All this greatly saddens me, and I hope we can keep the victims of this horrible crime at the forefront of our minds. Just to give a Christian perspective for those who are quoting Leviticus, (which is Mosaic law, which was given specifically to Israel at that time and also prescribed death for adultery):
Mass shooting at Gay night club in Orlando
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Indeed.
If anything the focus needs to be on A) security measures and B) getting arms off citizens/not giving citizens arms, rather than arming anarchy.
The fact that you think he was trying to comfort you rather than correct an inaccuracy is bizarre.
Very good post. The Bible itself is often vague and/or contradictory on the issue and definition of marriage. As on most things, really.
Theres some cracking ones. I persobally live the one from Leviticus (the same book the 'a man who lies with a man should be stoned' bit comes from) that argues that wearing clothes of multiple fabrics is a sin.
Also if you've ever read any of it in Latin its even more insane in places. Modern editors have tried very hard to tone down some of the insanity.
First of all, gay people are able to produce children. They can exploit 'basic facts of biology' to get around the issues of adoption. It's more complicated, yes, but it's possible.
Also, it's a slippery slope to go down the 'basic facts of biology' path. By the very same logic you could shun airplanes entirely: if humans were meant to fly, we'd have wings! Getting your appendix out is also very unnatural: in the good old days, we would have let nature take its course and you would have died in agony as you were meant to.
What about single parents? If someone gets knocked up and the man disappears, should she be forced to have an abortion simply because it's unnatural to have a child on her own? And there's yet another problem with the whole 'gay people shouldn't adopt' stance: in a lot of cases, it's not a matter of choosing between a nice, lovely middle class couple in the suburbs with great income and a gay couple. It's often a choice between a gay couple and a state institution. The latter also cannot produce children, lest we forget.
That poll was bullshit mate. They handpicked a sample to give results they wanted.
All 3 of you had that bookmarked ready, didn't you?!
By the same logic a hetrosexual couple not able to conceive shouldn't be allowed to adopt a child either because its a basic fact of biology... I mean if they were meant to conceive they would be able to produce children?
Any evidence of that?
"Handpicking" happens with every quantitative survey ever, that is how you make sure it's representative of the general population. From what I've seen they interviewed a 1000 muslims as the main group and interviewed a 1000 non-muslims as a control group. That seems a pretty standard approach to me.
No different to a lot of Christians.
sort of... though one lot of interviews were face to face and one lot were over the phone so I imagine that brings the control group aspect into some question... they themselves call it a comparison not a control group as there is a difference
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...se-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law
There are some headline figures both good and bad you can take away from the poll - if there was 2 control groups (eg practising Christians) and non religious people that may have given better insight into for example the teacher question - is it a religious or a specific religions issue etc but as with all polls there are limitations (particularly when two groups are interviewed in different ways - just look at the online and phone EU polls now to see that)
Well the poll had a control group of the general British population which, unsurprisingly, had a vastly different attitude to homosexuality. In Western Europe these days even the majority of Christians don't think homosexuality should be illegal. That might be true of the US bible belt of course - my first thought when I heard about this shooting was that it was committed by one of those right-wing white NRA loons.
I don't know where you live but in the UK the largest theological position is 'non belief'.
What Christians do or don't think about homosexuality has nothing to do with my point.
see above it had a comparison not a control group - different methodologies
Your point was that a significant amount of Muslims believe homosexuality to be wrong and should be illegal which is a problem. This is also the same for the majority of religions and so your singling out of Muslims was somewhat baffling. There are of course progressive sects within religions but on the whole it's an issue with religion. And let's be honest, whilst there may be many people who don't believe that it should be illegal (Christians and Muslims included) - whilst being a decent person with the right attitude, they are still clearly going against the teachings of their religion. And I live in the UK.
If the control group was devout Christians then I would guess that the result would have been very different. As CM just mentioned, the UK has a large non believing population and so of course a control group made up of non believers could and would skew this. It's a problem that applies to all of religion, it's not a trait inherent only to Muslims.
ICM themselves call it a national representative control sample.
That is true but there are far more devout Muslims than devout Christians in the UK. Their attitudes are simply far more relevant on the whole.
I agree that the Abrahamic religions are generally intolerant of homosexuality and of a whole lot of other things.
This
Furthermore, extremist Christianity is not a significant problem the West. Extremist Islam is a very big problem in the West. I can't see the point being desperate to highlight the Christians ('us' I suppose is what it is meant to mean) are just as problematic. They are not.
I like how Penna and sam have both been quick to support the "people will always use religion as an excuse for their own prejudices" argument, whilst using the exact same logic toward gay marriage and adoption. Sometimes even within the same post!
