Transsexuality and religion

[cheersm8]

Am I missing something here? What a laughable thread!! What has religion got to do with sexuality? Each is as unimportant to the other as a motor car maintainance manual and a cookery book.
Makes me think of the kind of rubbish I used to see when I used mirc years ago, chat with someone in a cybersex channel and the 1st question they ask you is - 'are you a muslim/hindu/catholic/jew?'
I do feel sort of sorry though, for those people to whom religion has been bashed into their skulls with a big hammer, from such an early age, that it takes priority over EVERYTHING they do.


ps: to hankhavelock - Carry on with your posts, I can see that you are on a perpetual wind up, and like to throw out random bait to the forum and see what you can catch. kind of like fishing, from the comfort of your own living room.

[hankhavelock]

Originally Posted by cheersm8

ps: to hankhavelock - Carry on with your posts, I can see that you are on a perpetual wind up, and like to throw out random bait to the forum and see what you can catch. kind of like fishing, from the comfort of your own living room.

Hehe... it's actually not THAT random... if you check me out you'll find a coherent attact on the ultra right, which I consider one of the ugliest things going on nowadays. You'll also find a close to militant defense of trans*rights.

That's my story, and I stick to it :-) I may be fishing, I may, indeed, be a bit provocative, but I do have a rather strict political and VERY liberal agenda :-)

H

[SluttyShemaleAnna]

Islam and Christianity are both fucked up and dangerous religions, so is Judaism.

And what do you expect when the major prophet that they have in common and each claim to be the originator of thier creed is Abraham, (hence why they are groups as the Abrahamic religions) the guy who was chosen by thier god to deliver his message because of his willingness to murder his own kid.

When the holy man you look up to is a man who was ready to MURDER HIS OWN CHILD, you know you have a fucked up religion.

All I have to say to the followers of all 3 of those religions is your god is an abhorrent joke.

[smc]

I don't begrudge anyone the right to believe in god, or many gods, of whatever sort they want. If you want to put faith before logic, hocus-pocus before material reality, more power to you. Just don't push it on me.

Organized religion is the real problem, because they seek to replicate, on a mass scale, the delusion of believing in some sort of Supreme Being. And they don't do it for benign reasons, but to serve the interests of power structures.

Religion is the opiate of the masses. The rulers love it -- what more could they ask for than for you to believe in the pie-in-the-sky concept that after you die you'll go to a better place, so don't worry too much about this brief sojourn down here. Because if you buy that crap, you're less likely to rise up and throw the rulers out.

And I won't even go into the whole morality issue, and how organized subvert people's understanding of what is and isn't moral, replacing things about sex and gender where what we ought to be concerned about morally are things like poverty and injustice!

[TracyCoxx]

Originally Posted by SluttyShemaleAnna

Islam and Christianity are both fucked up and dangerous religions, so is Judaism.

I thought they were all fucked up??

[The Conquistador]

Everyone knows that it's all about the Jews and here's why:

[Bionca]

Originally Posted by cheersm8

Am I missing something here? What a laughable thread!! What has religion got to do with sexuality? Each is as unimportant to the other as a motor car maintainance manual and a cookery book.
Makes me think of the kind of rubbish I used to see when I used mirc years ago, chat with someone in a cybersex channel and the 1st question they ask you is - 'are you a muslim/hindu/catholic/jew?'
I do feel sort of sorry though, for those people to whom religion has been bashed into their skulls with a big hammer, from such an early age, that it takes priority over EVERYTHING they do.


ps: to hankhavelock - Carry on with your posts, I can see that you are on a perpetual wind up, and like to throw out random bait to the forum and see what you can catch. kind of like fishing, from the comfort of your own living room.

Unfortunately, it is religion that is used as justification for or the root behind so many of the issues that Trans* folks have to deal with. Religion, particularly the political and cultural influences of Christianity and Islam in the history of the world wrt Trans and gay people is a very valid topic.

