Ah, other topics was closed until I clicked the + which I didn't see before, sorry.

@raphjd: I'm all for outing those who live in the closet while doing harm to their fellow gays. I don't like Tom Cruise nor Kirk Cameron either.

Well, Higgs, I disagree on many of your points. 1. (Scientific knowledge and religion have nothing to do with each other at all.) You might argue that all knowledge is "subjective" because we use our senses to gain it, but each of my senses and senses of all the people around me corroborate that knowledge so it is quite reliable. You seem to be using the term "subjective" to find an excuse to equalize something we observe everyday with things we never do. If I fall from a 10 story building, I will most likely die. That's as close to objective, as you can get. Things like life after death and washing away sins after believing in Jesus have not been observed. Not by reliable sources anyway. And by hampering science, just take a look at evolution denialists for example, that stems from creationism and creationism stems from theistic religion. 2. I don't see how things offensive to common sense can be an advantage. If you don't like that word, I can change it to individual morality: what ever I do has consequences on others and I take those into account. TO say that christianity and islam question the liberal views is totally backwards. It is not liberal views that have slavery condoned into their sacred texts, liberals don't kill gays, liberals don't protect their rapist coleagues in churches. If you had something else that qualifies as a radically different view of truth, by all means say it. Though, whatever you might have, can't be exclusive to religion. I'm not saying that all religious people do afwul things, but if they don't, they don't because they have their own morality and sense of good. 3. Love and charity are something people are capable of with or without religion. "Whatever is good in Christianity belongs properly to Christianity". Please, do name something that is good and is good exclusively in christianity.

I absolutely hate feminism, for many, many reasons which I've spoken about on this site. My main reason is that feminists hate Men's Rights, but refuse to do anything to make men equal to women in many areas.  We have "He for She" in feminism, but we don't have the reverse.

:thankyou: Have you tried Nagcarlan or Liliw, Laguna, it's not far from MM and resorts there are not expensive

I personally hate when I hear about those types. They made a choice and they knew the "rules". If they want to support their religion or local community they can do so in a lot of ways, they don't have to become a priest for this.

As much I hate to say it, yes. We're (almost?) at that point where scientific models have replaced theological ones, but as Marx has said, "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people". PS. All science does is describe shit, not give the world meaning. I dunno, I'm not smart enough for this shit.

never heard in Italy.

For me evolution makes sense and it's so easy to prove it now that we have records from changes in the environment, adaptability in some species and even changes in the human's body and mind. But I think most of the religious people (specially Catholics / Christians) fail to understand the allegories from the bible. They read it as a literal story, as historical fact, when it is, in reality, all a beautiful abstract life lesson, which encompasses the whole of creation and constitution of the universe, but cannot and should not be taken literally. There, if read carefully, one can fin more than one curious -fact-.

A true religion as an institution per se… No I don't think so. Religion taps into the most abstract part of the human being (and mind), so I would argue there is no such thing as a "true religion". Another thing is that if we could boil down and draw correspondences and links between the different religion's (and spiritual paths') believes, we could form a solid body of spiritual (and mental) constructions which would reflect many of several (the majority) religion's core values. Which (probably) could then be called "truth".

It very much depends of the religion or "spiritual path" that you choose. There's so much more than Christianity and Catholisism out there. Some spiritual paths are ok with homosexuality, some are partially and some are not. Either way, it all boils down to your personal system of beliefs, your own perception of God, one you should create (getting agnostic here…); nobody sees or feels god in the same manner, even when they are from the same path. Everyone has a personal way of thinking God. Choose or build your image of God and than follow it with a path or religion that best matches that image of God, or not. You're free to be whatever you want, you live to be.

Dear two comments up, I don't know where you get your "facts". I guess it's your lack of study of the Hebrew and Greek words and meanings the same. The well-known and widely recognized idiomatic meaning of pais was "beloved or same sex lover." That Matthew and Luke possibly used pais with the meaning of same sex lover raises the interesting possibility that Jesus met and blessed a gay centurion who was honest enough to tell Jesus he was gay. Remember, in our story, the Centurion uses the word pais to describe his sick servant. He is an utterly honest man and refuses to insult Jesus by asking for healing under false pretences. The gay Centurion openly admits to Jesus that he is a gay Centurion by using the Greek word pais to describe his servant. Matthew and Luke recognize and affirm the Centurion's honesty by using a different Greek word, pais, to describe his beloved servant. Just saying.

Enjoy prison pervert 

I'm atheist. The world would be a better place without religions, isn't it obvious? But we can't do anything with this, it's a nature thing after all, so yes you can be gay and believe in god. Sadly, religion is always used to justify hate.

Daoism (Taoism).  It's all about finding your own Way.  Lao Tse would have approved of the Wiccan rede: "An it harm none, do as thou will."  Daoism is more of a philosophy for many of us than a true 'religion', though.  There's no belief system if you don't want it. It's part of the roots of Buddhism; Eastern religions got a lot of cross-breeding or borrowing.  Hell, not that Western religions didn't!!  The Old Testament and the Qura'an both borrowed heavily from Torah.

I'm not Mormon. I'm baptist/lutheran christian. But I had an aunt who was. I remember afterschool I would go my aunts house while my parents worked. She kinda lived in the ghetto or urban area of town. I had to been around 8/9 years old. She had this elder who was a tall and skinny white guy in his 20s that had dirty blonde crew cut hair and he was so nice and handsome. He would come to her house once a week as she was disabled and couldn't go to the church. They would pray and have bible study. After that he would do any housework she needed help with. I remember he helped me with my homework sometimes too and I would play games with him as my aunt had a big backyard and he would bring me candy and chips and soda and shit. He then go on his bike and go home. Still today I see the elders on their bikes trying to get people to convert to being Mormon and I think it's cute. I disagree sorry. I'm not going to become Mormon, but they aren't terrible people.

@eastonkellan: And the Catholic Church continue to wonder why few men nowadays enter priesthood Unless they are, they have been seen as decent by the church, or they are unregistered Paedophile which is okay? But a gay priest, who sticks to his vows of Chasity and reverence is not okay because they are defend the mass, rather than abusing the minority. Has this not been the history of the past and also on the world wide press network, numerous investigations & pay off's? Lol ?   :panic: :hapgay: :crap: