demonstrated to be our best present bid to avoid blowing everything up.

So until something better turns up, the freedom AND obligations in liberal society are the rules of the game. A kind of semi-absolute for the duration. Any theist (or ideologer) can challenge this by proposing something better and validating it.

reply to post by Shamatt


You wrote:

["True. You can't explaine with logic what a peanut tastes like. But I wouldn't put an ideological possition on a par with the pleasure of sex. One surely is the culmination of learning, prayer and insight, where the other is often the result of two pints of larger and a packet of crisps."]

I created a common category, where the specific perspective/method of materialist reductionism is worthless. Just as praying is worthless to repair a car.

Quote: ["You see you loose me again here."]

I here refer to an earlier comment of yours: ["We shoudl all just stay at home and have a cupof tea?"].

I wanted to demonstrate, that through farming and having a business (as I mentioned), not all is done at home with a cup of tea. But no great deal, it's not a major point.

Originally posted by Shamatt
I don't think it acceptable to make negative comments, or dissaproving sounds, that is just rude.

I find very fat people a sexual turn off. Is it OK for me to say "EWWWW" when I see very fat people kissing in the street?

Not loud enough for them to hear you. We should have manners and take into consideration the feelings of others but even attractive people get yelled at if they start making out in public. "Get a room!" I can't think off-hand of any billboards that feature heterosexual couples kissing with the exception of a Calvin Klein advertising campaign back in the late 90s. The American Family Association had that campaign pulled because it was too risqué even though it featured woman kissing a man. People just generally don't want to see that in their face out in public.

reply to post by Shamatt


Your mind is made. It is shaped by what is fed in, it is conditioned, programmed. This is the matrix of control, the tv and other media, movies, console games, billboards, newspapers are ways of putting things in the mind.
There is a choice not to look at some of this but billboards are unavoidable.
These images objectify women and make them feel that they must be a pretty ornament or they are worthless. Cosmetic surgery is on the increase for both male and females because these images portray a set standard.
If it is not realized that the mind does things unconsciously then the subliminal messages that are being fed to it will go under the radar and do the job they were intended to do, without you ever knowing about it.

Originally posted by Shamatt


Is a picture of two men holding habnds really that disgusting thatit can't be shown on our streets?

Yes. We have much more homoerotic posters here, some of them more suited to the toilet at at a gay bar, and they make me ill when I walk past them.
So, yes, they are that disgusting. What of it?
V
PS - I notice that you, oops, "forgot" to mention that the adverts have been reinstated, and the fact that they're doing a bit more than holding hands...
Stuff
(You can see the far more blatant NZ advert below)

Originally posted by dbates
Just a set of morals that people adhere to.

The trouble is that some people, such as the OP think that morals are an assault on them!
Vicky

Originally posted by bogomil

It's unlikely she's(?) new. She already knows the 'christian persecution' gambit.

Sigh, you are nothing if not predictable.
You are one of the chief 'persecutors', and you know it. Sometimes you can seem so reasonable, and then wham you pounce! Like a cat toys with a mouse before killing it.
I shall be on my guard now! Thank you for reminding me how unreasonable you really are...
V

2011

and we still worried about gay people?


we weren't worried as much 2000 yrs ago it seems.


christians don't care. islam cares.

wow? you want some really extreme examples?

ya, i guess you can find it.

westboro comes to mind, the lords army in africa, mr. goodbar, but then there is islam.


leave them alone, give them the same legal rights, maybe not marriage but something equal.

reply to post by Shamatt


G'day Shamatt...do you mind if I just call you 'Sham' ? Is that what your friends call you? Its certainly a more accurate description.

Lets see...subsidiary company of global media/ advertising organisation provides free bus shelters all over the world in return for rights to sell advertising on said free bus shelters for a period of 20 yrs.

Advertising agency places condom ad featuring gay men in a bus shelter frequented by young school children on a daily bases.

Advertising agency begins complaining about its own ad to media outlets, religeous groups, family groups and creates media frenzy gaining massive free international exposure across all advertising mediams.

Advertising agency removes poster supposedly in response to backlash and then creates a protest facebook page, twitter account and gains instant rapport with true target audience. Agency puts poster back up and becomes hero to target audience.

Did I miss much??? Oh yeah, did I mention the bit about parent company being of Jewish faith.. Sham?

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by Shamatt

 

Your mind is made. It is shaped by what is fed in, it is conditioned, programmed. This is the matrix of control, the tv and other media, movies, console games, billboards, newspapers are ways of putting things in the mind.
There is a choice not to look at some of this but billboards are unavoidable.
These images objectify women and make them feel that they must be a pretty ornament or they are worthless. Cosmetic surgery is on the increase for both male and females because these images portray a set standard.
If it is not realized that the mind does things unconsciously then the subliminal messages that are being fed to it will go under the radar and do the job they were intended to do, without you ever knowing about it.

And sending out self-contained and self-proclaimed 'absolute truths' with only a reference to personal superior qualities is not a rigid conditional system?

Originally posted by Vicky32

Originally posted by Shamatt


Is a picture of two men holding habnds really that disgusting thatit can't be shown on our streets?

Yes. We have much more homoerotic posters here, some of them more suited to the toilet at at a gay bar, and they make me ill when I walk past them.
So, yes, they are that disgusting. What of it?
V
PS - I notice that you, oops, "forgot" to mention that the adverts have been reinstated, and the fact that they're doing a bit more than holding hands...
Stuff
(You can see the far more blatant NZ advert below)

edit on 3/6/11 by Vicky32 because: (no reason given)

Vicky,

for some people mixed-race relationships used to be offensive in a not distant past. For some it may even be to this day.

I also have attitudes in my personal value-system, which can lead to irritation in me, when the subjects are demonstrated in public. E.g. am I not a great fan of radical feminism, rather the opposite.

But that's the price of the formal acceptance of differences in mankind's values; no censorship.