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Post by sidburn on Sept 23, 2010 8:38:57 GMT -5
Time and time again, I hear fundies act as though these are the only issues that should matter to any Christian, when Jesus never said a word about either of them. What's the big deal? Why spend all your time focusing on just these two "sins"?
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Post by Bezron on Sept 23, 2010 9:06:37 GMT -5
Because those are the only two that a True Christian can reasonably, visibly be expected not to commit.
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Post by Hades on Sept 23, 2010 9:45:51 GMT -5
They're just the topics of our time, really. The progression of social change never really stops, and the more moderate Christians don't seem to have as much trouble adapting. I doubt you'll see many moderate Christians today argue that women should be completely submissive to their husbands, and men in general. You really only see that with the more fundamentalist believers (and it makes for very lulzy reading). The same will probably go for homosexuality. There are already moderates who are accepting of both these issues, though abortion is much more touchy subject. I don't really foresee general acceptance of gays declining in the future, though. There will probably always be movements that try to turn back the clock.
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Post by John E on Sept 23, 2010 10:20:21 GMT -5
Because those are the only two that a True Christian can reasonably, visibly be expected not to commit. Except that a lot of abortions are performed on Christians, including evangelicals. And a lot of homophobic preachers turn out gay. So, yeah...
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Post by Vene on Sept 23, 2010 10:22:20 GMT -5
I assume that's why "visibly" was a key word.
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Post by Bezron on Sept 23, 2010 10:26:42 GMT -5
I assume that's why "visibly" was a key word. Exactly, and also "True Christian". It's a lot easier to point and say that those folks weren't True Christians.
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Post by Caitshidhe on Sept 23, 2010 11:03:04 GMT -5
I think that their focus on abortion might stem from it being one of the only socially acceptable ways to openly subjugate women. Controlling access to abortion, birth control, and sex education makes women totally at the mercy of their own bodies and, consequently, at the mercy of what men do to their bodies. A woman controlled by pregnancy and children is, well, a woman CONTROLLED. Of course, this also assumes that Christians are all misogynists, which isn't always true; certainly a lot of the hardcore religious nuts are extremely sexist, but Christian =/= automatically anti-feminist. The bigwigs tend to be, though, and the rest of the sheep will often blindly follow what the herdmaster says.
Alternatively I'm just biased.
As for why they hate homosexuals, I think it's just one of the few remaining minority groups that they can openly hate. It's politically incorrect to be nasty to women and brown people. (Not that people aren't jackasses to women and racial minorities, it's just not socially accepted anymore.)
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Post by erictheblue on Sept 23, 2010 12:22:27 GMT -5
I think above posters pretty much summed it up. Christians used the Bible to justify slavery, and even twisted the Bible to explain why Blacks are inferior. (They bore the unnamed-in-Genesis "mark of Cain.")
But that isn't socially acceptable anymore. So they have to find more verses to take out of context and make them mean whatever the fundies want them to mean.
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Post by rookie on Sept 23, 2010 14:22:30 GMT -5
I thought it was a money/power grab. Marketing fear is a profitable business. Always was, always will be. For my first bit of proof I call the Republican Party.
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Post by Sigmaleph on Sept 23, 2010 21:11:39 GMT -5
I dunno if they are the only two issues, they are just prominent because of cultural clash, so to speak.
Homosexuality only became socially acceptable recently, and conservative Christians are, as the term implies, conservative, so they lag behind on social progress. Abortion is more complicated, but in general lots of people are raised in an environment where they see it as baby killing. I have friends who are nowhere near religious, but, being raised in a Catholic society, they tend to have a powerful emotional reaction. I was more or less the same way some time ago.
Two things that seem very wrong to them, of which society in general is becoming more accepting over time. So they fight them. They don't keep fighting for, say, the divine right of kings, because the time where that was an accepted religious idea is long past. Prayer as an absolute replacement of medicine, while it still happens to an extent, is far less popular nowadays. Marriage as ownership, same. So, while some still argue for those, they are not the kind of cause a majority can rally behind nowadays.
On the other side of the spectrum, they don't need to focus on the aspects of their religion that society in general accepts (don't kill, don't steal, etc) because those are not at risk.
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Post by clockworkgirl21 on Sept 23, 2010 21:34:30 GMT -5
Abortion: They see fetuses as babies, so it would be murder. I don't think they all just want to control women. I know some do, but a lot just see the fetus as a victim and deserving help.
Homosexuality: No idea.
