A Louisiana farmer is facing financial backlash after posting an anti-Pride Month message on his business’s social media account.
Ross McKnight is the owner of Backwater Foie Gras, a family farm outside of New Orleans. Mcknight says he lost two-thirds of his business due to a post he made on Instagram earlier this month.
The unabashed Catholic says he’s now struggling to pay the bills simply because he was being true to his faith.
Persecution or Consequences?
The controversial Instagram post, which has been viewed thousands of times and received hundreds of comments, referred to Pride Month as an “attempted coup of the month of June,” and as part of a “forward offensive by an ever-encroaching enemy.”
In the post, McKnight suggests celebrating the Sacred Heart of Jesus – a widely practiced Catholic devotion – as an “antidote to false pride.”
The post was made from McKnight’s business account, Backwater Farmstead, and has since gone viral.
In interviews, McKnight claims he's being persecuted for his faith. In an interview with Fox News, he explained that he’s since lost two-thirds of his restaurant clients since the post.
“That’s, of course, never a good thing, when you’re a really, really tiny operation that’s just a family farm,” he stated.
In a subsequent Instagram post, McKnight gave further details, revealing two massive clients “had enough of our Catholicism” and canceled recurring orders had enough of our Catholicism “While we've never required our customers to pass a litmus test before serving them,” he wrote, “it seems our values, which come from lives lived as Louisiana Catholics, are considered unacceptable by some.”
Critics have pointed out that he regularly signs his Instagram post with a Catholic sign-off and regularly posts about his faith and has seemingly never had issues before.
It was only when he used his faith to criticize the LGBTQ community that it became a problem.
Remind You of Anything?
If this sounds like a sort of reverse of the Bud Light controversy, well, you're not wrong. In April, beer giant Anheuser-Busch came under holy hellfire after enlisting transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney to post on Instagram about her love of Bud Light.
This perceived move toward “wokeness” enraged many of the company's fans, and a successful boycott was mounted – leading to a significant loss of sales and a rare apology statement from the CEO.
In perhaps the most... expressive act of protest, Kid Rock took a video of himself blasting through several cases of Bud Light with a gun:
Other brands soon came under fire for their perceived concessions to the LGBTQ movement, including Target (for selling Pride merch) and even the faith-forward Chick-fil-A, over its decision to hire a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion chief.
But critics of those protests say that this latest controversy with Backwater Foie Gras is just the same shoe on a different foot. If you can boycott a business for not following biblical principles (as some opponents were arguing), surely in a free country you can also stage a boycott _for _following them in a way you don't think is appropriate – or so critics argue.
What do you think? Does the LGBTQ community have the right to vote with their wallet, or is it wrong for the farmer to be facing a boycott over his religious views?
251 comments
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Mike
I have an idea. Why doesn't the farmer mind his own business and practice live and let live?
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Dane
There’s a reason businesses typically forbid their employees from talking politics with customers: people can and will vote with their dollars. Right, wrong, or indifferent, you will learn a very expensive lesson.
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Clay Serenbetz
It seems to me that the repercussions would mimic those of any bigoted rant, about minority group, for example. Hate is eating his business, just as hate eats his heart and mind.
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Janis Carol Sommers
The Farmer is losing customers. It is his own customers who do not want to do business with him. It is not any outside force, organization or demon. He said what he said. He spoke his truth. He is experiencing the repercussions. No one is threatening his former customers to stop doing business with the Farmer. At least, that is not being stated in this article. Maybe they are. There are, without a doubt, some violent,bullying and unfriendly Activists out there. Just look at Kid Rock against Budweiser. Just look at the violent verbal and physical abuse towards Radical Lesbians and Feminists by Transwomen and Transmen. Just look at Pro-Life Actions over the past fifty years, and now, that threaten lives, bomb clinics and kill physicians who support a woman right to choose bodily autonomy. Just look at Republicans in our Government who refuse to negotiate with Democrats merely because they want their own way on issues and are not interested in a Democratic Society. Catholics and other religions are, obviously, entitled to their beliefs, and have the right to speak of them just as I have the right to disagree,speak out. Just as I have the right to avoid any business or organization or person that I do not choose to associate with. This is not a religious issue.
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Rev. Mike Eggleston
Why doesn't he simply pray to his god for help to pay his bill. People have the right to decline to do business with him.
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David Arthur Lewis
This guy never learned the First Law of Business: Keep politics and religion out of it. Completely.
Foie Gras, by the way, is TORTURE and should be illegal in any civilized religion. Yes, Karma is a Beach.
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Najah P Tamargo
Minister Najah Tamargo USA
OK - First: If he actually makes Foie Gras, well, in my personal opinion that's cruelty to animals. If you know how the process works, you would think the same thing. King Charles (the new one) even banned it from the Royal Palace. Second: In this day and age you have to be very careful, especially on social media. I have bit my tongue and scrolled right over things that my friends say just to avoid a verbal war. I have better things to use my energy for. Third: The man has the right to believe whatever he wishes. However, in the current climate, and he wants to protect his small business, he might be wise to watch what he says. I don't care what "faith based" culture you follow, as long as you don't try to shove it down my throat and verbally attack me just to get me to believe what you believe. Forth: People have the right to boycott whatever they want for any reason they want. Hence the reason that sometimes it's better to keep you thoughts to yourself and express your faith at church, sanctuary, mosque, etc. Fifth: I am SOOOOO tired of the whole PRIDE issue. People have the right to be who they are. We are supposed to love our fellow man/woman no matter what. Sixth: I was not aware that Jesus had a furnace?!?!?!
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Dr. Zerpersande, NSC
No sympathy from me. Religious people need to learn to keep their delusions to themselves. As long as you don’t ‘share’ your practices I don’t care if your daily religious routine involves baby urine, spoiled eggs, sandpaper, duct tape, adult diapers and a wooden spoon as long as you shower and brush your teeth before entering society again. Just keep it to yourself.
And if you want to exercise your free speech and talk about, realize that others can exercise their own free speech and tell you that they think you’re delusional twit. They can also choose not to associate with you, which could extend to not buying your product.
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John D. Partin
"Dr." Zerpersande, you certainly have a very restricted and one-sided view of freedom of speech and who should have it, where religious people need to keep their beliefs to themselves, but you and all other atheists, humanists, Christ and Christian haters and persecutors and killers, and other rotten-hearted people can spew and put all of your hate, poison, garbage, and insanity into the world to your hearts' content and you shouldn't have to keep all of that to yourselves and nothing should ever be said or done about it!!
Atheists and other ungodly people have caused genocides and purges under Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and other totalitarian regimes. Your kind have spread sexual immorality in the world (and this includes the pedophile priests, who have encouraged others to be such, in case you were going to bring them up, since they weren't following Christ's teachings to love their neighbors as themselves and do unto others as they would have others do unto them).
People aren't Christians just because they say that they are, but have to show by their love and obedience to Christ that they are Christians. De facto and practical atheists, such as Inquisitors, Crusaders, Conquistadors, Catholics and Protestants fighting in Northern Ireland, and their ilk weren't and aren't Christians because they haven't followed Christ's teachings. By their fruits you will know them.
You have much more garbage and ridiculous practices than anything involving baby urine, spoiled eggs, sandpaper, duct tape, adult diapers, and a wooden spoon, which you made up just for ridiculing Christians, but you have them in reality!! You are telling the wrong people to keep their beliefs to themselves and the world would be much better off if all of you kept all of your poison, hate, and garbage to yourselves!!
That farmer or anyone else shouldn't be penalized or deprived because he tells the truth in this world filled with ungodly lies from the pit of Hell when all of you can lie and promote and spread lies as much as you like and never get penalized or deprived or suffer any consequences for any of that, since that is a double standard and hypocrisy!!
Even if, very occasionally, you atheists and ungodly people do suffer consequences for your lies, you deserve to suffer for that. Those who are telling the truth shouldn't suffer for doing so, but do in this backwards and upside down world. You go right on buying from people who are saying much more actually offensive and rotten things than that farmer said and so it is more evidence of your double standard and hypocrisy for him to be boycotted because of that.
Dr. David Jeremiah and Billy Graham and Joyce Meyer and other truth tellers in this world were and are actually doctors, since they have fought against the confusion and lies in the world and cured spiritual ills through God's power, and not contributed to and encouraged them, as you are doing!! So, you aren't actually a doctor. Woe to the physician who cures no ills. Physician, heal yourself.
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Dr. Zerpersande, NSC
By exercising your right to freedom of speech and talk about your fetish you ‘open the door’ and invite others to express their opinions on your beliefs. If you don’t talk about it I respind with my opinions. How is this one-sided? I don’t search out religiously delusional whack jobs. In fact, I EXPATRIATED FROM THE USA after 40 years of listening to their nonsense.
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John D. Partin
Are there really no secularly delusional whack jobs, according to you, where you are now, so that by expatriating from the USA to escape from Christian "nonsense", you have escaped all nonsense whatsoever from people? Because, if that's so, you must be living in a country that nobody else has ever heard of or knows anything about, since whack jobs into everything are found everywhere!!!
Secular atheistic God-hating people are into as much whack job "thinking" as you say that "Christians are into". So, if escaping whack jobs was your objective in expatriating from the USA, you have failed miserably and it doesn't matter where you are because they are everywhere.
It is one-sided for you to only see "whack jobs" in Christianity, but not see the real whack jobs, believing and saying and doing foolish and idiotic things among your own group and to say that they are "right-thinking". I already gave you the examples of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and other insane and genocidal dictators, but whack jobs are certainly to be found in all levels of secular society and not just among those famous examples. And you can only not see or know about them by keeping your eyes and mind tightly closed against doing so.
Why should I or other Christians not speak the truth of God just because you, very one-sidedly, see only "whack jobs" among us, while ignoring or not even seeing the real whack jobs all around you among "sensible" people or even the whack job in yourself ? Why should we or the world cater to your hypocrisy and self-deception?
Come on back to the USA because you didn't attain your objective of "escaping whack jobs" by going wherever you are and there are plenty of secular really whacked out secular people for you to talk to and associate with here! Birds of a feather flock together and like attracts like, and see how much they are similar to yourself.
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Dr. Zerpersande, NSC
No, people just don’t discuss their religious beliefs. Politicians never discuss their religious beliefs. There are a couple of groups that ring doorbells. Guess what religion the most frequent of them happens to be? Yep, ding dong, it’s Jesus. But it’s always older ladies with younger housewife-types in tow. Strikes me more as a social group. Xtians make up only about 5% of the population. So, no, as far as dealing with them in reality, I didn’t fail. Don’t hear it on TV, don’t have it pushed on me. You’re talking from your anus on this one. I have zero desire to return to the likes of you spout your delusional beliefs.
Again, what I advocate is the non-believers start to exercise their rights to freedom of speech and strongly challenge the religiously delusional in all cases. The situation isn’t as it was hundreds of years ago where one would be put to death as a heretic. The ones that weren’t successfully brainwashed were simply put to death.
But something I read the other day was interesting. Some incredibly high percentage of the Gen Z population is turning away from organized religion. It’s just a matter of time and the xtian religion will go the way of Thor et al. But it’s encouraging to be able to see a sudden decrease here and there.
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John D. Partin
You still haven't answered if you know of any whack jobs among non-Christians, so that your expatriation from the USA to escape from whack jobs was a useless effort, since you are still dealing with them.
If that isn't too "as hominem" a question and the monastery doesn't think that you are too delicate for that question to be presented to you, perhaps they will put it in here this time and we can see if you will finally answer it or go on evading it, as usual.
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Dr. Zerpersande, NSC
There are most certainly religiously delusional people in this country. I was once invited to play in a golf tournament organized by a Buddhist temple. The entire day went without anyone even mentioning religion. There was a dinner held that evening. The only thing related to religion was when the head monk asked me if I was christian. I responded no and added that I did not believe in any gods or an afterlife. That was it. And at the end of the dinner the monk said I was welcome to join their tournament in the future.
I TOLD you that people do not talk about religion here. I also told you this is especially true of politicians. It is never done. And this is why I related my comparison of religion to a weird sexual fetish. I DON’T CARE WHAT CRAZY THOUGHTS YOU HAVE IN YOUR HEAD AS LONG AS YOU KEEP THEM TO YOURSELF. Americans are notoriously vocal about their Bronze Age superstitions and it is extremely annoying.
I have a friend/student that lives nearby and we go out drinking (used to), play golf, etc. Once he mentioned he had to change some plans because of a festival at a local Buddhist temple. I asked if Buddhists all knew The Four Noble Truths. He didn’t. I asked if he believed everything about Buddhism. (Modern Buddhism is filled with gods and superstitions that weren’t part of Buddha’s original teachings.) Long story short, no. It was just a cultural thing. He participated without really believing. He isn’t a whack job, just an extremely conventional person.
So although there are certainly religious whack jobs they aren’t the vocal types that want to tell you about their delusions. Whack jobs that talk about their stupid beliefs are annoying. Like you. I’m finished with you for now. Wiping you off the bottom off my shoe. I’m sure I’ll step in you again.
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John D. Partin
"Dr." Zerpersande is, quite obviously, having very serious difficulties in distinguishing between atheistic or non-Christian whack jobs and "whack jobs", according to him, in Christianity, and so gets easily confused when asked about his encounters with atheist and non-Christian whack jobs and still "thinks" that he is being asked about Christian "whack jobs".
Well, his kind of person slips into these discussions every now and then, and we just have to make allowances for his limited comprehension and not make too great demands on something like him and let him go on in his lack of understanding. He is doing the best that he can and they are so cute at his age.
No doubt, we will step into him again, which he so childishly tries to say about me and will just pat him on the head and send him on his way off to bed. Until then, we will dismiss him and wipe him off the bottoms of our shoes!!
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John D. Partin
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Matthew Mastrogiovanni
About time. Consequences for his actions.
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Anne 'Arie
I feel bad for the guy but people should realize that if they comment on controversial issues, they are asking for trouble. To tie the comments to your business is suicidal in many cases. A lesson many have learned the hard way. As everyone else has said, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If you value your livelihood, keep your opinion to yourself or be prepared for the consequences. And it's not just the people you are slamming anymore; it's the people who believe that everyone has a right to live life as they choose. Judgemental people are going out of style these days.
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
Conservatives today truly believe they have the RIGHT to say whatever they want, no matter now false or hurtful to others, and everybody else needs to just shut up and listen to them.
Anything conservatives don't want to hear they call, 'politically correct, or 'Woke', or some other disparagement, which is really just rhetoric to quash any discussion. They hear it all on their sprawling right-wing media, or if they don't watch it, from their friends, which becomes another conduit, and this is where they get these ideas, which fit right in with their bigotry, prejudice, and general xenophobia, which they then project onto the rest of the world.
