If Joe comes to bully you on a consistent basis, and Joe's mom come to apologize and tell you "I'm sorry. Joe is actually a nice kid". Would you believe his mom? Well, No! But that's exactly what you are doing when you say "Islam is a religion of peace".

So because Joe bullies you, it automatically negates the fact that he volunteers at the soup kitchen on Saturdays and Sundays and mows the old lady's lawn every 2 weeks. Ok.

Well, yes. I don't go to the soup kitchen; I am not the old lady whose lawn is being mowed. The only side I see of Joe is the not nice side. If Joe doesn't do nice things when he's around me, then as far as I'm concerned, Joe is not a nice person. From where I stand, Joe is a bully, because that's the only side of him that I see. His mother's claim is basically meaningless to me because I don't see any of the "niceness" and it doesn't solve the problem, which is Joe not being nice to me. Plus, to put a more paranoid spin on things, how can one know if his "volunteering" actually is that? Maybe his parents put him up to it. Maybe it's all an act, to keep the authority figures out of his hair. Many a bully has been perfectly sweet in the presence of some and perfectly abominable otherwise.

I just wanted to answer your specific objection. I do agree that bullying is not a good analogy for this whole thing. In fact, I'm not certain that the two situations are comparable at all.

If Joe comes to bully you on a consistent basis, and Joe's mom come to apologize and tell you "I'm sorry. Joe is actually a nice kid". Would you believe his mom? Well, No! But that's exactly what you are doing when you say "Islam is a religion of peace".

Well, on my own I'd not believe. But if Joe's mom come to me and say " I'm sorry. Joe is a complete idiot and have behavioural issues and pity that it is too late for abortion. But not all of us like this unlike you believe so due to your Joe'sfamilyphobia based on fact that simply because well... we are from same family." it might make more sense and be more relevant.

If Joe comes to bully you on a consistent basis, and Joe's mom come to apologize and tell you "I'm sorry. Joe is actually a nice kid". Would you believe his mom? Well, No! But that's exactly what you are doing when you say "Islam is a religion of peace".

So because Joe bullies you, it automatically negates the fact that he volunteers at the soup kitchen on Saturdays and Sundays and mows the old lady's lawn every 2 weeks. Ok.

Well, yes. I don't go to the soup kitchen; I am not the old lady whose lawn is being mowed. The only side I see of Joe is the not nice side. If Joe doesn't do nice things when he's around me, then as far as I'm concerned, Joe is not a nice person. From where I stand, Joe is a bully, because that's the only side of him that I see. His mother's claim is basically meaningless to me because I don't see any of the "niceness" and it doesn't solve the problem, which is Joe not being nice to me. Plus, to put a more paranoid spin on things, how can one know if his "volunteering" actually is that? Maybe his parents put him up to it. Maybe it's all an act, to keep the authority figures out of his hair. Many a bully has been perfectly sweet in the presence of some and perfectly abominable otherwise.

I just wanted to answer your specific objection. I do agree that bullying is not a good analogy for this whole thing. In fact, I'm not certain that the two situations are comparable at all.

Frankly. I can see your point. And I wasn't approaching from that point of view. I was thinking that even if this guy is an asshole to you, doesn't mean he's an asshole to everyone. Doesn't even mean he's an asshole in general. It could be that you did something to piss him off and so he bullies you. But everyone else he is a genuine decent human being to.

But again, point taken.

There's a difference between being forced to write hate speech and being forced to write "Congratulations on your Wedding!" on a cake for a gay or trans married couple.

There are multiple separate events, so let me clarify that in the compelled-speech case, the cake wasn't a wedding cake - it was a cake for a pro-gay event/conference or something of that nature (I'm not sure), but it wasn't for a wedding, and the words were "Support gay marriage" - a political message; even if mild, and even if you agree with the message, the baker did not, but was ordered by the courts (in Ireland) to write the words anyway.

Here's a (different) pro-homosexual atheist explaining why it creates a bad precedent; though he initially approved the lawsuit, later he realized it was an overreach of government enforcement.

