"Give me your paycheck, your allowance, Your hard earned money yearning to be wasted, The crisp cash of your teeming wallet. Send these, the ignorant, tempest-tost to me, I lift my offering plate beside the church door!"
These are the words that came to mind when I saw this ghastly Christian monstrasity. This 72ft, quarter-million dollar freak show is compliments of the World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church in Memphis. But they couldn’t have done it alone. All of this money came from their 12,000 members in the community who apparently couldn’t find a better use for it like poverty, drug abuse, etc. But never fear, Pastor Alton R. Williams faced the 72-foot statue and blessed the city of Memphis against disease, crime, intolerance and poverty.
Yea, that should do the trick, a good ole blessing and Jesus will take care of the rest. How ignorant can people be to waste their money of something as stupid as this. I know it’s the Bible Belt, but this is ridiculous. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see this. Evelyn Douglass, 11, said she takes the long way home to avoid seeing the "big green thing"."The Statue of Liberty is a symbol of the United States of America. The cross represents a specific religion," Douglass said. "It’s not right that they are mixing the two. That church is trashing the meaning of America."
Well said sister! It’s no wonder that other countries can’t take us serious.
Shout out to Mike for sending me this one!
UPDATE: Just noticed that Rickler submitted this to Digg. So DIGG IT!
Related posts:
KRJ, you will find that in the real world, as well as rather often on the internet, people use sarcasm (more correctly, irony) to answer questions which they regard as to obvious or irrelevant.
Besides, your inability to detect blatantly obvious irony in my post says more about you, then about my ability to get my point across.
Thirdly, if you had bothered to read all the posts, you would find my point allready having been above. Also, Taylor was correct, as I pointed out.
By the way, you still haven’t answered anything.
@mohamed, i agree this discussion would be interesting, maybe submit it to gasmonso? Also, I keep seeing references to this ‘study’ online, but I seem to be incapable of finding any to citation. I find the topic interesting because I’m a civil engineer, I do know quite a few things about waterflow and would love to read the report by the study.
Alcari,
I think if I send the topic to Gasonmo, he wouldn’t post it, I don’t blame him for that, and I hope he understand that it’s not my intention, but I understand it’s his web-site, so I can’t push anything on him, so I tried to post things like that for people who is interested in such topics.
I really hope that Saudi Arabia open wide investigation in this topic, because this well is holy and that the well which Ismael and Abraham used to drink from, and it has long story I can tell it if somebody interested.
Where one can find the chemical composition of the Zamzam water? All I find is the same story about scientific wading in a 30 meters deep well.
I really don’t care what you say
How am I not answering your question (retorical question)? I think that you are just tring to harrass me. I wish you would stop pointing your finger at me. And tring to make me feel stupid and tring to put my answers and questions down.
the idea of a debate/argument is that you try to answer questions…I’ll restate the quesiton then, for your convenience.
Why is homosexuality a bad thing?
Note, ‘because it says so in the bible’ is not an answer.
I stated my answer clearly in number 171. Did you not understand that. Or do you just have a problem with reading?
You said, in the #170;
Now, you say homosexuality is wrong because you can get various STD’s with unprotected sex. As before said, heterosexuals get those too via unprotected sex. Getting an STD while using proper protection is minuscule so that is out of the picture.
That is not a reason against homosexuality but against sex in general. When you consider the Hiv infection rate in Africa, where about 65% of all of the Hiv infected live in, you could say they are all really flaming homosexuals in Africa. Does not make it true?
The study mentions that younger men are less diligent with safe-sex practices than older. How that does not surprise me? Young people not being careful and by being careful they could avoid the infections. What the study does prove is that people are starting to get into the old mental state ‘where it will not happen to me, it happens to others’.
The study does not say why the situation has turned out to be as it is, they lack data to make such determination. They and others can only speculate what might have caused it. Some speculations have more scientific basis than others but even those are merely speculations and lack credibility.
Also, a study of such nature is highly lacking as it is merely examining one group of people against itself. I would put much more value to the study if they would have also examined the situation amongst heterosexuals as that might have really given interesting results.
As said before the STD angle is not reason against homosexuality. It is a reason to practice safe-sex. And that reason is as important to heterosexuals.
So far no god or study has given a sensible reason against homosexuality.
Jagannath,
Let’s assume that this earth just have 2 people, one is A and he is male and the second is B and she is female, what would happen if A told B that he is not interested in Women? I know it’s small module but you can apply it on larg scale and you will see what the results.
