Religion survives by indoctrination of children shocker...

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Originally posted by DanielP:

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Originally posted by Derry:
Surely the point is that "sin" is a religious concept. The law is about what is not legal. There are not many sins that are illegal.

I don't think that's "the point"

Pierre Manent in "The City of Man" suggests that at one point they were probably the same, that in its original form in ancient times and primitive societies, religion was all pervasive and inseparable from notions of law. He argues that each subsequent step in religious development, the link became weaker, until we arrived at Christianity, from which point it became possible to imagine a world without a religion. And you can see the weakening in recent times, for example, homosexuality stopped being illegal in my country, Canada, in the seventies. So, in the western world, we see a weakening of the religious influence on the law, a movement away from the religious view. The gods are not as powerful as they once were.

But "hate the sin" still has consequences, when you read in the newspaper that some US soldiers don't have any choice but to beat a homosexual comrade to a pulp because they come from very strong Christian backgrounds, when you see that and the reports of teachers being fired in religious affiliated schools because they are practicing homosexual, for sure "hate the sin" has consequences.

-- Daniel

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Originally posted by Mike Lacey:
Dunno; the Ten Commandments? Jewish dietary laws? etc.

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Originally posted by Mike Lacey:
Interesting facts ( sorry to introduce this tiresome form of argument ) dealing with the one Church's view of gays. Mike D and others seems to be of the firm opinion that the Church is homophobic and cannot accept that they preach "Hate the Sin, love the Sinner."

Given that the Church of England ( amongst others, I suspect ) accepts Gay priests, how does that square with the accusation that Religion is homophobic?

I wonder if an answer will be forthcoming...

Church to vote on greater rights for partners of gay clergy

Church to allow Gay clergy to "marry"

Gay clergy must be made welcome

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Originally posted by Mike Lacey:
You are assuming its secular pressure bringing this about; I suspect this is your opinion, rather than being evidence-based. ( sounds more confrontational than its meant.)

Even so, it is IMO pretty compelling evidence that at least one Church is not homophobic, and as such nukes Mike Ds argument.

His comment that "religion survives by indoctrination of children" was based on an article describing how the Taliban recruit and brainwash children into becoming suicide bombers. Not only is that a really poor example, but the fact that suicide bombers tend not to live very long would tend to minimise their supposed effect on the longevity of religion.

In other words, a really, really poor example.