Lets look at Thailand - Kathoey: an ancient understanding that some boys are really a "third gender". Before colonization by Christian Europeans they had a standing in society and place within their communities. Then came "crimes against nature" ala Christian missionaries and their political counterparts the Colonial Governors. Suddenly, while socially accepted, they kathoey were/are highly discriminated against legally with the resulting prejudices that invariably trickle down to the social level. Even more drastic is the Hijra in India and more pronounced still is the near erasure of two-spirit people among Native Americans.

[cheersm8]

Originally Posted by Bionca

Unfortunately, it is religion that is used as justification for or the root behind so many of the issues that Trans* folks have to deal with. Religion, particularly the political and cultural influences of Christianity and Islam in the history of the world wrt Trans and gay people is a very valid topic.

Lets look at Thailand - Kathoey: an ancient understanding that some boys are really a "third gender". Before colonization by Christian Europeans they had a standing in society and place within their communities. Then came "crimes against nature" ala Christian missionaries and their political counterparts the Colonial Governors. Suddenly, while socially accepted, they kathoey were/are highly discriminated against legally with the resulting prejudices that invariably trickle down to the social level. Even more drastic is the Hijra in India and more pronounced still is the near erasure of two-spirit people among Native Americans.

Thanks for the reply Bionca, and I fully understand and sympathise with the points that you have made.
Maybe I did not phrase my original post correctly. My response was on a personal level, not a political one. For me, if I fancy someone, whether they be male, female, trans, or even 'unclassified' then that individuals religous beliefs and/or background, don't mean a thing to me. I simply have not allowed religion to be a deciding factor in my life in any way.

[Reslemock]

I am not in religion at all I always thought that religion, no matter what faith, was made for one single porpuse, the control of people through the fear of something that it can be see, touch or hear.

[Mel Asher]

Originally Posted by cheersm8

Am I missing something here? What a laughable thread!! What has religion got to do with sexuality? Each is as unimportant to the other as a motor car maintainance manual and a cookery book.
Makes me think of the kind of rubbish I used to see when I used mirc years ago, chat with someone in a cybersex channel and the 1st question they ask you is - 'are you a muslim/hindu/catholic/jew?'
I do feel sort of sorry though, for those people to whom religion has been bashed into their skulls with a big hammer, from such an early age, that it takes priority over EVERYTHING they do.


ps: to hankhavelock - Carry on with your posts, I can see that you are on a perpetual wind up, and like to throw out random bait to the forum and see what you can catch. kind of like fishing, from the comfort of your own living room.

Religion has always laid claim to be the authority on any natural process or phenomenon in order to reinforce its power base and hold over adherents.

I had a strictly ' religious ' upbringing, but the secular education process enabled me to have a broader perspective on the many of the values that various religions lay claim to. At the end of the day, and without wanting to give offence to fellow forum members, while Religion appears to be a need fundamental to the human condition ( Karl Marx, excepted ), for the most part religions appear to be ill-conceived synthetic constructs, heavily flawed by many philosphical processes.

Worship should come from within.

and if that gives you a , why then, bless you !

[liesjeversteven]

I don't want to step on sensitive toes here, but EVERY religion is dangerous! Be it Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, right wing republicanism, or whatever, they all have one thing in common: they are all convinced they have a monopoly on the truth, and that is one of the most dangerous things in the world.

[jdawg]

Every religion has blood on its hands. I'm not sure why Islam is singled out since Israel uses Judaism to justify it's power, and Rome was dominated by the Church, and the US killed people for believing in Communism while the presidents were claiming to be good christians etc etc.



All religions have the potential to be violent and all religions have reached this potential to the fullest. To single out one is to be dishonest about your own religion.

[Tread]

Does anyone know anything bad or dangerous about Buddhism?

[liesjeversteven]

Originally Posted by Tread

Does anyone know anything bad or dangerous about Buddhism?

