Is Religion Getting Out Of Hand

The right to be married. I thought that was obvious.

They can't visit their lover's if they are dying in the hospital without lying most of the time. If one of them has a child through some sort of in-vitro or a surrogate then the other parent has to fight tooth and nail to be able to keep and raise the child. That however deals with the idiotic notion that gay people have gay kids and other just religious propaganda that makes no sense in that fact. Most insurances will not cover someone's unmarried partner and prefer to only cover married couples. There are a lot more basic civil rights that most people just take for granted if they are married and assume non-married people can get the same. Why do people think gay's have civil rights? They couldn't even openly serve in the military until a little while ago. Are they blocking out the fact that they don't in the media now for the presidential elections or something like that?

Thank you AidaLily, it should have been self explanatory, but maybe I should have taken some time to explain.

This I agree with entirely. I have no problem if someone wants to follow a particular religion. I do have a problem when they try to impose those beliefs on others.

I have no problem with a person knocking on my door and discussing their religion. I enjoy a good debate on philosophy, and I might learn something in the process, but I will say its a very inefficient way to convert people. If people have questions about religion they will come to you. The door to door salesman thing puts a lot of people on the defensive and they are more inclined to resist what you are saying. I could go door to door right now and tell people oxygen is the most important thing in our lives, and I guarantee a bunch of them will disagree with me.

And there are many people who make it their business to knock on doors and try to convert people. One's faith is such a personal thing. By knocking on doors and trying to lure people away from what they have believed all their life and are happy with is the devil's doing. Someone once said to me, if you want to tamper with a man's faith you'd better have a big net under him. Quite profound and very true.

So true. But there is always hope. I think it helps when they can see a loved one, a person they already love and respect, come out!

Something I believe that would help change hurry up is if some of the bigots of the world would just take 20 minutes out of their otherwise busy day to learn just a little bit out homosexuality besides what they're told they should believe. For instance, if one was religious and read the outcome of a scientist and also read the opinion of a religious person who prayed on the issue and did some philosophical thinking, one's inclination might be to think that they're the same -- that they're both valid and based on the same evidence and process. But they're not. They're light years apart. The biggest obstacle in a bigot's way is the bigot. It's like a kid running away and hiding his head and refusing to admit that anything's wrong. "No, no. It's not true because I don't believe it's true. Gay is bad. Gay is wrong!" Well, face reality. Gay folks are the same as anyone else. Their only point of difference is in to whom they're biologically attracted. That's such a crime?

Change is inevitable, and its a shame that some people can't adapt to it.

It's a shame, because religion has helped a lot of people, but I guess people have a tendency to ruin all good things.

That's humans for ya! You know Jesus said He didn't trust man because He knew human nature.

LOL. Yes in so many ways we are still like children, you would thing after over 2000 years of existence we would have evolved a bit.

It's a shame. I guess when you were once the most powerful organization in the world, you will do anything you can to feel that powerful again.

It's like anything that supposed to be for the good of the people has to be twisted to become a bad thing. It's always best to question what others tell you to believe in, because they will try to use your beliefs to rule your world.

GemmaR, it's not the media portraying anything. People have been killing in the name of religion since before the media existed. Ritual sacrifice, the crusades, crucifixion. It's now that we can see these things for what they were, acts of violence in the name of religion.

Sorry if I failed to explain that part easily. I meant the human notion of God is ridiculous. See there are forces out there that is greater than the whole universe itself. Therefore, I believe in that force. Not just as most humans see it (specially as how religion sees it). Pure energy is what created the whole universe. Energy can neither be created or destroyed (Like god as we call it, has no beginning and has no end). It is because we humans prefer to personify things we tend to personify that power in our likeness. When in fact the very energy that created galaxies takes no form. It is just bursting with pure power. Pure energy. Greater than the sun and galaxies combined. Which sets everything in motion as we know it down to the very bottom every living organism shares this energy at some point (which is our soul). Because of the lack of our understanding we humans tend to describe things closer to that we can perceive. But I have gone way past the human perception of things, because I know whatever is out there at this time totally cannot be explained and no matter what we do or say absolutely falls short of what it (true power) really is. I agree with you that science can also go too far for experimenting with things that should not be. It is dangerous to experiment with power that we have absolutely no knowledge of. Like inventing the nuclear bomb for instance. Are we really prepared to take responsibility playing around with that much power. Do we even have the right to use it? Currently scientists are experimenting with the hadron collider. This is something new. Do we even know what we might unleash upon ourselves. Yes there is a time for everything, I know that scientists have taken great care in their calculations, we already saw what the atom bomb can do. Are we ready for the next big bang? So in conclusion, trying to comprehend that unlimited power in the universe is not a simple task. I say let us all lean back and enjoy what it has provided for us. We don't even need to pray. You see we do our contribution by just breathing we give life to plants in turn they give us oxygen (that is the simplest of our mutual existence. We set forth a chain reaction in our little ecosystem that sets in motion a number of things that continues the cycle of all that we share on this planet. Let us try not accelerate this madness of reaching out to something we cannot perceive. Everything will be explained in due time. Haste may hasten our undoing.