This is the problem with that argument, it's far too easy to use as a dismissive, catch all defence of religious influence without anyone been forced to actually think about it.
This is the problem with that argument, it's far too easy to use as a dismissive, catch all defence of religious influence without anyone been forced to actually think about it.
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It is a problem but you have to put those numbers in context:
a) I suspect as the representation of Gay people in TV is actually bringing those numbers down which overall is a good sign. There are a lot of Muslims out there who are saying there is nothing wrong to be gay which is a great thing.
b) A 2015 Pew Poll in America found that Muslims were less intolerant of Evangelicals, the numbers still weren't great but this highlights religion being an issue. While Evangelicals aren't a huge in Europe and in America not so much from a violence point of view, they still have a large impact on a day to day basis. The Evangelical right has a huge influence in American politics.
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The bold is the theory, in reality religion is FAR too heavily involved in lawmaking.
I've not actually said anything about my personal views. I am simply trying to unpick why people think mainstream Christianity says something it doesn't, or why it's bound by ancient laws given to the Jews. The 'dismissive, catch-all" part of your post applies both ways.
I was referring more to statements like this..
Which I would argue very much falls under the remit of "using religion as an excuse for personal prejudice" ... It's up there with "I'm not racist, but..." or "it's about ethics in gaming journalism".
If you don't feel like that, then my apologies, but the way you phrased it implied a sympathy.
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There's an Anderson Cooper video doing the rounds where he reads out names of some of those killed and a little bit about each one. Can't link it now because I'm in work. He struggles to get through it at times, but it's worth the watch. Also explicitly says at the start that you wont see any pictures of the shooter or hear his name mentioned as this was about the victims, which I thought was nice, considering the medias love of sensationalising the shooter in these situations.
News reporting that the shooter used to attend that very bar, sit in the corner and get drunk, not really the attributes of a 'devout muslim ' , he was also using gay dating apps. I think his mental health had a lot to his actions, and also the fact that he was known by the fbi makes it even more absurd that he was allowed to buy assault rifles.
Well Mockney, I don't agree with you on that one. A religion is entitled to decide who may or may not be married in its particular rite. As I said in my earlier post, I can't get married in my own church and I'm not gay. I accept that, even though I had very good reason to get divorced. Being married is important to me, for many reasons. The Government has made it possible for anyone to get married and enjoy full legal protection under the law. So, that's what we did.
I don't believe my church is prejudiced against me.
I don't believe my church is prejudiced against me.
Islam also says homosexuality is a sin. So is there some order of precedence related to everything in the Quran which tells you to respect the laws of the land ahead of exercising homophobia? Or are you genuinely fine with homosexuality and it's your viewpoint that ensures you are not homophobic. Because, to be perfectly honest, the above passage reads like the only reason you are not homophobic is because Islam tells you to obey the laws of the land.
Yeah. Seems as though he was either a homosexual who couldn't come to terms with the fact or he hated them so much he spent time researching this attack. I'm guessing it's the former.
1000 Muslims out of 2.6million Muslims. That should tell you enough.
It's like me asking 1000 people in Britain the same question and picking an area I can guarantee the answer I want and say 52% of British people want homosexuality to be illegal.
Yes. It should not, however, fight tooth and nail to deny everyone, even those who are not religious, the chance to live their life the way they would like to. They also should not declare homosexuality immoral and sinful.
You live 'part time' in Italy, right? I'm sure you're aware that divorce was legalized there in 1970; four years later a referendum was held to deny attempts to repeal the law. And the Church (the Vatican, to be specific) fought desperately to prevent the legalization and then for repealing the law.
Religion, to this day, actively influences social policy on no other basis than their ancient texts and tradition, even though it should have absolutely no jurisdiction over non-religious people.
Yes. It tells me you don't understand statistical sampling.
I knew a muslim that would get pissed and take drugs but not eat pork. Religion is daft.
Believe it or not, that's not the first time I've seen someone try to make the "biological" argument that sammsky just made.
So apparently this guy was a regular at the gay club he shot up...
I know Christians whose children have cursed them and they have not killed them - sin after sin... no wonder the world is going to hell
It doesn't seem to me that they did a very good job at sampling though, based on what I've read about the survey here.
It seems questionable, yes, especially as we don't know if the control sample was of similar social status as the Muslims interviewed; that might offset the bias that comes from the selection process of the Muslims.
But it's still ignorant to claim that a sample of 1000 out of a population of 2.6 million automatically means the poll is bullshit. It might still be but certainly not because of that.