As has been mentioned elsewhere, “Funky Winkerbean” is dealing with the hazards of selling comics in an increasingly reactionary world. Interested parties are invited to check out the beginning of the storyline here:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/funky.asp?date=20050303
Idiots are invited to suggest the strip is due entirely to me being alarmist.
PAD
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So with all this talk of “intelligent design” and the origins of homosexuality…does that mean if you believe in the former that the”designer” created the latter?
No, at least not in the Christian tradition which believes the world was created perfect but that man made a choice to sin. So whatever the current “cause” of homosexuality, according to the Christian tradition, it was not part of the original design.
Iowa Jim
re:
No, at least not in the Christian tradition which believes the world was created perfect but that man made a choice to sin. So whatever the current “cause” of homosexuality, according to the Christian tradition, it was not part of the original design.
Iowa Jim
So doesn’t this mean that the “intelligent designer” created sin as well? After all how could man choose something which wasn’t created?
So doesn’t this mean that the “intelligent designer” created sin as well? After all how could man choose something which wasn’t created?
By giving man the ability to make a free choice, then yes, God created the possiblity man could make a bad choice. But that is not the same as God creating sin. God neither forced man to sin, nor did he force man not to sin. That is the essence of belieiving it was an actual free choice.
When man made the choice, he did not create anything. In fact, Christian tradition teaches he just distorted/corrupted the good that was there. I can create a small statue as a beautiful work of art to be admired. You can corrupt that statue by picking it up and bashing someone over the head and killing them with it. Clearly, that was not the purpose of design of the statue. The fact that you twisted a good thing into a murder weapon in no way means I planned the murder.
Iowa Jim
When man made the choice, he did not create anything. In fact, Christian tradition teaches he just distorted/corrupted the good that was there. I can create a small statue as a beautiful work of art to be admired. You can corrupt that statue by picking it up and bashing someone over the head and killing them with it. Clearly, that was not the purpose of design of the statue. The fact that you twisted a good thing into a murder weapon in no way means I planned the murder.
Nor did anyone say you did. I think the point is that there’s no way man *could* choose something if God had not already created the possibility of that something existing. No one’s saying God forced man to sin in the discussion (though I’ve always thought there was a certain “a-ha-got-your-nose!” quality to the “original sin” in Eden, personally) — I think the argument is that God must have at least created the capacity for sin. Yes? No?
TWL
>There still has been no credible evidence presented to suggest that persons are “born gay.”
Some years back there was an item in the news about some study showing that brain tissue of male homosexuals seemed to have some structures which were not found in the brains of hetero males, but which were present in female brains.
Anyone know about that and what happened to the study? Discredited or expanded upon?
>I am suggesting that the natural function of marriage, wherever and whenever it was conceived, was for the purpose of serving as the place to start and raise a family.
Of course, IF God does exist, and things were designed, then it really makes sense.
If things were designed, then He did a pretty poor job of it as I’ve seen figures as high as 10% of the population having at least SOME homosexual tendencies. A pretty lousy track record for an all-powerful diety who is supposedly opposed to such things.
>Marriage is not a NATURAL function. It’s a SOCIETAL invention.
Given how many animals mate monogamously and for life, one has to wonder. They may not have the bureaucracy in place for formal marriages to take place, but close enough for government work.
The question of how responsible is man for his sinning nature is one of the huge pitfalls of Christian belief. If God created everything, even things we consider “evil,” then he created sin. If everything man does derives from God, sin derives from God. Yet God tells us to resist sin. It’s a conundrum that men have used to manipulate others for centuries.
I’m not going to prefess to have figured out something that’s preplexed people for far longer than I’ve been around. I going to usurp Jim’s analogy again. God gives us the ability to worship him. He sets out little hints about his existence, and even speaks directly to us through the prophets. Then he sets out his first Commandment, worship no false gods. So we have God creating worship, then warning us not to misuse it by worshiping false gods. Worship is like the beautiful sculpted figure in Jim’s example. Used in the way the creator intended, it’s a fine work of art. Used in a way the creator did not intend, to bash someone’s head in, ruins the art by staining it with the blood of another. The sin is in misusing that which the creator gives us.
Or something like that.
Aha, Starwolf, but how many animals don’t mate monogomously or for life? And how many species are there that the concept of a mate is meaningless? Insects, for example.
Or the species that don’t even require the simultaneous presense of male/female for fertilization to occur? Reproduction is a natural convention. Marriage is totally a social one.
Maybe not with the mom who made the initial complaint, but the prosecutors and judges who threw the book at Jesus Castillo were working from an ideological-driven standpoint.
If proceeding a called-in favor from a City Council member friend of the mom who started the stink in the first place, can be considered as “working from an ideological-driven standpoint,” then sure.
The mother making the initial complaint stormed out of the store threatening to put them out of business by contacting her “friend on the City Council.” While a conservative viewpoint was certainly in play in the charges and case as they went forward, it would appear that any charges they felt they could make a case out of would have served.
If I may go back to the original “Funky” thread for a second, I’d like to observe that a comic strip portraying a comic shop owner being arrested for selling an “adult” comic does not add to the problem of over-reaching obsenity laws in America. It is , a cartoon, and therefore, is NOT another incident.
Now since this most likely represents the Georgia case where such a thing actually happened, that I can address. Many times, like with the Kentucky case of the boy with the zombie story, the arresting authority seems pretty clearly to be overstepping bounds, even in regard to the law itself. The Georgia law, if I understand it right, says that “obscene” material may not transferred, and I’m admittedly not taking the time now to go back and look if thats minors or everybody.
The issue here is that a. cops are not lawyers, and may misinterpret laws; b. once they do, DA’s may be playing CYA so the cops don’t look like morons; c. and there are people who honestly don’t want kids getting what they see as morally repugnant material, which is the basis for many of these laws.
