me thinks omnistegan has not read that thing called the old testament

Looking at the Old Testament and the New Testament, God's character appears quite different. The God of the Old Testament often seems brutal, vengeful, and even savage. On the other hand, in the New Testament, God is described as a loving, caring, compassionate. Such a conflict is easily explained if the Bible is accepted as simply a collection of stories, myths, legends, and partial histories that are examples of the values and beliefs of particular cultures from which they originated, but much more difficult to reconcile if the Bible is presupposed to be true.

http://www.archetype-productions.com/nfo/religion/Loving-God.doc


In reply to this comment by omnistegan:
<rant>

"God Hates Fags" and all it's derivatives simply anger me. You would think that a group of Christians working professionally in their faith and music would do enough biblical research to conclude that their Biblical text confirms that homosexuality is not permitted in the constraints of Christianity but it more importantly does not manifest hatred from God. The bible makes it much more clear that everyone is loved by God than that homosexuality is a sin.

</rant>

<rant>

"God Hates Fags" and all it's derivatives simply anger me. You would think that a group of Christians working professionally in their faith and music would do enough biblical research to conclude that their Biblical text confirms that homosexuality is not permitted in the constraints of Christianity but it more importantly does not manifest hatred from God. The bible makes it much more clear that everyone is loved by God than that homosexuality is a sin.

</rant>

I'm going to paste in a post I made in another Sift today for time purposes, but it kind of touches on some of the points BRM and I have made in response to Reverend Ted. The original post was a response to someone else at http://www.videosift.com/video/This-Atheists-10-Commandments

-------------------------------
Well, actually there's all sorts of direct examples of, and rules for, slavery, selling ones daughters, racism and genocide all over the Old Testament. And the Koran, well... 72 Virgins (actually a mistranslation of 72 white grapes) are given to suicide bombers in Heaven. And yes, circumcision for both males and especially girls, is mutilation and child abuse, plain and simple.

The point of this post is exactly the point of an argument I had with a friend recently, which boils down to the concept that you cannot have a set morality without religion, which is, frankly, a load of crap. So really, if you can have it without religion and God, then what is religion and God for? Because the morality is really the only useful thing in religion, but it does a piss poor job of actually demonstrating or teaching morality itself. 2 Of the original 10 commandments are wasted on a demand to not warship any other Gods or idols, 1 on not taking His name in vain and yet another on never working on Sunday (under pain of stoning to death). How does that have anything to do with morality? That's merely subjugation to the church. Meanwhile Moses leaves a bloody trail of genocidal destruction in his wake.

The point is, if you are looking for a set of moral teachings, there really isn't any religion that does the job properly. Luckily, we as a species for the most part know that we need each other in order to get by, so we're generally good to each other. But we don't need God.
--------------------------------

So all of that getting together and forming "friendships and communities of mutual support" might be good, as BRM has said, until of course, they start bombing abortion clinics, yelling that "God hates fags" at funerals, sewing up womens genitalia to assure their virginity, killing women for the crime of being raped, killing Jews for being Jews, killing Muslims for being Muslims, killing Christians for being Christians, killing Hindus for being Hindus, killing each other for not worshiping the same God the same way! (That last one was kind of redundant since Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all based on the same God)

Fletch posts 6 vids in this playlist: "Islam - Died in the Queue" after the conversation with Gwaan in this video:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Children-in-militant-Kindergarten-Ceremony
which was posted a full day before this thread began.

