Aspies For Freedom

Having only read the initial post by Guess Who, I would like to throw in some random thoughts.

The way I see it you are bound to arrive at akward places if you use the Bible as a fundament to the way you live and act in the world at large.

The first generation of "Rote Arme Fraktione" came by 60% from families that held the Bible and God as their leader. The RAFers held Marx/Mao as their highest commander - they did everything to pave the way for revolution. They were like missionaries, abandoning their worldly selves to a higher goal.

There's a lot of chapters of the Bible that have been taken out for different reasons. What about them? The dead sea scrolls?

The way America is being marketed says that it is Paradise but when you go there you'll also find Sodom & Gomorra just next door. The American people are on one side and its government is somewhere else, fighting all sorts of wars with all sorts of weaponry. The government need the illusions of America as Paradise to keep its people from seeing they're just pawns in a game.

One of the most famous Swedish Gay couples is Mark Levengood & Jonas Gardell. Jonas is an author, artist, actor, stand-up-commedian. He's my age and I've sort of followed him since before he was known; from 1984 or something as we hung out in the same general places back then. Jonas does also believe in God and he is a Christian. This angers some christians as homosexuality is a sin in their reading of the Bible.

With both feet planted in the fundament - you're stuck; you can't see the others from any other view than you're own. That's the starting point of all wars. The rampant unability to acknowledge the beam in your own eye while ceaselessly pointing out the grand in the others eye (I really like this biblical metaphore).

Statement! I don't know much about the inner workings of the mind of a person that devouts their life to Jesus, the Messiah. But I am very, very interested in understanding what it is like. And equally how it is devout your life according to the beliefs of any other of the world religions.

There are only two kinds of sexuality. The one that requires a weaker part (ie. a victim) and The one that only does require another consensual adult.

Straight - Gay - Lesbian - are just labels that can be used in any way by choice. They can be abused as means to stigmatize people (just like Jesus was stigmatized on the cross). You can hide them or from them. But you can take also Wave your Flag High in the Pride of Love.


Stockholm Pride is Soon.

... kneeling at a camp fire, Jesus takes another sip from the carton of wine, then passing it on. the night is cold and there's no end to it. suddenly everyone tense up as a beam of light flashes down from the sky. everybody run for cover...

That's absolutely ridiculous. Who tells you such nonsense?

quote:
The history of the cross symbol in Christianity

Early depictions on Jesus usually showed Jesus in the form of a shepherd carrying a lamb. Tertullian (140-230 CE), a Montanist heretic, commented in his essay De Corona: "At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign." This might be an early reference to individuals tracing the sign of the cross on their body.

The use of the cross as a symbol was condemned by at least one church father of the 3rd century CE because of its Pagan origins. The first appearance of a cross in Christian art is on a Vatican sarcophagus from the mid-5th Century. 11 It was a Greek cross with equal-length arms. Jesus' body was not shown. The first crucifixion scenes didn't appear in Christian art until the 7th century CE. The original cross symbol was in the form of a Tau Cross. It was so named because it looked like the letter "tau", or our letter "T". One author speculates that the Church may have copied the symbol from the Pagan Druids who made crosses in this form to represent the Thau (god). 7 They joined two limbs from oak trees. The Tau cross became associated with St. Philip who was allegedly crucified on such a cross in Phrygia. May Day, a major Druidic seasonal day of celebration, became St. Philip's Day. Later in Christian history, the Tau Cross became the Roman Cross that we are familiar with today.

The shape of the original crucifixion device is a matter for speculation. Sometimes, the Romans executed people on a Tau cross, sometimes on a Roman cross and sometimes on a simple stake. The gospels, which were originally written in Greek, use the word "stauros" to refer to the execution structure. (see Mark 15:21, Mark 15:32, Matthew 27:32, Luke 23:26, John 19:17). This appears as the word "cross" in all but one of the English versions that we have examined. But in reality, the Greek word usually means a vertical pole without a crossbar. The New World Translation, sponsored by the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, translates the word as "torture stake." 8 Hermann Fulda, author of "The Cross and Crucifixion" is commented that:
bullet the description of Jesus' suffering during the last hours of life indicates that he was crucified on a stake rather than a cross.
bullet that some of the writings of the early church fathers confirms the use of a pole.
bullet that the very earliest depictions of Jesus' crucifixion in Christian art show him on a stake.

Acts 5:30 refers to "hanging him on a tree." 1 Peter 2:24 says "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree."

