Comments on: Election 2007

By: etbe

etbe — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:02:26 +0000

Dave: If you have no desire to persecute homosexuals then why do you care whether they get married or not? Disagreeing with someone does not require enacting legislation to prevent them deny them the same rights as everyone else.

It’s not a raw nerve. I merely have a strong belief that people should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t hurt others. You believe that people should not be permitted to do anything that goes against your religion (even people who don’t follow it). You could have started claiming that your religion demands that you lobby for laws prohibiting alcohol, sex before marriage, pornography, women showing their faces in public, women owning property or voting, blasphemy, or any of a number of other topics common for religious oppression and received exactly the same reaction from me.

Do you have any disagreement in theology with the GodHatesAmerica,com crowd? Or is your only disagreement with them regarding the tactics used for implementing theocratic laws?

Do you believe that we need “bedroom police” to prevent homosexuals from having sex? Do you believe that “aversion therapy” should be forced on homosexuals? Should homosexuals be prohibited from working for the government or other jobs?

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:33:57 +0000

I will say this one thing: you have made a ridiculous number of assumptions about my personal attitude to, and dealings with, homosexual people. Get off your high-horse. To set the record straight, I have a close family member who is gay and who, believe it or not, I don’t persecute and vilify. Disagree with, yes. Persecute, no. The disagreement hasn’t affected our friendship or family tie in any way, from his perspective or mine. Am I going to great lengths to persecute gays? Hardly.
It was never what my comments were about anyway – they were about whether (in general) orthodox Christians are likely to support the majority of greens policy and thus vote for them. Clearly I’ve hit a raw nerve by bringing up the topic of homosexuality, to the point that you’re now implying I’m in some way affiliated with a bizarre cultic hate-group. It’s the sort of tactic I’d expect from political commentators like Ann Coulter, a kind of ad hominem along the lines of “if you are a muslim you are therefore a terrorist”.
So really, I think any useful conversation is well and truly over.

By: etbe

etbe — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 03:00:37 +0000

Dave: You agree with them on the most essential part of their belief system. The fact that you go to such lengths to persecute people who don’t do anything to you instead of merely ignoring them is what puts you in the same category as the godhatesamerica people.

You could choose to disagree with them if you wanted to.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:31:41 +0000

If you choose to equate me with the godhatesamerica people, then to quote the late great Tyler Durden: this conversation is over.

By: etbe

etbe — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 12:50:25 +0000

Tom: The minimum time to get a new nuclear power plant fully operational is 15 years. The best information suggests that we don’t have that much time to address the climate change issue.

Dave: I’ve spent some time discussing the Torah with Jewish friends, I doubt that you could teach me anything about it. It’s not any “theological gymnastics” on my part, merely consulting the experts on the document in question (religious Jews). Incidentally the word you are looking for is “eisegesis”, not “exegesis”. I already explained why I believe that almost all Christian use of the Old Testament is incorrect – but don’t argue with me, tell the next religious Jew you meet that their belief about their own holy book is wrong.

As for 1Cor 6:9, that verse states that the effeminate will not go to heaven – it’s interesting to note that the largest denomination bans it’s priests from marrying and most major churches have their priests wear what is (by today’s standards) women’s clothing. 1Cor 11 is used to oppose equal rights for women, if you are going to try to follow everything in 1Cor then you will be opposing almost everyone in this regard.

But really, all the Christians who want to persecute homosexuals should just read 1Cor 13.

I have no antagonism towards the Orthodox church, they are a bit old-fashioned and difficult in some ways (some priests refuse to allow people of other denominations to marry in their churches – this wasn’t a problem for me when I was married although I had to claim to be Catholic) but these are minor issues. The Orthodox Church in Australia has no history of trying to suppress other religions or beliefs (AFAIK).

It’s the churches that want to suppress science (have Creationism taught in science classes) etc that get an antagonistic reaction from everyone who values freedom.

Then of course there’s the GodHatesAmerica.com crowd who are abhorred by all decent people. It seems that there are some issues on which you agree with them, this in itself isn’t necessarily a problem, but when you want to use legislation to force such beliefs on others then you will get a negative reaction.

PS Almost every Christian I know personally and with whom I have discussed these issues voted for the Greens. The exceptions are the ones who vote for Family First.

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 11:56:42 +0000

etbe, I wasn’t intending to start an exegetical wrangle over the Torah. If that’s what you’re after, I would suggest reading something like “What Some Of You Were”*. There are enough references to homosexuality itself being sinful in the New Testament anyway (e.g. 1Cor 6:9) for me not to be troubled by liberal theological gymnastics over the Old.T references. It was just a convenient example of the point I was making, being a high profile issue.

However, you have also demonstrated very neatly another reason why even politically left-wing Christians are unlikely to vote Greens – that being that the party and its members are often very antagonistic toward orthodox Christianity. I wouldn’t want a party in power that consistently demonstrated a strong antagonism toward my world-view and belief system. I’m sure you wouldn’t either. Nobody would. Odds are that once in power, such a party would start attempting to suppress or persecute that worldview. No thanks.

I personally believe that the presence of the Greens is necessary to maintain balance against the ultra right-wing element in politics (no shortage of far-right voters in Oz, unfortunately) but I really wouldn’t want them to _be_ the government.
You’re free to disagree, I’m just sharing my take on why it is that not many Christians would be voting for the Greens.

* http://secure.fellowworkers.com/cgi-bin/mmstore/wsyw.html