Conservatives zealously work to impose their ideas onto the rest of society and truly don't seem to care what lies they have to believe or what facts they have to burn or who they have to run over in order to remake all of society into their idea of it. They genuinely want all of America - and the entire world if they could - turned into their own giant personal safe space.
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Canadian Yankee
It amazes me when people throw rocks at other and are offended when they have the rocks thrown back at them. For a businessman to get involved in the rock throwing is just looking for trouble.
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Daniel Gray
Just as the people are boycotting Budweiser and Target and Disney with their wallets, the Gay community has just as much right to boycott this farmers business with their wallets.
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Dan Anderson
This Louisiana gentleman is complaining about his business suffering 'just because he made disparaging comments' of Pride Month.
There is something taught in nearly every theology, theistic and non-theistic, which is called by many names, but the most common are Karma and Cause-and-Effect. (Point of education: Karma is neither negative nor positive, but just 'energy.' It is the same as Cause-and-Effect, in essence. If you decide to kick someone in the shin, you might as well expect to have the same act occur to you.)
You made the comments about your claiming that this concept you hold is a threat to your Christian beliefs has caused the karma of your losing business. Suck it up, Buttercup! Karma has blessed you with what you deserve.
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James Riggle-Johnson
If a person owns a company and does something their customers don’t like, then they are allowed to stop doing business there. Christians have been discriminating against the LGBTQ community for a LONG LONG time. You can’t force people to eat at your restaurant. Also, it’s difficult to put a Catholic on a pedestal after uncovering how many priests were abusing children, and the church kept covering it up. Boo Hoo, dude.
Ps… New Orleans host one of the largest gay events in the country. Southern Decadence has been happing in the French Quarter every year since 1972. It’s a lot of fun too.
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Bryan Anthony Tann Sr
The LBGTQ+ community has every single right to vote with their wallets. As a black man, if a company was disparaging black people openly, I wouldn’t give them my hard earned money and I would expect others that are against bigotry to do the same.
That farmer went onto a public forum, from his business account no less, and launched into a propagandist talking point rant making generalizes comments about a group of people.
And how dare he try to call himself being persecuted because of his faith. Being persecuted for your Faith is being murdered for practicing your Faith. Having your business stripped from you because of your Faith. What he did was spew bigotry and hate, while HIDING behind a wall of “faith” and he’s facing the consequences.
That’s what I call messing around and finding out. So many modern day Pharisees are running wild it’s absolutely ridiculous.
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Bryan Anthony Tann Sr
The LBGTQ+ community has every single right to vote with their wallets. As a black man, if a company was disparaging black people openly, I wouldn’t give them my hard earned money and I would expect others that are against bigotry to do the same.
That farmer went onto a public forum, from his business account no less, and launched into a propagandist talking point rant making generalizes comments about a group of people.
And how dare he try to call himself being persecuted because of his faith. Being persecuted for your Faith is being murdered for practicing your Faith. Having your business stripped from you because of your Faith. What he did was spew bigotry and hate, while HIDING behind a wall of “faith” and he’s facing the consequences.
That’s what I call messing around and finding out. So many modern day Pharisees are running wild it’s absolutely ridiculous.
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Merlin
Words are powerful things that should be spoke with care. Everyone has the right, but must be willing to accept the affect.
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
The punch line being it seems those who take words the most seriously are also the most egregious offenders.
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Michael T. Hagelberg
Foie Gras? Even before getting to the morale issues described here, what about shoving a tube down a goose’s neck and force feeding it until its liver bursts? And then feeding that diseased liver to customers as a “delicacy”?
Such enormous cruelty even before the issue of hateful speech in the name of Christ’s love.
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Carly Delynn Stewart
People choose where they spend their money simple as that. You have a right to say what you want to an extent, people have the right to buy what they want and from who they want to buy from. If you wanna martyr yourself for your religion and make a statement I don’t get complaining about it afterwords.
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Gary Michael Steele
Of course, he is welcome to his faith and even has the right to express his hateful opinion. However, everyone else has the right to decide whether they will support it.
When someone refuses service to gay people, it’s not because said people said or did something directed at them. They claim they can’t “support that ‘lifestyle.’” How accepting someone’s money constitutes support, I cannot fathom. Paying someone for services IS supporting them and all they stand for. Well, 2/3 of this guy’s clients are unwilling to support him. It’s not persecution, it’s capitalism.
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Caryann Gries
I say play stupid games get stupid prizes. Don’t post hate on social media. Also, I can’t imagine what kind of Truly spiritual person would eat Foie gras .The way they force feed the ducks with a funnel Is hideous and torturous I could never respect anybody who ate that .
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Tom Herman
Social Media by its nature promotes interaction both positive and negative. That's what it's for. Too many hide behind a keyboard to spew their inflamatory views and then whine about the outcome. What was this farmer expecting, only a positive reaction? He absolutely knew what he was doing and risking. As a local businessman, such a controversial post was a stupid thing to do. What kind of business professional does not understand the composition of his customer base? An inept one if you ask me. His customer base has every right to spend or not spend their hard earned money where they wish. If he's smart he will embrace all love and humanity for whst it's worth and apologize to this community before he goes completely out of business. After all, are we not all children of the same universe?
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Greg Formoe
From what I saw, when I read the bible, it has only been priests proclaiming gay to be wrong. Jesus said nothing, about what many see as the most important thing to argue about. Jesus said, love each other, period, no exceptions. Let God sort it out after we die, for now, let's live in peace, like Jesus told us to.
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
Love is only of one kind sexually. Agape love of all is you embrace the sinner but not the sin but you do not accept him when he refuses to repent. Thete comes a point you do reject certain individuals.
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Amy Varela
Prove you comment with evidence please, Keith. Jesus NEVER said what you said. Maybe Paul did, but Paul was a misogynistic jerk.
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Lionheart
Who knows whatever Jesus said….assuming he was real? 🤷🏼
🦁❤️
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Grahame Warren
he is a Foie Grasse farmer - so he inflicts the utmost cruelty on geese by force-feeding them grain to engorge their liver which he then sells at an extortionate price to so-called "Gourmands".
and then criticises something that has nothing to do with him, nor affecting his personal lifestyle and choices - being part of a religion that has covered up for paedophilia and protected its priestly child-abusers for many years.
Of course if it is Gay Rights it is wrong but if it is Priests wrongs it is right!
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Colleen McAllister
That farmer made a decision and now he needs to accept the consequences.
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Jeff Grippe
You have every right to say what you want to say. The moment you "put it out there", however, then people have the right to decide if they wish to support you. Look at it this way, if you, as a consumer, became aware of a business run by satanists and you chose not to patronize them because you don't want to support satan, that isn't persecution. It is simply you exercising your right to support whatever you want to support. Had the satanists not publicly announced themselves, you would probably be blissfully ignorant customers.
People must be responsible for what they say and the context in which they say it. If you don't want gay people and those who support them to boycott you, don't publicly advocate against them. If you feel like your religion compels you to do it, then be prepared for the consequences. People talking with their dollars is not persecution just as it wouldn't be if you chose not to buy from the satanists.
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
The conservative religious cult of persecuted victimhood bears no responsibility for anything they do, any way they hurt others. Everything that happens to them, everything they do, every hateful thing they say is always someone else's fault, up to and including God.
This is how I know they need to grow up.
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Brien
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Now if your opinion costs you your livelihood, then you live with it or change your opinion. Either way, you own it. And that goes for both sides of this. If you're a member of the rainbow community why do any business at all with anyone whose beliefs clearly do not align with yours? All I see in this argument are people trying to get 15 minutes of fame. This topic, no matter who is involved, is nonsense.
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Anne 'Arie
I have to agree with you but, the purpose of this forum is to express our reaction to the articles posted. I have to admit that I find it hard to sympathize with anyone who opens their mouth and sticks their foot in it with little regard for what the consequences will be. No matter what side of the fence people are on with this issue, they might think about how others are going to react to their comments before them make them.
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Brien
The keyword in your reply is "think". Sometimes I have a hard time believing that there are still people willing to cut their nose off to spite their face. With that, they are entitled to their opinion. If you wish to deal with a zealot, then own it. You helped to keep the zealot solvent, so why make a big deal about not doing business with the zealot? This person did not just turn into a zealot, it seems he was that way all along. 15 minutes of fame is so obvious. That's why it only lasts 15 minutes.
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
Most of the articles posted are really stupid with little rational thought.They are only meant to divide rather then bring people of different faiths together on common grounds. This organization really defeats its own purposes.
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
Imagine you lecturing people on rational thought.
Thanks for the laugh.
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Michael Hunt
I mean, nothing drives engagement like outrage and engagement is the Internet's most important metric.
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Amber Fry
I don't think it's even about changing the opinion but more keeping it private. People are free to believe whatever they wish and live by those beliefs. The issue becomes forcing it on others. When in an arena that people are invited to share their beliefs and thoughts, so be it. But the minute you make it public business, you are going to get a public response. Consider carefully because that response isn't always positive and supportive. Choose wisely.
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Brien
Very well said. Thank you for your thoughts.
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Geoffrey C. Olive
Homosexuality is common and normal in the animal kingdom. Homo sapiens (humans) are also part of the animal kingdom! Anyone denying this fact is selectively ignoring what science has contributed to the understanding and betterment of the human existence on this planet! What exactly has religion contributed to society? Bigotry, persecution, hatred, control, war, massacres, division, anger, lies, ignorance, stupidity, and myriad other things too numerous to mention! Religion is the bane of human existence!
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
We may be part of the animal kingdom but we don't share in just their instinct. God gave us a higher position. One of reason. Right or wrong. Animals don't know the existence of right or wrong. It is purely instinct . So we are not beasts. All the bad you listed comes from the fall of humanity. The whole b of creation fell. That's why carnality came into existence. All of the kingdoms turned against each other . It's really common sense if you start to think philosophically. But, you apparently lack that as most people do.
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Geoffrey C. Olive
It seems that you, and everyone else believing in religion, can think that a god or gods created everything in the universe with absolutely no evidence for it or their existence. The source of these beliefs comes from the writings of ancient people who were controlling the uneducated masses. That is common sense, not what you claim! Evidence for your god that satisfies the definition of living existence please! In addition, your name calling and imagined knowledge of my and other’s philosophy only shows how little you know about anything that you choose to disagree with!
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Lionheart
It seems you are lacking very few supportive “likes”.
Geoffrey is right-on with his comments. Kudos to him with his very educated logic 👏.
🦁❤️
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Brien
God, your mythical being, gave NOTHING to me. I do not bow to a belief based on fear and genocide. You believe as you wish, but if you're going to be all come to Jesus in public, then I will always point out thousands of years of fear and death based on those twisted beliefs. And I will be just as public about it.
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Father Frederick
My opinion is the religious component can be separated from the comment he made. The fact that he's a Christian has no play in this "is it fair" for his business to suffer. As I have told my congregation, especially on those matters with the American Constitution; just because you have the right to say it, does not separate you from the consequences of saying it.
I have my own views on a lot of things, and I would bet that every view has some detractors, some of those would feel a need to "strike back" on what I said. Therefore, why say it? What I believe it moot. It's what YOU believe.
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Gary Michael Steele
Of course, he is welcome to his faith and even has the right to express his hateful opinion. However, everyone else has the right to decide whether they will support it.
When someone refuses service to gay people, it’s not because said people said or did something directed at them. They claim they can’t “support that ‘lifestyle.’” How accepting someone’s money constitutes support, I cannot fathom. Paying someone for services IS supporting them and all they stand for. Well, 2/3 of this guy’s clients are unwilling to support him. It’s not persecution, it’s capitalism.
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Robert T Wilson
Plain and simple, the faith he has is not supposed to crucify, belittle or hate. He is not following the faith. He is following hate. If there is a heaven, he won't make it. The redirect on homosexuals and the lgbtq+ is rooted in the Nazi movement. The Bible does not say hate the community. Jesus didn't do that either. Time to read and gargle
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Rev. Kev
If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander.
You can't cry out "Persecution!" when it happens to you but belong to a group that has no problems boycotting businesses that they don't like.
This is why it used to be a common practise in business to avoid politics and religion when dealing with the public. I never wore any religious symbols nor ever discussed either topic with clients. It is simply way too easy to get on the other person's bad side on such emotional issues and instantly lose them as a customer.
If people can't keep business and personal life separate then they bear the responsibility for any consequences.
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Diane Evelyn Barth Hoadley
Everyone has the right to vote their pocketbook. Smart business people keep their religious and political views private.
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Louis Edward Zitnik II
So, now you want to require people to buy from you because you are Catholic?
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Lisbeth Kieran Bushey
It’s just capitalism, farmer. If people don’t like you, they won’t buy from you and will go to your competition instead. If it’s fine for bigots to stop buying Bud Light, it’s fine for others to not buy from bigots. What’s the matter? It’s a staple of American freedom.
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Melaine Rae Thompson
People have always used their wallets to express their displeasure, that was the risk he took when he posted the comment on his business website.
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P. Keith Benefiel
My Mama taught me the difference between what is legitimately my concern and what is none of my damn business, a lesson more folks should pay attention to.
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Rev. Elizabeth
This is where I get upset. We are to accept Pride, whatever it is. I really don’t pay attention to it. I believe in free speech so, if I don’t like what is being said, I either give my opinion or just ignore. That’s the case here. A person has his opinion on Pride Month (?) and he gets attacked horribly because he has his own opinion. That’s the problems with society now. It’s ok to have their opinion, the majority opinion but, if your opinion differs from the majority, YOUR DEAD. You know I’m right. How many here will attack me once again for my opinion? I respond to a few posts and I share honestly and with respect. It’s awful when it comes back to me. Nothing with respect to me. They get nasty with me. Some I respond with calm sentences. So, I understand this farmer and I feel for him because he’s getting what I get when we voice our opinion or belief. Why is that? Why can’t someone who doesn’t have the same belief get attacked?
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Anne 'Arie
Mostly is has to do with people being judgmental about how others live. You know you are going to be attacked yet you still say what you have on your mind. I do likewise. But I am not whining because I opened my mouth and risked my livelihood and neither are you. To me, this issue is not about differences of opinion but the consequences of voicing those opinions. All people need to be mindful what they say about others who aren't doing them any harm and truthful in what they say about those who are.
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Rev. Mike Eggleston
Those former customers who are now declining to do businiess with him are simply exercising their freedon of speech. Do your equally criticize traders who refuse to cater for members of the LGBTQ+ comminity, such as the bakers who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple's wedding?
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Amber Fry
Not to mention right to choose.