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Post by Dragon Zachski on Sept 23, 2010 22:42:39 GMT -5
Former pro-lifer speaking, and clockworkgirl has nailed it on the head.
The average pro-lifer really believes that it's murder.
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Post by Random Guy on Sept 23, 2010 22:55:23 GMT -5
That was the impression I got as well, that they really are sincere in believing it to be murder.
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Post by Mlle Antéchrist on Sept 23, 2010 23:42:37 GMT -5
As Sigmaleph said, neither became socially acceptable until relatively recently, which is probably contributing here (although abortion is a bit more complex than just that). There's still a good chunk of the population that was either alive during a time when acceptance of these things was unthinkable or being raise to oppose them was still more common than not, which makes these issues more shocking to them than they would be for someone who has grown up in more modern times, and become accustomed to these things. The more shocking something is, the more outraged people are going to become. Conversely, numerous other things that the bible forbids are so incorporated into our society that people either consider them an 'unavoidable evil' due to the lack of shock it produces, or favour these things because of modern norms. You won't find too many people who are willing to go out and protest alcohol, desegregation, women voting/holding authority, etc., even amongst those who oppose it. The average pro-lifer really believes that it's murder. Which is why I can't bring myself to be as disgusted with them as I am with homophobes. There are certainly threads of misogyny running through the pro-life camp, but most of them aren't woman-hating monsters. The hateful extremists who blow up abortion clinics, harass women who have terminations and support these practices, such as Neal "horse sex" Horsley, aren't representative of your average pro-lifer. I disagree with them in regards to whether or not abortion is murder, but I also concede that opposing something you consider to be murder is what most of us would consider moral. I can almost relate to how they feel due to my own stance on capital punishment, which is the subject of just as much "is it or isn't it murder" debate. Of course, that isn't going to stop me from debating with pro-lifers or calling them out when something they say completely crosses the line (e.g., pricks who condemn rape victims for having a termination), nor will I deny that some of them are misogynistic assholes. Likewise, the recentness of it is probably contributing as well. I just think that it's too black and white to label the pro-life stance as being completely immoral. Homophobia, on the other hand, is good old-fashioned bigotry. The majority of them DON'T truly believe that they're protecting society from a dangerous plague of gay men -- they're prejudiced morons coming up with excuses, at least as far as I can tell. Personally, I think the abortion debate will be mainstream for much longer than gay rights for this very reason.
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jlujan69
Full Member
unenlightened, backwoods, no-count fundy
Posts: 113
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Post by jlujan69 on Sept 24, 2010 3:09:25 GMT -5
Abortion: I once suggested to my fellow fundies on a forum I frequent that since very very few of our number would actually advocate the death penalty or life imprisonment for docs and nurses who perform abortions and for the women who have it done, that instead of calling it "murder", we call it a "special kind of transgression". After all, in our society, convicted (first degree) murderes are given such sentences. Anyway, some of the above posts are correct about our POV of seeing the fetus as a baby.
Homosexuality: Definitly a no-no in the Bible, though some would posit an alternate understanding of the very explicitly stated prohibitions found in the text. We don't typically see a sin as simply affecting only one person. We see it as a type of spiritual "poison" to the body of humanity. That said, the honest among us would concede that our people throughout history and into the present day, have done a less than admirable job in living out the creeds we claim to possess. A recent report on the state of marriage and divorce in America showed that conservative Christians from the Bible Belt were more likely to divorce than the rest of the population, liberals from the Northeast, least likely. So much for the sancitity of marriage, right? Despite this seeming inconsistency, we don't feel as if we should just keep silent if we think we see a pattern of immorality (according to the Bible) developing in our community. So, why do we choose to vigorously oppose abortion and homosexuality as opposed to other issues? Varied depending on the individual, yet culture does play a significant role, no doubt. Is it easier to openly oppose the humanitarian gay man than the fellow who's been married and divorced multiple times yet goes to church and votes Republican? Yes. Is it biblical? No. Sin is sin is sin. No sin is better than another.
As for me, I've done considerable thinking and soul searching on just how I'm supposed to regard all of these issues. For me, following Jesus' pattern seems the best route. While He did personally confront individuals with their wrongs, He did not humiliate them. He was gracious and forgiving. If the NT is to be believed (ah, another topic), sinners of all stripes wre attracted to Him and this got Him into trouble with the religious muckety-mucks. The only people He publicly condemned were the religious leaders because they were hypocrites with a condescending attitude toward eveyone else, including towards Jesus Himself.
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