Interesting discussion via Darth Timon:
“Let me start by saying that I have a measure of respect for anyone who puts their name to their posts and bares their soul for the world to see. Paul Williams, who runs Blogging Theology, is one such person. I certainly do not agree with a lot of what I see on his site, but it is by and large insightful, especially regarding the Muslim faith. Of course, it is inevitable that he would say things I take issue with. We’ve had discussions in the past, but I feel this is one worth archiving, as it were, so there is no room for confusion later on. My comments will be in blue, his in red. Any additional comments of mine will be in black.”
Source: Bakers, the KKK and the False Dilemma – Meerkat Musings
Must read later. Sounds interesting. I love it when two people who disagree can still respect one another and exchange ideas.
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Mr. Meerkat is a thoroughly decent guy. The Crazy Christian is… whatever he is.
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Why I have to say thank you! I am also unbearably handsome… that may be a lie.
I’ve added another couple of pages to this discussion. https://coalitionofthebrave.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/the-quest-for-freedom-provided-you-think-as-i-do/
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I wonder if the guy would have thought that the white shop owners who refused service to blacks in the south during the 50s and 60s were being ‘forced’ to serve blacks after the civil rights act? Many of those white shop owners were racist because they didn’t believe their god made blacks the same kind of human as them.
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Selective ignorance. They only see the part of the equation that justifies their mindset.
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If I were a baker, I’d bake any dang cake I was contracted to make. I could care less what “decorates” it. In order to expose the religious position for what it is, let’s kick it up a notch. Doctors are in business in the same way bakers are. Using his logic, would it be moral or ethical or lawful for a Jewish doc to refuse treatment to a Nazi? A Muslim doctor might rightfully refuse to treat a Christian and so on. And for the record, Catholic hospitals have refused treatment to patients on religious grounds and they’ve died as a result. So there’s that.
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Let’s take it further 🙂 Can a black police officer refuse to assist a white civilian? Can a Protestant kick a Catholic out of their shop? Can Indians and Pakistanis ban each other’s presence?
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Oh oh! I’ve so got this. 🙂 Can a person be murdered for writing a blog post?
I’ve got some fairy dust for all those MFers. Lol.
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Chicken Little, alive and well. 😦
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Actually, I’m kind of wondering why nobody pointed out this case involving the bakery refusing to make a cake with anti-gay verses on it. The same civil rights department said it was okay because she was refusing to take part in discriminatory speech. Thus, the hypothetical baker could have refused service to the Klan customer for that reason.
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May I say you handled that with incredible patience and real tact. I probably would have made the mistake of falling for the rhetorical move, but like you said in the debate, you’ve been around longer than me so you’ve probably seen the best tricks.
In short, “Gladiator, I salute you.”
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Ah, the poor “persecuted” Christian majority…
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That was a good read, thank you.
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And my own father believes (like the crazy Christian) the LGBT community is putting a gun to the collective head of bakers, of Christians, insisting that Christian bakers bake gay wedding cakes. Or as he puts it, “Why do the gays have to pick on the Christians? Why can’t they find a gay baker to do their wedding cakes?” I should point out here that a gay man cuts my father’s hair (rather than let him go to a barber, my mother takes him to her stylist).
The funny thing (well, funny to me, anyway) is that my father hasn’t always been so deeply religious. Oh sure, he’s Roman Catholic like most Italian-Americans, but he never goes to Mass, he never cared a fig about Christian issues (you don’t see him protesting the smut magazines or lobbying to not have certain movies released because of their explicit content) but for some reason the issue of gay marriage (and Christian bakers having the right to not bake what he calls “gay cakes”) antagonize his Christian sensibilities.
I happen to think my father became the same thing my grandfather and many of my uncles became…an old guinea, just stuck in an old-school (and very wrong) mindset with no hope of rejoining the modern world.
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Interesting read. I applaud your patience and tact. Both of which I lack when confronting some of the idiocies of religion. I like how you can keep emotion out of it.
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He handled the whole thing really well I reckon, and posting it with comments in different colours and an explanation inbetween is a very useful way of explaining how people are using psychological tactics to slip all over the show and try and lead people into a dead end that suits them.
– esme nodding upon the Cloud
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