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Pastor Xal
Absolutely maintain your own informed opinion. When the name-calling starts, usually by those who have no factual of actual experience. When they voice demeaning and hate filled comments is when I feel compelled to enter the conversation. If you and I do not agree that is supposed to be the centerpiece of living in a free country. I actually agree with you on how discussions are devolving into a form of tyranny.
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Amber Fry
The thing is, accepting its existence isn't the same as joining in. It isn't the same as believing and acting as if it is you and your life. That is the difference. Nobody is saying people cannot have and live by their own beliefs. What is being said is to not make laws and force others to live by yours.
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
Funny thing is the pride movement really is not a majority, but a minority backed by BIG RICH ELITES who also are a minority. So why should I or anyone accept peopke who really dress in sicko costumes that aren't even pretty or decent. Just clown outfits. Most gay people prefer to.live quietly, dress decently, etc. It is this sicko clown movement that is pushing this crap down the rest of society's throat. Big minority money by a minority of sick depraved individuals who dress up like depraved clowns gyrating their hips and thrusting theirbprivzyes into the faces of underage kids. But, they are themselves fighting back. It's sad to see that we just can't let kids be kids and let them play.
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Cheryl Pettijohn
Wow, you are so knowledgeable. What letter of the LGBT+ group do you belong? Just checking your bona fide.
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
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Amber Fry
What makes you think it's being pushed? They are doing their thing and enjoying their lives. Is your's so terrible that you have to criticize them for it? What makes you think kids wouldn't be interested in such things of their own accord? On the contrary, kids have feelings and many of them dress up. Even some boys entirely on their own accord raid their mother's closet.Are you saying they should play only in a way you feel appropriate? If they are not hurting anyone and it's their own choice, what of it?
I think the thing you are missing here is that it might be a minority who are gay, or who are trans, or who are into drag, but the majority actually supports them since they are not going out of their way to demand others join in and be like them. It's also a minority pitching a fit about their existence and practice.
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Lisbeth Kieran Bushey
I knew I wasn’t a woman or a man when I was a small child. I was raised in the church and had no idea what LGBTQ+ was until my late teens. I didn’t know what gender-fluid was until my 20s. We LGBTQ+ folks know that we’re different and have feelings other than cishet feelings whether we know what LGBTQ+ is or not.
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
So you seriously demand society adhere to a dress code - YOUR dress code??
But I get it - you want to know what's in everybody's pants - so they don't offend you. And you want to pick out their pants.
So normal.
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Deborah A Boyle
First of all there is a God and it’s not me or anyone else who voices their opinion on this forum. Second, Judge not lest ye be judged. My opinion only means something to me. Third, one sin is not different or worse than any other sin. Finally, all people have the right to buy or not buy from any business. So much judgement spewed on this forum. Love is a universal language practiced by many faiths. Religion is a business. If people stop supporting whatever religion, they go out of business. Love is love, it’s that simple.
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Pamela Kay Waters
If people would just keep to themselves and not post or make remarks about others or themselves it would be a lot calmer. Who cares if you're gay. Just shut up who cares and go on.
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Amber Fry
It only becomes a problem when someone finds out and attacks a person for being gay. It happens all the time. Even those who are not out and either rumored to be gay or someone else knows and says something and the person in question gets attacked. THIS is why it's important to say something. It's exactly the kind of action that started the movement in the first place. It doesn't stop there. Fired, refused needed loans, refused programs all just for being or rumored to be gay. If others really didn't care who's gay and who isn't then this wouldn't be such a big topic to begin with.
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Lisbeth Kieran Bushey
It matters when we aren’t allowed to exist. When we can’t marry, adopt, join the military, run for office, get gender-affirming care, or walk safely in public. When we can’t wear a dress if we don’t look a certain way or we could be imprisoned. When we can’t have a picture of our families on our desk if we work with kids. We just want all the same rights and privileges as cishet people.
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Douglas Robert Spindler
This is just going to show how much young people HATE the things Christina’s do and believe. Christians are under attack for the stupid things they say, do and believe.
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
Really. Not believing in a moral higher being is really the stupid position. Denying something that you think doesn't exist is a misnomer. Why waste your time trying to convince others it doesn't exist if you believe it truly doesn't exist. The real atheism is denying the world's evil ways.
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Murray Nick Jones
You know not of which you speak. Atheism is not a belief, nor is it a religion. It is merely the disassociation of religion, deities, and practices. "Denial" is simply not acknowledging something that may or may not exist, as belief is subjective. Imposing one's beliefs upon others is aggressive, oppressive, and usually achieves an opposite reaction. You seem like you are struggling with this very oppressive agenda; to impose your will and belief system upon as many people as you can, and you attack any and all who may reject your draconian and dystopian viewpoints. Why is that?
One more thing? Morality and sin, some of your favorite subjects, are subjective. What is sin for one person, may not be sin for another because beliefs are subjective and intrepreted separately. Just becasue a religious canon says something is a sin, it is not necessarily a sin for someone who does not prescribe to that faith and does not follow that religious canon. For example, some faiths condemn caffeine, yet there are thousands and thousands of Starbucks and other coffee houses worldwide. Is it a no-caffeine religious person's duty to police the streets, condemning those who drink coffee and tea? What one religious sect calls evil is not necessarily evil. They perceive evil differently because they tend to denegrate anyone who does not follow their self-righteous, sanctimonious, twisted views of ancient traditions, whcih often violate their own members and attack anyone outside of their fold.
I don't doubt you have strong convictions, but they do not seem to be coming from a good place, but rather as defensive mechanism, of which you have lost control.
Rev. MN Jones
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Geoffrey C. Olive
Don’t worry about Eash, the nonsense peddler! He’s so seriously infected with the religion virus that no amount of rational thinking can cure him. He likes to insult by name calling, thinking it makes his points of view stronger and therefore correct. Name calling achieves nothing except falsely boosting one’s own ego, which I personally don’t have to do, but if Eash likes doing that, then here’s another one that I think describes him - a wannabe Ayatollah who want to force his own delusional view on others!
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Douglas Robert Spindler
@ Keith Allen Steele Eash. Your thinking is flawed. The only reason you believe there is a higher being is because you were told to believe there is one. If you were not told there was a higher being would you believe there was one? Out of all of the higher beings how do you know which ones to believe are real and which ones are false? Eash you know most of the people in the world are good kinds people and don’t need religion or have to believe in a higher being to be good. But maybe you do.
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
@ Eash - denying the reality of people and the world is the true evil, because people who do that tend to project their own 'reality' onto others, and that is NEVER kind.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353928
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Peggy Ann Warner
I am in fact a Catholic but God gave me the sense to find my way through this jungle of scared hypocrites. Marriage was an invention, not by any religion, by men (Overlords) to ensure that their children were legally theirs and someone would carry their name and title. Sad to say, boo hoo, that was never a sure thing.Then I have come to realize that individuals, all religious zealots, use the name of God, Christ, and the Bible to secure proof of their righteousness and there is no purpose in arguing with them. These pinheads will accept talking to you as long as you repeat back what they believe. I have had conversations with individuals who, for example believe that only those who have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, will reach heaven. What about the people who came before Jesus, the baby’s who die before having full knowledge, or the persons from other religions who exemplify what we call Christ-like ways of living their lives? I am always amazed how they pretend to know and be God’s spokesperson without addressing what Christ said was the greatest commandment?!? If you are a Christian I shouldn’t have to tell you here.
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Geoffrey C. Olive
Has anyone noticed how few like 👍 votes the god supporters receive? It would be interesting if this blog also had a dislike 👎 vote option! There would be a few commentators who would get very large numbers of dislike 👎 votes!
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
I would love to see the software of this blog upgraded.
They have the makings of a great online community here.
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Gary Stephen Lowden
Getting back to the original question posed. If the right can boycott Disney, Bud Light, Target, Chic-Filet and any other organization they want, then people can decide to not spend their money at some bigots' business. If you don't want gay marriage, don't have one. As for the transgender issue, is that not best handled by the kids, their parents and their physicians? The right doesn't like intrusive government unless it is promoting its agenda.
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Keith
I keep hearing people say that the LGBTQIA+ community is pushing its agenda on families and the Conservative Party. I beg to differ. All we wanted was equal rights and the freedom to choose who we love and marry. It appeared like things were finally starting to look like a normal country where people could just be that, normal without labels. It seems to me that the only people causing this divide between the LGBTQIA+ community are the conservative politicians and the Supreme Court Judges. They have made it their mission to take away as many rights from us by telling their lies and conspiracy theories to the good people from small towns and rural America who believe this because they have been fed these lies over and over again. So, therefore, if anyone is pushing its agenda on the American people it's consecutive politicians and judges, not the LGBTQIA+ community. So, as I see it the LGBTQIA+ community has the right to boycott this farmer and other businesses that are believing this government rhetoric and pushing their religious beliefs and any other harmful tactic upon the LGBTQIA+ community. If you look at facts within the last 10 to 15 years, no issues were had between this farmer and his consumers because religion and sexuality were left out of the equation, it was business. The farmer had a product to sell and the consumer had the money to purchase. I'm sorry that this farmer is losing his income for his crops not selling. So don't blame the LGBTQIA+ community for boycotting your product. If you want to blame anyone for the loss of your income, your lively hood then blame the consecutive Republican Party for pushing their fear-mongering agenda causing this division of racism and the hatred of certain groups of Americans. So, we have a right to boycott your products and services if we are treated differently because the government wants to make us go away. We won't go away because we are here and all we want is to live our lives in peace, harmony, and mutual respect. We as Americans, all need to be treated equally with the same human rights.
Blessings, Rev. Keith
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Mary Haviland
I support the farmer. He is following YHWYa laws and that's what matters.
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Rev. Mike Eggleston
That is your right, just as it's the right of those who disagree with him to decline to do business with him. Let YHWYa (YHWH?) help him out.
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Joseph Knopick
Glory be to Jesus Christ, Glory Forever
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Robin Cohen
The land of America is free from Religion. This means Catholic is a religion. Pride is not religion, pride is free in individual pursuit of happiness. Religions teach Love thy Neighbor. Your neighbors are All the People on the planet.
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Robin Cohen
The land of America is free from Religion. This means Catholic is a religion. Pride is not religion, pride is free in individual pursuit of happiness. Religions teach Love thy Neighbor. Your neighbors are All the People on the planet.
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Lionheart
Was he real then? Do you have any demonstrable evidence to show he really existed, even though it’s possible someone like him did exist.
🦁❤️
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
If it's possible that Jesus existed which history doesn't deny, then he truly existed. That's like denying the Holocaust never occurred or the Earth is round.
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Lionheart
It’s very likely someone of that name existed, possibly more than one. As to what was actually said is pure conjecture by historians that never met him.
We know the earth isn’t flat, because if it was, cats would have shoved everything ever the edge by now 🤭
🦁❤️
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Lionheart
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Man of God
Belivers in Jesus, must have faith in Jesus. Jesus is the lamb that died for all of our sins! We are all sinners. Jesus never asked his followers to past judgement on other sinners. As long as adults are acting in private and wantonly, that is their business. What is done in public is public business. The first sinners had enough sense to cover themselves after they learned they were naked. Public decency is a must. Protest about indecency. Believers must learn to focus on their life for we are all unworthly.
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Rev. Kev
Jonathan,
This has nothing to do with the article. I just had a question about something you wrote.
You wrote: "The first sinners had enough sense to cover themselves after they learned they were naked."
This makes me wonder. God supposedly made Adam and Eve naked. Didn't provide them clothes until AFTER the whole forbidden fruit episode. Until then, God talked to them and hung out. No mention that the nudity thing was wrong at all.
Then they munch on the fruit and suddenly decide they are wrong for being naked. All ashamed and stuff. God doesn't tell them any different. He makes them a wardrobe.
Why was it OK before the fruit eating but not OK after? Why did God change that rule?
This aside from the fact that God punishes them for doing the Bad Thing when they had no knowledge of Good and Evil until after they ate the fruit to get the knowledge.
Or punishing all snakes for the act of one that was either possessed (and therefore not accountable) or simply Satan in the guise of one.
Questions.....questions.....
(For those who read the story literally, that is)
I was just curious.
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
Omg. They broke a command. Do not eat of the forbidden fruit (probably a fig) of the tree of good and evil. Usually, there is a hidden component in the message . God has a sense of humor. Humanity clothes themselves of the very fruit they ate thereof. The fig leaf. I laugh every time I read that. Not only that. It wasn't an olive , or grape, etc. Simply a fig which plays an important part throughout Scripture. Just so happens the fig leaf is fairly large enough to do its thing in covering over the very part that is used for procreation. Use your reason to think and meditate on those texts. Even if people of other faiths did this it would make them more open to Judeo/Christianity. For an organization which embraces all faiths as the ULC does I really find alot of ignorance among many of its members. They did know enough not to disobey God but through deception they therefore sinned. The blame is not on Eve as Adam puts the blame on her but on Satan who Eve clearly blames. He deserves the blame because he is deception. That was the very day that all of Creation fell. The day that angels rebelled against God because God placed humanity above the angels. Both had the ability to choose betwern obeying God or disobeying God. The whole point thst the angels chose to disobey God is the fact they cannot repent. Humanity can disobey and later choose to obey by repentance. We have an out, they don't. Meditate on that for awhile.
Certain humans once they've made their choice have clearly placed themselves beyond repentance by their continuous denial of God. The abject use of children being placed on the altar of sacrifice, i.e, abortion, child trafficking, mutilation of gender, indoctrination, , that is the total denial of God. They won't repent. Therefore, I won't pray for their salvation except only in a general way. They have already chosen their path of no return. The last few democratic adimistrations in the U.S presidency have proven that. So they fraudulently perform a coup de eat by positioning a moronic nutsack suffering from dementia to run the country like BOZO the Clown. Go back to Clinton and Obama to their speeches. Very clear what their agenda was. Obama always said he'd serve a third term. Now he is as the Shadow president. No conspiracy theory. Just common sense in seeing this from a political theological point of view. The children, the very essence of procreation are the target. As Diaper Joe has said the children belong to the government, not the parents. Since when? California passed a law that children can be taken from the parents simply for gender change if the children express that. What do children truly know in the age of innocence? My God, wake up. To teach hate you do it when they are developing in their minds. Simple communists, Socialist approach. When you really think why did the democrats tell Betnie Sanders to back off when he clearly had the votes in the primaries to beat Biden. He was clearly not the total leftist the rest of the rest of the party was. They wanted Biden because Biden was already suffering g from dementia. HE COULD BE CONTROLLED. THEY KNEW THEY COULDN'T BEAT TRUMP who this time could clearly win re-election with the electoral votes and the popular vote. And he will again in 2024 unless they do something to stop him again which they are trying to do. And the politics I've brought into this discussion lies fully upon the very topic of Good vs Evil if you think this out clearly. But, naturally most members seem to be to stupid or lazy to do so.
