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Augustine_of_Clippo

Listed below are comments made by Augustine_of_Clippo between Wednesday, 24th June 2009 and Monday, 29th June 2009.

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Bible codes and gay genes 11:16am on 29 Jun 2009 Paduska, you've been trying to put the boot into Gay_and_Christian, while being oh so gentle and supportive of Jim, who's in denial about sexuality.

You use quotes from Camile Paglia, as if her arguments are somehow holy writ. She's entitled to her views. She defends pornography and an age of consent of 14. Others will disagree with that. She also attacks religious believers of all kinds. So she's an atheist. Does that make her an expert on biblical interpretation? Of course not. Your use of her quotes is bizarre. Paglia speaks only for herself, as it should be.

So what does she say about the Bible? That the Bible was anti-gay. I agree that the Bible includes homophobic texts, and that it includes racist, pro-slavery, and sexist texts too. What the church has done, over many hundreds of years, is deal with those texts, sometimes honestly, sometimes, dishonestly.

But recognising that the Bible includes texts reflecting past prejudice doesn't lead necessarily to the conclusion that we should throw out the Bible. Another possible response is that we should read the Bible with care and challenge those claims that every word carries divine authority for all time. That's what Christians have done with texts supporting the killing of children, capital punishment, genocide, slavery and discrimination against people with disabilities. The question for those same christians is: Why don't you show the same openess to re-reading those texts that are homophobic. Incidentally, there are a lot fewer of those texts.

Finally, just an observation: Gay people comes in different shapes and sizes. Some are Christians, some are atheists. It's a bit daft to haul in a quote attacking the Bible from a gay atheist and expect a gay Christian to say, yes, you're right, I need to throw out the Bible now, because that gay atheist says so.
Bible codes and gay genes 02:03am on 29 Jun 2009 That last comment with the long quotes from Camila Paglia doesn't add much to this discussion. She's entitled to her views (though I know that she has already taken back some of what's included in this list of quotes). She's an iconoclast and that's partly why we find her interesting. I can't agree with her on some of this, including her desire to reduce the age of consent to 14. That strikes me as irresponsible. Perhaps we'd make more progress if we echange our own views on here rather than copy and paste long quotes from other writers, the Bible, etc. Just a thought.
Bible codes and gay genes 7:42pm on 28 Jun 2009 ThomasScarlet says: "To describe Satinover as a part-time lecturer in a small Christian College is like saying that Lewis Hamilton is a part-time car driver on one-way streets."

I've checked out the linked web-site. Satinover may have degrees from MIT and Yale, but it is actually the case that he's a part-time lecturer in a small Christian College in New York. The college in question (King's College), has a full time staff of less than 15. I'd call that small. It is constitutionally Christian. And it is a college. Whether Thomas likes it or not, the much-celebrated qualifications of "Professor" Satinover are these. That term "professor", as we all know, is used in the US for every university staff member, regardless of their status. A brand new lecturer is given the title, as is a part-time lecturer. When American academics are described, in a UK, context as "professors", it's always wise to ask if they are Full professors, Associate Professors (read; Senior Lecturer), or Assistant Professors (read: lecturers). In Satinover's case. he's none of these. He's a "distinguished" "adjunct professor". Adjunct, in the US, is equivalent to the UK term "part-time".

Sorry Thomas, for this detail, but you did make a issue out of it.

