At the risk of going down an off-topic rabbit hole...
There really is only irony if this god actually hates gays (I'm assuming we're talking about your usual run of the mill Abrahamic deity). It may well be that Tim's theology is a bit more sophisticated.
Sure, isn't that what every believer does, picks out the parts they like and ignore the ones they don't, showing once more they are their own moral guide and they know better than their god what is good and what is not. I wouldn't go as far as call it sophisticated. Sophisticated would be seeing the bronze age ramblings for bullshit that it is and devoting your life to learning what we actually do know of the universe we live in.
But of course this is USA, where pandering to the religious is a must for any public figure, even if they don't agree with it themselves.
> I wouldn't go as far as call it sophisticated. Sophisticated would be seeing the bronze age ramblings for bullshit that it is and devoting your life to learning what we actually do know of the universe we live in.
I don't know about you super_mario, but it looks like Tim is doing a pretty good job with respect to learning about the universe we live in. On the face of it, certainly better than me.
Also, I don't have a dog in this fight, but it may not be a matter of 'knowing better than their god'. It may be that his interpretation of whatever holy books he has read has given him whatever his beliefs are, like every other Christian. Those beliefs however, may well not be at odds with what you assume. We can't say his beliefs are bronze age bullshit - we don't know what they are so we're particularly badly placed to judge, even if judging in this situation was somehow valuable. We would just be adding another belief to the stack which helps no-one.
When ever I hear people speak of god doing something for them, I immediately lose respect for the person. I always hope that perhaps one day they will grow up to the full stature of our species and use the very thing that makes us human, our reason instead of relying on now debunked lies our ancestor apes 2 chromosomes away from chimpanzee invented for themselves to appease, control and understand nature they feared.
> Sure, isn't that what every believer does, picks out the parts they like and ignore the ones they don't, showing once more they are their own moral guide and they know better than their god what is good and what is not.
That doesn't show that. Picking out the parts of what other people say about God that resonate with them and ignoring the parts that do not isn't saying that they know more than God about what is good, but that they trust themselves more than other people about what is good -- and about what God is trying to say.
And very many religious groups stress the importance of personal conscience (though those with strong authority structures often also declare that any person who is really listening to their conscience will come to the same conclusions as the authority does.)
Exactly. Keep in mind that the people insisting that homosexuality is such a terrible sin are putting quite a bit of their own spin on the bible. If you were to determine the contents on the bible based on what a certain brand of American Christian talks about, you'd think it all revolves around Genesis 1 and some bits of Leviticus. The entire New Testament is nowhere in sight.
There really is only irony if this god actually hates gays (I'm assuming we're talking about your usual run of the mill Abrahamic deity). It may well be that Tim's theology is a bit more sophisticated.