Side-note: In that linked article, it also claims Jesus never condemned homosexuality. That's a common statement by people (Christians or otherwise) who don't know the Bible, trying to explain why Christians shouldn't condemn homosexuality. Not only does the Bible claim He is God, and orchestrated the writing of the Bible; in the gospels Jesus indirectly references and confirms the section of the Old Testament that condemns homosexuality (among other things). Further, even if Jesus himself didn't explicitly condemn it while he walked the earth, other parts of the Bible do (though people try to twist those verses also), and Christianity holds that the entire Bible is God-inspired, and Christianity in general (perhaps surprisingly to non-Christians) doesn't actually hold the red letters of Jesus to be any higher importance than the rest of the Bible, Old Testament or New Testament (which both condemn homosexuality).

Gay customers are being served. It's gay weddings that aren't being catered, and pro-gay messages that aren't be written.

The liberal argument is, "Gays can't order wedding cakes; why do gays only get 90% of the menu that non-gays get? That's discrimination on the last 10% of the menu!"

But the conservative argument is, we do serve gay individuals, but we won't provide services or goods for ceremonies we disagree with.

If a non-gay customer came in, and ordered a cake with a pro-gay message on it or for a gay-wedding/religious-ceremony, it'd be refused.
If a gay customer came in, and ordered a cake without a pro-gay message and not a gay-wedding/religious-ceremony on it, it'd be permitted.

It's not the person ordering the cake we discriminate against, but the message (explicit or implicit) of the cake, or the message (explicit or implicit) of the ceremony.

Obviously there are some store owners who might just refuse to serve gays entirely, which should be justly taken to court as discrimination. I know at least one restaurant stupidly claimed they'd refuse all service to gays - I think they were just hoping for crowdfunding money, or else just actually hated homosexuals as individuals, instead of opposing homosexuality as an action and lifestyle.
But most of the cases that have actually come to court, the store owners had knowingly served gays in the past (including years of serving the same couple who later sued the florist), and at least one had gay employees.

Here's the "Factual findings" of the court itself, involving the florist:

These are facts the court acknowledged as true, and that both sides agreed are true. Stutzman didn't want to use her skill to personally be involved in an ideological ceremony she didn't agree with. Stutzman wasn't refusing to serve gays, and had served this particular customer knowing he was gay for nine years, including Valentine's day and the gay couple's anniversaries.

As far as wedding cakes go, it's a weird borderline thing. In my mind, if a baker is baking wedding cakes as products, and a gay couple comes by and wants to buy one off the shelf, that'd be discriminatory to refuse, because it'd be denying them an item the baker is just churning out, without anyone in particular in mind.

On the other hand, if the gay couple comes in and places an order, the baker is being forced to use his artistic talent to actively participate in the preparation of the religious ceremony directly.

Even then, though, I'm not so stuck up on it, because he's still not forced to attend. But the venue providers who are getting sued, and the florist who got sued, are being ordered by the judges to stick around for the entire duration providing their services and participating in the running of the ceremony. That absolutely crosses a line. And the message that keeps repeatedly being sent to the Christian world is, "You are forbidden to run a small business unless you approve of our views".

A few years back, in 2010, the white supremacy group 'American Renaissance' was forced to cancel its annual conference, because all three hotels it had already contracted to host the venue, backed out of the contract when they realized the nature of the event (and in the face of protests). Should a business owner be required by law to host events they morally oppose? What about Jewish hotel owner required to host a Neo-nazi gathering?

On the flip side, a Neo-nazi as an individual shouldn't be refused service at a restaurant, or refused a hotel room to stay in.

It'd suck very much if Christians couldn't host conferences anywhere, because every venue in a city is owned by or pressured by militant atheist groups, so I guess that's kinda how it'd feel. Even so, not every venue or business is refusing service to gays. Unlike in the South after the civil war, where most businesses refused services to blacks, providing a heavy burden on them (forcing them to travel farther, for example, or forcing them to create their own businesses or alternatives out of necessity), very very very few businesses are refusing to participate in gay ceremonies, and even when they are, they are still serving gays as individuals.

It seems like alot of the argument against Christians tends to convolute individuals and ideologies together. Unfortunately, some Christians violate scripture by hatred against homosexuals, which I strongly disagree with. But for most Christians, there is a clear distinction. A popular Christian phrase (not found in the Bible) is "Love the sinner, hate the sin". The Bible clearly says, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" - Romans 3:23 (Paul, New Testament). It also says clearly (again, Paul), Christians also are not perfect and repeatedly mess up (sorry to shock you with that! :P).

In the Old Testament, in several places King David says God looks around searching for righteous men, and finds nobody. Solomon says, "For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin."

