Not out of step…

Technorati Tags: Religion,Same-Sex Marriage,Conservatives,Culture Wars,Marriage Equality

Here’s an interesting article about same-sex marriage.

Here’s an interesting quote from that article: “…same-sex marriage, has shocked conservatives. But this innovation has moved so far so quickly only because it is not at all out of step with the institutions and ideas of our time.”

The author of the article is Andrew Sullivan; the author of the quote is “Marriage equality opponent Daniel McCarthy.”

The article is brief; it is well worth your time, as will be the discussions the article will engender.

Really? Still?

 

Technorati Tags: Benedict XVI,Religious,Marriage in the Priesthood,Women Priests

One would think, in the 21st century, after all the progress mankind has made in understanding creation, that statements such as this quote would not make it into the media at large.

 

In taking stock of the progressive stance of many in the United States, the pope issued a statement.

The pope promised…not to impose his own will on the church but to rather listen "to the word and the will of the Lord, to be guided by him, so that he himself will lead the church at this hour of our history."

Does anyone remember the skepticism, if not scorn, which greeted the public announcement from Salt Lake City telling us that the Elders of the Mormon church had prayed and received the OK from God to admit Blacks into congregations?

How does  this from Benedict XVI not merit the same reaction?

Jesus is really going to tell the pope that it’s OK to treat women as lesser creations?  Or that gay men and women cannot validate their love and commitment in the secular world?

Bad move. Jesus’ actions belie that.

Hope for Islam?

Technorati Tags: Religion,Islam,Marriage Equality

Try this news article.

It deals with a marriage between two gay members of the religion of Islam.

Interesting paragraph:

According to Al Arabiya, a gay Mauritian imam named Jamal presided over the marriage of Ludovic Mohamed Zahed, a French man of Algerian origin, and Qiyam al-Din in Din’s native South Africa earlier this year.

Love is everywhere, and so are gay people.

A question...

Why do you suppose that "Thou shalt not kill" is so difficult to understand for extremist religionists? How can fundamentalists of all the "religions of the Book" slaughter other human beings in the name of their particular understanding of the Deity?
Have they no fear of their own belief?

Really?

How does any religious leader justify a death as a recompense for the burning of a book? Books are metaphors and, sometimes, symbols; people's lives are real.

Surely the deity does not condone such actions.

Yes, indeed.

 

From Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish blog:

"There’s something fine about the fact that God learned Greek when he wanted to become a writer — and that he did not learn it better."

Ruminations

Absent a daily reminder of definitive proof of the existence of God, it is left to us to speculate on just how we got to the point at which we find ourselves in 2010.

Speculation:  It all started when tribes go too large to control through simple force. 

Leaders were eventually faced with unpopular decisions and they created stories which allowed them to pass responsibility to a force greater than themselves, and, at the same time, creating a class of assistants who were charged with finding and interpreting “reasons” for edicts such as “Don’t eat that great tasting meat.”

Eventually the assistants developed in the shamans who constructed elaborate stories to explain phenomena which affected daily life.

Story-telling utilized a supra-human entity, which had all the strengths and all the foibles of the people of the tribe as well as powers to control various elements of nature.

Give the species a few thousand years, and it all cumulates in organized religion.

But somewhere it went terribly wrong.

They forgot community and went for a literal supra-human.