I don’t know how theologically sound this argument is, but it sounded good when I wrote it.
Also, I was arguing once with a relative who is a fundamentalist Catholic. I asked him what his thoughts were regarding evolution, and his answer was that he wasn’t sure if the church had officially ruled on it yet, so he was going to wait, basically until he was told what to think.
I suspect there are many people who are so tied up in their faith that they fail to think for themselves, relying solely on their authority figures, ie, pastors, priests, etc., to feed them what they should be able to get on their own.
When I was a believer, I was bigoted against ‘the gays’ too even though I knew gay people and they treated me with respect and kindness. My views were shaped by the religion, but when I started to question, I had to be honest and admit that gay people (and gay relationships) didn’t affect me at all. I had to be honest and admit that if gays were given all the same rights as everyone else, the world would look pretty much the same.
I think that if more people can get their mind out of their holy books, and be honest with themselves, they’d feel the same way. Then we could stop wasting so much time, money and energy fretting about a small group of people and who they happen to love, and start working on making the world better for the big group of people.
