Not a true Christian: Debate Christianity and Religion's role in Politics

Can I get an "Amen"?

To be clear, the orange fascist wants complete loyalty. Logically, that means Jesus has to take a backseat to him as well. The fascist will eventually force his followers to prove they are more devoted to him than they are to their deity. That time may have come.

Finally, the following is what I came to realize about 15-20 years ago:

To see this take out two sheets of paper - on one write down specific behaviors Jesus explicitly said to do and, on the other, write down specific behaviors Jesus explicitly said not to do. You will quickly realize evangelical Christianity is anti-Christ.

 

Rep for those first 2 paragraphs.

 

There's a lot to discuss in your comments.

First some linguistics:

In Sāmoa the traditional term is fa'afafine.
In Tonga it is fakaleiti.

Fa'a and faka are the causative prefix, just spelled a little differently. Fafine and leiti both mean "woman" in Sāmoan and Tongan, respectively. Thus, both terms basically mean "in the manner of a woman". They are the third gender terms for biological males who take on a feminine gender.


Now for some culture:

All Polynesian cultures have long accepted third gender categories, but Christian missionaries started causing problems in that regard. Today there is normally a "tension" in that the third gender is culturally accepted but religiously condemned. I've previously mentioned my experience at a conservative Sāmoan church on Palm Sunday where a fa'afafine was part of the Sunday school skit and got great laughs when she corrected the person playing Jesus after he said "your sins are forgiven my son" by saying "I'm not your son, I'm your daughter!"

That said, acceptance of same-gender gay relationships (as we understand them) does not have a long cultural acceptance in most Polynesian cultures (Hawai'i being one exception). Same-sex relationships were not at all a problem provided that one of the two individuals changed their gender. In other words, while same-sex relationships have been accepted, same-gender relationships have not been traditionally accepted in most Polynesian cultures, and that is still true today. As an example, the Cook Islands, where I visit often, only legalized homosexuality last year, although marriage equality is not recognized.


If you would like to do some reading on the topic, here are three sources:

Te Ara: Gender diversity - the link is to page 4 of the gender article that talks about Sāmoa and other Pacific locations

Te Ara: Hōkakatanga - this article focuses on Māori sexuality

Teaching Oceania - Book 2 of this series published by the U of Hawai'i focuses on Gender in the Pacific. It is free to download (I use the series for my class).

 

People still believe in fairytales from the middle east?

 

people still “think” an explosion created the 1st ever male + female human, amphibian, bird, reptiles. fish, mamals?

 

That is what Genesis says, after all. It's funny that land animals and humans were "created" the "same day", meaning dinosaurs and humans were alive at the same time if you take the story literally!

Of course, science doesn't say that an explosion created the "1st ever male + female human" - that would have been the result of evolution over time.

 

no and no

 

Nobody thinks that

 

You make mock but I just got this at a tag sale. You'll change your tune once I get it all shiny!

 

So I take it because you hear the term “Big Bang” you naturally assume it refers to a literal explosion?

 

Quick questions:
Lots of cultures have a dowry of sorts to transfer wealth to a new couple.

• Does a dowry still apply to each gender after they have officially adopted their identities?
• Do families get upset at a son or daughter declaring a third gender that it changes the possible financial burden from the family?
• Since they can’t biologically reproduce, does this affect the dowry?

I guess you could tell me to go read the books.

 

Dowry

Cultures that were patrilocal, where the woman leaves home and moves in with the man's family, often had dowries. This was basically the female's husband and his family receiving her inheritance at the time she marries. Many other cultures had a bride price, where the transfer of wealth went from the husband's family to the bride's family, essentially as a "payment" for her family losing her work. There is also a bride service where the groom would work for the bride's family for a designated time. In ancient Israel you see evidence of the latter two based on the stories in Genesis (Jacob worked 7 years for each of his wives; Abraham gave many gifts to Nahor so that Isaac could marry Rebekah). In America, the bride price lives on in the groom buying the expensive wedding ring, while the dowry lives on in the bride's family paying for the wedding. In ancient Greece / Sparta, the older male and his family would pay the equivalent of the bride price to the younger male's family when he married the younger male. From my studies of Polynesia, neither the bride price nor dowry were all that important - partly because many of the cultures were largely egalitarian and, given the low populations of the islands, many were related to each other anyway.


Do families get upset?

Actually, Polynesian families usually "groomed" the younger sons to be third gender regardless of sexual orientation/gender identity if they had more sons than daughters. It's one reason why we can't use transgender and Polynesian 3rd genders as synonyms. A male would become third gender if he were gay (based on our terminology), if he were transgender (based on our terminology) or because his family needed more "domestic help". It wouldn't impact the financial aspects of the family (for reasons already given) and it was actually beneficial to the family because the 3rd gender individual could work both in the house and in the horticultural gardens. It was the norm, not the exception, to have third gender member in the family.


Reproduction

Same-sex couples would normally adopt children. Adoption in Polynesia was very different than in Western society. If one daughter had 5 kids and another had 0, the one with 5 would normally give one or two kids to the one with 0. Everyone, including the kids, was aware of who the "biological mother" and the "feeding mother" were. There was no stigma attached to adoption and in some Pacific cultures over 40% of the children were adopted. Linguistically it was easy because the same familial term, "mother", was used for the biological mother and all of her sisters, as well as all the sisters of the father (if known). Thus, a kid would call his mom and aunts "mother". Thus, an adopted kid would still have called his adopted mom "mother" even if the kid wasn't adopted.

Given this, it was normal for a same-sex couple to have adopted kids who were biologically related to them, as one of their sisters would freely give them one of her kids (there's always plenty to go around and financially it makes sense to "spread the wealth"). Again, the dowry aspect wasn't important.

 

Everything I say is fair game!

 

Not at all unusual for the younger brother to do that.

"Coincidentally", for every male fetus a woman carries it increases the chances the next one will be gay by 33% (known as the fraternal birth order effect).

 

And in the "is anyone surprised by this anymore?" category:

Texas megachurch faces exodus of worshippers after a sex abuse scandal set off a summer of turmoil

 

North Carolina police officer & evangelical church youth leader, Erickson Lee, has been sentenced to 9 years in prison for child sex crimes.

Lee took at least 4 children , provided them alcohol, hosted parties, and performed sexual acts on them. pic.twitter.com/1b49weF2LY

— 𝐁𝐞𝐤𝐬 (@antifaoperative) September 8, 2024

 

Could also be cross posted in the “gay youth leaders thread” if one existed.

 

And the police shenanigans thread...

 

Ah yes, the old "gays are pedophiles" trope.

Isn't it amazing how gays are so successful at infiltrating Christian churches that Christians are never to blame for the never-ending sexual abuse that takes place within its hallowed walls. It's almost as if the Bible never actually condemns pedophilia or rape (generally speaking). When Christians get positions of leadership and sexually abuse children because they were put in positions of leadership in a Christian church, superdave thinks it has nothing to do with Christianity and everything to do with gays.

 

Pastor arrested on sex-trafficking charges. I'm sure gays are to blame for this as well, right superdave?

 

The evidence does not support your assertion.