Many Christians understand that, and so don't condemn someone by their sin (we are called to weigh and analyze, and also to inform and, in certain circumstances, to take action by withdrawing and refusing to participate), for we also are sinners, sinning with different or the same sins (which was Jesus' point about trying to point out a spec or splinter in one person's eye when you have a log or plank in your own eye).

As individuals, muslims and homsexuals should be protected from discrimination.
As ideologies, Islam and homosexuality as a concept/idea shouldn't be protected from criticism, and people shouldn't be forced to participate in ideological ceremonies or political events.

If you protect ideas from discrimination instead of individuals, what you eventually get is laws that cut people off from being able to run a businesses, government-compelled speech and government-suppression of speech, and "reeducation" for violations.

For myself personally, I don't know whether I'd refuse to go to a gay wedding or not. Likely, it'd depend on whether the gay couple were Christian. If they were Christian, I'd probably not attend. If they weren't, I probably would attend.

If Joe comes to bully you on a consistent basis, and Joe's mom come to apologize and tell you "I'm sorry. Joe is actually a nice kid". Would you believe his mom? Well, No! But that's exactly what you are doing when you say "Islam is a religion of peace".

So because Joe bullies you, it automatically negates the fact that he volunteers at the soup kitchen on Saturdays and Sundays and mows the old lady's lawn every 2 weeks. Ok.

Well, yes. I don't go to the soup kitchen; I am not the old lady whose lawn is being mowed. The only side I see of Joe is the not nice side. If Joe doesn't do nice things when he's around me, then as far as I'm concerned, Joe is not a nice person. From where I stand, Joe is a bully, because that's the only side of him that I see. His mother's claim is basically meaningless to me because I don't see any of the "niceness" and it doesn't solve the problem, which is Joe not being nice to me. Plus, to put a more paranoid spin on things, how can one know if his "volunteering" actually is that? Maybe his parents put him up to it. Maybe it's all an act, to keep the authority figures out of his hair. Many a bully has been perfectly sweet in the presence of some and perfectly abominable otherwise.

I just wanted to answer your specific objection. I do agree that bullying is not a good analogy for this whole thing. In fact, I'm not certain that the two situations are comparable at all.

IMO this analogy is totally off-base, but honestly, even if he saves puppies from trees and volunteers at the local comically-textbook-poverty-orphanage-for-polio-victims, even if I know he does those things, I'm still going to have a bad impression of him if he likes to give me swirlies every Monday. It's a natural, human thing to value your own direct experiences more than those of others, and doubly true in highly emotional circumstances.

If Joe comes to bully you on a consistent basis, and Joe's mom come to apologize and tell you "I'm sorry. Joe is actually a nice kid". Would you believe his mom? Well, No! But that's exactly what you are doing when you say "Islam is a religion of peace".

So because Joe bullies you, it automatically negates the fact that he volunteers at the soup kitchen on Saturdays and Sundays and mows the old lady's lawn every 2 weeks. Ok.

Well, yes. I don't go to the soup kitchen; I am not the old lady whose lawn is being mowed. The only side I see of Joe is the not nice side. If Joe doesn't do nice things when he's around me, then as far as I'm concerned, Joe is not a nice person. From where I stand, Joe is a bully, because that's the only side of him that I see. His mother's claim is basically meaningless to me because I don't see any of the "niceness" and it doesn't solve the problem, which is Joe not being nice to me. Plus, to put a more paranoid spin on things, how can one know if his "volunteering" actually is that? Maybe his parents put him up to it. Maybe it's all an act, to keep the authority figures out of his hair. Many a bully has been perfectly sweet in the presence of some and perfectly abominable otherwise.

I just wanted to answer your specific objection. I do agree that bullying is not a good analogy for this whole thing. In fact, I'm not certain that the two situations are comparable at all.

IMO this analogy is totally off-base, but honestly, even if he saves puppies from trees and volunteers at the local comically-textbook-poverty-orphanage-for-polio-victims, even if I know he does those things, I'm still going to have a bad impression of him if he likes to give me swirlies every Monday. It's a natural, human thing to value your own direct experiences more than those of others, and doubly true in highly emotional circumstances.

Well this analogy is bad for a lot of reasons. Here we are talking about an individual, not a group of people who are the same religion. Of course if an individual personally attacks you for no good reason but is perfectly good with everyone else, then rightly so you'd think he's an asshole and that there's something wrong with him. Here we are talking about an entire group of people who adhere to a religion. We cannot really judge one individual because he follows a religion that has some other adherents who like blowing stuff up.