As the Catholic Church teaches there is only one truth. All other faiths hold only partial truth, but even reflecting on their own Scriptures can lead them to the ultimate truth of God. For once, there is a uniting going on this country that will pick up speed. Muslims and Christians and Jews are uniting to.oppose this WOKE agenda. Pretty soon, you'll see the other faiths jump into this moral fight as well. Leave our children alone. As Jesus commanded you touch one hair on these children you will wish you hadn't. The children belong to God. DO NOT TOUCH OUR KIDS. Sorry to go slightly off the topic but it ties Into the topic of the fall of humanity.-
Amy Varela
The Catholic Church has a history of being evil. There is no truth in a group that revels in riches for their leaders and regularly abuses children.
Provide evidence for the existence of your god before claiming the truth. And after you provide evidence for his existence, explain why he is an immoral, genocidal, racist, misogynistic, infanticidal monster.
And then explain why you don't follow Jesus' teachings.
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John D. Partin
Amy Varela, the Catholic Church does have a history of much evil, but also a history of much good, in Catholic hospitals, Catholic universities, Catholic Charities and the St. Vincent de Paul Society and other aid societies, and in the works of Saints (St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. John Vianney, St. Philip Neri, and many others), and it is unfair and unreasonable to dismiss all of them and consider the Church "totally evil" because of very bad "Catholics".
Nobody who has ever received any help or education or answers to prayer from any of these organizations or Saints would agree with you that the Church is "totally evil". If every group were judged only by its worst elements and the good people in them dismissed and ignored, there wouldn't be any good people or groups in the world. That is as much bigotry against the Catholic Church as it is against black people, white people, Jews, Asians, Hispanics or any other group.
God is depicted as an "immoral, genocidal, racist, misogynistic, infanticidal monster" in the Bible because they wrote Him that way and if you aren't what some people describe you as being, in texts, emails, phone calls or talking about you behind your back, why would you, inconsistently, say that God has to be what some people say that He is, which He isn't going to stop them from doing because of free will and which doesn't change what He actually is?
The proof of the existence of God is that the mindless universe can't do anything for itself and so it must have a Mind behind it to do the things for it that it can't do for itself.
Why don't many people in the Church follow the teachings of Christ? Because they continue to be human beings and have free will in the Church and God isn't going to force anyone to do good and avoid doing evil, which would just be His doing it for them and prove nothing about them, and wants them to make the decision to avoid evil and do good themselves, as the Saints have done.
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
I don't deny God.
I deny you speak for God.
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Lionheart
Im curious as to which one you are referring to? Mankind has created so many.
Would yours be the real one by any chance? 🤭
🦁❤️
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
Let me ask you this LH - Does what you think define the universe?
What do you worship?
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Lionheart
My thoughts, are purely thoughts. If I can support my thoughts with demonstrable evidence, I can then determine what is possibly true, and real.
I don’t have a need to worship anything. However, my wife comes very close to being worshipped. She’s adorable…and real. She shows up every morning when I wake up, so I’m convinced she’s real.
Thank you for your question, Kenneth. 🤗
🦁❤️
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
Your wife sounds completely adorable. Funny how our partners are so often more than we deserve. Don't you think?
I have to say though, your story left me somewhat confused. I asked if you thought what you think defines the universe, and you replied that you know what you see is real.
Okay - so you DO think what you think defines the universe - or at least your perception of it, and therefore your understanding of it as well. Otherwise, why try to impose it on everyone else?
That's funny, because I recall you saying you once thought of yourself as a Reiki master. You were SURE you felt and manipulated 'energies' and such. Then you had a change of heart, and now you're SURE you know what's "real".
That's not uncommon. Also not uncommon is that though you had a perceptual change of heart, what does not change is an absolutist mindset. Sure, it turned out you were wrong before, but now you KNOW what is real! Alert the media! Everybody must agree!
Now here is where I am going to break the 4th wall and ask you to go with it. You see, I look around me, and I see the universe seems to LOVE diversity - diversity of form, diversity of experience, diversity of THOUGHT.
You see, the purest form of absolutism is uniformity of thought, because it seems some people can never relax until everybody agrees with what they think - and while you might think I must therefore never disagree with you, let me just point out that while I absolutely support individuality, that in turn means I must speak up whenever somebody makes a horses rear out of themselves by belittling everybody else for their individuality.
Also, you have no idea what I've seen.
Thank you for your answer LH.
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Lionheart
You’re right, there are times I feel I don’t deserve my wife. 🤭
I’m really not sure if, what I think, defines the universe. I know from astrophysicists, and astronomers, there is one universe, possibly more than one, who knows 🤷🏼.
Yes, I once professed to be a Reiki Master, but as logic, and reason, helped to dissolve my ego, I found I was deluding myself that I had “magical” healing powers. I realized that if I truly did, I, along with all other Reiki masters, would be visiting hospitals, healing the planet. Such is the power of delusion, and indoctrination, much like religion.
I personally don’t see the universe loving diversity, or anything for that matter. I see the universe as a space that is home to planets, stars, and other forms of interstellar matter. At least we know that one of those planets contains life as we know it.
I don’t expect everyone to agree with my thought structure. I merely like to point out to others my perception of how I see reality. Everyone is entitled to agree, or disagree.
Having baptized, and preached from the pulpit, I’m very fortunate to have been in a position where most currently are in their heads, or were, regarding religion. Been there, done that, scenario, so I understand what is driving their thought structure. I like to think I’ve come through that.
Until someone can prove to me otherwise, using logic, reason, and critical thought, and with demonstrable evidence, I will remain thinking, and believing, the way I do. I will always offer my thoughts for others to evaluate.
🦁❤️
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
We actually agree on many things LH, but that there is only one way to see the universe isn't one, nor do we agree on what ego is at all. "My ego is dissolved" is exactly the kind of thing the ego tells itself when it wants to justify something VERY egotistical.
We do seem to share one physical universe through which we all physically interact, but I look around me and it seems nobody lives in the same universe at all. We are all individuals, you see, and individuality gives perspective. Perspective gives context, and context gives meaning. Different individuals, different meanings, and I certainly see that everywhere! Without our individuality, without the different meaning we all bring to this world, there would be no need for discussions such as this, because we would all think identically. But I look around me and I see that's not how it works - not at all! Even you and I are vastly different - or at least I appreciate the differences. Do you honestly not see them? Is the universe truly black and white to you?
Science is certainly a wonderful thing - I worked in technical careers most of my life. Science certainly brings many great benefits - but to concentrate on straight physicality to give meaning is like appreciating the Mona Lisa by strictly studying its canvas and its paint. There are things to learn by doing that - but the art is completely missed!
So while your reliance on "reason and logic" are a good start, quite honestly in your use of them you appear to have simply replaced one bible for another, as here you are again testifying and spreading the 'gospel', as it were. For some people, proselytizing can be a very hard habit to break. This actually reminds me of another person who relied heavily on logic and reason. See if you can pick out the similarities.
~Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) invented the "Doctrine of Papal infallibility". He wrote, "Divine revelation is perfect and, therefore, it is not subject to continual and indefinite progress in order to correspond with progress of human reason... No man is free to embrace and profess that religion which he believes to be true, guided by the light of reason... The Roman Pontiff cannot and ought not to reconcile himself or agree with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.~
What a great Fox News guest he would have made! There you have it, all quite logical, critically reasoned because he said so and he knows it to be true! How can you argue with that?? He humbly offers these thoughts for others to evaluate - often by force, which these days seems to be making a comeback.
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Lionheart
Interesting thoughts, Kenneth.
Yes, the universe does seem very black and white to me. Are you under the impression that the universe contains more than interstellar matter, made up of the stars, planets, and the energy that atomic matter can create, that we can observe/detect? If so, do you have any evidence to support your claim.
Yes, I love art, and I understand as to what you refer, the same goes for music, poetry, etc., and as modern day primates we have developed the wonderful ability to harness our feelings to appreciate these artistic attributes. Show the Mona Lisa to an animal species lower than ourselves and they wouldn’t have the depth of appreciation as we do, and they’d possibly just walk all over it. Such is the nature of the animal kingdom.
Galileo Galilei, a brilliant man, used his logic, and reason, as well as math, championed heliocentrism. That didn’t go down well by religionists that favored geocentrism, to the point that he was incarcerated for the rest of his life for not cow-towing to those religiously less educated. I’ll go with logic, reason, and critical thought any time, over someone that told me to pray about it, if you understand what I mean, my friend.
I too, humbly offer my thoughts for others to evaluate, but never by force.
Thank you for your very well meaning reply. 🤗
🦁❤️
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
I like talking with you LH. We really do think alike in many ways.
"Show the Mona Lisa to an animal species lower than ourselves and they wouldn’t have the depth of appreciation as we do, and they’d possibly just walk all over it. Such is the nature of the animal kingdom."
This is exactly my point. A hammer sees every problem as a nail. How do you imagine a human sees things? Only as they really are?
I remember seeing a bumper sticker years ago that really struck me. It said, "Don't believe everything you think." Think about that. Do you believe everything you think LH?
You know a human brain, really, is just a few pounds of neural jelly in a meat suit. Wouldn't it be remarkable if we really were the 'highest animal' in this incomprehensibly vast universe, who looked around ourselves and everything was perceived just as it actually is, and we missed nothing?
Remarkable indeed.
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Lionheart
A hammer doesn’t see anything. The man weilding the hammer does. 🤭
As humans, I think we should see things, not as they look, in black and white, but as they are demonstrably tested to actually be.
I don’t believe everything I think. I class myself as a free-thinker. I am open to critical thought. Prove to me fairies are real and I’ll believe you. Prove to me Vishnu is real and I’ll believe you.
Religionists, on the other hand, are not free-thinkers, and have their minds bound by fear, preventing them from logic, reason, and critical thought. They are enslaved, and bound, by their gods.
Their few pounds of neutral jelly, within their cranium, might as well not exist at all. 🤭
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
And that is your true God LH, for which you are constantly proselytizing and condemning.
Authority. Comforting, known, manageable authority.
Let me tell you a short story. One day, many years ago, I was driving slowly through a residential neighborhood when a cat appeared running into the roadway. Why the cat was running I don't know, but it seemed to be very scared of something, as if it was being chased.
There was a car moving next to me. I watched as the cat also saw the car, changed direction slightly, and dove full speed under the front wheel of the car. I watched as the cat was run over, tumbled a bit, then picked back up, ran out of the street and leaped over a fence and was gone. The lady in the car and I looked at each other and kept driving. "Did that even happen?" We seemed to say to each other through the glass.
The point of the story is this: I realized, after watching this, that animals do not understand that wheels roll. There it is, plain as day - but while something in our minds comprehends this simple mechanical phenomenon, that cat seemed to earnestly believe that safety lay under that wheel, that perhaps it could hide there or something. We may never know just what the cat thought - it probably didn't last long after that.
So, mechanical comprehension is a human capability. In animals it is a superpower, occasionally demonstrated on a rudimentary level, but largely missing.
Humans, too, make many assumptions about many things. Do you think if I endeavored to explain to that cat that wheels roll, that it would then understand? I'm thinking that's not entirely how it works, that there must be some sort of evolutionary 'mechanical comprehension circuit' in human brains that we utilize to comprehend mechanical things. Lacking that, it becomes invisible. How then, to convince the cat?
You just told me that you believe that if you can't see something, then it doesn't exist, just as the cat thinks. You just told me that what you think defines the universe.
Repeat after me LH: "The universe is bigger than me." Repeat it several times.
Beyond the obvious, what this says is that there are probably things in the universe that you don't know, that you might even find incomprehensible, that might even be invisible to you. The universe, after all, is bigger than us, and any of our ideas of it. I don't know much, but I think that's a pretty safe bet.
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Lionheart
I have never said that mankind knows everything, we certainly don’t. Yes of course, being a free-thinker, there are going to be unknowns out there in the universe. That’s the beauty of science, discovering these unknowns, and learning to understand them.
I wonder if we’ll ever discover fairies are real….or even your particular God, or some other God that mankind wants to believe in? 🤔
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
Being as my universe doesn't stop at the end of my perception, I will share this observation:
I don't know. Anything is possible - after all, we're here.
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Lionheart
Perhaps there’s a multiverse, and our universe is just one if them🤷🏼
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
Perhaps - but that just multiplies the questions.
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion/nearly-1-700-priests-clergy-accused-sex-abuse-are-unsupervised-n1062396
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/19/new-jersey-catholic-diocese-alleged-sexual-abuse-settlement
https://abcnews.go.com/US/probe-identifies-158-priests-accused-abuse-600-victims/story?
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Rev. Kev
Ugh. A politico-religious rant.
Saw just enough to know to not schlog through that mess.
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
You don't need to - you can see it on Fox News nearly any day.
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Lionheart
Or even CNN, who are struggling to survive, which is hardly surprising due to their very left leaning views. 🤷🏼
Have you seen them cover anything lately about Hunter Biden, or Adam Schiff, other than support them?
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
It's a hard truth, but the fact is conservatives LOVE being told what to think. Liberals, not so much.
Marching in lock step, you see, is what conservatives do best.
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Lionheart
I disagree of course 🤭
We now all know that Adam Schiff made up a lot of lies, and it’s looking very likely that the Hunter Biden crimes are being treated very differently by the DOJ than what they would be if us lower serfs of the land committed the same crimes. You won’t agree of course because you only are possibly reading a news outlet that only wants to print what it wants others to know.
Gone are the days when the news media remained impartial in its political views. CNN clearly favors the Democrat party, and FOX favors the Republican Party. As a result, CNN is clearly struggling, and will possibly be sold very soon to bolster its readership that it continues to lose.
I suspect that President Biden will eventually have impeachment proceedings, but you won’t read that on CNN, or other left leaning new outlets. They won’t want you to know. They’ll keep you in the dark as long as possible, as many already have been.
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
It's a staple of right-wing propaganda that whatever they do it's okay because the "left-wing" media does worse.
That's what they want you to think.
This heavily researched and documented book SHOWS the difference.
https://uncpress.org/book/9781469646350/right-moves/
Feel free to show me anything similar on the left.
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Lionheart
Sure thing. Here’s a book called:
BAMBOOZLED, by Angela McGlowan
Her book explains:
Which political party gave rise to the Ku Klux Klan?
Which political party opposed extending the vote to women?
Which political party attempted to filibuster and kill the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
Which political party in 2007 tapped as President Pro Tempore of the Senate a former Klansman?
(Hint: It wasn't the Republicans.)
