This is why I have so much respect for those wonderful Christians on the radical left who critique their fellow believers at a theological level. Things like capital punishment, Christian Zionism, ‘pro-lifers’ etc etc have no theological basis whatsoever. Right wing ‘Christians’ have subverted theology to justify their own murderous belief systems. Unfortunately, since most of the world’s money is on the right-wing of politics, they have also been able to delude many people into following their bullshit.

Thank you for your words. May they begin the job of shattering those delusions.

1. How come Christians care more about sexual “immorality” than they do about any other kind of immorality, hands down? Bill Clinton cheats on his wife, it’s a constitutional crisis. George W. Bush lies to drag us into a war we didn’t want in the first place, oh, that’s OK. Just a “mistake.” Clinton didn’t kill anyone with his affair with Monica, Bush killed thousands. But Clinton’s the evil one.

2. Most types of “sexual immorality” don’t actually result in pregnancy, much less unwanted pregnancy. Unwanted pregnancy is not limited to those procreative acts which occur outside of marriage. Married women have unwanted pregnancies too.

3. Abortion is not limited to unwanted pregnancy. Sometimes it occurs with a very wanted pregnancy that’s gone very wrong. This is the problem I have with pro-choice liberals who speak of making abortion “safe, legal and rare.” I’m down with the first two, don’t care about the latter, because it isn’t up to me to decide when and whether someone else has an abortion.

I mean, 4. God doesn’t even mention abortion in the Bible. In Jeremiah he tells his prophet that he knew him before J was born, but all that means is he wanted J to be born and considered him a special person and was looking out for him. The closest you can get to an abortion mention is in Numbers. God tells Moses that if two guys are fighting and they hit a pregnant woman and cause miscarriage, they are to pay the expectant father a fine. I will remind you that the penalty for murder in Mosaiac times was death by stoning. The only time that came into play in this scenario was if the *mother* died. Abortion did exist in ancient times, so this surely was not an oversight on God’s part.

5. You don’t have the right to force YOUR beliefs on other people either. No matter how many verses in your book of fiction you can find to back you up.

No? People should be able to consent to being life support, you say? Oh, really.

And thank you for enumerating in great detail exactly what makes your faith bigoted against women. Thank you for reinforcing why I left Christianity to begin with. Enforcing difference between men and women is the first step; denigrating the roles that women “must” play because we are “different” is the logical next step, and gee, wonder why we have gender inequality today?

I am of a faith which must witness its deities referred to as demons and whores by your oh-so-tolerant religious teachings. While I sympathize with actually DECENT Christians who have never said or believed those things and who therefore were understandably upset at what Marcotte said about God and Mary, for the rest of you I have no sympathy whatsoever. Stop treating unbelievers-in-Christianity like subhuman garbage (“you’re a sinner,” “you’re going to hell,” “your deities are demons and you are misguided,” “we’re better qualified to run this country than you are,”) and I might change my mind. Never gonna happen, so suffer.

I mean, gee. I wish MY faith had its most important holidays on the federal calendar, and that whenever someone heard the word “religion” they thought of mine, and that when someone says the phrase “people of faith” they meant those of my religious category. MUST SUCK TO BE YOU, you poor oppressed Kwistians.

Because this is a free country, and should be a free world, I should be able to have consensual sex with whomever I want. If a god exists, he/she/it can judge me for it, but the state should never do that, as it is _not_ god’s representative on Earth. Nor are you.

Secondly, when a Christian defends the honor of God, it is done because he or she loves the Lord. It’s the same as if someone offended the one YOU love. You long to defend the person you love, whether or not he or she can defend himself or herself. You long to defend this person, because you care about them. That’s how a Christian feels every time someone disrespects the Lord. To you, He’s just God. But to Christians, He is our Friend, our Confidant, our Savior, our Redeemer, our Comforter, and our Protector. Not only that, He is our Daddy – our “Abba, Father.” So when someone disrespects Him, it hurts us on a deep level, because He loves us and we love Him in return. And one of the ways we show respect and love for our Abba is by defending His character and His honor.

Thirdly, just because God is all-powerful, does not mean He doesn’t have feelings. You apparently think that He is a big, mean, powerful bully who has no feelings and who wants to make every one’s life miserable. But the truth is: He is my loving, just, merciful, compassionate, holy, righteous, forgiving, patient Daddy. He has feelings, just like us, whether you believe it or not. And just like us, He hurts when people disrespect Him and drag His name through the mud.

Finally, do you think God forbids sexual immorality because he wants to ruin someone’s fun and make them miserable? Is that what you think? Because let me tell you something. He forbids sexual immorality because He knows the harm that it can do. First of all, it causes people to grow up too fast. Secondly, when the immoral act is committed by a heterosexual couple it can lead to an unwanted pregnancy. And finally, there’s the fact that people who commit sexual immorality risk contracting STD’s. You may think the “live and let live; do whatever you want, so long as you don’t hurt someone else” philosophy is a good thing. But why don’t you sit down and talk to people who have paid the price for that philosophy? Because believe me. I know quite a few. And they regret having immoral sex, because they’ve faced the consequences of their actions. One couple in particular are having to grow up too fast, because they have a baby on the way … and they’re only 18 years old. So do you still think the “live and let live; so long as you don’t hurt someone else” philosophy is a good thing?

Rann, since when did it become a bad thing to want to defend the lives of the unborn? Since when did “pro-life” = “discrimination”? Let’s get one thing straight: The lives of unborn children are just as precious as the lives of those who are outside the womb. Abortion is murder, because it results in the cruel and inhumane, premeditated deaths of human beings.

And since when did believing that sexual immorality (pre-marital sex, adultery, homosexuality, multiple partners, etc.) amount to bigotry and discrimination? Let’s get one thing straight: It’s one thing to disagree with a person’s actions and beliefs, and to even go so far as to hate those beliefs and actions. It’s a completely different thing to hate the person who holds those beliefs or performs those actions. I hate sexual immorality, because it offends God and ruins the lives of the people who are involved in it. However, I draw the line at hating the people who commit sexually immoral acts.

Finally, I would appreciate it if you would look up the meanings of “bigotry” and “discrimination,” before you decide to throw those two words at those who do not fall in line with your way of thinking. I find it ironic that the person who has the nerve to lecture me about open-mindedness (that was the point you were trying to make. Right, Rann.) is close-minded when it comes to a person expressing their beliefs. This is a free country, Rann. I can disagree with you all I want, and I can express my beliefs all I want. If you don’t like that, move to a country where everyone agrees with you.

The people I cannot stand are those who impose their beliefs on others who don’t share them, especially those who believe that governments should enact rules that correspond with their particular sectarian beliefs, like rules on abortion, sexuality and so on. Feel free to do what you like with your own body and your own community, but don’t you dare to try to dictate your rules to others who don’t share them. That is the essence of bigotry and discrimination.

By the way, I don’t appreciate this comment from you – “Jack 7:1 “Verily, I say to you, pontificating Bible-thumpers find reading a chore.” Just because I didn’t realize that you were referring to Rann, didn’t mean that I “find reading a chore.”

Rann 9:14: “the great Martian bacteria, gotbi, is henceforth commanded to be silly”

One of these things is not like the other.

It’s a -belief.- You have a belief that abortion is tantamount to murder; Amanda does not. You may not agree with that belief, but her acting in accordance with that belief does not make her a hypocrite.

If you want to argue that she’s not terribly respectful of other peoples’ feelings, you won’t get an argument from me. But what you’re suggesting here feels a bit like it’s on the way to “bad person, believes in murder; therefore she has no right to complain about any treatment she’s received.”