Bibles view on Homosexuality

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Well, that is exactly where my problem with images starts. Who gives human beings the power to limit God to images we can conceive? If it is difficult for us to imagine God, is it justified to show images of Him, just to satisfy our curiousity? As for Jesus being God, that is a totally different issue, and as a muslim, of course, I do not agree with that. It seems rather that people have elevated Jesus to that level, by the same process other religions have elevated the statues that were initially used as manifastations of the Supreme Being, to that being itself. Jesus was a prophet, he passed on God's message, like any other prophet before him, he never told people to worship him, nor did he tell them to show images of him and worship those. That all came afterwards with human curiosity and imagination.

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People make songs, poetries, plays, sonnets, etc about divine being...still potraying god's image, even in a very beautiful way, is considered as blasphemy????


And for the rest of your post, I'm not going to give another comments. We see it in diferent point of views. I don't say yours are wrong, since this sory of things are subjectives...but if you want to say that my opinions are wrong, well I don't care really..

In reply to Miranda's post #85:

<AP, I agree with your post that freedom of speech is a good thing. Probably I am at odds with many other christians when I say a blasphemy law would be a bad thing, this is what I believe. Everyone should be free to question and criticise another's religion, although no one should be allowed to persecute anyone for holding to their particular religion. I am not sure where the dividing line should be, maybe you have some ideas?>

Religion is so wrapped up with persecution, that it seems to come naturally to religious institutions like the church to respond to any threat upon its belief with persecution. I don't think the world will ever be able to eradicate persecution from religion, just as the world will never become totally secular. Persecution is a difficult term. When does constant criticism of belief become persecution? I don't see many philosophers complaining of persecution from their colleagues who hold opposing views, and yet philosophy is filled with debate and criticism. Even a philosopher who is constantly harangued by religious believers, like Peter Singer, would not see well-argued, but intense criticism as persecution.

<I do not agree that the reason we have free speech in the West is because of 'us dissenters'. The dissenters against the persecuting church and state of the past were actually christians>

It's very easy to call them christians now - do you think they would have been seen by the majority of the church as christians in their day? In fact, I'm not even sure that the term christian is that meaningful anymore. mormons, jehovah's witnesses, Shakers, Anabaptists, Catholics, Cathars, Ranters, Methodists, Mennonites, etc are all christian aren't they? And yet they all seem to be greatly different to each other.

<It is indeed becoming harder to say what you want about Jesus in this climate of multiculturism. Not very long ago Birmingham City Council renamed Christmas 'Winterval' out of consideration for its large Asian poplulation that might have been offended by the mention of Christ in Christmas. Is this contrary to the concept of freedom of speech? I think that it is.>

How do you feel about racists speaking freely about their views to the general public? Should they be allowed to voice their opinions and try to convert others to their beliefs?

<What really angers me is that whereas it is usually ok to denigrate Jesus and Christianity, there is an outcry when other religions are given the same treatment and there is no even handedness from the authorities.>

What would you call even-handedness? There are far more people who claim to be christian in this country than any other religion. Would you rather have all those christians given the freedom to denigrate their competitor religions? Or should we not ever criticise religion? Its a bit rich for a person professing to be christian to condemn the criticism of religion, seeing as christianity itself was built upon criticism of religion. How do you think christianity won over pagan Europe? By calling a peace gathering maybe and explaining the 'truth's' of the gospel to them?

<It isn't true AP that the burning and torture of 'witches' and heretics was in inspired by the bible's teachings>

I don't suppose Exodus 22:18 (Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live) had anything to do with it then. And I suppose that the recent disgraceful conduct of christian religious believers in the UK, where a child was persecuted for being possessed, had anything to do with Mark 9:29, or Mark 5:2-15, or Mark 16:17, or Matthew 12:43-45. Mark 9:38-40 says this:

"Teacher," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us." "Do not stop him," Jesus said. "No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us"

The idea of spirit possession is a superstitious nonsense, promoted by the bible.