Bamboozled demolishes once and for all the lies Liberals use to manipulate and exploit Latinos, women, and blacks. Based on a mountain of research and personal interviews with top leaders and insiders, McGlowan dismantles Democrat deceptions and exposes Liberal lies, including:
How the Democratic Party erased its racist past and created an illusion of inclusion on Civil Rights.
The scheme Liberals ran to con minorities into loyally supporting a political party that despises their most deeply felt values. Why what's bad for families is great for Liberals.
How Liberals' love affair with criminal leniency destroys the very communities Liberals claim to protect.
How Liberal economic policies bankrupt blacks, loot Latinos, and wreck women's wallets.
Unveiling the Left's racist past and exploitative present, McGlowan points all Americans toward a bamboozle-free future.
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
Thank you LH. That is perfect.
'Propaganda' is defined as "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view"
Propaganda works by constructing an alternative reality. It does this most successfully by taking pieces of truth and spinning them into something completely different.
For example, did you know that in Nazi Germany Goebbels broadcast a daily radio segment in which an announcer just read arrest reports of Jews? Every word was true. Do you think that was exploitative and manipulative? Or do you agree with the Nazis that because the arrest reports were true they constituted public safety information, exposing the Jews?
Because you see, the Democrats "racist past" was a long time ago, but abolition was a LIBERAL cause. Civil rights are a LIBERAL cause. Affirmative action is a LIBERAL cause. Please LH, tell us all, what's your opinion now on civil rights, on reparations, on CRT and BLM? Or do you have a book about those too? I bet you do. I bet you are quite a consumer of right-wing 'literature'.
So let me again invite you to read "Right Moves" by Jason Stahl. Of course, just like CRT it is history that conservatives would rather have forgotten. You see, I am very familiar with everything in 'Bamboozled' because I have read it straight off of the Confederate apologist and white supremacist forums and web sites it comes from, and see it parroted every day by right-wingers, often who are so thoroughly indoctrinated that they refuse to read 'Right Moves' because it is "obvious left-wing propaganda!". In other words, they self-police themselves to ONLY read approved right-wing information - which truly must give their propagandist handlers a warm glow.
But, the truth is still the truth.
https://www.theroot.com/why-white-people-hate-critical-race-theory-explained-1846578811
A lie, you say? Don't believe me, believe the racists:
https://www.mic.com/articles/158302/kkk-paper-the-crusader-endorses-donald-trump-for-president
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a47407/american-nazi-party-supports-trump/
You talk a lot of talk about how you worship logic, reason, and truth, but I'm afraid you just don't walk the walk. Just like the standard ordinary evangelical, you don't use your bible to enlighten. Instead, you use your 'logic and reason' as a cudgel to control and subjugate, to demean and insult, just as you tried to do with me here.
You can do better LH. I believe in you.
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Lionheart
I need only to look at Democrat run cities and their ineffective ways of dealing with wanton crime, homelessness, and illegal immigration to sway me away from their policies.
I thought President Trump struggled as President, but that’s nothing compared to the fool we have now leading the nation. How utterly embarrassing!
Pence wasn’t the best VP, but compared the the laughing hyena that we have as VP, what a bumbling idiot she is 🤭
BLM? Who benefitted? Oh yes, the organizers did, by the millions of dollars. They’re laughing all the way to the bank.
CRT? Ask those that are looting stores what they think?
Reparations? If anyone needs reparations it’s Native Americans, and our own homeless war vets first. But as Bill Burr says….”I could be wrong, I dunno”🤷🏼
🦁❤️
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
My goodness LH - I no longer need to watch Fox News. I can just talk to you and get the rundown.
Right-wing media loves to go on about 'Democrat run cities', and the faithful LOVES it! It certainly is one of the 'Greatest hits'. Funny thing though, what they don't mention is that 'Democrat run cities' dominate the top 5 of the largest city economies in America. So, once again right-wing propaganda takes a truth and turns it around to it's opposite, because yes it is true that these 'Democrat run cities' have big city problems. In many ways they become victims of their own success - not to mention how the conservative element always works zealously to thwart any real progress with those problems.
So I go back to my original statement - the talking heads love telling people what to think, and conservatives love soaking in all that chatter. And then repeating it.
Thanks again.
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Lionheart
“My goodness LH - I no longer need to watch Fox News. I can just talk to you and get the rundown.”
Anytime! 🤗
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Dan Anderson
Jonathan - Please reference where Jesus EVER said ANYTHING about homosexuality. I have not been able to find it in the Bible.
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Daniel Gray
Try Matt. 5:28; 15:19, Mark 10:7–8, Romans 1, just for a few
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Dan Anderson
Mr. Gray - Matt. 5:28 is about having adultry in one's heart. Matt. 15:19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts--murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. Nothing there mentions anything about two people loving each other who just happen to be of the same gender. Mark 10:7-8. 7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; 8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. Again nothing about homosexuality.
History lesson for you. Romans 1:26-30 - Saul/Paul writing about his observations of an ancient Roman religious festival to the Goddess Diana for the purposes of improved crops and increased calvings & lambings. This ceremony would end in a massive orgy. THIS is what he was addressing. Again, nothing about homosexuality.
You did not include Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. That surprises me. They are the two most misunderstood passages, especially when attempts to put modern definition and assumption to writings which are embroiled in historicity and culture. This is the Levite condemnation of the Canaanite religious ceremonies that would use male temple prostitutes in their services. Again, NOTHING about homosexuality.
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
What do any of those have anything to do with homosexuality? I could just as easily say they are about needlepoint.
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Robin Cohen
The land of America is free from Religion. This means Catholic is a religion. Pride is not religion, pride is free in individual pursuit of happiness. Religions teach Love thy Neighbor. Your neighbors are All the People on the planet.
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
At least a few people know their Scriptures. Bet ya didn't know there are are tools that can sodomize and spade you all at the same time. That will awaken you while reading those passages yo u can't seem to find.
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Dan Anderson
Keith - "there are are tools that can sodomize and spade you all at the same time"?? Excuse me, but I do not see any connection here. It sounds like you are making a comparison of your 'example' and where Leviticus condemns farmers from growing two different crops next to each other where the farmer should be put to death.
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
@ Eash - such an imagination - and we can all see right where it's at.
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Lionheart
How do you know Jesus was real? How do you know what he ever actually said? Did you read about him in a book?
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Daniel Gray
And just how Lion do you know he wasnt real, or that these are not the words he stated?
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Lionheart
I don’t know that someone of that name wasn’t real. What we do know is that contemporary historians of that time did not right about him. Weird….right? Those that did write about him, and what he is supposed to have said, never met him, and wrote about him decades later. I wonder how much of it was true? 🤔
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Brien
Ok Daniel, If I were to believe in the book of fiction, and likewise the mythical character of God then I also must accept the fact that this belief and this God is responsible for mass genocide and the deadliest wars in all of history. The funny thing is the wars were real. All fought in the name of a make believe deity. Death, destruction, murder, all in the name of the god-thing. Now be careful, what I've just written comes from the very testimonials that is used to justify hate. You can't just pick and chose what to accept. If you're of the brainwashed beliefs, then you accept it all. Otherwise, you're just trying to hide your own toxic behaviors. Own it. ✌
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Daniel Gray
Ok if that is your whole basis is that you can join a religion even though you dont believe in it, just so you can use it to try and go after people you dont like. Then feel free to won it. Just remember that you posted this in case someone wants to challenge you on it.
Oh and one more thing, it seems that according to world history, far more people have been murdered or eliminated by non religious people then by religious people. Or are you going to try and ignore Stalin/Mao/Pol Pot and a host of others who between them have murdered far more then 275 million people? Oh and not one of them had a religion.
So maybe just maybe you need to make sure all your ducks are in a row and your "T's" are crossed and your "I's" are dotted before you start spewing your nonsense
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Lionheart
You have obviously read all that in a book somewhere….right?
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Mary Haviland
Ti whomever wrote towards my posting, you talked about letting yhwy help out this farmer, maybe our push back toward those like you and support for farmers like this, is yhwy's way of helping this man out.
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Robin Cohen
The land of America is free from Religion. This means Catholic is a religion. Pride is not religion, pride is free in individual persist of happiness. Religions teach Love thy Neighbor. Your neighbors are All the People on the planet.
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Shango MasterExorcist, D.D.
My Rabbi is black. He does not celebrate "Black History Month" as black history is thousands of years, not just a month. If the whole world separated a whole month to celebrate ever important issue. we would need 730 months in each year.
If this farmer chooses to celebrate something the month, he may choose anything he wants, maybe the Sacred Heart of Jesus, or maybe the miracle of fresh asparagus. Maybe he was irritated by too many messages about somebody else's month. It is better not to post anything while irritated.
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Amber Fry
Choosing to celebrate or not wasn't the issue. Speaking out against those who chose to was.
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Amy Varela
So you're saying we should celebrate LGBTQ Pride every month? Awesome. MORE RAINBOWS!!!
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Eddie Cox
It clearly states in the Bible homosexuality is a sin it says for one man or woman to lay with another is an abomination not just a sin but an abomination now when God tells you it’s an abomination to be a homosexual you might want to listen to him
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Amy Varela
The bible is a collection of myths and fairy tales written by men who thought the earth was flat, the moon was a light and bats were birds. They knew absolutely nothing at all about the earth in relation to the rest of the universe. If they were "inspired by god", they would have known better, but they weren't so they didn't. They were all a bunch of ignorant men who created a god in their own image: immoral, genocidal, misogynistic, racist, infanticidal monsters.
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Dawn
@Amy, well said!!
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
You don't judge history with today's standards.
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
Omg. Leftist argumentation. Holds no water. You don't judge on theologybor philosophical reasons. Everything you stated has nothing to do with God. It has to do with men's institutions and men running them. Stupid leftist feminist whacked out on drugs.
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Aron Mark Doherty
You bash yourself over the head with your little book if you choose, but when you use it to try to tell other people who they should and should not be and call other’s “an abomination” you **** well better be ready to face the consequences right here on earth, just like this “farmer” has to do.
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Brien
I am sorry, while I find some forms of fiction enjoyable, your form of fiction isn't one of them. You decide to be a bigot, not your make believe deity. Own it. That's the trouble with your beliefs, you think you can hide the fact that you're a toxic person by waving your little book. That book isn't big enough to hide your toxicity.
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Louis Edward Zitnik II
Next time god tells me, I'll listen. So far I haven't heard a thing.
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Lionheart
It also clearly states that the god of that book condoned slavery, and also stoning people to death. Thank goodness there’s no demonstrable evidence to prove that that god, nor any god, is real.
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Brien
Oh my friend, let's take it one step further. I have seen you bring up this very point, and I know that I have pointed it out as well. It seems the ENTIRE organized brainwashed zealots shut up whenever you bring it up. The mythical being "GOD" if you are a believer, by your very own testimonials that you hide behind, is directly and indirectly responsible for the largest mass genocide event in HUMAN HISTORY. Makes Hitler look like a choir boy. Responsible also for all of the worst wars in our history, because "GOD" told them too. You see zealots, that is why I hammer at you all, because you use your beliefs to justify murder. That is why you shut up whenever somebody brings this up. Because you're all cowards. ✌
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Lionheart
Sadly, religionists don’t realise how deeply bound in chains they are, which forces them to not believe otherwise, for fear of their mythical god, and their mythical hell. 🤷🏼
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James Riggle-Johnson
@Eddie. The word Homosexual did not appear in the bible until 1946. All those centuries and it was an American, not God, who translated “boy molesters” to Homosexuals. For the record, I think child molesters are disgusting as well. Just Sayin
And I wouldn’t eat at your restaurant either.
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Steven Frederick Gordon
prejudice against Catholics goes back a long way; read some Mark Twain especially Innocents Abroad.
And consider the Wars of Religion.
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Ronaldo
One thing a budding stage comedian learns early in his career is "know your audience." I have views, some may be controversial, on many things, but I do not just wantonly state those views to anyone and everyone. While I am a firm supporter of the 2nd Amendment, for example, I've never purchased a firearm, and I don't fly flags or wear T-shirts proclaiming the joys of gun ownership. If I did, I would likely be attacked by people who don't hold the same views as I do. My father owned his own retail business, and he always carefully remained neutral regarding his views while at work. At home, and with friends, it was a different matter. He was a wise enough man to know that saying or doing anything that could alienate even a fraction of his clientele was not a good business decision, as anything controversial would probably drive more customers away than it would attract. He refused to discuss politics or social issues in public. The business remained successful until he sold it and retired.
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Gene Schenck
You did a stupid thing. Sticks and stones can break your bones but words of hatrid are not yours to brodcast you are not the judge maybe you had a hard lesson only one is to past judgement and it is no man.
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Peter Bradshaw
He's not struggling to pay the bills simply because he was being true to his faith. He's struggling because he spouted off a particular, spectacularly biased, hateful interpretation of his faith, one that would make Jesus puke, and urged others to be true to his particular, spectaculary biased intertpretation. Matthew 16:27 - For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.
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Karsten S. A. Johansson
Jesus wasn't nearly so cynical and negative. He spoke of spreading his message with love, not "antidotes." This supposed follower needs to read his Bible more than just make up what God supposedly wants.
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Richard Lee Cornell
He was mistreat as a child. So he hates everyone. Good thing he is not white then he would really be hated by the Black community.
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Keith Allen Steele Eash
It seems in here most people are liberals and do not respect the idea that there is an absolute truth and not everyone can accept just any truth as being universal. Each who accepts threir own truth and refuses to tolerate others beliefs with respect ultimately thinks they're spouting hatred if they state differently.
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Kenneth Lafe Eric Sanderson
Which you repeatedly demonstrate.
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So let me understand this, you spew hate and expect people to love you for it? And now your upset because people don't want to support your hate? I'm guessing you can't understand loving your neighbour then.
When a person remains silent is the same thing as being part of that evil personified. If it goes against the natural norm if must be criticized. He's not hurting g anyone. You're the one supporting the mutilation of children by these depraved sickos.
Conservatives today, particularly religious conservatives, truly believe they are the ultimate and definitive human beings. They are the busybody Gestapo, DEMANDING to know what is in everyone's pants and what they are doing in their bedrooms, and working zealously to ensure everyone lives a conservative approved life.
Conservatives today, and particularly religious conservatives, DEMAND America be their own personal giant safe space and everyone else live life to please them. The answer is NO.
@Keith, I am tired of hearing the LGBTQ community is mutilating children. You’re just repeating a lie told by conservative politicians so they can win an election. NO CHILDREN are undergoing operative sex change procedures. I’m sure your elected congressional representative is very proud of you for believing this ignorant falsehood.
James, I actually think there are a few children. I do not personally know of any but I have hard that surgical procedures can be implemented if the doctors feel it is critical to the health and wellbeing of the child. Like other surgical procedures deemed acceptable. So I wouldn't die on the hill of "None" but point out that if any are being performed, it is under the watchful gaze of medical and psychological professionals.
