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Originally posted by Gottschalk:
"When we discover that certain ideas about man, history and society seem, to those who believe in them, to be either self-evident or so manifestly correct that opposing them is a mark of stupidity or malice, then we may be fairly sure we are dealing with an ideology and ideological thinking."

My point in quoting this is to show that we should perhaps never give up the task of trying to dialogue, discuss and learn, in spite of our convictions and beliefs, and that we all need a healthy dose of distance from ourselves, our beliefs, and everything else, all peppered with humour.

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Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Ruth, I think you do these boards a disservice. In the 15 years since I first came across SoF, I've changed my mind on these issues:

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Originally posted by RuthW:

• the nature of marriage and roles within it;
• proper use of Scripture and/or tradition in the church;
• whether denial of certain doctrines (such as the resurrection) are sufficient to render one either "not a Christian," or "not saved";
• whether religion is only for the private sphere;
• to what extent a public official or a provider of public goods (such as a chef) ought to be permitted to take actions based on personal religious standards.

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In a large part, it was due to being exposed to different viewpoints on these boards. I encountered points of view that varied from the charismatic evangelical environment that I'd grown up in. Of course, my change of perspective wasn't solely down to SoF, but it played a big part. And there are quite a few other issues which I changed my mind on too.

IMHO one of the most worrying aspects of our polarised society is that class and social media result in people living in echo-chambers where they have their viewpoints endorsed, reinforced and never challenged. Ship of Fools has fortunately been a place where those things can and do happen, and on the whole, it still is.

I share that concern, though, that in this echo-chamber world, we need to work even harder to include and not dismiss, even if we strongly disagree with someone.

I've just travelled to Uganda and met some wonderful Christians there. The default Christian and State viewpoint there is, however, 'traditional' on the dead-horse topics that we're talking about. I vehemently disagree with that. For better & worse, much of the world does not share the ideals of the liberal west.

How to respond to someone (or pretty much an entire nation) for whom the entire concept of accepting LGBT values as moral and Christian is so alien to their experience of culture, society and church - (as indeed it still the case for some in the west today)? Is it always the best course to go on the front foot - attack, challenge, confront?

There is great power in the words 'I see things differently.' I see those four words as one of the greatest tools we have. They allow disagreement without forcing confrontation. They invite questions.

I understand that on a discussion forum things don't work the same as in normal conversations, and posting the above here would be of no use at all. But the point is there are gentle ways to approach people. I hope that SoF doesn't just become another echo-chamber. To an extent it has. I'm in the majority here now, but I want my views challenged. That means we need to work harder than ever to include people with different views than us.

Gottschalk, I disagree with you on the DH issues that have been talked about. I understand your apathy to politics, and used to feel much like you do. I hope you continue to feel welcome here. You're evidently not a prolific poster, but you've been around the Ship a long time, and your perspective is valuable. You obviously value humility and sacrifice highly - I fully agree with that.

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Originally posted by Gottschalk:
Thinking that a person is wrong is not equal to hating them, having contempt for them or hounding them, and does not require all these things.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Excellent. Nice sea change started on page 4 and continuing here. Brian McLaren's strong benevolence is manifest. Anyone would think the HS is at work!

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Originally posted by Gottschalk:

It turns out that our enactment and respect of the rules of (civil) engagement will depend on how strongly we feel about the subject, on our proximity to the underlying substantive issue.

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Originally posted by Eutychus:

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Originally posted by RuthW:
You want to be treated as a human being even when you are in the very act of advocating that some people be treated as less human than others.

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As far as I'm concerned that's where the "Christian" in "Christian Unrest" comes in.

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I'm quite impressed with the recent posts in this thread.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, that's why I was puzzled by Martin's post that the HS is working through the reconciliation. Isn't the HS also working through the conflict, because often you can't have one without t'other. I used to do marital counselling, (what an idiot I was in those days), and was all in favour of married people having a pop at each other, because quite often then the love would appear. But no conflict, no love, quite often.

Hence, unrest seems essential in many areas of life to me, otherwise we have repression and depression.

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Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:

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Originally posted by hatless:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
As an evangelical Christian, I disagree profoundly with Hindu beliefs and practices, but I have nothing personal against Hindus.

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Why do you disagree profoundly with Hindu beliefs and practices?

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Presumably Kaplan believes that there are statements which can be made about God that are either "absolutely" correct or incorrect, and believes the Christian ones to be correct and the Hindu ones incorrect.

To trivialise things: you and I can be looking at a red bus. One of us can say that it's red and the other can say that it's green. But, however strongly held the views of the latter, the fact is that it is red. In the same way, "traditional" Christians believe that there are (at least) some core beliefs and stories about God which are either correct or incorrect - and, indeed, they will seek to persuade others of the understandings they believe to be erroneous through evangelism and missionary work.