But the point I saw was that all these videos made it through the queue:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Crazy-super-fundie-christian-freak-on-Trading-Spouses
http://www.videosift.com/video/Kirk-Cameron-The-Evolution-Zone
http://www.videosift.com/video/Sam-Harris-lectures-on-the-dangers-of-both-religious-fundamentalism-and-religious-moderation
http://www.videosift.com/video/Crazy-American-Fundamentalist-Christian
http://www.videosift.com/video/Dispatches-The-New-Fundamentalists-on-Channel-4
http://www.videosift.com/video/Doin-Nails-for-Jesus--from-Jesus-Camp
http://www.videosift.com/video/God-Hates-Fags
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Secret-Life-Of-Brian-Monty-Pythonreligion-documentary
http://www.videosift.com/video/Alan-Moore-discusses-religion-with-Stewart-Lee
http://www.videosift.com/video/Louis-Thereuxs-Weird-Weekend-Televangelists-next-5-inside
http://www.videosift.com/video/Richard-Dawkins-BBC-Interview
http://www.videosift.com/video/Gods-Next-Army-evangelicalpolitical-documentary-212
http://www.videosift.com/video/Christopher-Hitches-on-the-Death-of-Jerry-Falwell
http://www.videosift.com/video/Voltron-the-Transformers-are-the-work-of-Satan
http://www.videosift.com/video/Fundamentalism-vs-Evolution-The-Train-Crash
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Passion-of-Christ-2-Judgement-Day
http://www.videosift.com/video/UFO-Obsesed-Christians-Science-Public-Access-Television
http://www.videosift.com/video/Stephen-Lynch-Craig-Christ
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Atheist-P-Funk-is-Accosted-by-Christian-Evangelists
http://www.videosift.com/video/the-chapman-brothers-jump-rope-for-the-glory-of-god
http://www.videosift.com/video/Pope-has-never-read-Bible--Violence-Contrary-to-Gods-Nature
http://www.videosift.com/video/Jesus-Camp-on-Bill-Maher
http://www.videosift.com/video/Jesus-Heal-My-Masturbation-Genes-Story
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-God-Who-Wasnt-There-2005-documentary-film-1-hour
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Blasphemy-Challenge
http://www.videosift.com/video/QI-Christmas-Christianity-and-Mithras-Funny
http://www.videosift.com/video/Pulitzer-prize-winner-compares-US-Christian-Right-to-Fascism
http://www.videosift.com/video/Robert-Johnson-Expose-by-Christian-Group
http://www.videosift.com/video/Sign-of-the-Apocalypse-Christian-Comedy
http://www.videosift.com/video/Man-Says-Hes-Jesus-Followers-Get-666-Tattoos
http://www.videosift.com/video/Who-gives-you-candy-Jesus-or-Castroanti-commie-film-clip
http://www.videosift.com/video/Louis-Thereuxs-Weird-Weekend-Televangelists-next-5-inside
http://www.videosift.com/video/Kevin-Smith-about-Mel-Gibson
http://www.videosift.com/video/An-atheist-among-Christians-for-30-days
http://www.videosift.com/video/Chocolate-Jesus-Makes-Catholics-CRAZY
http://www.videosift.com/video/Jesus-Camp-controversial-2006-Evangelical-documentary
http://www.videosift.com/video/Stewart-Lee-Dont-get-me-started-
http://www.videosift.com/video/Ted-Haggard-Is-Completely-Heterosexual-by-Roy-Zimmerman
http://www.videosift.com/video/Mike-Daiseys-Christian-Audience-Protest-Walkout-and-Attack
http://www.videosift.com/video/God-is-not-Great-Stewart-interviews-Hitchens
http://www.videosift.com/video/Dr-Seuss-Bible
http://www.videosift.com/video/Kirk-Cameron-on-the-OReilly-Factor
http://www.videosift.com/video/School-Prayer-Debate-Turns-To-Hitler-Debate http://www.videosift.com/video/Doug-Stanhope-Why-I-dont-Believe
http://www.videosift.com/video/How-to-Witness-to-a-Homosexual
http://www.videosift.com/video/Self-Induced-Religious-Fit
http://www.videosift.com/video/Bill-Maher-interviews-Christoper-Hitchens
http://www.videosift.com/video/Submissive-Jesus
http://www.videosift.com/video/Bill-Mahers-New-Rules-Heaven-Can-Hate
http://www.videosift.com/video/United-States-of-Jesus
http://www.videosift.com/video/GodTube-how-to-deal-with-pr0n-on-the-intertubes
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Atheist-Delusion
http://www.videosift.com/video/Miracles-and-Morals
http://www.videosift.com/video/Life-and-Liberty-for-All-Who-Believe
http://www.videosift.com/video/Let-the-bodies-hit-the-floor-religious-smackdown
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Evangelical-War-On-Science

"I thought Jesus said something about love thy neighbor or forgiveness or tolerence?

This is why I'm not religious. They can't even practice what they preach."

They also say that god has a plan for everyone, yet they stand on street corners with signs saying god hates fags. Maybe god wanted them to be fags?

About 1 minute in theres a poster that says "GOD HATES FAGS"

Well I thought it was funny, But its a shame you lag behind on the gay issue in Japan one positive thing about the stats is the US number, not too shabby.. I guess the "god hates fags" people arent so numerous as one could fear.. 34% is still way to high tho..

There are rumours that Bolicki is behind the parody "God Hates Fags" video.

"Donnie Davies" is Houston actor Joel Oglesby.

This seriously must be a joke, I do know that these "god hates fags" people do exist, but usually they are more .. hetro.. in their style. and they always seems to be very angry. Very funny tho..

FOLKS!

THIS IS A JOKE. THIS IS SATIRE. And unfortunately, its doing a very good job of exposing a lot of prejudice on the other side of the coin.

Look at his website, the band website, and the URL at the lead-in of the video. They're all clearly done at the same time by the same designer just for the launch of the video. Its a sociological viral video experiment.

In this day and age you really need to polish your crap detectors to a glossy shine. This is a very well executed, funny parody...

FWIW... the originators of the "God Hates Fags" slogan (Westboro Baptist) is also a crock... they're not a church, but rather just a group of lawyers scamming America to stir up lawsuits (settlements, more to the point) and cash out. They have no affiliation to any kind of church, and they're winning.

There is a very organized (in this video's case, lighthearted; in Westboro's case insidious) attempt to prey on the prejudices of the anti-religious, and you're all getting fleeced, and making hilariously uninformed speeches in the process.

Know your real enemy. Lighten up and learn to laugh at things that are very clearly so absurd they aren't true.

No problem, sg!

In reply to your comment:
“Sorry I downvoted your "God Hates Fag" post. Ever since the "jesus camp" posts, Fundie stuff just gets to me.

”

A more positive response to the vagaries of existence than the noxious God Hates Fags approach.

Sorry I downvoted your "God Hates Fag" post. Ever since the "jesus camp" posts, Fundie stuff just gets to me.