And to answer stuff about civil rights. I have nothing against gay marriage. For the record I'm straight. But does it really matter? I think people should be able to do what they want. provided that it follows the basic principles of nature. Gay marriage is fine. Why burst their happiness if that's what they want. The only problem with that, is that in society in a gay marriage this single unit cannot reproduce new humans for the future of mankind (even though we are already booming in billions of people already), meaning the concept of gay marriage by nature is futile. I mean to say that without religious connotations. Big deal huh? But know this, there are millions of couples out there who are not having babies too anyway because of infertility. Basically the same futility in reproduction. I say leave the gays alone. I don't see a reason they can disrupt society. Morality wise, even in the old days of christianity, there were rumors of gay leaders. It is not a really a new thing. It's as ancient as man itself.

I agree with you. I believe that our soul merges with the life force of the universe, so that we can be everywhere and experience everything all at once. This is what I perceive as the afterlife. As far as science getting to far ahead of itself their are some things which we should not understand, otherwise me destroy our very existence. It would be nice to be able to explore some of these newly discovered planets, but maybe those planets are so far away because we were not meant to explore them.

Yes when you allow your beliefs to go against the very teachings of your religion, I would say that's a big problem.

You right, my friend. Even do God, commanded us to follow the government laws and procedures. He also instructed us not follow those rules that is against the law of God. Those discriminatory laws that being impose by authorities like the suppression of religious practice and those injustices that occur all over the world. We don't need to follow those things since they are all against the rule of God...

That's my point there are many religions in this world, if I wanted to I could start my own. The fact is everyone should be free to worship God as they see fit, and its not anyone's place to infringe on another persons rights. What if the next law said that people who were not White Anglo Saxon Americans could not get married? Discrimination is discrimination, you are judging others when God is the only true judge, and you are most certainly not practicing tolerance. The rules you are biding by were rules written by man, not God.

I know the holy books have a lot of good information in them, but it seems to me man has twisted the words around to fit his own needs. I think to be part of a religion you really have to ask questions. Look at the deal with the Roman Catholic church now. The Pope has declared that marriage is for the purposes of procreation only, so women or men who are considered unable to bear children will not be allowed to marry. Does that sound like Gods word or a man who has let his power corrupt him?

Exactly!

That's my biggest point. If God created everything in this world, then he made people that were homosexual. It's arrogant to think that something God created is an abomination or perversion. Just cause we don't understand it, doesn't make it so. People believed the world was flat once upon a time, and any one who said different was ex communicated from the church. Now we know the world is round even the church had to acknowledge it. When there is a question I can't answer. I will look to God for an answer, not a church.

No one has the right to make anyone feel like less of a person. No matter the reasons for it.

I think it's out of hand now. People are using their religious views to make laws denying equal rights to everyone. They are using their religious views to kill people in the name of God. Gods law was thou shalt not kill, but people seem to ignore that fact when its inconvenient to their own agenda.

That is down right nasty of you to say something like that. I pray something will happen in your life that will cause you to see that you are very wrong. Shame on you.!

Okay, I''ll reword that to 'I hope' instead of 'I pray'.

But i don`t stay in their way.I simply don`t want them as part of my life.I want to have the right to believe it`s not "natural " to be gay and i want to have the right to teach my kids whatever i want to teach them.That`s all, i believe we are not all religious people and the state should give the possibility to everyone to be happy so if gay people want to live together and call it marriage then the state should give them that possibility. But the state should also be careful at my right to keep homosexuality far from my life because that is against my religious beliefs. I am fine if the other restaurant is doing much better than mine, i just want the right to say no when i feel i have to say no.

On the subject of procreation, there are men and women who give up their babies because they don't want them or they are too young and the list goes on. However, you have people who some how think that gay people have gay kids. Which makes no sense. I know a girl who grew up with two moms and two dads. Her parents were two gay couples that decided to go through the in-vitro process. She is an adult, straight, married to a wonderful male, has twins, and they are expecting again. I just sent her a present since I wont be able to make it to her baby shower. That was two sets of gay people that had a straight kid but when she tries to tell anyone that everyone looks at her like she is crazy and says mean things to her like "oh well she is just in the closet" and "her marriage is a sham" because she is straight with gay parents. With the world population getting to high and resources being used up faster, perhaps people should stop procreating. At least for 20 years. At this rate, there will be nothing left for future generations. As you said, adoption is definitely available but they wont let gay people adopt kids because the kids might turn gay... but in truth they are either born gay or not.. the kids might learn tolerance for everyone and to be more accepting...but being accepting is bad to a lot of people. So unfortunately religious people will protest and make it so gays can't adopt children because (and this is sarcasm -) God doesn't believe children should go to loving homes. (Yes, I was told that even if two gay people would be fantastic parents and bring up the kids properly that God would be against it and would prefer they stay in orphanages. I think it was man speaking for what God thinks.)