If you look at the comments for yesterday's post, you see one from Mark "Not the Race Car Driver" discussing whether or not other religions frown on homosexuality and same sex marriage and abortion as much as Mike Huckabee's God does.
Mark says he not trying to be argumentative. Neither am I, honest. But I do, as a Christian (yes folks I try to be – I know that is difficult to believe), view God differently than Mike Huckabee.
So I did a little research and thought it was interesting.
Here's a discussion about Buddhist belief on homosexuality and one on the Hindu faith.
Here's a link about the Hindu belief on abortion. and here is the Buddhist take.
Essentially, it would seem the general consensus is abortion is wrong, but the jury is at least sort of out on same sex marriage. Here's my part of building that bridge, Mark!
So I guess I AM going to Hell. I can not reconcile why a just and loving God would create homosexuals – since it is NOT a learned condition by most accounts – and then condemn them, though. Why put a creation you love through that? That's one of those BIG questions like why do good people die young and nasty bastards live until they're 90?
Well, I'll continue my little fantasy and believe in a Deity who loves us despite giving us free will and allowing us to screw up. And I will still believe there are many paths to Heaven which looks different to different people. And I'll still believe in a Constitution that tells us we're free to worship as we wish or not.
Other than the issue of the Constitution, we won't know who is right until it's too damn late.
© 2008 by Gordon Michael Dobbs
6 comments:
Well then I guess I'm going to Hell too Mike. I have a very open mind when it comes to homosexuality and the right to marry who you want and to receive the rights that come with the marriage agreement. Now I'm not gay, but I have both lesbian and gay friends. Does this make me bad? No, it makes me open minded and non-judgemental. Am I religious? Sorry, no. The last attempt to bring Faith into my life failed when I was 9 yrs old and fell asleep during the Baptist rant. But my family is and I will not disagree with their lifestyle or their beliefs, just don't force it on me and please have a little common sense when it comes to Science over Faith.
Hey, the books are in...give me a call!
Thanks for looking that up, Mike!
Ya know, I think this would make a very interesting article. Now I'm wondering how the Native Americans' Great Spirit would rule. Or other deities.
Dogboy, I'll grant that you are open minded and non-judgemental - but why say it? When people say that, it seems to me they are implying that OTHER people who do not agree with them are judgemental and closed-minded, and THAT sounds like you are judging them. That vicious circle of finger-pointing has always fascinated me.
Mark, that's a good question. Same-sex marriage was okay for Native Americans (well, tribes vary); my Inner Lazy Researcher points you to the Wikipedia article on "Two-spirit" people as backup.
I wasn't sure about abortion, but my Inner Lazy Researcher pointed out note 7 on this page, which reminded me that tribal folk in general know their plants really well and use them for birth control, presumably including abortion if necessary.
Of course, actual practice can vary from what's preached, but Native American religion seems to have been pretty thoroughly integrated into their lives.
I have always wondered how, and perhaps why, each of these various Gods decided to write a book. I mean does an all powerful diety really have the time and energy left at the end of the day to sit down and create paper and ink and then jot down every gosh darn rule they can think of? Of course not, obviously they used a ghost writer.
Did these other guys really get everything right, or did God say "Don't take other people's stuff unless you are starving or really need it, or it's really a lot nicer than your stuff", and the ghost writer was a lazy bastard and just shortened it to "Thou shalt not steal." I mean how do we know we are getting the true words and meaning of these dieties? How do we know that your God of choice does or does not want you to marry a penguin? I don't think we DO have any way of knowing that until we are face to face with our diety of choice- IF that is what is going to happen, and then it is just going to be too darn late.
Why say it? Because the broader assumptions seems to be -- more and more these days -- that NOT saying otherwise gives license to the presumption "we all" share the same views.
For instance, the escalating role of religion in politics fascinates and repels me -- in part because, given the acknowledged portion of the American population that is Jewish, and has been Jewish, for generations, the blatant absurdity of asserting "we all" are "of course" a Christian nation seems transparently obvious.
I mean, that's obvious, right?
So why wouldn't it be patently offensive to keep asserting Christianity as the bedrock of America?
(To which one must add, "which Christianity?" From our Colonial origins, we've been composed of a fractured division of multiple forms of Christianity which have only become more diverse, extremely polarized, and incompatible, given the multitude of 18th, 19th and 20th Century 'new' religions, from Mormonism to Scientology and all manner of apocalyptic and fundamentalist permutations.)
As for homosexuality, what's the problem? Live and let live. Gay marriage in no way impacts Marge's and my marriage, and we have many gay friends, and more power to 'em. I've no desire to see than anything other than happy and able to live their lives sans persecution, prosecution or the targets of prejudice.
I'm currently reading WHY WE WHISPER, in which one of our current esteemed US Senators (and his ghost writer) argue against homosexuality due to its cost, in dollars, to society -- conflating AIDS and gayness, handily ignoring completely that half of the gay community are lesbians and his 'logic' makes no sense. Of course, given his arguments in reducing the societal ills that he considers ills to dollar-and-cents issues, heterosexuality is far, far more dangerous and costly -- but he don't go there. It's just another flag wrapped around his prejudices, and like "Intelligent Design," further obfuscation via semantics trying to obscure religious arguments as if there were some measure of science (here, economics) lending it validity.
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