A more appropriate analogy would be hating/fearing all Americans because the US government decided to bomb X location, which may or may not be supported by every single American. Here is where I think the most interesting points of this discussion comes in. Almost every point raised about Islam in this thread can be raised about this hypothetical (or not so hypothetical in some ways) scenario. What do people think?

There's a difference between being forced to write hate speech and being forced to write "Congratulations on your Wedding!" on a cake for a gay or trans married couple.

There are multiple separate events, so let me clarify that in the compelled-speech case, the cake wasn't a wedding cake - it was a cake for a pro-gay event/conference or something of that nature (I'm not sure), but it wasn't for a wedding, and the words were "Support gay marriage" - a political message; even if mild, and even if you agree with the message, the baker did not, but was ordered by the courts (in Ireland) to write the words anyway.

Here's a (different) pro-homosexual atheist explaining why it creates a bad precedent; though he initially approved the lawsuit, later he realized it was an overreach of government enforcement.

Side-note: In that linked article, it also claims Jesus never condemned homosexuality. That's a common statement by people (Christians or otherwise) who don't know the Bible, trying to explain why Christians shouldn't condemn homosexuality. Not only does the Bible claim He is God, and orchestrated the writing of the Bible; in the gospels Jesus indirectly references and confirms the section of the Old Testament that condemns homosexuality (among other things). Further, even if Jesus himself didn't explicitly condemn it while he walked the earth, other parts of the Bible do (though people try to twist those verses also), and Christianity holds that the entire Bible is God-inspired, and Christianity in general (perhaps surprisingly to non-Christians) doesn't actually hold the red letters of Jesus to be any higher importance than the rest of the Bible, Old Testament or New Testament (which both condemn homosexuality).
Gay customers are being served. It's gay weddings that aren't being catered, and pro-gay messages that aren't be written.

The liberal argument is, "Gays can't order wedding cakes; why do gays only get 90% of the menu that non-gays get? That's discrimination on the last 10% of the menu!"

But the conservative argument is, we do serve gay individuals, but we won't provide services or goods for ceremonies we disagree with.

If a non-gay customer came in, and ordered a cake with a pro-gay message on it or for a gay-wedding/religious-ceremony, it'd be refused.
If a gay customer came in, and ordered a cake without a pro-gay message and not a gay-wedding/religious-ceremony on it, it'd be permitted.

It's not the person ordering the cake we discriminate against, but the message (explicit or implicit) of the cake, or the message (explicit or implicit) of the ceremony.

Obviously there are some store owners who might just refuse to serve gays entirely, which should be justly taken to court as discrimination. I know at least one restaurant stupidly claimed they'd refuse all service to gays - I think they were just hoping for crowdfunding money, or else just actually hated homosexuals as individuals, instead of opposing homosexuality as an action and lifestyle.
But most of the cases that have actually come to court, the store owners had knowingly served gays in the past (including years of serving the same couple who later sued the florist), and at least one had gay employees.

Here's the "Factual findings" of the court itself, involving the florist:

"Stutzman [Arlene's Flowers owner] draws a distinction between the provision of raw materials for such an event (or even flower arrangements that she receives pre-made from wholesalers) and the provisions of flower arrangements that she has herself arranged for the same event. Said more precisely, Stutzman does not believe that she can, consistent with the tenets of her faith (as expressed in the [established guidelines of faith of her denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention (the largest Protestant body in the United States)]), use her professional skill to make an arrangement of flowers and other materials for use at a same-sex wedding.

...

Plaintiff Robert Ingersoll is a gay man who was an established customer of Arlene's Flowers. During the approximately nine years leading up to the present action, Stutzman, on behalf of Arlene's Flowers, regularly designed and created flower arrangements for Ingersoll. Ingersoll estimated that, with respect to the purchase of flowers only, Stutzman had served him approximately 20 times or more and that he had spent in the range of $4,500 at Arlene's Flowers. Stutzman prepared these arrangements knowing both that Ingersoll was gay and that the arrangements were for Ingersoll's same-sex partner, Curt Freed, for occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries and Valentine's Day."

These are facts the court acknowledged as true, and that both sides agreed are true. Stutzman didn't want to use her skill to personally be involved in an ideological ceremony she didn't agree with. Stutzman wasn't refusing to serve gays, and had served this particular customer knowing he was gay for nine years, including Valentine's day and the gay couple's anniversaries.

