Headed up to Michigan for the weekend. Not sure exactly where, or what kind of accommodations we’re staying in… I guess that’s what happens when you let your husband plan a weekend vacation. (Just kidding, Jay. Not really.)
I haven’t been blogging much, this week because I spent quite a bit of time during the early part of the week in an especially pointless online argument about gay marriage. It turned into a religious discussion, which of course makes it even more pointless. For some reason, I always get tangled up in religious arguments.
It’s so frustrating to argue with someone who not only doesn’t believe in logic, but whose own beliefs have no internal logic. It was driving me crazy, and then I remembered that one of the great things about having a blog is that I can speak my mind without having to listen to any moronic counter-arguments. On my own blog, I can have completely one-sided arguments, and I can delete any comments I don’t like. I’m the dictator of Geektastic!
So I was having this pointless argument… The guy said that gay marriage should not be legal because the Bible says gay sex is immoral. Of course, the Bible says sex before marriage is immoral; sex for pleasure is immoral, blah blah blah. So I was asking this guy if he believed everything in the Bible, like that the proper punishment for prostitution is stoning, and that tatooing your body is a crime against God. Because if you’re going to be a literalist, you should at least take the entire Bible literally, not just the parts you pick out. (Of course, this was a bad approach to take and I shouldn’t have been surprised that it didn’t go anywhere.)
Strangely enough, I might have respected the guy’s opinion more if he took the entire Bible as literal fact instead of just bits and pieces. On the other hand, no, I wouldn’t have respected the guy’s opinion any more, but at least I couldn’t argue against it. On my densest, most obtuse days, I don’t believe in evolution. It’s ridiculous, I know, but I can actually completely identify with someone who lacks all rationality. Because sometimes it’s easier to believe in magic than to try to comprehend all that science. On days like that, I will tell you that I don’t care about the fossil record; I just can’t see how an ape could turn into a human, and God must have put those fossils there to trick scientists. And you can’t argue with that because there’s no logic in it at all. It doesn’t stand up, but I know it.
Anyway, he just absolutely would not answer my question: if the Bible is wrong about stoning prostitutes, could it possibly be wrong about gay sex? I guess he did answer my question, although indirectly and illogically. He pointed out all the places in the Bible where it says gay sex is immoral. But he never addressed whether or not it could be wrong.
Not that I don’t think there are some good lessons in the Bible, but I think it has to be interpreted in the context of the present day. Which is why we don’t stone prostitutes and kill their children. They do that in other parts of the world, and I think we in the West can almost unanimously agree that it’s not right.
But I started to feel bad, like I was trying to convince someone not to believe in his religion anymore, which is totally not my goal. I guess a good liberal would be more sensitive about someone else’s religion, but I also think that sensitive liberals are letting these people ruin our country with their live-and-let-live philosophy. It’s one thing to let someone live their life without interference, but if that person won’t let other people live the same way, then something has to give. In other words, the guy on the message board is an idiot and should be kicked out of the country ASAP.
Woowoo! Long rambling post! Sorry… Headed to Michigan now.