This approach certainly goes against the popular views of "it doesn't matter what you believe, what's important is that it works for you" and "all religious paths are ultimately equally valid routes to the divine". But it doesn't mean that one doesn't value the individuals with whom one disagrees - indeed, the attempt to change what they believe has often been seen as an expression of Christian love (as we could just not bother and leave them wallowing in their error).

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Originally posted by hatless:
It may be the evangelical wish to change the beliefs of others that is key. I don't think a simple view of truth as something fixed, clear and absolute makes disagreement more difficult, but if you are evangelical then you won't want to let it go, so the persistence of different beliefs represents a failure of your evangelism, and counts against your own faith, which, if it's absolutely true, ought to be irresistibly attractive once heard.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Excellent. Nice sea change started on page 4 and continuing here. Brian McLaren's strong benevolence is manifest. Anyone would think the HS is at work!

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And is not at work, when people are laying into each other? I find that strange.

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And the unrest is in challenging ideas.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by hatless:
It may be the evangelical wish to change the beliefs of others that is key. I don't think a simple view of truth as something fixed, clear and absolute makes disagreement more difficult, but if you are evangelical then you won't want to let it go, so the persistence of different beliefs represents a failure of your evangelism, and counts against your own faith, which, if it's absolutely true, ought to be irresistibly attractive once heard.

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Or it could just be that some believe some ideas are true and some are not true.

I think some aspects of Hinduism are absolutely disgusting.

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Originally posted by hatless:
Can they be absolutely disgusting if our brothers and sisters believe them?

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You might feel disgust, that's common enough including within Christianity, but our reactions often say more about us than what we are reacting to.

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Believing that truth is simple, knowable and clear, the redness of a red bus in broad daylight, has a sort of brexitty appeal as opposed to the decadent, trendy, contextual theories that it all somehow depends on lots of things, but there is a huge arrogance in asserting it in relation to religious belief in a world that has lots of religions.

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Originally posted by hatless:
But the talk of green buses got me looking up pictures of United Counties. They were nice.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Many people think Christianity is disgusting - and they've a perfect right to do so.

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Originally posted by hatless:
lilBuddha said

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And the unrest is in challenging ideas.

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Yes, if they include our own ideas.

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Believing that truth is simple, knowable and clear, the redness of a red bus in broad daylight, has a sort of brexitty appeal as opposed to the decadent, trendy, contextual theories that it all somehow depends on lots of things, but there is a huge arrogance in asserting it in relation to religious belief in a world that has lots of religions.

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Originally posted by Gottschalk:

Thinking that something is disgusting is also perhaps not the same as thinking something is wrong. Aesthetic v.s. Ethical judgements?

Any thoughts?

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Originally posted by hatless:
lilBuddha said

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And the unrest is in challenging ideas.

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Yes, if they include our own ideas.

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

If you're about to vilify someone for not being prepared to consider the idea that gay marriage is a good thing, then you should be mindful of the fact that you refuse to consider the possibility that it isn't. Closed-mindedness works both ways.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

If you're about to vilify someone for not being prepared to consider the idea that gay marriage is a good thing, then you should be mindful of the fact that you refuse to consider the possibility that it isn't. Closed-mindedness works both ways.

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That feels like MLK saying at the end of his speeches "..but it's OK, y'know, some people believe that black people are not human and they've every right to do so.. it's a free country. Other views are available"

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

If you're about to vilify someone for not being prepared to consider the idea that gay marriage is a good thing, then you should be mindful of the fact that you refuse to consider the possibility that it isn't. Closed-mindedness works both ways.

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That feels like MLK saying at the end of his speeches "..but it's OK, y'know, some people believe that black people are not human and they've every right to do so.. it's a free country. Other views are available"

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Originally posted by hatless:
Ideas can certainly disgust us; some aspects of hyper-Calvinism do it for me, but the disgust is in me.

And you described some bits of Hinduism as absolutely disgusting. That absolute says this is not about you, and not about to change. How can conversation develop from there?

There's no arrogance in saying some things are true and that some things are better than others, but saying my religion is true and yours is false is arrogant. It's like saying your accent is stupid, but mine - well I don't have an accent, I just pronounce words properly. With, in the case of religion, danger instead of silliness.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, 'phobia' means fear, but 'homophobia' doesn't. Why is this so difficult to get across? Words don't mean the total of their constituent parts, because language changes all the time, so homophobia usually denotes negativity about gays, not fear.

Etymological fallacy.

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Fear and avoidance of sameness, monotony or of homosexuality or becoming homosexual.

In common use the term refers to irrational hostility or negative attitude (rather than fear, but often including avoidance) toward those of same sex sexiual orientation. In psychoanalytic theory this negative attitude is sometimes assumed to arise from fear of one's own homosexual impulses even in one with opposite sex sexual orientation.