As for the other issue you take, that Will has written about an item that didn't actually run on his show, I note that he often writes about items that don't run on his show. That's what a blog is for! I have to say, I am now left wondering WHY the distinguished adjunct professor Satinover decided at the last minute to be a no-show. Hmmm. Any ideas there, Thomas?
Belfast Hindu community centre is attacked 07:18am on 28 Jun 2009 Marcus, the english spelling of Romania's name was "Rumania" until it was officially changed to Romania in 1966.
Belfast Hindu community centre is attacked 10:35pm on 25 Jun 2009 Are we really being lectured to by an American on the subject of racism? And he can't even spell Romania correctly!
Creationists defend Darwin film 2:51pm on 25 Jun 2009 Im amazed to hear someone defend Creationist deception in this case as "investigative journalism". Lying about your identity for jounalistic purposes is justified when the goal is to expose criminality. End of story. That's not what happened here. This was an attempt by creationists to deceive honest academics into participating in a film that would mangle their views into an anti-Darwinian narrative. That's what happened. If there's a crime here, it wasn't committed by the Darwinians who unwittingly took part. It was cmmitted by people who say they honour the Bible's commandments against dishonesty. We knew their science was a sham, now we know their theology is a sham too.
Bible codes and gay genes 2:46pm on 25 Jun 2009 ThomasScarlet, Helio has a strong point. Homosexuality was never classified in the first place as a "disorder" for scientific reasons. It was in the book of disorders because of long-held cultural prejudice. Even psychiatrists reflect some of the prejudices of their culture. In the 1970s, the APA took the decision to remove homosexuality from that category. Dr Satinover now accepts that there was never any good scientific reason for homosexuality being in there in the first place, so why did he oppose to de-medicalisation of homosexuality? Answer: because of his own moral and religious reasons. Google him and you'll find interviews in which he discusses those personal beliefs. he regards homosexuality as immoral and spiritually unhealthy BEFORE examining any evidence about homosexuality.

I've no doubt there was a lot of politics involved in the APA's vote to change homosexuality in the classification, but there always is politics involved when we are talking about society's approval or disapproval of any particular sexual identity (or ethnicity, for that matter).

I note that you cannot bring yourself to recognise that gay people exist (you insist on speaking only of people with SSA, same-sex attractions). That's NARTH-speak for being in denial about the existence of homosexuality as a sexuality analogous to heterosexuality. You start with the assumption that homosexuality is a bogus identification, then you find "evidence" to support that claim (such as the existence of people who have been at different times in their lives mostly gay or mostly straight).

You guys are on a losing battle. With every year, every decade, the world is moving on, theologically and scientifically, and you are sounding more and more scientifically and theologically illiterate. You are also harming people, and you refuse to accept that. That's why I have particular contempt for the psychiatrists who are part of your movement. They boast about their medical qualifications, as if having a degree proved the rightness of their moral or religious beliefs about homosexuality. The fact is that some psychiatrists are also racist, some are sexist, some participated in Hitler's final solution, and some committed genocide in the Balkans. It should not surprise us that some psychiatrists are also inflicting serious harm on gay and lesbian people through programmes like NARTH and Abeo. One day they may realise the harm they have caused, the lives they have stunted, the dreams they have turned into nightmares, and on that day I would not envy their conscience.
Bible codes and gay genes 01:50am on 25 Jun 2009 p.s, Steven it's not true that Will's blog only mentioned your group. He also mentioned Paul Millar and has a link to his ex gay group. Another correction you need to make to you many take-backs.
Bible codes and gay genes 01:48am on 25 Jun 2009 It gets worse. Now Steven Cave says he publicised the Satinover event even though he wasn't sure if he or Paul Millar approach their work from a faith perspective. It makes you wonder why he bothered sending out the email. Do they advertise anything at all that pops into their inbox? Paul Millar has been in the news a great deal for his work as Iris Robinson's "Christian psychiatrist". I'm sure Steven might have heard of him before. Paul M founded a Christian ex-gay ministry. The other organisation who hosted Satinover is also a Christian ex-gay group. Just a co-incidence, I'm sure.
Bible codes and gay genes 6:56pm on 24 Jun 2009 So let me see if I understand this. Person X sends me an e-mail with details of a BNP meeting I might like to attend and they say I should feel free to forward the information to others. But I am wrong if I think Person X is a racist? I shouldn't even think that Person X is a member of the BNP. In fact, it would be wrong to conclude that Person X even agrees with the BNP. For all I know, Person X could be an anti-racist campaigner, right? Right. I'm not buying it.

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