Jeremy Pallant

Can't disagree with you there, Vinnie. Thanks for the clarification.

Gregg

Oh, don't underestimate us, Magus. Plenty of people on this forum have told you that they are ex-Christians, and even those who aren't, aren't so dense or ignorant of Christian theology that they don't understand perfectly well what you're talking about. We just think it's b.s.

Gregg

sweep

this is interesting. Where do you (Vinnie) draw the line between sex and non-sex? Call me picky, but we place so much emphasis, as a race, upon penetrative sex, or any sex involving the genitals. In fact, the whole body is a sex organ; the whole of the mind, including our natural orientation towards well established, classic division between male and female. What if a man kisses another man on the lips, or if a woman rubs anothers body with oil. Both may get turned on, and that isn't a choice. It's the brain saying; 'yummy'
How about if a man wears another mans underpants, or even if he 'chews his masters slippers'. Odd behaviour, I'll say, but they're having fun, bless em. Did you know that a classic medical procedure in victorian England Involved spanking to induce erection. I can't remember why an erection was required suffice to say that, the doctor didn't desire his bottom penetrated.

How about if, as the late comedian Bill Hick put it, you got a woody on the L-train. Does the brain have to be involved in this, or is it a bare arsed fact that if a rocking locomotive gets your juices running, then you're having unlawful sex with public transport.

How about an intersex phenotype? How about someone with male gonads, but with congenital androgen insensitivity, the lack of which endows persons of this nature with all the secondary sexual characteristics of a woman. Are they homosexual, when they marry a man? What is a man and woman? The bible doesn't have answers for this kind of question.

*Grrr.. how many times must that message pop up, wanting me to view (via webcam) some anonymous girl in her underwear. If anyone knows, as a sideline, let on plz*

Gregg

Well, it's because of that nasty Fall, don'tcha know? It really screwed God's perfect design up. You know, that perfect design where certain animals were made to look like predators, but didn't actually kill or eat other animals.

Gregg

spurly

Gregg, who taught you that carnivores were not carnivores before the fall. I believe they were, and I don't see any biblical evience to the contrary. The only creatures who were meant to live forever were humans, as long as they had unhindered access to the "tree of life" (i.e., the presence of God, the source of life).

Kevin

The Naked Mage

So what you're saying here is that structuring life so that it did not have to kill and feed upon itself was of less importance to ol' Mr. Yahweh than preventing the couplings of tabs and slots?

Pardon me for a moment while I go into spasms of disturbingly misanthropic glee while laughing so hard that I'll need a change of underwear.

Gregg

Kevin, you should be ashamed of yourself! Don't you know your Bible? Hint: Genesis, chapter 1!

Gregg

Lobstrosity

You did, Spurly. You told us in another thread that God created this place as his perfect love note to us. You told us that God was perfectly good and full of love. I think it should be obvious that no loving creator would design animals that needed to feed on other animals in order to survive. You don't create something, give it the ability to experience pain, and then make it food for something else. That's just sadistic. Are you saying that God is sadistic? If you were a good God, you would make animals and provide them with a bounty of food that can't feel pain (e.g. plants). You know how I know this? It's because I know what it is to be "good." I feel it. Therefore what I say it has to be true, right?

GreggLD1

And the writers of Genesis certainly agreed with you, Lob, because that's exactly what they said God did--it's right there in the first chapter!*

Kevin, are you sure you're qualified to be a minister?

Just givin' ya a hard time.

Gregg

*So, either God created animals uniquely suited to hunt and eat other animals but made them eat plants, or carnivores evolved from herbivores after the Flood. Can an animal evolve from a herbivore to a carnivore while still being of the same basic "kind"?

Captain Pedantic

Well, I shall say, to get us back on this especially inflammatory topic, that I could not be friends with someone who thinks gay people are "sinners". Even the ones that say "love the sinner, hate the sin".

While I have yet to have a sexual relationship, I am much more attracted to my own gender than the other gender. That is supposedly one biblical sin I commit. Another sin I commit is the sin of not believing in any god - in fact, I'm afraid I think that any religious worship is actually rather silly deep down.

Both of these things are sins according to the Bible, yet they both make up what I consider to be a major part of my personality and the way I experience the world.

Condemning my sins in this case is condemning my very person. Christian "Ex-Gay" groups would ask me to alter my very self. I am that sin they hate. One cannot separate me from myself.