Well, all this is interesting to me, anyway, and that's what matters here. The Internet is a terrible thing for someone like me, who finds almost everything interesting.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Are you a homophobe?
I really admire people who can overcome their upbringing like this. I never had that problem. My parents were conventionally conservative and conventionally religious (which meant that Mom took us to church on Sundays), but I was never exposed to fundamentalist Christianity.
And when I was a kid, gay rights weren't even an issue. Of course, if I'd been gay, they would have been, no doubt - certainly for me! But it wasn't something you heard about, or not very often. Homosexuals stayed very firmly in the closet, at least here in Nebraska.
Out town was all white, all Christian, and all straight - at least, as far as I knew. And while that might make some people bigots, for me it meant I could get my information from books (I was always a big reader), rather than from local idiots.
And my parents tried to teach me right. They were bigoted, but they didn't realize it, so they didn't teach me that bigotry was right. (I'm talking about racial bigotry, primarily, but I didn't have any problem extrapolating from that. In fact, the first lesson I remember in tolerance was about Jews.)
I also like this video because it takes a somewhat different tack than most such arguments. Variety is great, isn't it? And this information might help some people understand reality (as, apparently, it helped this man, himself).
Now, if you didn't get enough of the disgusting religious displays of homophobia in this video, I'll post his followup, too. It's not easy to watch, I'll admit. But it does end well. So it's not as depressing at it might seem, at first.
Kill 'em all, they say? Congratulations, dummies. You guys just won George Carlin's argument for him. Remember his 10 Commandments re-boot? "It depends on who's DOING THE KILLING and who's GETTING KILLED. The more devout they are, the more they see murder as being NEGOTIABLE."
Did you read about Britney Griner, the 6'8 women's basketball player, coming out last week just days after being drafted into the WNBA? If it weren't for that fertilizer plant, it would have been Baylor University's head that would have exploded.
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The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other. - Sir Francis Bacon
When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Speculation is perfectly all right, but if you stay there you've only founded a superstition. If you test it, you've started a science. - Hal Clement
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The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion. - Treaty of Tripoli, passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate and signed by President John Adams (1797)
I don't doubt the sincerity of dowsers, but even after we've demonstrated that they can't produce results that are any better than chance they'll still go away believing in their abilities... It is like the mother whose son is caught shoplifting on tape. She wonders why someone would want to frame her child by producing a fake video. - James Randi
During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church ... imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. - Mark Twain
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. - Bertrand Russell
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. - Friedrich Nietzsche
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We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men. - Edward R. Murrow
The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence. Science is simply common sense at its best - that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic. - Thomas Huxley
There is no absurdity so obvious that it cannot be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to impose it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity. - Arthur Schopenhauer
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To be elected in America, no matter from what party, the candidates have no choice but to year after year pledge to lower taxes further and further. We have become the nation of Ken and Barbie, looking good but very poor at the math. - Rack Jite
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2 comments:
It's alway old white men, isn't it?
Kill 'em all, they say? Congratulations, dummies. You guys just won George Carlin's argument for him. Remember his 10 Commandments re-boot? "It depends on who's DOING THE KILLING and who's GETTING KILLED. The more devout they are, the more they see murder as being NEGOTIABLE."
Did you read about Britney Griner, the 6'8 women's basketball player, coming out last week just days after being drafted into the WNBA? If it weren't for that fertilizer plant, it would have been Baylor University's head that would have exploded.
Well, as an old white man myself (and as George Carlin was, too, I might point out), I hate to stereotype us, Jeff. :)
Besides, some of the men in those videos weren't all that old. And there are certainly black preachers who are just as homophobic.
As far as being men, well, that's not universal, either. But in a patriarchal religion, it is the men who dominate.
It's not 'always' old white men, but that's commonly the case, true. Still, as I say, I don't like to stereotype, especially not... me. :)
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