@Jimmy Jones
>>get back to me if you still think you deserve an apology.<<
I never said I thought I deserved an apology. Neither would I have to apologise for addressing homosexuals in a language similar to what you used when referring to us for the simple reason that I would never use such language.

@George...

>> I never said I thought I deserved an apology.

Maybe not, but you sure seemed a bit huffy at the suggestion that your brain is disordered!

Why bother retorting with your little list of clever Catholics if you didn't think my comments were unfair?

>> Neither would I have to apologise for addressing homosexuals in a language similar to what you used when referring to us for the simple reason that I would never use such language.

The actual language and whether you'd use it personally is immaterial. You profess loyalty to the Catholic church, and I find the Catholic church an evil organisation that is waging a propaganda war against people like me, and doing real harm to the lives of real people... people who aren't even interested in your little club and it's naff rules!

Therefore, you are my enemy. What part of that don't you get?

The thing I don't understand is why you seem surprised that Catholics are so despised.

Is as though you think you don't deserve to be scorned, as though you're good people or something, and not a member of a force for evil!?

Deluded.

@Jimmy Jones
>>The actual language and whether you'd use it personally is immaterial.<<
As I indicated, this is the gist of where we differ, which has nothing to do with religion and sexual orientation.

Dear Jimmy Jones,

Nobody on this list including you is my enemy although I probably disagree to some extent with everyone on the list.

Evil and Good are theological categories. Force for evil is what one would call Manichaean thinking. You're either with me or against me. I would rather not think in theological categories but recognise the humanity in all humans. I don't care for any religion as I cannot accept supernatural entities of any sort. However, at one time I did. If I were to condemn people for accepting a religion then I would have to condemn my ancestors and my younger self.

On both sides of every barricade are human beings. It's often a matter of chance on which side we find ourselves.

@david f

>> "Evil and Good are theological categories."
I disagree they're necessarily theological categories. I find that organised religion (the Catholic church in particular) is malignant and immoral, without having to appeal to anything more than common sense.

I could write tomes on how and why, but let's start with the fact that since they all can't be true, the preponderance of lies and false hope promulgated by the lion's share of religion in the world is the very epitome of a "malignancy".

Or just to be fair, I should simply exercise the prerogative of the religious themselves, and proclaim that my vision of morality is the absolutely correct one, no question about it because I believe it so. Sauce for the goose, remember?

>> "Force for evil is what one would call Manichaean thinking. You're either with me or against me. I would rather not think in theological categories but recognise the humanity in all humans."

False dichotomy aside, I used to think like that too. But there is an organisation out there which is zealously striving to perpetuate stigma against homosexual people in society, and to have the government legislate with respect to their anti-gay theocracy.

And they are beyond reason.

Now, in my book that constitutes an enemy.

>> "I don't care for any religion as I cannot accept supernatural entities of any sort. However, at one time I did. If I were to condemn people for accepting a religion then I would have to condemn my ancestors and my younger self."

Not necessarily. I don't think a child's an idiot for believing in Santa Claus - they nearly all do. If a grown man (or a modern man) is still convinced by an obvious fiction, then there's something not right with his brain.

>> "On both sides of every barricade are human beings. It's often a matter of chance on which side we find ourselves."

Often, sure. But it takes a special kind of person to have the temerity to think you have the mandate to make everyone behave according to your own spiritual best-guesses.

Dear Jimmy Jones,

You wrote: "But it takes a special kind of person to have the temerity to think you have the mandate to make everyone behave according to your own spiritual best-guesses."

You have no reason to think that George or any Catholic in general is that sort of person. Apparently you are seeing a person as an enemy because of acts the group he belongs to has committed.

Several years ago a man said to me, "You are not going to like what I have to say." Then he launched into an attack on George Bush 2. He assumed that because I am an American I then must bear the responsibility for what Dubya did whether or not I approve of Dubya. I am an American. However, that does not mean I should be found guilty for whatever my country does.

I plead guilty to wanting to make everyone behave according to my spiritual best-guesses. I would like everyone to accept people as individuals and not regard them as an enemy because of the group they belong to.