You do not change the gender of what God made you. What foolish idiocy.
So you should keep the teeth as god gave them, don’t get glasses, and god forbid any cosmetic surgery?
Your logic is faulty. We're not changing genders getting glasses. I love leftists. They just gaslight with stupid examples. Don't respond to me again unless you have something worth arguing.
Who are you to judge other people’s values, other people’s lifestyle?
I know there’s something in the NT about not casting the first sone, loving our neighbor, seeking justice and going to a private place and pray. Who is your neighbor?
@ Eash - How do you know what gender God made anybody?
You quite simply have no idea what you are talking about.
So then… no viagra-because god deemed you impotent; no IVF because god surely doesn’t want more of you; no clothing-are you ashamed of god’s creation? No medical intervention at all -ban medicine and close all clinics and hospitals because if you’re ill, god deemed it so. For the record, I’m all for no viagra since it was a cardiac med to begin with not a penis drug.
Not to upset anyone, but God made us all in his image; Even the Gay and Lesbian folks. Really, He made us all in His image. You can look it up in your Bible.
@Eash... God made us in HIS image. That must mean God is both Man and Woman. That's as transgender as it gets. Mull that over for awhile.
That must mean you've studied no biology or theology. If you're not going to take the time to study then at at birth you're either a boy or a girl. The image of God is male. He made female out of Adam's rib. Why are some people in here just plain foolish.
When people, especially those of us in here that are Ministers, shovel hate of any kind down someone's throat and expects to be listened too, there is a massive problem.
When one shovels hate down someone's throat in the name of God, that is an atrocity.
One God, thousands of religions, sects of religions, millions of personal beliefs.
There are now, officially, 8 billion humans on this planet.
There is now, nor can there be, any room for hate. There is No. More. Room.
You can tout a bible that has been changed hundreds of times since Constantine, you can thump a Qaran over and over and watch hundreds of scholars fight over the meaning of one passage, etc.
All of the words in the 5 holy books were written by men. Their personal beliefs, their prejudices, their ideals are the only words in those books.
Who are you, to determine that hate of any kind is an acceptable moral act. Do not blame an invisible God for your hatred.
Figure out why you feel hatred, where did you pick it up at and figure out how to either let it go or keep it to yourself and do not spread it to children.
It seems you advocate that we've reached our potential of human beings on this planet. If that is so then you're genocidal in your beliefs. You should read the study done on mice when they naturally reached a percentage of population in their controlled environment then eventually they started becoming fat and lazy and the males became feminized and stopped production. One group became obstinate in authoritarian practice. The females literally had nothing to do with either group. It resulted in zero population. They mice in their little community became extinct by their own practice. The scientist did this several times. The result was the same. This is happening today with the human family. You play God you will wipe yourselves out unless God intervenes.
Really you're not worth replying to since you hold no respect for any holy books of any religion .
Depraved sickos mutilating children? Wow. How do demonstrate ignorant, elitist word vomit in 1 sentence. Try turning off Fox Media Circus (proven LIARS) and educate yourself because obviously you don't get out much
I don't watch Fox News fool.
@ Eash - I do watch Fox News, and everything you say marches in lock step with everything they say. You could host it yourself.
WOW!! Want to talk about sickos? OK. How about those sicko priests abusing little boys. And how about those nuns beating children until they bleed. How about the Church attempting to destroy the cultural heritage of Indigenous peoples by removing children and placing them in group homes to “tame” them and remove the “savage “ in them. And of course the big one. Moving priests from one parish to another to HIDE the behavior of that priest and giving him fertile ground to abuse more young children.
Catholics have been the scourge of the land for centuries. It’s time for ALL religions to fold. God gave humans reason to make up their own minds. USE IT!
The bible also supports the mutilation of children, specifically the genital mutilation of infant boys. It also supports the killing of children, infants and anyone who chose to worship all of the other gods of whom the Hebrew god was apparently jealous.
And also, Keith, you mention that "You do not change the gender of what god made you." If you, like so many other indoctrinated christians believe that life begins at conception, you should know that ALL mammalian embryos - that includes humans - begin life as female. Every single one. And at 6 to 8 weeks of gestation - gestation is the period of time the embryo is developing - around half will TRANSITION to male. This is a fact. Neither you nor your god can change it.
Your god made all men trans!!! Now who's the sicko?
Maybe it’s not the swearing and hatred that is being shared, but, it’s what is behind the spewing the hateful words? Sometimes we have to read between the lines because many people get hot headed when they should stay calm. Sometimes it was a button pushed and they just vomit words and don’t care who it hurts. I try to understand both parties and read between the lines to see what is really triggering them. Unfortunately people jump before thinking and in reality they should think about it first. So many do not and that is sad.
I agree about people spewing things in anger but if someone is spewing that sort of hate in a fit of anger regardless the reason then it isn't a business I would want to frequent anyway. Business owners are free to run it as they see fit but everyone has a right to decide if it's something they want to support as well. This is what freedoms mean at their very core. Choose, but choose wisely. Unless it breaks specific laws there wont be legal repercussions however that doesn't mean free of all consequences. People still get to decide to support or walk away as well.
Amen!
Hello Donald. My Dad’s name is Donald. I’m responding to you because you agreed with Amber Fry and I would like you to read my response to her, and you. It’s not negative or bad. I agree with both of you but I’m sharing why I said what I did in my post.
Thank you for reading what I had to say. God Bless you and all you love. Be well and be safe. 🙏🏼
Agreed. Being a psychological therapist it has taught me to try to see the problem and to see the individual as a highly stressed individual or worse. I agree with what you say. I posted that there are reasons why people react to life the way they do. This man has experienced this argument more than once. This man is at his wits-end. So he lashed out. Was he right? No, he wasn’t. Behaving this way is not ok. I posted that there is more to this story. I sense he’s not being listened to. If I was there I would be trying to befriend him and get him to calm down and then give him a proper voice to me so I can let this man know what is what. When someone loses thier temper this way, there is something going on within him. Could be family and neighbor issues, could be any prescribed medication problems or he has been pushed so much, he broke. Understand now? I agree with what you say but I run to the rescue to figure it out and see if I can calm the person down. I’ve done this more than once and I want to help this man. I can’t but if I could I would be there for him to help him understand what people are trying to tell him. So many scenarios why he is reacting the way he is.
I appreciate you responding to me. God Bless you and all you love 🙏🏼
It's called loving the sinners but condemning the sin.
"I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never again be a Christian. Love is not self denial. Love is not blood and suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity. Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being."
~Dan Barker
You are really going to quote Dan Barker, who has such confused "thinking" that he stopped believing in God because he said that "God" was telling him where to drive his car one night and he ended up in an alley, because God isn't a GPS, and wants to guide your life, not your car?!! How childish of him!! And your listening to him makes you as foolish as he is!!
God didn't murder His Son, but the Romans and Jewish leaders who handed Jesus over to them murdered His Son and Jesus did His Father's will, not his own, and gave his life for the sins of the world. God wasn't appeasing His "vanity", since He isn't vain, but was satisfying justice, which demands a payment for sin.
Since when has love not been self-denial, in mothers and fathers sacrificing and denying themselves for their children, in soldiers even giving the ultimate sacrifice or, at least, denying themselves what they want to do out of love for their country, and many other examples. And Jesus denied and sacrificed himself out of love for the world.
God doesn't hate and isn't angry toward people, but they consign themselves to Hell by their own actions and thinking and words, and God let's them go to a place without Him and have it their way out of respect for their free will. The door to Hell is locked on the inside, as C.S. Lewis wrote, and people send themselves to and keep themselves in Hell, even in this life and also after they die.
Love most certainly does demand obedience and conformity to the will of God and those whom you love, as you obey your parents out of love. There has to be authority and have to be rules in love, and not just people doing whatever they feel like doing. You have been living on some other planet than this one if you haven't experienced and seen the need for authority, conformity, and submission in love.
Love has never meant approving of everything that other people do and telling them that they never do anything wrong, because it wants to keep them from physical and spiritual dangers, just as we tell people out of concern for them not to walk into buildings that are on fire or tell children not to cross the street without looking both ways. It is only hate, passing itself off as "love" that doesn't care what people do and tells them the lie straight from Hell that they "never do anything wrong and that there are no sins, anymore, for them".
His "thinking" and your "thinking", as long as you are listening to him and his ilk, are too confused and disordered to try to wade through such a swamp and you will have to get God to shine His light into your mind to ever bring yourself out of all that mess.
Thank you for posting your thoughts and your understanding.
As your friend, however, I have to tell you I don't think it is going to convince people what you think it is going to convince them.
Not convincing people here or out in the rest of the world of the truth and its not being true are two entirely different things because they and you are blinded by the god of this world (Satan), even though you and others doubt his existence, which he cares nothing about, except that it makes his job much easier.
If reason and logic would get through to you and other people in this world and convince you of anything, the world would long ago have been converted to Christianity. But your little heads doing the "thinking" for your big heads and other entrapments of your flesh and habits that you are controlled by keep you from seeing the truth of what I and others are saying to you and dismissing it.
Satan works even better when you don't believe in him because then you aren't on your guard against him. So long as you "think" the way that he wants you to "think" and do what he wants you to do and reject the truth of Christianity, your disbelief in him is irrelevant and he couldn't care less what you "think" of him.
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First you state you are an adamant believer in Satan, then you lecture everybody about "reason and logic", then you state your big bad boogeyman "cares nothing about" what I think, making him the emotional equivalent of your garden variety sociopath. Have you ever actually read what you write?
And adults take responsibility for themselves, Moses.
You aren't an adult or taking responsibility for yourself by mooing and ambling along with the worldly herd and letting it do your "thinking" for you, instead of actually thinking for yourself, which means going against the world, as the Saints did and are doing.
Satan's existence is in accord with reason and logic because it is giving man just way too much credit to say that he alone is coming up with all of the genocides, wars, organized crime families, drug addiction, sex trafficking, rioting at the Capitol on January 6 and elsewhere, rape, child molestation, brutality, and all other rottennesses in the world without his being egged on to them by something outside of himself.
Self-preservation can't be the highest human instinct and something inside of people that is higher than their highest instinct making them commit suicide, since that is contradictory and illogical, but only something outside of these people and their highest instinct and above it could be leading these people into going against themselves.
The presence of poison in the body can be known by its effects. The presence of spiritual evils in the world can also be known by their effects. Radiation can't be seen with our eyes, either, but its effects can be seen and nobody is saying that "human beings are really responsible themselves for what radiation has clearly done".
So, it is equally unreasonable to say that "human beings are really responsible for what spiritual realities have done", since reality isn't limited to what it is detectable by our physical senses.
There are many people that you can see or could, if they were around you, who care nothing about what you think and aren't "garden variety sociopaths" because of not caring what you think. So, something that you can't see not caring about what you think wouldn't make it a garden variety sociopath, either, but just intent on his work and himself, the same as these other people.
Take your own advice and read what you write and try actually understanding it, for a change, and you might be able to see the foolishness of your views, too, child. Probably not, but you might.
Do you live in your mother's basement?
You must be living in your mother's basement yourself to come up with that ridiculous comment and merely judging me and other people by yourself because you can't answer my points against your post. Stick with replying to the points in my post against your position or admit that you can't and stop your childish nonsense here!!
I win!!
I bet a friend $20 if I asked you if you lived in your Mother's basement, you would come right back accusing me of living in my Mother's basement. =D
It's so hard to find reliable people these days. Keep fighting the good fight!
Some childish bet doesn't prove anything, except further confirm and verify your immaturity, unreliability, and evasiveness because you can't respond intelligently to points and questions in a post. Grow the Hell up or go play with the other children, back in your mother's basement, if you can't, and leave the adults here unbothered by your nonsense!!!
There is a certain mentality that is frightened and small, and compensates for this by working zealously to define the universe and control everything around them.
It used to be that the 'moral' nuclear bomb was "You're going to hell!" This would trump any argument, any alternative perspective, and establish moral authority without question.
Unfortunately for the religious, over time people have learned to laugh that off, so they had to devise new weapons of mass condescension, such as "A zygote is a person", and "Just don't have sex". With weapons such as 'saving babies', and others, many people are thrilled and elated that they have once again established moral authority, no matter the facts or reality.
It's not a bug, it's a feature when people can't 'separate' their beliefs from their actions, and work to remake the world in their forgone vision of it. In other words, conservatives today, and particularly the religious, truly do believe they are the ultimate and definitive human beings, and everybody else just needs to shut up and do what they're told. It's PSYCHOTIC.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/psychosis
You aren't a psychiatrist or psychologist to be able to know who is "frightened and small" or "PSYCHOTIC" or what they do "while they are all that" and so your characterizations and libels of Christians are worthless and you need to stick with practicing your very amateurish, defamatory, and propagandist "psychiatry" just on yourself and get yourself figured out first before you try to define anyone else.
What people laugh off is no sign of its actually being wrong or ridiculous, since civil rights and black and other minorities' being equal to white people and deserving of their rights was and is still laughed at by white racists, and so on for many other matters.
From your own point of view, of being pro-LGBTQ, they and their rights and equality to straight people have been laughed at by many straight people down through the centuries and in recent times. So, if Hell is wrong because people have laughed at it, by the same standard, gay rights and civil rights are "wrong" because many people have laughed at them, too, as much as they have laughed at Hell.
Why don't you ever think of these obvious objections to your points and reasons why they are wrong before you present them and save yourself the trouble? It's because you can't think outside of the box of your indoctrination and propaganda. That is also why you will always lose in arguments with me because I do think outside of the box and see your objections before you see them and the points and reasons against them.
As I told you before, Satan doesn't care at all if you laugh at him or Hell, so long as you keep doing what he tells you to do, and believing what he wants you to believe, and not believing or listening to what he doesn't want you to, and staying on the broad road that leads to him, and then he will have eternity to laugh at you and your misery and have the last laugh!!
He works better with people who don't believe that he exists and who laugh at him because they aren't on their guard against him. So, go on doubting and laughing at him, and playing right into his hands!!
We settled all of this already that atheists and non-Christians "think" that you are "the ultimate and definitive human beings" and "everyone needs to just shut up and do what you tell them to do", and merely transfer that on to Christians to take the focus off yourselves, and so let's not keep covering the same old ground over and over again, endlessly, shall we? What do you say?
If you actually knew the dictionary definition of psychosis, you wouldn't be bringing that up with me because all that is lacking is your name and picture in the dictionary or encyclopedia under "psychosis" for it to be even more obviously about you!! Quit while you're behind!!
Whenever you're ready to deny science again just let me know.
And yes, I know you worship Satan. You make that blatantly clear every time you post.