As far as wedding cakes go, it's a weird borderline thing. In my mind, if a baker is baking wedding cakes as products, and a gay couple comes by and wants to buy one off the shelf, that'd be discriminatory to refuse, because it'd be denying them an item the baker is just churning out, without anyone in particular in mind.
On the other hand, if the gay couple comes in and places an order, the baker is being forced to use his artistic talent to actively participate in the preparation of the religious ceremony directly.

Even then, though, I'm not so stuck up on it, because he's still not forced to attend. But the venue providers who are getting sued, and the florist who got sued, are being ordered by the judges to stick around for the entire duration providing their services and participating in the running of the ceremony. That absolutely crosses a line. And the message that keeps repeatedly being sent to the Christian world is, "You are forbidden to run a small business unless you approve of our views".
A few years back, in 2010, the white supremacy group 'American Renaissance' was forced to cancel its annual conference, because all three hotels it had already contracted to host the venue, backed out of the contract when they realized the nature of the event (and in the face of protests). Should a business owner be required by law to host events they morally oppose? What about Jewish hotel owner required to host a Neo-nazi gathering?
On the flip side, a Neo-nazi as an individual shouldn't be refused service at a restaurant, or refused a hotel room to stay in.

It'd suck very much if Christians couldn't host conferences anywhere, because every venue in a city is owned by or pressured by militant atheist groups, so I guess that's kinda how it'd feel. Even so, not every venue or business is refusing service to gays. Unlike in the South after the civil war, where most businesses refused services to blacks, providing a heavy burden on them (forcing them to travel farther, for example, or forcing them to create their own businesses or alternatives out of necessity), very very very few businesses are refusing to participate in gay ceremonies, and even when they are, they are still serving gays as individuals.

It seems like alot of the argument against Christians tends to convolute individuals and ideologies together. Unfortunately, some Christians violate scripture by hatred against homosexuals, which I strongly disagree with. But for most Christians, there is a clear distinction. A popular Christian phrase (not found in the Bible) is "Love the sinner, hate the sin". The Bible clearly says, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" - Romans 3:23 (Paul, New Testament). It also says clearly (again, Paul), Christians also are not perfect and repeatedly mess up (sorry to shock you with that! :P).
In the Old Testament, in several places King David says God looks around searching for righteous men, and finds nobody. Solomon says, "For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin."

Many Christians understand that, and so don't condemn someone by their sin (we are called to weigh and analyze, and also to inform and, in certain circumstances, to take action by withdrawing and refusing to participate), for we also are sinners, sinning with different or the same sins (which was Jesus' point about trying to point out a spec or splinter in one person's eye when you have a log or plank in your own eye).

As individuals, muslims and homsexuals should be protected from discrimination.
As ideologies, Islam and homosexuality as a concept/idea shouldn't be protected from criticism, and people shouldn't be forced to participate in ideological ceremonies or political events.
If you protect ideas from discrimination instead of individuals, what you eventually get is laws that cut people off from being able to run a businesses, government-compelled speech and government-suppression of speech, and "reeducation" for violations.

For myself personally, I don't know whether I'd refuse to go to a gay wedding or not. Likely, it'd depend on whether the gay couple were Christian. If they were Christian, I'd probably not attend. If they weren't, I probably would attend.

Now here's where I say no, that's not true. Refusing to write down something (as a business that is) that states we support gay marriage is a form of discrimination. You are discriminating against people who support gay marriage basically. That's different from being forced to agree with said views. Nor is it hate speech in the sense that it's propagating hatred against anyone. Supporting gay rights/gay marriage does not hurt anyone. Neo-nazis are talking about hatred for anyone who isn't white and Christian. Those are two very very different things. The opposite route also sets a bad precedent: it means that you can refuse services to someone if he/she believes in something you don't agree with. It'd be like a company refusing to sell custom made shirts that say Bernie Sanders on it because you don't agree with Bernie Sanders views. I'll be the first to point out liberalism going overboard, but this is a case that I don't think that really quite works.

This isn't like the opposite: if a business/entity supports something you don't agree with, you don't have to buy stuff from them.