One may scream “Censorship!”, and it is, and isn’t appropriate here in America, however, we are looking at people who honestly want to safeguard others and not maniacial hand-wringing villains. Most times, these incidents result in an angry phone call, rather than a visit from the local constabulary. In fact, the reason these things are news is because they are so rare. The ksy is not falling.
And lastly, while I find censorship as frustrating as anybody here, I’ve noted that theres been many references as to the “Bush Amerika” increase in such censorship. I’d like to further note that overactive moralists exist in any age and in both political persuasions. Think back if you will to the days of the PMRC, Tipper Gore and how Ozzy Osbourne was supposedly telling kids to drink themselves to death. All long before anyone had heard of Pres. “W”.
Also getting back to being Funky….err, to the Funky Strip…. it never ends…
Anyway, from what I could tell of the panels, the book sold was on the rack, not in a bin as I had thought, and it was on a top shelf labeled “Adult Comics.”
Just about every shop I’ve been in has had a restricted area set aside for adult comics. And not just the nudy ones. Pretty much all the Epic line was in that space for a while. So, the Funky situation, as depicted, might have some merit if “adult” material was on the shelf in an area where a miner might be able to have unrestricted access to it.
On the other hand, I was in Barnes and Noble last night, and the coffee table book of “50 Years of Playboy” was in the art section. On the shelf next to “How to Draw Anime.” The 50 Years of Playboy book had nudes in it, including full frontal (women only, so far as I could tell). Any decent sized 12 year-old could have reached it.
Of course, I promptly called the police on the store…well, no, actually, I just put it back on the shelf and went about buying birthday cards. If B&N considers it an art book and isn’t worried about displaying it, I’m not.
All these controversies aside (oh, the agony that’s spilled across this blog!), I just want to thank Peter for the Post Intelligencer link… You can read a lot of comics very quickly here and the Post has a really fine selection.
How fun it is to catch up on Snuffy Smith in the “Barney Google” strip. It was great having to explain to my girlfriend that Snuffy and Maw are the strip’s main characters and Barney Google is actually AWOL and hasn’t actually been a major figure in the continuity for decades.
It’s good to see the Parson’s still bumming free meals. And today’s strip (3/9/05) with the flies and frogs must seem positively psychadelic to the average 15 year old.
My one bone of contention– Mark Trail is currently being drawn as a person of “Ryan Seacrest”-like stature. He’s a shell of his former self. This guy used to rassle COUGARS for a livin’! What UP?!?
Oh fer cryin’ out loud…!
One hundred sixty-two posts to this thread and no more than a handful of them about the topic originally posted.
Bobb,
Try Calvinism, it clears up a lot of your conundrum. 🙂 A discussion people do not want to get in here, I assure you.
This is not an argument against gay marriage, let me just preface this comment with that: Why do companies offer health benefits to spouses? Am I in error thinking it was to enable the spouse to stay home and raise the kids (not to mention cover the kids?). Why should a company be compelled to cover a spouse who is quite capable of working? My company covers gay S.O.s, that is one reason why our premiums are pretty high. Why should they when both are capable of working and no children are in the picture? (As I said, that isn’t an argument against gay marriage; it does suggest that companies might want to rethink their policies).
Robbnn, I think most employer health plans cover family members not to enable one to stay home, but because one traditionally did stay home. In the historically traditional family, the wife may have held a part-time job, but once children arrived, it was somewhat expected that she would leave her job and stay home to care for the children. The husband’s health insurance covered her not to allow her to stay home, but because if it didn’t, the husband would have to pay for the insurance on his own, or carry no insurance coverage. I’m betting that if I did some research, I’d find that companies started offering family coverage as a perq to attract employees. Now, everyone does it almost as a standard option.
My work offers both single and family plans. So I pay a little higher premium, but it covers my immediate family, which is one other person of my designation and any of my children, natural or adopted. I think most companies offer similar plans, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. So if a family has 2 full-time workers, they either carry their own insurance, or use whichever policy is better. But often, they also pay a higher premium than a single employee would.
As for covering a gay couple, without children, that’s no different than covering a straight couple with no children. And neither couple is precluded (currently) from adding children in the future. In the case of a couple comprised of gay men, adoption or surrugate birth is always an option. Just as it is for a couple comprised of a man and a woman, or 2 women.
As long as family insurance plans are going to be available, there’s going to be a fluctuation as to what constitutes a family.
Calvinism? You mean the kid with the stuffed tiger? Or the Jeans….
John DiBello wrote:
“Oh fer cryin’ out loud…!
One hundred sixty-two posts to this thread and no more than a handful of them about the topic originally posted.”
John, you read ALL these posts?!?
SADIST!
Why should a company be compelled to cover a spouse who is quite capable of working?
Why should they indeed?
My wife and I work for the same company, and it’s cheaper for us to get our insurance separately, rather than for Individual & Spouse. Which is pretty dámņ lame.
I think the argument is that God must have at least created the capacity for sin. Yes? No?
Yes, the capacity was there. Otherwise we would not have had a free will to make choices. But that is different, at least to me, then saying that God is the author of sin, which is what I thought was being implied.
But I will drop the matter with this since such digressions has forced PAD to start a new thread!
Iowa Jim
>By giving man the ability to make a free choice, then yes, God created the possiblity man could make a bad choice. But that is not the same as God creating sin. God neither forced man to sin, nor did he force man not to sin. That is the essence of belieiving it was an actual free choice.
Would this not fly in the face of the Christian belief that all occurrences are the “will of God”? If this is true then there are no free choices and all things are planned well in advance by the deity, as we carry on through life “according to His plan.”
Yes? No? Maybe?
You can’t be 11703 serious?!?