I don't, and I could care less how that sticks in your craw.
I'm not denying science (except your pseudoscience), but actually affirming true science of men and women being the sexes that they were born as and not just whatever sex they want to say that they are and the true science of the universe's needing a Creator and maintainer, and not just coming up with and maintaining itself, which is unscientific.
I don't worship Satan, but only God, and yet I do know Satan's power over you and your ilk, which your denials don't disprove, and verify all the more, since denying the truth is what you do and so more evidence for the prosecution.
Whenever you want your pseudoscience refuted still more, let me know and I'll be very happy to do that for you, and I also don't care how much that sticks in your craw!!
Listen to yourself. Satan does THIS and Satan does THAT... if Satan had a PR person YOU would be it! According to YOU Satan does EVERYTHING, is EVERYWHERE.
No JDP, you hardly ever mention God - all you ever talk about is "SATAN!" and what a POWER he is, how he cares about nothing and nobody, yet somehow wants everything and everybody. It's crystal clear who you really worship. Yes, Satan is the ultimate boogeyman, because apparently all you have to do is think the wrong thought and then you are HIS! It's genius, really - which apparently really appeals to a sycophant mentality.
And we've had this discussion, about science and how you want to dictate humanity to humanity - but with your usual impenetrable denial you conveniently forget it all.
Well now, here it all is for anybody to read again. You're welcome.
https://www.nature.com/articles/518288a
Well, as usual, you have mischaracterized my post to make it mean whatever you want it to mean and "justify" yourself and "demean" the post and have been reading some other posts than mine if you actually think that I have only been talking about Satan, and not God primarily to you.
Deceive yourself however you like, as I won't send a long reply to all of your rigmarole and game playing here, just to have it not go through, as my post just now didn't go through to ULC, and that is too much trouble to go through again, only to have you deliberately misconstrue and misinterpret it again.
Talking with you about your problem of being influenced by Satan is no more obsessive or out of line than talking with an alcoholic about his or her alcoholism or a doctor's dealing exclusively and specifically with his patient's cancer or other medical problem to try to get rid of it, as that is what is called for.
You are certainly far more of a PR person and spokesman for Satan than what you try to transfer, once again, on to me of your own actual behavior and "thinking", since actions speak louder than words. Nice try at transferring, but it doesn't fly.
Listen to yourself for a change and wise up to the truth about yourself. Satan can't do everything and isn't everywhere, but doesn't need to do everything or be everywhere with someone, such as yourself, who gives him all the power that he needs over you.
You have, quite obviously, been reading some other posts than mine to you, if you "think" that I have been only talking about Satan, and not far more about God, and that is just your sad attempt to mischaracterize them to suit yourself and make them say whatever you want them to say, which won't fly, either.
The rest of your post is just more of that mischaracterization and game playing, which I won't waste my time in trying to refute such obvious nonsense, as you really know it to be, too.
What is "crystal clear" to you and what I'm actually saying and doing are, very obviously, two entirely different things, which you know as well as I do. Talking with you about your core issue of domination by Satan in your "thinking" is no more "obsessive" or "excessive" than talking to an alcoholic about his or her alcoholism or a doctor's dealing exclusively and specifically with his patient's cancer or other medical problem to try to get rid of it, which is merely what is called for.
"SATAN!"
ROFL!
No Keith, you re not "Loving the Sinners". In fact you are condemning people, judging them, and preventing them from knowing God. All of which is a sin. I imagine those people you condemn will be in Heaven while Jesus will lift his hand and say "I don't know you".
If you love the sinners you wouldn't be lashing out at them. That isn't love. That's hate.
It isn't hate to tell people that they are doing anything wrong or else Jesus was "hating" the scribes and Pharisees by calling them whited sepulchres and a brood of vipers and telling them that they needed to put the needs of people above strictly keeping the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
He wasn't "hating" the moneychangers in the temple by overturning their tables and driving them out with a scourge and telling them that "this is a house of prayer and you have made it a den of thieves", but was only lovingly correcting them both in the only way that he could do so, by tough love.
You are violating your own rule that telling people that you think that they are doing something "wrong" is "spewing hate" by condemning the farmer's views as "hate".
We aren't "spewing hate" by condemning bestiality, pedophilia, rape, police brutality, racism or other bigotry (against black or white or any other people), or even the sacred cows today of transgenderism and LGBTQ people, generally, but only lovingly correcting all of that and not just mooing and ambling along with political correctness and telling them that "nothing they do is sin and God loves their sin, too, and doesn't even call it sin anymore", which is a LIE straight from the pit of Hell!!!
There are more than enough people telling LGBTQ people that "God loves their sin, too, and there isn't any sin anymore, unless it's anything ever said against them" without everyone having to moo and amble along with that propaganda and false teaching, too, and that isn't diversity, by people who claim to believe so much in "diversity and acceptance of others who are different than they are". Diversity is a two way street, not just a one way street.
Love has never meant approving of everything that people do and telling them that they aren't ever doing anything wrong, anymore than it meant that for Jesus, but has always meant telling them in love that they are doing some wrong things and need to pray the Rosary and wear the Sacred Heart badge and keep it in their homes and go and sin no more, as Jesus and this farmer did.
It isn't love to mind your own business about everything that other people are doing, but only indifference and moral bankruptcy and letting the moneychangers go on buying and selling on the temple grounds and letting the Pharisees go on being whited sepulchres and a brood of vipers and saying nothing about it.
News Flash - The Earth's human beliefs system doesn't revolve around Christianity. Christians also don't largely agree with each other. There are vast differences between Mormons & Catholics, for example.
There are MANY GLBTQ people who are extremely religious. They worship at Sunday services, send their children to faith based schools and honor the same Jesus you claim. Are you suggesting there's different heaven or hell for GLBTQ people? Because that's sounding very judge which is God's job, not yours.
Choice. If you expect it and prefer it, why go on Conversion Campaign rants about who is correct?
Well, well, well. Amazing that there are All members of the alphabet who sin greatly that think God will overlook their sins. Got news for them they're fooling themselves.
@ Eash - got news for you - you aren't God.
That's between the "sinners" and God. You are not God and you don't get to make that choice for him.
I don't classify religious zealots as conservatives. That's not fair. I'm mostly conservative in that I don't believe that the government needs to be passing stupid laws about sexuality, but I don't think it's my place to judge other people, any more than it is this guy's or any of these other crack pots who keep stirring the pot. And, although I am mostly Christian because I believe there is but one God and that Christ was his son, I don't classify any of these people who think they make the rules for everyone else as Christians, either.
Law's would not need to be passed if people didn't refuse to let us marry each other. We don't want special rights, we want eqaul rights. Religous freedom doesn't want me to have those rights. I don't beleive I'm a sinner because someone added homosexuals to the bible in 1946.
Conservatives today, particularly religious conservatives, truly believe they are the ultimate and definitive human beings. They are the busybody Gestapo, DEMANDING to know what is in everyone's pants and what they are doing in their bedrooms, and working zealously to ensure everyone lives a conservative approved life.
Conservatives today DEMAND America be their own personal giant safe space - and everyone else live life to please them. The answer is NO.
Calling anything at all wrong doesn't make the people doing so "a busybody Gestapo" or "the ultimate and definitive human beings" or else nobody could ever call anything wrong without that definition's being applied to them. You and everyone else who is saying that we are "a busybody Gestapo and the ultimate and definitive human beings", in our estimation, also consider some things to be wrong and so are that busybody Gestapo and "ultimate and definitive human beings" yourselves.
The pedophiles, rapists, child pornographers, sex traffickers, lust murderers and serial killers, muggers, as well as your sacred cow LGBTQ people, and all other perverts and sinners also want people to mind their own business about what they are doing and leave them alone to do it, and so that wouldn't only allow what you want and approve of, but all of these other things, too.
Freedom isn't doing whatever anyone feels like doing, which is license, but is doing what they should do, according to a higher standard than just whatever they come up with for themselves.
Jesus, again, wouldn't have called the Pharisees out on their hypocrisy or disrupted the business of the moneychangers in the temple if he had also minded his own business and their evil would have gone on unchecked and unopposed. If you see someone being stabbed or beaten in front of you and can do something to stop it without becoming a victim yourself, then it is your moral duty to do so.
And the same goes for sins that are happening in people's bedrooms and privacy and between consenting adults, who don't know what they are doing, anymore than the people who nailed Jesus to the cross or scourged him at the pillar knew what they were doing. Or else we are back again to leaving pedophiles and these other perverts alone to do whatever they want to do.
Even sinners might be doing some good things and be upright people in some areas, but that doesn't excuse the evil that they are doing. Hate the sin, but love the sinner, by telling him that he or she is sinning, instead of hating them by telling them that they "aren't sinning".
That farmer or anyone else shouldn't be punished for telling the truth, in this compromising and going along with sin and evil world!!
DEMANDING other people abandon their lives and live life to please YOU absolutely IS the busybody Gestapo. Demanding to know what is in everybody's pants and what they are doing in their bedrooms to decide if they live up to your 'higher standard' absolutely IS the busybody Gestapo.
It seems to have escaped you, but the world is bigger than YOU, bigger than your Christian Taliban. You are NOT in any way shape or form the ultimate or definitive human beings that everybody else needs to live up to, nor is anybody required to adhere to YOUR religion. That is NOT religious freedom - it is bigotry, prejudice, ignorance, and religious TYRANNY.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion/nearly-1-700-priests-clergy-accused-sex-abuse-are-unsupervised-n1062396
Then, by your own standard, even if you don't admit to it, as usual, you are the secular Taliban and busybody Gestapo and presenting yourselves as "the ultimate and definitive human beings" because you and your ilk are always cramming your ungodliness, immorality, and hateful thinking down people's throats and expecting them to live down to your much lower and godless standard.
We know that you would prefer to live and view matters by your double standard and hypocrisy, but if Christians shouldn't tell the truth because that interferes with what you want to do, you also shouldn't tell your lies because that tempts people away from the path of God and Christ, instead of only you having freedom of speech, while Christians have to keep their beliefs to themselves.
Everyone isn't required to live by the atheist and humanist religion, either, and so you need to stop proselytizing for that religion, if we are going to operate on the single standard of nobody should ever say anything that anyone else doesn't want to hear (even though that contradicts the whole point and purpose of this blog and won't work in society!).
It isn't Christians' "being the Taliban or busybody Gestapo" or "cramming their religion down anyone's throat" for them to merely exercise their freedom of speech and protest against things that they consider "immoral", no matter what the rest of the world thinks about them, and tell other people about Christ so that they can decide for themselves.
It isn't diversity, which people here are always saying that they believe in and support in society, for only unchristian people to have freedom of speech and religion, while Christians have to keep quiet and their beliefs to themselves and never speak out against anything that they consider immoral, in order to not be called "the Christian Taliban and busybody Gestapo". Freedom of speech is for everyone, not just you, or it doesn't really exist at all!!
It was Christians' speaking out against slavery and for the civil rights movement in the abolitionist movement that resulted in the end of slavery and whatever civil rights black people have gained so far, while you ungodly people were going along with slavery and fighting against the civil rights movement.
So, if Christians hadn't been "the Taliban and busybody Gestapo" in those matters, slavery might still be going on today in America, as it is in in many countries where Christians don't have so much of a voice in them, and civil rights wouldn't have been attained here. The same goes for Christians' fighting against child exploitation in labor, drunk driving, child pornography and prostitution, and many other social evils, which would still be going on and undiminished without their voices.
You and others here are putting your sexual desires and "freedom" that Christians object to above all of these other matters, but they are all related and come from the same moral conscience. When all of you keep all of your lies to yourselves and stop promoting sin and evil in the world, then you can demand that Christians stop speaking (and there wouldn't be any point to our speaking against your sins and evils if you just stopped doing them), but as long as you are speaking your lies and living in sin, we will go on speaking out against those things.
Stop your tyrannizing over society and cramming your beliefs and practices down people's throats. First remove the beam from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
You keep repeating that Dan Bongino Fox News nugget "...forcing your agenda down our throats..." like the liberal agenda actually hurts you somehow. Let's examine that closely.
If you allow the gays to marry, how exactly does that force anything down your throat? Does that take away your right to marry? Does that mean there can never be any legality to your relationship with your partner? Does that socially asctracize you somehow? Does that deny the reality of who you are as a person? Because NONE of that would happen to you, but that is exactly what the bigoted prejudiced anti-gay-marriage movement does to the gay community.
If you allow a trans person to live the life they want, how exactly does that force anything down your throat? Do you lose any rights? Would you then be forced to live a lie chosen by other people? Would you be denied anything? Because NONE of that would happen to you, but that is exactly what the bigoted prejudiced anti-trans movement does to the trans community.
But I understand. If the LGBTQ were recognized as actual people, then you would have to admit they exist. You would have to share the world with them, shattering your comfortable "The whole world is Mayberry" delusion, and that would make you sad. Because the truth is it is not the LGBTQ community that is harming children. It's the religious. It's conservatives.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion/nearly-1-700-priests-clergy-accused-sex-abuse-are-unsupervised-n1062396
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/19/new-jersey-catholic-diocese-alleged-sexual-abuse-settlement
https://abcnews.go.com/US/probe-identifies-158-priests-accused-abuse-600-victims/story?
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2200169
And your defense of Christianity on slavery is a complete joke. You are against slavery are you? So what's your opinion now on civil rights, on reparations, on CRT and BLM? Turns out, the world, as usual, is far more complicated than you admit.
https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/the-curse-of-ham-and-biblical-justifications-for-slavery
The truth is that then, as now, abolition was a LIBERAL cause. Civil rights are a LIBERAL cause. Affirmative action is a LIBERAL cause - but do go on. You were about to lecture me on Marxism and gun control next.
How does gay marriage affect or invalidate straight marriage? For the same reason that counterfeit money is an attempt to invalidate or impinge upon legal actual money and that is why we don't legally allow it in this society and world and prosecute those who try to pass it.
We don't need counterfeit money, fraudulent art, fraudulent checks, forged signatures, charlatans, quack medicine, or any other impostures, anymore than we need gay marriages, which all try to impose on and substitute for the real thing and invalidate it.
Whenever just anything that anyone wants to call "marriage" (between two men or two women, between people and their pets or farm animals, between adults and children, between people and sex dolls, between people and corpses or any other sick thing that they can come up with) is considered a "marriage", then marriage becomes a meaningless term.
Why are you bigoted against all of these people listed above and their ilk (if you are and don't approve of them, too!), the same as you accuse me of being "bigoted against gay people", thereby proving that even you don't believe that absolutely anything actually constitutes a real marriage?
Marriage is between a man and a woman because anything beyond that is just making up the definition of marriage to suit yourself and opens the door to all of these other perversions, whose advocates will and do want their "full civil rights and equality", too.