Well, here's a nice article about it:

http://www.sangam.org/articles/view/?id=118

[TheSkronkDonkey]

Superstition is gussied up fear and religion is gussied up superstition. Much art and beauty has emerged from religious thought and religious belief, but that still doesn't change the fact that religion is nothing more than the enshrinement and elevation of ignorance to the detriment and abandonment of logic, rationality, empiricism and true ethics. The need is human, the transgression is human, the perceived patterns of divinity are human-made -- on this basis, and only this basis, religion commands respect. However ...

If something divine exists, it must surely exist beyond all patterns. Time and again, human beings have made gross errors of judgment, founded on fear, fostered by ignorance, from believing that epilepsy was a sign of divine madness, to the Earth being at the centre of the universe, to comets being flaming swords, beards, jars, chariots, even the sum of all human sins, to deformity and disease a sign of a god's wrath or proof of evil spirits, to the idea that the universe emerged in a puff of smoke or that everything was created in six thousand years, that planets were birthed before stars, that plants functioned without sunlight and so on.

In the past 500 years, especially the last 150, science has made religion look like the colossally flawed interpretation of reality that it is. And it has done this not by attacking religion, but ignoring its tenets and sticking to its own, discovering things that no-one in their wildest imaginings could have believed. Science shames human imagination and makes us look like the feeble, dull-minded, dull-sensing species we are. Apart from by maintaining a bizarre, dissonant and downright solipsistic state of mind, I fail to see how anyone who is truly familiar with the progress of knowledge -- HOW it's been acquired and WHAT has been acquired -- just in the past few centuries could possibly maintain sincere faith in any system that requires belief in anything but evidence.

With science, we can determine what is sensible and what is not, we can improve and grow, we can build better technology, better societies, better ways of living, and a road to the stars; with religion, we lock ourselves away from the world, from its beauty and its horror, from the true scope of human suffering, from the true nature of what being human is, has been, will be and could be.

[Jenae LaTorque]

Originally Posted by Tread

Does anyone know anything bad or dangerous about Buddhism?

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Didn't buddha himself state something like. "there is no God, there are no miracles, water does not run uphill"

I always thought it was quite ironic for him to say that and then after he is dead, they make him God and start worshipping him.

[Tread]

I don't know much about Buddhism, that's why I asked the question, and liesjeversteven gave a good answer.
But I think there was several Buddha's, and none of them is a god for anyone. They worship him for sagacity and breaking thru the circle of life (normal would be reincarnation and life goes on and on).

Buddhism is the only big religion that is not totally based on once spoken words. I think Buddha said something like that: always think by yourself and to question teachings.

And it's totally against hating and very tolerant. As long as you are not a cause of affliction everything is fine. It's the own religion that allows to belief in other religions while being Buddhist.

[Jenae LaTorque]

At first thought, I said to myself, "There is no connection between the two."

Then I thought about the similarities. Both are a belief system for which there is no hard evidence. Both have divisions among their believers where some believe one thing, while others believe something else. Sometimes the differances are minor, sometimes not. Both are clouded by ignorance and uncertainty. Both have the possibility of great love on one hand, and great hatred, even killing, on the other hand. Both can be a great shaper of lives, both for the better, or, sometimes for the worst.

What it finally boils down to in the final analysis is that both are perhaps simply creations of the human mind. And since the mind differs from one individual to another, so our belief systems must differ. Of course man is a societal animals so a need to belong also shapes our beliefs. And then there has to be an accomadation between differant facets of an individuals beliefs (truths?) so it is interesting to see the ways this plays out among people of differant cultures, places, history, etc.

I have seen theories about both of these behavior patterns being based on something physical in our makeup but nothing that has convinced me yet. My personal feeling about both of these is simple; no harm - no foul

As long as you follow your own beliefs and do not present a danger to myself then I say "live and let live". However, If you cross the line and my well being is threatened, then my survival belief system will kick in.

Also, for the record. I do not believe in the existance of any type of God as manifested by the religions of this world.