As far as marrying gays goes, that is an issue that Christianity has to deal with internally, because it's not going to disappear by simply refusing to marry gays. Even if for a moment I said that yeah, it's against the religious notions, it's still a failure on the part of a religion to reconcile the fact that homosexuals do in fact exist and can get married even if it isn't explicitly written in every religious text that marriage does not need to be between a man and woman. I don't know the specifics of what is and what isn't sin in Christianity so I won't go there, plus we are going off topic again (I highly recommend making a new thread for this, because the gay marriage and abortion things are interesting enough to live on their own).

Criticizing ideas is ok, but when we start declaring an entire religion to be inferior/having a problem with it, then we get into many other issues. As I stated before, it's the notion of "educate the uneducated" that has lead to severe issues during colonialism (and no it was not a good thing, no matter what anyone says). Blind fear of Islam is the sort of thing that will lead to bad decisions.

I wonder, how many people who don't support gay marriage and believe being gay is a sin are happily using products and/or services provided by said gay people...

I mean, I pretty much assume they all avoided shows like How I Met Your Mother, or indeed pretty much any broad way production... clearly films are out too, who knows how many of The Gays are in them... and I assume no Christian owns an iPhone or, indeed, any Apple product...

Of course, more likely, these people who Hate The Gays are happy to use what they produce, as long as they don't have to deal with the icky idea that they exist in any REAL sense... because... ewwww! bum sex!

I wonder, how many people who don't support gay marriage and believe being gay is a sin are happily using products and/or services provided by said gay people...I mean, I pretty much assume they all avoided shows like How I Met Your Mother, or indeed pretty much any broad way production... clearly films are out too, who knows how many of The Gays are in them... and I assume no Christian owns an iPhone or, indeed, any Apple product...Of course, more likely, these people who Hate The Gays are happy to use what they produce, as long as they don't have to deal with the icky idea that they exist in any REAL sense... because... ewwww! bum sex!

I'd imagine a good amount. My point was that legally no one can compel someone to buy from a business that they don't like for whatever reason.

I wonder, how many people who don't support gay marriage and believe being gay is a sin are happily using products and/or services provided by said gay people...

I mean, I pretty much assume they all avoided shows like How I Met Your Mother, or indeed pretty much any broad way production... clearly films are out too, who knows how many of The Gays are in them... and I assume no Christian owns an iPhone or, indeed, any Apple product...

Of course, more likely, these people who Hate The Gays are happy to use what they produce, as long as they don't have to deal with the icky idea that they exist in any REAL sense... because... ewwww! bum sex!

How I Met Your Mother - Never watched

iPhone and Apple products - Don't own any, except a 9-year-old iPod.

Coincidentally, bad examples on your part - I'm not all that much of a consumer of culture nowadays. :lol:

Still, yes, many Christians do consume less of certain shows based on the content and the ideas it promotes.

I've seen Breaking Bad and am currently following Better Call Saul, but that's about as modern-culture as I have time for (the rest of the time I mostly watch anime). I'd love to watch House of Cards, because it seems right up my alley of interest, but it seems too sexualized from what I read, so I skipped it.

I skipped it not because I don't like sex, but because I strongly believe that any sin, given enough time, controls you more and more, making it harder for you to make decisions that aren't influenced in favor of that sin. The more you lie, the more you compulsively lie without even thinking about it. The more you allow yourself to get angry, the more you get angry even when you don't want to and regret it (e.g. like getting angry at loved ones). Like drugs or alcohol, if you let it take control of you, it's harder and harder to not automatically reach for more. The more you let certain actions become the 'default' action, the more they control your life even without you realizing it, and the less freedom you have to actually make your own decisions.

(note: I'm not saying alcohol in itself is sin - I have a mocha-kahlua cheesecake baking in the oven right now, and make my own liqueurs)

So I try to refrain myself from auto-indulging in short-term pleasure, because in my experience (A) it rarely ever satisfies anyway (the promise of satisfaction always seems stronger then the actual experience), so it's not a plausible long-term way to maximize my actual pleasure and joy, and (B) I value my freedom and (C) I enjoy God, and long-term, the enjoyment I have in God gets stronger, not less, unlike every other pleasure under the sun.

The Bible turns alot of things seemingly upside down. It claims, and my own experiences have backed it up for myself, that our impulse as humans is to throw off restraint and over time we increasingly get more immoral (over the decades of our lives) as we give ourselves boundary lines, toe our own lines, cross them, make new boundary lines, and repeat. As we do so, we become more and more driven to automatically do that particular sin, and become more and more reactors instead of thinkers.

