Religion and Homophobic Hatred

RWCNT wrote: »

Pero_Bueno wrote: »

Ah sorry, so she was only 13 when he was ****ing her ....

Great so! not a peadophile then, thanks for clearing that up!! :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Genuine question. Wouldn't a large % of the people alive during that period and in the several hundred years either side of it have been pedophiles?

Mary would have married much older Joseph at about 13. Would this have also been the case for a lot of figures in Christianity?

But these people are supposed to be the truth, the way, the light. Yet they were constrained by temporary cultural norms?

Mohammed, for example, could have decried that practice and told his followers to no longer do it. Similarly, Jesus could have told his followers that LGBT were to be treated the same as everyone else, that God didn't care about sex once consensual.

Philip Happy Gypsum wrote: »

If you're so concered about over-population send a memo to Sub-Saharan Africa & the Middle East who now have the highest birth rates in the world.

That and STDs are an issue. I wonder which groups went there to teach the utility of things like condoms however. And which groups went there to teach they were a moral wrong.

JupiterKid wrote: »

Why do homophobes and bigots in general use religion to excuse their disgusting and callous behavior?

Unfortunately when it comes to their religions, from their perspective they are not "excusing" anything. They are doing what is right.

Take the example I often use of the parents in the US who let their children suffer, often quite badly, even to the point of dying.... solely because they believe that even simple medical intervention is an affront to god.

From our perspective as people not infected with a religious memetic virus they seem evil and are just "excusing their childs death by religion". But from their perspective given what they believe about the nature of the universe they are 100% doing the right thing.

And if you or I thought that medical intervention would diminish or harm the ETERNAL well being of our childs soul we would likely by just as willing to let them die of easily treatable illnesses too. Content in the knowledge it was the best decision we as parents could make.

Alas would that it were so that the majority of homophobia and anti homosexual bigotry were grounded in religion. A very significant % of it is for sure. But if we could hit a magical button that deleted religion from our world tomorrow.... I think you would find a majority of homophobia still around.

For example there are a lot of people religious and otherwise who claim, without a shred of actual argument, evidence, data or reasoning that 2 people in a heterosexual relationship is the "ideal" environment for the upbringing of children and that all other configurations, usually specifically that of gay parents, are somehow worse or even harmful.

That idea is completely unsubstantiated at this time and the attempts to defend it by people on this very thread have been laughable in the past. But as long as that idea survives there will be people doing what your Daily Mail story is about, with or without religion. In fact I opened the link and searched for the word "daddy" just knowing the quote would be there and sure enough:

"'Sorry. I'll still pray for her though but maybe it's God's way of getting your attention that she need's a mommy and a daddy, not 2 mommy's.'"

Leroy42 wrote: »

If you are religious, then you believe in the teachings of that religion.

You would expect that to be true wouldn't you? I certainly operated under that illusion for awhile in the past.

However it is interesting that, for example, a survey of Irish Catholics by Irish Catholic Bishops during the Eucharistic Congress found that most Irish Catholics don’t believe in key tenets of the Catholic Church.......... and 8% of Irish Catholics even say they don’t believe in God which you would have expected was a bit of a no-brainer requirement to be Catholic.

So it has now reached the point where if someone tells me their religion or even the specific denomination of their religion..... I make NO assumptions about what it is they might actually believe. At most I allow myself to guess at the list of POSSIBLE beliefs they might have al-a-carte selected from. Which is what most religious people appear to do most of the time in my own experience.

It probably does not help that many religions do not move to actually educate their followers on what they are meant to believe. The number of people I have met who claim to be catholic but do not even know what the catholic church teaches on key tenets.... like what happens during the consecration of the crackers..... is quite staggering to me.

The point has been made more eloquently earlier but if there was no religion there would still be homophobia. Religion is just an excuse for certain types to justify their ill informed statements etc.

Grayson wrote: »

That's the kind of faith the most religious want everyone to have.

Which is were I am coming from. Are the people really homophobic, or are they simply having faith in what they are told and thus are homophobic because gay is a sin against their god and thus their faith.

As the OP stated, it is a very unchristian stance to take from the view point of loving your neighbour, forgiveness etc.

Leroy42 wrote: »

Which is were I am coming from. Are the people really homophobic, or are they simply having faith in what they are told and thus are homophobic because gay is a sin against their god and thus their faith.

As the OP stated, it is a very unchristian stance to take from the view point of loving your neighbour, forgiveness etc.

That's a chicken or egg question. which came first their homophobia or their religion. I suppose it depends on the person.

Grayson wrote: »

That's a chicken or egg question. which came first their homophobia or their religion. I suppose it depends on the person.

From my own experience I was a teenager in the 80s, went to a catholic school and raised by catholic parents. By todays standards they would probably have been devout but standard for that era.

To be honest I never heard much about homosexuality been a sin because it just wasn't talked about much in society at large.
I can't speak for the experiences of gay people at that time who would have been much more aware of the issues.

joe40 wrote: »

From my own experience I was a teenager in the 80s, went to a catholic school and raised by catholic parents. By todays standards they would probably have been devout but standard for that era.

