Simple question?

Quote: FrGamble

LOL, I know you are trying to be funny but don't you see that just about every critical action you take requires faith? You have no proof that mechanics actually worked on the plane, nor that your pilot is a real pilot, or the drink the stewardess serves you is not poisoned. Just about everything in life takes faith, it is how we live.

The important difference between these exercises of day-to-day faith and religious faith is that it is possible to verify and prove the things you are leaving to day-to-day faith are true.

Quote: FrGamble

However you will note that in regards to civil marriage the Church does not in any way desire to prevent some people from receiving the rights that make sense for those who live in a committed relationship. It is not marriage, but it can be legally recognized as a civil union or something similar.

If this were so, the church would have pushed for some sort of legal recognition, rather than fighting tooth and nail at every step. Not to mention the rending of garments and wailing when the Supreme Court ruled last year.

But in the first place a marriage between two men or two women is marriage. Any attempt to define it in any other way, it's an attempt to impose second-class status on such unions and the individuals who make them up.

Shouldn't we all know better than this by now?

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In regards to how people use their own bodies the Church can only strive to influence people and the laws so that other people like an unborn child are not harmed or killed by how they desire to use their own bodies.

All law is force.

Quote: Dalex64

The important difference between these exercises of day-to-day faith and religious faith is that it is possible to verify and prove the things you are leaving to day-to-day faith are true.

Aren't you guys beginning to split hairs? The fact is faith is an important aspect of daily life it is how we live and move and have our being. Now we have "day-to-day" or "reality" faith and we have "religious" or myth-based" faith. Which one is the love of your spouse found under?

Can't we just all agree that faith, understood as being reasonable and based on evidence and our past experiences, is essential to life?

Quote: Dalex64

I am equating superstition to christianity.

I am saying christian beliefs caused the superstitious and irrational thoughts.

So every Christian is superstitious? What in the world would lead you to such an irresponsible and incorrect idea?

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I am saying christianity caused the witch hunts.

So without Christianity there would not have been innocent people blamed for bad things going on? Do you really think this human fault is something that didn't exist before Christianity? Why did Nero do what he did or Hitler or Stalin, they were surely not influenced by Christianity to do much worse than the witch trials?

Quote: Nareed

If this were so, the church would have pushed for some sort of legal recognition,

It is hard to fight for something when your opponents fight tooth and nail against it and call you names for even suggesting it. I still have never understood why those fighting for gay marriage were almost more upset about the idea of creating equal rights for civil unions. We would have been able to work together if this reasonable solution was agreed on instead of always rejected or considered an inadequate step towards something more.

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But in the first place a marriage between two men or two women is marriage. Any attempt to define it in any other way, it's an attempt to impose second-class status on such unions and the individuals who make them up.

It is not marriage. Any attempt to define it any other way is an attempt to recognize that there are real differences between men and women and between homosexual relationships and heterosexual relationships. Any disagreement on this is illogical, emotionally driven, and false. Everyone I know would be behind equal NOT second-class recognition of unions and marriages. They are different words that mean different things but we call each other black or white, male or female, Nareed or Bob, but we are all equal? We don't need to be called the same thing to be equal, that just doesn't make sense.

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Shouldn't we all know better than this by now?

We really should!

Quote: FrGamble

We really should!

Why don't you?

It is time to recognize marriage for the farce that it is.

It should be erased and replaced with binding contracts with expiration dates if the party's choose.

If it takes the legal system now to dissolve a marriage, lawyers and courts to separate two [or more] people, then that is what it should involve to wrapped up in such a mess in the first place. The concept of marriage is as outdated as slavery, which were similar in the beginning and not a hell of a lot different often times now. It seems what the true problem here is, is honesty, not binding agreements.

Leave "marriage" where it belongs with Easter egg hunts and Valentine party's. Get real.

Getting married should take at least as long as it takes to form a corporation. A divorce is just a bankrupt business.

Quote: FrGamble

So every Christian is superstitious?

No, that's a false generalization, like most such are.

But there are peculiarly Christian superstitions.

I've mentioned little altars to Mary and/or her son are often set up in many places, particularly blue-collar workplaces. It's not uncommon for people passing these by to do the sign of the cross. I believe there is a ritualistic significance to this gesture (history/archeology 101: when in doubt, call it ritualistic). I've also seen some people do this when they drive or walk by a cemetery.

I've heard several people say they do it because it's bad luck not to do it. Kind of like knocking on wood.

Then there was the early 4th Century belief that baptism cleansed all "sins." I suppose that's a double superstition.

I'm sure, though, you'll find these kinds of superstitions in every religion.

Quote: FrGamble

Aren't you guys beginning to split hairs? The fact is faith is an important aspect of daily life it is how we live and move and have our being. Now we have "day-to-day" or "reality" faith and we have "religious" or myth-based" faith. Which one is the love of your spouse found under?

There are all kinds of ways to measure human response, such as emotions felt while watching some scene in a movie. Are those emotions real? Sure. Is what is going on on the screen real or acting and simulation? It's not real.

Reality based faith is something different than splitting hairs.

Personally I would rather put words like love, under poetic license, because it becomes clinical to describe it in descriptions of oxytocin or what not. Hatred is also real in a clinical sense, but also under poetic license when we lump it with a description like "hatred". And just because we don't yet understand all the workings of the mind and body does not mean we default to bogus mythical explanations until then.

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Can't we just all agree that faith, understood as being reasonable and based on evidence and our past experiences, is essential to life?

If you can't differentiate between experience and myth, your evidence is going to be faulty.

Quote: rxwine

If you can't differentiate between experience and myth, your evidence is going to be faulty.

If you claim to be the arbiter of people's personal experiences your conclusions are going to be faulty.