Deuteronomy 21:23 stated that a person hung on a tree was be cursed by God. This verse was a major stumbling block that prevented many Jews from accepting Jesus as Messiah.

According to author Graydon F. Snyder:

    "[Today's]....universal use of the sign of the cross makes more poignant the striking lack of crosses in early Christian remains, especially any specific reference to the event on Golgotha. Most scholars now agree that the cross as an artistic reference to the passion event cannot be found prior to the time of Constantine."

horizontal rule
The pre-Christian history of the cross symbol

"From its simplicity of form, the cross has been used both as a religious symbol and as an ornament, from the dawn of man's civilization. Various objects, dating from periods long anterior to the Christian era, have been found, marked with crosses of different designs, in almost every part of the old world." 9 The cross symbol was found in: 10

Scandinavia: The Tau cross symbolized the hammer of the God Thor.

Babylon: the cross with a crescent moon was the symbol of their moon deity.

Assyria: the corners of the cross represented the four directions in which the sun shines.

India: In Hinduism, the vertical shaft represents the higher, celestial states of being; the horizontal bar represents the lower, earthly states.

Egypt: The ankh cross (a Tau cross topped by an inverted tear shape) is associated with Maat, their Goddess of Truth. It also represents the sexual union of Isis and Osiris.

Europe: The use of a human effigy on a cross in the form of a scarecrow has been used from ancient times. In prehistoric times, a human would be sacrificed and hung on a cross. The sacrifice would later be chopped to pieces; his blood and pieces of flesh were widely distributed and buried to encourage the crop fertility.

The word "homosexual" -- which you use constantly -- is also an ugly word in most contexts, so you may want to learn that before you correct others.

But it's so typical that you jump to scold hyke, who has an enlightened, caring attitude toward gay people, while you avoid the truth about what your own church does to gay people.

Wasn't there something in your bible about the speck in another's eye and the beam in your own?

What a pompous, judgmental thing to say. Who do you think you are to lecture her on her attitude toward gay people?

You owe hyke an apology.

Of course homo is usually a hateful word. But hyke already explained that it's different in her first language.

Do you actually think hyke would knowingly use an offensive word for gay people? Of course not. So get off your high horse.

In most contexts, the word 'homosexual' sounds to me like the word "negro." It's an antiquated word and it is used to demean. It is primarily used by people who refuse to call gay people gay.  The old "homosexual" word is based on a pathology model and it reduces gay people to a stigmatized disgnostic category. People who use the word enjoy its connotation of mental illness and sexual perversion, just as people who held on to the word "negro" enjoy its connotation of degraded Jim Crow inferiority.

The Religious Right, of course,  insists on the word "homosexuality" because it has a more degrading and insulting feel to it.

On my google news page, I have two separate news search categories. One for "gay" and one for "homosexual" -- from the word "gay" what I get is news about gay people and gay culture. From the word "homosexual" I get all the nasty hateful stuff the Religious Right and the GOP types say about us.

see also:
http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/dear-...-stop.html

Edit: the latin word for gender is "sexus".

"Gay", on the other side, is an euphemism... So what is less offensive? I still don't understand why they (people of unusual sexual orientation) needed to construct an euphemism for their sexual preferences.

Words are offensive or not based on their use, not on their etymology.

A "euphemism" is a polite and pretty word for something frightening, evil or disgusting. If that is how you see gay people, I can't help you.

It is the right of every group to name themselves rather than be named (usually in a negative way) by members of the dominant, oppressive group.

And it's not a sexual preference, it's a sexual orientation. Gay or straight is an orientation. Strawberry or chocolate is a preference.

I am an atheist and reading this thread confirms it. I don't care or judge people's sexual or partner preferences in a theoretical way. How can two people loving each other ever be wrong? And when I die, if God does indeed exist I think he would like my opinion and look after me. Sexuality is so over-rated as an issue. If no-one is getting hurt or abused people should be left to do as they like.

Not really. Here is how Wikipedia defines it. "Euphemism is the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener; or in the case of doublespeak, to make it less troublesome for the speaker."  That's the situation with "homosexual" and "gay". "Homosexual" is actually "inoffensive" (see ethymology of it), but it "may offend" gay people because of its offensive use. So they (gay people) substitute "homosexual" (which may offend them) by "gay".

Actually it is unknown if sexual orientation is something one is born with. It is entirely possible that it formates only somewhere around the age of 11-13, so one actually "becomes" one or another.