To be honest I never heard much about homosexuality been a sin because it just wasn't talked about much in society at large.
I can't speak for the experiences of gay people at that time who would have been much more aware of the issues.

Well, I suppose it depends on how it was talked about. I remember talking to my dad around the time of the equality ref and saying that it seems that there are far more gay people now than before. Now either that is because there has actually been an increase in the number of gay people, or that they are more visible and open about it.

As he put it, there is simply no reason to think there is a higher level of gay people now than in the past, so it must have been that they simply hid it before.

So given that you went to a religious school, even if not talked about (and my guess was that it was but that you simply didn't take direct notice) but for a person struggling with it those little lines would have been enough for them to stay sctum.

Do you think your friends would have been open to you or your parents about it knowing how devout you were? What reaction do you think they thought they would get?

And it isn't about whether your teachers/parents talked about it, it was well known position of catholics that being gay was a sin.

Leroy42 wrote: »

Well, I suppose it depends on how it was talked about. I remember talking to my dad around the time of the equality ref and saying that it seems that there are far more gay people now than before. Now either that is because there has actually been an increase in the number of gay people, or that they are more visible and open about it.

As he put it, there is simply no reason to think there is a higher level of gay people now than in the past, so it must have been that they simply hid it before.

So given that you went to a religious school, even if not talked about (and my guess was that it was but that you simply didn't take direct notice) but for a person struggling with it those little lines would have been enough for them to stay sctum.

Do you think your friends would have been open to you or your parents about it knowing how devout you were? What reaction do you think they thought they would get?

And it isn't about whether your teachers/parents talked about it, it was well known position of catholics that being gay was a sin.

I went to a religious school, a diocesan college to be precise and there were no gay lads in my year or even in the whole school when I was there.
A number of them, including one really good friend of mine, have come out in the last 10 years.

Leroy42 wrote: »

Well, I suppose it depends on how it was talked about. I remember talking to my dad around the time of the equality ref and saying that it seems that there are far more gay people now than before. Now either that is because there has actually been an increase in the number of gay people, or that they are more visible and open about it.

As he put it, there is simply no reason to think there is a higher level of gay people now than in the past, so it must have been that they simply hid it before.

So given that you went to a religious school, even if not talked about (and my guess was that it was but that you simply didn't take direct notice) but for a person struggling with it those little lines would have been enough for them to stay sctum.

Do you think your friends would have been open to you or your parents about it knowing how devout you were? What reaction do you think they thought they would get?

And it isn't about whether your teachers/parents talked about it, it was well known position of catholics that being gay was a sin.

Sorry I didn't me to imply myself or my parents were particularly devout but in 1980s Ireland the norm was to go to mass every sunday so devout in that way was what I meant but not hardline Catholics.

My point was that since homosexuality was largely hidden or joked about in society there was no serious discussions about homosexuality (To be honest not much discussion about sexuality in general)

I'm not a devout catholic now at all, so in no way an apologist for the catholic church, I'm just saying that in my experience of been a teenager in 1980s Ireland was that homosexuality was largely hidden and not discussed at all.
As opposed to the sinful nature of homosexuality been constantly talked about.

You're absolutely right it must have been a lonely, awful time for a gay teenager, there was nowhere to go or no one to talk to.

Now that homosexuality is prominent in society. (Which is great by the way)the hardcore religious nutjobs are more vocal in their opposition

Grayson wrote: »

And so are people in the bible. Mary is held up as an ideal. She's pretty fecking big in catholicism. And she got married really young. So either there's nothing wrong with her getting married at that age or there was. If there's something wrong with it then god decided to have jesus raised in a paedophiles house. If there's nothing wrong with it then a girl getting married at 13 is something to aspire to.

I haven't been to mass in ages but I never heard anyone say we should follow the teachings of Mary or live how she lived, she is a big deal because of her role in the story of Jesus. Neither have I seen anything which definitely gives her age, its usually an assumption given the standard practice at the time but nothing definite. Catholics don't take lessons from how society operated at that time they take their lessons from Jesus and the books, so yes there is something majorly wrong with a 13 getting married its not even a debate.

Grayson wrote: »

The same way they thought black people were bad and now most of them would be shocked if someone was turned away from a church because they were black.

Religious and Non-religious thought black people were bad (some still do) and its disgusting but I don't think thats a result of the religion totally, people were racist and Religious and married the two to legitimate their disgusting attitude to other races whilst also fooling themselves into thinking they were righteous.

Grayson wrote: »

I've mentioned it already but Abraham was a potential child killer who shagged his wife's slave to get her pregnant. And he's considered the father of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The bronze age was a particularly savage time alright, don't think we should aspire to live as they did then.

Grayson wrote: »

My point is that no-one lives the way the founders of their religions live. Well, very few. The majority manage to somehow live with the contradiction of how the holiest people in their religions and how they live.

My original point was the fact that Muhammed is considered perfect and he is an example of how we should live today that is a major part of that faith. Mary, Joseph, Abraham are not held up as an example of how we live today and the time they lived is not thought to be a fantastic time to live in and we should live like that again today.

By the way Im not very religious but enjoying the discussion