God says, "Hey, adopt My guidelines instead of your always-moving guidelines, limiting yourself, restraining yourself, and I'll help you conquer these impulses that are conquering you, so you can drive yourself instead of being driven by sin. Once you realize that you were already enslaved by sin, you should temporarily put on My "chains" and become a "slave" to righteousness to become actually free, and you'll eventually realize that my 'chains' are only limiting you from doing things you no longer care about doing anyway!"

I'll give you an analogous example of limitation and restraint actually leading to better life. My little sister was frustrated at the poor treatment of animals that are mass-produced for stores like Walmart. Cows, chickens, pigs, etc... They live terribly terribly abused lives. That includes the dairy cattle for milk, butter, etc...

So, she went vegan politely refusing to eat inhumanely raised animals. We shrugged it off and went about business as usual, but as she quietly maintained her ethical standard, we began to cater to it. It was a nuisance for us, because cooking without dairy, eggs, or meat is really limiting, and because almost every store-bought product has some dairy in it. So we tried to find locally-raised animals and things like that, despite that stuff being expensive. We eventually shifted to a mix of regular non-animal store-bought products, some locally raised meat we directly purchase after we make sure the animals are raised well, and our own animals we raise (just chicken for the past three years, but this year we're going to start hogs and turkeys) and our own vegetable garden.

This was burdensome, but as we've done it, we've gotten used to it and it's much much much less of a burden, and the meat, because of how it's raised, is better than anything you can eat in any restaurant or buy in any store. By embracing the limitations and working within it, we now eat incredibly better (healthier, fresher, tastier, and uh, moral-ier?). And our animals live great lives. I used to dislike meat - store bought chicken was mushy, steaks were tough, pork was meh. Now I'm addicted to the porkchops we buy from a farmer, and grilled chicken with grilled pepper sandwiches are delicious. We ate over 100 chickens last eat before we ran out. This year we're raising 160.

I mentioned a mocha-kahlua cheesecake earlier - the cheesecake is made from scratch, and I made the creamcheese and sourcream myself, from raw milk from a nearby farm. It has a layer of chocolate ganache in the middle. There's actually a second cheesecake - both are cooling off, and will then need four hours to set up. The result (which I've made before) is better than any other cheesecake I've had, with the exception of Cheesecake Factory's cheesecake. This is the 4th + 5th cheesecake I've made in the past three months since I started learning how to make them again.

In the Biblical view, gay sex isn't a "worse" sin than, say, adultery. All sin is slow-term poison to one's own freedom, whether I'm a serial liar or a serial killer - it's the consequences of those sins that have different proportions (i.e. serial killer has worse effect on someone's mind/heart/soul/whatever, and rightfully a harsher governmental response because it violates a 3rd party's freedom).

For the record, I have no repulsion to the idea of gay sex. My views are ideological, not stemming from being disgusted with it. If I didn't value my long-term freedom and long-term pleasure, I'd be bisexual to maximize my short-term pleasure. I have no emotional disgust at that - I have an intellectual problem with it.

Sure, some people might be merely disgusted with gay sex and have a gut reaction against it, but not all opposition to it is emotion-based.

I don't want the government involved in kicking down doors and stopping people from having gay sex; the opposition to gay marriage was opposition to government-recognition of homosexuality (and the approval/promotion that implicitly comes from that), for two reasons:

(A) unselfishly, I don't want the government to promote something that I believe has long-term negative effects on people, even while I recognize the people's right to their own choices and I don't want the government to violate their free will by blocking them from making choices, I also don't want the government to encourage people to make the choice I believe is harmful.

(B) selfishly, I don't want the government to approve of and encourage homosexuality, because I believe that keys in and unlocks a different set of Biblical principles that triggers (via a series of dominoes) judgement on the nation as a whole, and I live in this nation. (God brings judgement on individuals, but He also brings judgement at the city/region/nation/earth scales as well - this is a well-established Biblical truth that most Christians don't realize, despite their handwavy talk of 'national judgement', most don't actually understand it).

Obviously you all don't believe that, but that hopefully gives insight into why intelligent Christians are opposed to gay marriage. Since we lost the gay marriage fight, and it's not going to be rolled back, we have to accept it and move on (unlike abortion, which must be a continual battle, for the reasons I've explained in a previous post). The pro-life movement has been continuing for four decades after Roe vs Wade and is stronger then ever. Serious Christians will continue to call homosexuality as sin, but I seriously doubt there'll be a long-lasting movement to repeal same-sex marriage - the nature of the problem (and thus the nature of the battle) is entirely different.