Let’s take New York as an example, see how many women wouldn’t have men if they you all men married all women in the city, you have huge number, which it leads to two problems, that when Islam said that man could have up to 4 wives, it was for the best of human-being, because there is a man wouldn’t mind to marry more than one woman, and there are women wouldn’t mind to have a partner in her husband, the other thing when there are a guys, that’s mean there is one more misrable woman, or one more woman becaome lesbian to satisfy her natural desire, or try to find animals to use them to do the same thing, so see how it’s awfull could it be, women using animals because there are no men take care fo their need.
I think you can see the popluation for men and women in New York to make sure of my information( 250000 woman)
Hello Mohamed,
This is an interesting hypothetical situation. In my opinion, it would be A and B’s moral obligation to procreate. But having a moral obligation to engage in heterosexual behavior is not the same thing as a prohibition on homosexuality.
Here’s another hypothetical, suppose in addition to your A and B, let’s add C, a second male. No suppose A and C are both gay. A and C understand their moral obligation and the three agree to impregnate B in turn to keep the species alive (doing the right thing is not always easy). But while she is pregnant, which would be most of the time given that they are healthy humans, what moral imperative would forbid A and C from having sex? None.
Thus your scenario is demonstration that engaging in heterosexual behavior can be a moral good, not that homosexual behavior is a moral bad.
I have to disagree on the moral obligation. With merely two people the genetic material would be so small that the inbreeding depression would set in within generation or two. And without out breeders to supplement the genetic pool all the ailments of inbreeding would strike the later generations.
Problems like reduced fertility, increased genetic disorders, lower birth rate, higher infant mortality, slow growth, small size and loss of immune system function. Aforementioned problems will whittle down the population very fast and then there is also symmetry problem, specially facial symmetry which can have psychological effect to the populace.
Survival of species like humanity cannot really be about survival in the most degenerated and sorry state until some common cold finally wipes us out.
I think the question moral obligation of being the last two people left in the world is useful only as an intelectual excercise. It does not prove or disprove anything relating to wether or not being a homosexual is moral or not. Mohumad you are making a lot of assumptions in you post to prove your argument. The “what if’s” you propose don’t take into account a lot of factors that exist when it comes to relationships in society. You propose a situation that could never exist and hold it up as a proof of a concept. I believe this reasoning to be flawed. The statement that Women may end up using animals to get off because a man is gay shows that you haven’t considered all the possibilities that exist in reality. You have taken a concept to the extreme without exploring all the other options that would be available to people. Just because circumstances force you into a situation that isn’t desirable doesn’t mean that a sexual preference is right or wrong.
Here is another example for you.
There are only two people left alive. One is male one is female. The male is a JW (Cannot have sex outside of marriage and cannot marry anyone who is not also a JW) and the female is a Catholic Nun who has sworn a vow of Chastity to God (Cannot get married or have sex).
Or how about.
There are only two people left alive. Both are male and Gay. What morality applies to this situation.
And
There are only two people left alive. Both are male. One is gay and one is not.
ect
There are many permutations of that question that it is mind boggling. None of them prove anything though. Firstly because the situation doesn’t exist and isn’t likely to. Secondly the morality of the situation would depend on the beliefs and opinions of the two people involved and how they found themselves in that situation.
For example what about the last two humans. One female one male. The male rapes the female. Is this moral.
Or there is only one human left and a horse. That human is female. Due to no fault of her own and according to your reasoning she would be forced to use the animal for sex. I think there are more choices for her than that.
Cheers
Simon Bond
Hello Jagannath,
I was presupposing an ideal hypothetical, where nasty realities like the detriments of inbreeding are ignored. I think that assumption was implied by Mohamed’s original hypothetical.
You’re right, of course. Humans would already be doomed to extinction if this situation came to pass. Why create extra suffering just to postpone the inevitable.
Simon Bond responded to this much better than I did anyway.
Hello,
In a ideal hypothesis, I probably could agree on the moral obligation, with some reservations.
I just have my doubts that the idea was presented in the sense of an ideal hypothesis. The additions to the thesis show too much about religious overtures for me to believe it was ideal hypothesis even in the first place.
Most religions have the same origin story, the two humans who are the forefather and mother of humanity. Merely looking at some inbreeding of animals one can see the whole concept is not plausible even with the meta-information genes contain. Break-down would happen and it would not be pretty picture. It was not first time that concept was presented to me and funnily enough, it is always the male who is homosexual, how come?
Now, I do have one big problem even with the moral obligation and that is the freedom of choice and free will. Do anyone have a moral right to force the other into activity they really find distasteful and unnatural even if it is to recreate humanity? Makes one wonder if that kind of a forced humanity is really worth it?