You don't approve of these other counterfeits, even though you aren't personally involved with or affected by any of them, because they do affect you and society, generally. For that same reason, I don't approve of gay marriage, even if it doesn't affect me personally, because it brings down society and makes marriage a meaningless term when it accepts that as "marriage".
Christians participated in fighting against slavery and for full civil rights for black people and were, often, killed and beaten up for their actions and advocacy. Abolitionism and the civil rights movement haven't at all been exclusively or even primarily liberal atheistic endeavors, as is shown by Martin Luther King, Jr. and The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and many other Christian groups and individuals.
Black people, the same as all other people, are right about some things and wrong about some other things. Critical race theory is one of those things that many black and other people are wrong about. Nobody gets it right all of the time or is bright always from morning to night. Black lives do matter, as all lives matter, but the group that has taken that name hides behind it and has a Communist agenda.
The world is far more complicated than you think, too, and can't be taken at face value. If you really can't figure out Marxism and the need for gun control, of course, I will try to help you with that, little boy.
"Little boy"?
So your life is that fragile is it? Your marriage is that fragile - your manhood is that fragile, your world is SO fragile that if somebody somewhere in the world who you DON'T even know lives a life you don't approve of, it makes your marriage "meaningless".
And pick an issue - Marxism, gun control, abortion, LGBTQ rights, civil rights - all the way you march in lock step with Fox News and their corporate overlords.
I think we all know who the small person is.
Nice way of sidestepping and evading my points about gay marriage because you can't answer them and going straight as a smoke screen to your obsession and fixation on Fox News. Well, you can't really do anything else.
"Thinking" that anyone who disagrees with and contradicts you "has to be indoctrinated by Fox News" is itself indoctrination by and agreeing with Fox News because they also "think" that anyone who disagrees with and contradicts them "has to be indoctrinated by the left". So, your reproducing their line of "thinking", in reverse, here proves that it is you who is indoctrinated by Fox News (or proves it as much as your charge that anything that I say that "sounds like something Fox News would say" "proves" that I'm "indoctrinated by them").
It's part of this "the world is much more complicated than you think it is" that the world isn't just divided into those who agree with you and those who are indoctrinated by Fox News. There are many thousands or millions of degrees of difference between those two positions and shades of grey in there.
Fox News, despite their best efforts not to, might, occasionally, say something intelligent, the same as the stupid Nazis were able to figure out "Strength Through Joy" (that joyful people are naturally stronger people, though they applied it to a totally detestable objective and philosophy), and that would be Fox News agreeing with me, not me agreeing with them.
So, should I renounce common sense thinking because the idiots at Fox News were able to figure it out, too? You aren't more anti-Fox News than I am, calling them Fascistic Outrageous Xenophobes, but I don't, as you do, accuse anyone who disagrees with and contradicts me of being "indoctrinated by Fox News", unless they prove it, as in your case.
"I think we all know who the small person is" is also the kind of thing that Fox News anchors and reporters say about anyone who disagrees with them, which is more evidence of your indoctrination by Fox News. Watch MSNBC, as I do, and stop watching Fox, which I never do, because you, very clearly, can't do so without its brainwashing you.
Back to my points against gay marriage, what part of something like counterfeiting, fraudulent check passing, and all other impostures affecting the larger society, even if you aren't personally affected by them, and right and wrong being bigger matters than just what affects you, and gay marriage being wrong because of that didn't you understand?
The world is bigger than just you and other Fox News drones like you.
Marriage is between two consenting adults. Whether they are male or female does not matter, just that they are legal adults consenting to the legal union. That's a very specific definition. Going from same-sex couples getting married to people marrying animals or inanimate objects is just a dumb slippery slope fallacy.
Denying a gay couple from being married prevents them from receiving equal treatment under the law. You're trying to deny someone the same rights that you have just because you feel uncomfortable by their relationship.
Comparing same-sex marriage to counterfeit money is a really bad analogy. Marriage is not currency to be exchanged for services. Marriage is between two people and the state and does not harm third parties like using fake money does. All of the counterfeit examples you present are problematic because the fakes are fraudulently claiming to have value that they do not actually have. A same-sex couple being married does not in any way devalue a heterosexual marriage or the rights that are afforded to them.
tl;dr: Your argument is weak and based upon fallacies.
Marriage has always been between men and women and has only very recently been interpreted as being between any two consenting adults, to compromise it with political correctness and social pressure to include gay people and been legalized under that same pressure.
If we are going to say that just anything that is made legal or gone along with in society is right, then we also have to say that the Nuremberg laws against Jews in Nazi Germany and that the lynchings of black people and burnings of black churches and discrimination against black people at lunch counters only for white people and in separate restrooms and in housing and all the rest in the South before were also "right" because that principle works indifferently not only for what you like and want, but also for what many people don't like or want.
Man can make whatever laws he wants or say that whatever he likes is "right" in order to go along with popular ideas and current propaganda about what is "right" and put himself above God, but new and "improved" definitions of "marriage" to go along with all of that don't actually overrule thousands of years of human practice and tradition and understanding of marriage or God's very evident design in the complementarity of men and women for each other, except in many people's self-delusion and self-centeredness.
Gay "marriage" offers itself as a value to society and is about gaining legal rights and coverage under medical insurance and estate planning and inheritance, since if it were truly just about love, gay people could just live together without bothering about marriage, the same as even many straight people who love each other do.
Civil unions and partnerships weren't good enough for those purposes and for making gay people respectable and acceptable and so they pressed on towards getting gay "marriage" legalized and accepted.
Since gay "marriage", then, is about value and money, that makes it the same as counterfeit money, which is presented as a valuable thing to society, too, and is about making money, and the same as fraudulent checks, art forgeries, and all other impostures, which are also just about money and value.
As for my argument's "being weak and based upon fallacies", that is also interpreted to suit certain people, which isn't the same thing at all as its actually being weak or based upon fallacies.
Arguments against Nazism to Nazis: "weak and based on fallacies". Arguments against the Klan to Klansmen: "weak and fallacious". Arguments against Communism to Communists: "weak and fallacious". Arguments against serial killing to serial killers: "weak and fallacious", and so on. So, we just have to consider the source of the accusation and dismiss it accordingly.
Christians for the first 300 years of their history endured tortures and even death rather than give up any part of their faith and sacrifice to idols and submit to Paganism. But today, it only takes the fear of not being accepted by liberal atheistic society and thought to be "weird" by them to make many of them go along with gay "marriage", transgenderism, and everything else that this faction proposes to them.
That is disgraceful and so cowardly on the part of these so-called "Christians" and their betrayal of all those who went to torture and death in defense of the Faith. They should all be ashamed of themselves and would be, if their consciences weren't deadened, mutated, and indoctrinated by this world!!!
Let's see, should I believe rationality and science, or should I believe bigoted homophobic tradition?
Hmmm. Tough choice.
https://www.nature.com/articles/518288a
It isn't rationality or science to believe that men are "women inside" or can be transformed into women, no matter what is snipped off of them or added to them, but is going along with homophilic and transophilic bigotry, since bigotry can be for something as well as against it, and going along with current propaganda and political correctness.
It is rationality and science to say that men and women are the sexes that they were born physically as, since that is the obvious fact of the matter, and how could science and rationality not be based upon clear and obvious evidence, but, instead, just on what people want to say they are, despite the evidence in front of us?
If science and rationality were based just on what people want to believe about themselves, there would be no reason any longer for observation of physical and environmental reality in front of us to come to any scientific or rational conclusions, and we could just say that "the truth about people is whatever we say that it is", which is what we have exactly with obvious men and women saying that they are "really the opposite sex".
The Christian traditional teaching supports actual science and rationality, instead of the modern politically correct and propagandist version of them.
You talk a lot JDP, but you're only fooling yourself.
Nature magazine is not a media or 'News' site, it is a prestigious science journal established in 1869. They published this report, including the over 20 peer reviewed references.
But you don't talk about that. Instead, you lecture everyone about 'evidence' and how people 'believe what they want to believe'.
Irony, hypocrisy, ignorance - the Christian trifecta.
So, you don't think that even supposedly "scientific" and "rational" people believe what they want to believe and ignore and minimize any evidence that contradicts that belief?!!
That makes you the one who is fooling yourself and has been living on some other planet than this one because that is what so many people are doing here and what all those who are saying that still biologically male or female people are, somehow, "actually members of the opposite sex" are doing.
As for "prestigious science journals established in 1869" or whenever, and not media or news sites, called Nature or whatever, being "above unscientific thinking or prejudicial views against Christianity", that is also evidence of your having been living on another planet and fooling yourself all your life because that is certainly not at all unknown or out of the ordinary here.
What on Earth would self-appointed "experts" and those hiding behind "science" to bolster and support their agendas and prejudices against Christianity do without "prestigious science journals" to quote from and wave in front of people's faces for that purpose?!!
Scientists and publishers of "prestigious science journals" are still human beings and so not at all above the human tendency to make their "science" fit their agendas and prejudices, as every truly realistic and wise person about people and life knows and unrealistic people don't know.
Irony, hypocrisy, and ignorance are your and your ilk's trifecta and you are merely judging me and those who disagree with you by yourself. The evidence still speaks for itself, without its needing to be interpreted.
But JDP, I'm the one who presented evidence, who presented the actual science.
You are the one who denied it. You are literally a science denier.
And yes, I've seen your schtick before, so this is the part where you say "No, YOU are the science denier!".
But I have denied no science. You have. You do - and remember, other people have eyes. They can read. They can see.
Thanks for playing.
@ JDP - I notice you keep bringing the "I'm rubber and you're glue" defense. News for you, context matter, history matters, facts matter, and we're no longer in 3rd grade - or at least I'm not.
Here's a book that explains the source of everything you think. Let's see you show anything like that on the left.
https://uncpress.org/book/9781469646350/right-moves/
Since you are incapable of seeing your own indoctrination to the practices, at least, and reverse "thinking" of Fox News, and listening to your Master's voice, you are even less capable of being able to see my defense as "I'm rubber and you're glue" or any other childish evaluation of it or anything else about my or anyone else's statements.
And since you can't even correctly assess my statements in this blog, there is even less reason to believe that you have correctly assessed the contents of an entire book, to be able to say that it is "the source of everything you think".
First, master correctly assessing my statements here, which you haven't done and, obviously, are incapable of doing, and then take on correctly assessing the contents of a book, and proceed in an orderly manner. Don't keep biting off more than you can chew or digest properly.
Again you've got nothing but "No it's YOU!".
If I said you were a genius, would you then accuse me of that? Odds are good.
Here again are a few news links for you to ignore AGAIN talking about over 2000 priests with real actual accusations of sex abuse against them - unlike your imaginary LGBTQ accusations.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion/nearly-1-700-priests-clergy-accused-sex-abuse-are-unsupervised-n1062396
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/19/new-jersey-catholic-diocese-alleged-sexual-abuse-settlement
https://abcnews.go.com/US/probe-identifies-158-priests-accused-abuse-600-victims/story?
Any honest accusations against LGBTQ people are going to be dismissed by you and your ilk as "imaginary" because you are a very biased reviewer of them and a homophilic and transophilic bigot.
That there are "priests" who aren't living up to their calling as priests and are molesting boys and girls, I already know without needing to look at any internet citations of it and belabor the obvious, but Christianity can't be reasonably blamed or dismissed for the actions of those who aren't even following Christ.
John, you are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity.
He’s lost, Rev. Hunt. You’re not on your own. There’s really no hope for him. We can but hope.
🦁❤️
Someone, such as yourself, who "thinks" that talking to the same 10 or less people in here over and over again and not convincing them of anything amounts to a "crusade" and who puts "awe" in place of "aw", besides all your other wrong "thinking", has no business calling anyone else "lost" and is more hopeless than anyone else here.
First, remove the beam from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
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"Sad, strange little man and you have my pity" is also just another interpretation on your part of myself, and especially self-deceitful and delusional for you, of all people, to say, since supposedly religious or "Christian" people who approve of homosexuality are known by everyone outside of your illogical and self-deluded group as actually sad and strange little people and to be pitied.
In plain simple terms, your religion is that you're better than other people. In plain simple terms, you believe other people should be subject to your religion, whether they belong to it or not.
That's the reality. That's the truth.
I answered this already with my post to you above, and that is that you think that Christians, too, should be subject to your atheist and secular Taliban and busybody Gestapo religion and should stop practicing Christianity, which is why you are always cramming your ungodliness and immorality down our and everyone's throats!!
You think that you know more and are better than God Himself and we who are telling you God's truth, and merely accuse us of what you are doing yourselves. The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result and that is what you are doing by following human thinking and then believing that you will have anything other than human corruption and depravity happen, which means that you are all insane.
There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Yes, following God and listening to Him and sanity is better than insanity. That is truly reality and the truth.
Conservatives are very fond of asking liberals to define what a woman is. This makes for brilliant PR, because to liberals sex and gender are a complex and multilayered issue, based on science. To conservatives however, as with most things, it is a very simple issue. To conservatives, a woman is a uterus. Just a uterus. This establishes how conservatives look at all gender and reproduction issues. In the conservative worldview, a uterus receives man's seed and nurtures the young. This is opposed to the man's role in the conservative worldview, which is that of sower, provider, and protector. To conservatives, this establishes the subservience of women and the superiority of men, and because they think this, they call it "Natural Law". This is why in the conservative worldview gender divergence is "against nature", and why they feel it is their right to establish rights above the rights of women. This is why conservatives find gender rights and equality abhorrent. That's the brutal truth.
To conservatives, the universe and everything in it is just and only whatever they think it is, and anything outside of their worldview simply doesn't exist to them or is seen as a disease or deformity. Nobody is making them marry a trans woman, or abort their children, or change their pronouns, but such is their fear and hysteria that people are breaking 'the laws of nature' as they see it, that they feel compelled to impose their views and decisions on everybody else. They literally see anything else as insanity because nothing else makes any sense to them, because in truth that can not see anything else.
This is the conservative mentality.
@John… no one said they guy cannot speak what he believes, but when you say something publicly, and others don’t like what you say, then they can choose not to do business with you. Personally, I would not want to eat at an establishment that condemns how I live and who I love. I doubt the people who love me would want to eat there either. Just like Target has been targeted for their merchandise, this guy can also be targeted for his own words. It’s called freedom of speech.
Say what you will but others do not have to be accepting of it. When you are in business, you need to be more careful about what you say otherwise, people may not want to do business with you. It’s not about sin… it’s about speaking your mind. It goes both ways.
sense.. my religious texts say to denounce the sinbut not the sinner unless they show no need to repent..
That's what happens when you replace thinking with dogma.