However, we now are on the defensive, and have to defend our right to even hold different views without it being labeled hate speech, and not be compelled to participate in and approve of same-sex marriage without it being called discrimination, so our effort will be directed in that way. There will no doubt be continued calls to repeal gay marriage, but I'm sure there will be increasingly little support for it - some terrain just isn't worth the resources in recapturing.

For the record, I never claimed Islam was a religion of peace or a "religion of anything".

My post wasn't a personal direct message/attack to you. The 'you' was the public 'you', not you personally.

because these people that we call terrorists just smeared black paint over Islam.

Yes they did, but we helped too by perpetuating it.

Agreed.

In a country where Islam is not commonplace like the US, it makes sense for people to react in fear.

Initially, yes. For 15 years, that excuse gets flimsier and flimsier.

Yes, as only time can change people's public opinions.

What you want is not telling people "Islam is a religion of peace". That message won't come through.

Ok. This is either a strawman or a continuation of a conversation you had with someone else. Either way, ignorance and uninformed fear will keep plenty of messages from coming through.

It contradicts with what have been happening, and there's not enough arguments you can make about Islam to revert the killings and bombings and beheadings and etc. It doesn't matter what you say about Islam or Qoran or Muhammad or whatever, the violence associated with Islam have occured far too many, and it continues to happen.

So this isn't even a search for the truth. Instead, it's which narrative seems more true.

If Joe comes to bully you on a consistent basis, and Joe's mom come to apologize and tell you "I'm sorry. Joe is actually a nice kid". Would you believe his mom? Well, No! But that's exactly what you are doing when you say "Islam is a religion of peace".

So because Joe bullies you, it automatically negates the fact that he volunteers at the soup kitchen on Saturdays and Sundays and mows the old lady's lawn every 2 weeks. Ok.

And again, strawman or continuation. Please let me know.

So I brought up the Joe's analogy. I meant to show that people can't just simply forget bad things that have happened to them just because someone else told nice things about it. It's not an analogy of individual vs. group. If bad things happened to you, you will remember it for a long time, and not a word of nice things can make you forget about it.

At this point, the shootings in San Bernandino, the bombings and shootings in Europe, the Christians/Muslims beheading by ISIS in Middle East, Christopher Stevens, and even the 9/11 are still far too fresh in people's memory. You don't just forget those.

One cannot simply say "Islam is a peaceful religion" and hope to change the general American's perception of Islam as these things are happening. None, 0% chance. As a matter of fact, the more you bring it up, the less likely they will change their opinion. It just freshen up their memory!

And the media does not just promote Islamophobia, it also promotes the anti-Islamophobia, which only justifies the existence of Islamophobia.

Example: if the FBI had to fly some spy planes around the mosque where the San Bernandino shooter frequently visited, well that's the reaction from the shooting, not Islamophobia, but the media loves to spin that news and claims "Oh, look! Peaceful muslims got spied on. Islamophobia!!!"

I am not addressing specific person here (though I did seem to recall reading such post), but it seems to be the strategy that the Islam proponents are using to dispel the American's Islamophobia, but it's the wrong method.
The peaceful muslims need to take actions. These 'terrorists' don't work on themselves. They are around us. They are your coworkers, your friends, your family. Any extreme tendencies should be addressed. The less these 'terrorist incidents' are happening in the future, the more likely general public will forget. It won't happen overnight, or in a year, or possibly in 10 years, but if Islam as a religion and community can remain peaceful for a long time, people will no longer have Islamophobia.

The people who have to be doing the work here are the peaceful Muslims. They can't stand idle. They can't just sit there and let their other muslims do shitty things. That's like having an evil brother who goes out terrorizing your neighbors, and you let him do it. No you won't let him do it, your family shouldn't be letting him do it. The only thing your neighbors can do against him is to defend themselves or kill him if he had crossed the lines. Your neighbors are not your family, they don't have the burden to correct your family.

So Western Europe should have went to war against the US for causing civil wars in Central America, installing and backing dictators, deposing a democratically elected president, and installing the shah. Interesting.

Not sure what you meant there..? Why we talking about Central America now?