On religious level, many religious texts also claim that we have a free will and thus we are free to choose what we do. I will not go into the so called punishment of hell for those disagreeing with god, but the free will concept would allow the A to follow his own conscience. Therefore he should not be forced to procreate against his will.
Now, the issue really is if the A is willing to procreate regardless of his natural tendencies. If he is willing then problem is solved.
But continuing on the ideal hypothesis, I do wonder what do the religious minds say about the incest which is required for the recreation of humanity?
Well, I’d say preservation of the human race is about as important you can get. If that mean intercourse with you siblings, so be it.
Religious take on this would be interesting, seeing how it will have to be extrepolated from text, as this is not even remotely mentioned in the bible.
What if Adam and eve had only gay sons? that would have been interesting.
To me the preservation of species is not that important, it is one of those things which happens if it is advantageous but it might be also a dead end branch on evolutionary tree.
I do not know what religious people would say about incest but bible does have something to say about it, Leviticus condemns it in 20:11-14.
Crimes being; man laying with his fathers wife, man laying with daughter in law or man taking a wife and her mother. Penalty is death and in the last case by fire no less.
But general no-no is in the Leviticus 18:6
But where things get ironic, at least to me, is the case of Lot. Lot was just and righteous and willing to give his virgin daughters to towns peoples to be raped in protection of angels. To be frank, the daughters were married at that time so there was a little chance of them being virgins still but lying seems to be okay for Lot.
He was the only man saved from Sodom and Gomorrah because he did not bother to tell his son-in-laws of the coming destruction. He escaped the depravity of the cities and got his daughters pregnant. To his defense, he was drunk at the time and the daughters got him drunk just to be impregnated because for some reason they thought Lot to be the last man alive. But never the less, our righteous man was no stranger to depravity and lies.
Now the children were Moab and Ammon who are the forefathers of Moabites and Ammonites. Their kingdoms were east of Jordan river. Amman being around the center of Ammons kingdom and Moabs south of it by the dead sea. Sometimes it pays off to be illicit, neh?
Lot was not even the only one to dabble in his own family. Even Abraham claimed to have married his own sister, Sarah in Genesis 20:12. His excuse for it was that she was not daughter of his mother but daughter of his father.
Hello again Jagannath,
Now you are venturing into some deliciously ambiguous territory, morally speaking. What moral behaviors should be enforced by a society (even a society of two people) and which should not. This is really what the so-called ‘Culture Wars’ are all about, in my opinion.
In this particular situation, I don’t believe the people should be forced to procreate. Though I’d consider it morally wrong to abstain, forcing someone to… okay, rapping someone is worse.
The original hypothetical situation is actually quite good when one considers the fact that procreation does not require intercourse. Turkey basters are supposed to be quite handy for inseminations.
Now if the situation would be reversed then there would not be any easy alternatives as artificial womb is still under development and results are not that promising as of yet.
Then the issue would be the character of the man as no man has died due lack of intercourse.
K R J,
Isn’t werid that she posted on 2:02 pm and you posted on 2:03 pm, that was really fast.
Well Mohamed,that’s because I stay on this website alot and I saw her post, and I hurried and typed a minute after she did, and I type extremely fast!!!
Wow, it took you long time to answer me though.
Well that’s because I had to get off the computer to go and take care of some buisness.
So, what do you guys want to talk about???
Actually C.S., they were talking about homosexualality, but I don’t know if we are still discussing that because they are not typing back!!!!
wow. I haven’t been on this site since I last posted in 2006. There has definately been some “interesting” conversations on here. Now, I am still a member of World Overcomers and all the drama has died down over the statue. I value each and every one of your opinions and as I have looked over some of the responses, I have truly began to look at things in a new way. Thank you all so much.
Please understand that the opinions of C.S. are NOT the values that World Overcomers or, more importantly, the Bible teaches. Her views were not representative of the congregation at all. I vaguely understand her purpose, but I don’t understand her approach at all.
We all have our opinions that we believe are right. I think that our differences are what makes America such a unique and successful place. Discussions like these continue to keep our minds thinking as we evaluate our beliefs and morals!
*make
madicent7! It’s been a while. Hello! I’ve reread our conversation from ’06 not too long ago. I hope all is well with you.
I would like to know what have you done to help the community? This blog allows people to post their opinion but and I’m sure that helps the crime, poverty, drug abuse etc.
I would just like to know what have you done to help the community?
Re posts 228, 229: wrong site, Lovell. You want communityfreaks.com
but seriously, what does your post have to do with the price of bananas in Brazil anyway?
Dang mate you have many wierd error codes on your page that says parse error unexpected T String in line 18
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