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Originally posted by goperryrevs:

- Being willing to accept a challenge to one's own ideas.
- Not being close-minded - i.e. listen to & understand the other point of view, and consider the possibility they might be right.

That's not the same as treating all opinions as equal or lacking strong, well-thought out convictions oneself.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
To me the issue is not about whether one is a vocal supporter of gay marriage, as I've noted above.

To me the main problem with these so-called "Traditional Christian" values is that they're self-contradictory.

It seems to me to be a fairly basic point that if one wants the rights and protections of living in a liberal democracy, then one has to be prepared to at very least not stand in the way of others rights.

If for no other reason than that if gays are not given protection today then maybe the state will decide that the Roman Catholics deserve no protection tomorrow.

And that's the difference; whereas there are some closed-minded liberal bigots who want to close down anyone who disagrees with their understanding of individual freedom, there is a much larger group of "traditional Christians" who think that God has told them x y and z about various issues and therefore that gives them the right to restrict other people's freedoms.

The vast majority of liberals in the world and on the ship have no wish to close down (for example) churches or mosques which do not have women leaders or do not support gay marriage.

Believe in a religion I find offensive and disgusting. That's absolutely your right. But that doesn't extend as far as you having the right to organise civil society to fit your norms and beliefs.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

I've always been baffled by this lust for truth among the religious - why not just say that it works for me?

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...except some of us were *taught* to figure out new words by way of etymology, such as learning Latin- and Greek-based prefixes and suffixes. It was supposed to be a very good and wise thing, and I still find it handy. (A couple of years of Classical Latin helps, too.)

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

I've always been baffled by this lust for truth among the religious - why not just say that it works for me?

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Well, I believe it to be Truth. Jesus Christ is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. Not just something that might work for me.

But whilst I hold very strong opinions about Jesus, I recognize that I can't prove them to someone else, because faith doesn't work that way. It's not something that admits proof in the mathematical sense, or even the test of a hypothesis in the scientific sense.

So whilst I am certain that Hindus, for example, are wrong about their beliefs, I recognize that I can't demonstrate that in an objective fashion, and that they are perfectly entitled to think that they are right.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, 'phobia' means fear, but 'homophobia' doesn't. Why is this so difficult to get across? Words don't mean the total of their constituent parts, because language changes all the time, so homophobia usually denotes negativity about gays, not fear.

Etymological fallacy.

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

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Originally posted by hatless:
lilBuddha said

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And the unrest is in challenging ideas.

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Yes, if they include our own ideas.

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Absolutely. There are plenty of people on this site who will happily castigate fundamentalists for being unwilling to countenance ideas other than their own, while being just as - if not more - unwilling to accept any hint of a challenge to their own ideas.

If you're about to vilify someone for not being prepared to consider the idea that gay marriage is a good thing, then you should be mindful of the fact that you refuse to consider the possibility that it isn't. Closed-mindedness works both ways.

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First, hatless' condition to my statement isn't profound, but part of the very statement. As well as something I've said multiple times on this very site.
The challenge to equal marriage from Christian "traditionalists" is that God said so. If one doesn't believe in that particular god, there is nothing to consider.
If one does believe in that particular god, all it takes is a perusal of the pages and pages in DH to find very well considered reasoning.

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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
To me the main problem with these so-called "Traditional Christian" values is that they're self-contradictory.

It seems to me to be a fairly basic point that if one wants the rights and protections of living in a liberal democracy, then one has to be prepared to at very least not stand in the way of others rights.

...

And that's the difference; whereas there are some closed-minded liberal bigots who want to close down anyone who disagrees with their understanding of individual freedom, there is a much larger group of "traditional Christians" who think that God has told them x y and z about various issues and therefore that gives them the right to restrict other people's freedoms.

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Originally posted by RuthW:
You are, like some others on this thread, asking to be allowed to say shitty things about your fellow human beings without having shitty things said to you in return. You want to be treated as a human being even when you are in the very act of advocating that some people be treated as less human than others.

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
There is however a notable exception: posts from a conservative perspective that are well-reasoned, coherent, and polite. These simply tend to be ignored altogether, and I find that troubling.

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It suggests to me that all those cuddly Democrats haven't really thought their positions through, or aren't really willing for their own ideas to be challenged. They aren't there for interaction, they're there for mutual reassurance - which is hardly unrestful.

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Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
If someone with an outside opinion makes a good point it quickly vanishes without note. If someone in the majority does the same, it gets echoed and amplified with a stream of "Great point! Answer that!" comments or upvotes.

Conversely, the mistakes an outsider makes are both easily spotted (with multiple people to notice them) and then magnified as the home team gloats over them.

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Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
The historic Nonconformist view is exactly that: that in a secular society everyone should be free to practice their religion and make their opinions known (provided they don't lead to violence etc.) There is no monopoly of one religion by the State, which has to listen to those opinions and aim to bring about a consensus.

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