The "NO" Case in the Australian SSM Debate

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ATraveller said:
Let me clarify. It’s not a Church of God. A church of the State? Then yes.
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How exactly is the Vatican City and the Papal States prior to that not a Church of a State? You don’t surely think the Church wasn’t anything more than a convenient vehicle for aspiring politicians in the renaissance etc. Suggesting Popes like Julius II were inspired by faith is to me quite funny.
ATraveller said:
Then it’s not a church of God. Not part of the Body of Christ.
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The Church of Sweden likewise on an official level considers the Catholic Church in equally unfavorable terms and it’s members who follow the teachings (As opposed to Cultural Catholics) to be sinful individuals among other things, so again they make a rather nice parallel.
 
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Verdanty said:
How exactly is the Vatican City and the Papal States prior to that not a Church of a State?
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I didn’t mention anything about the Vatican or Papal States.
Verdanty said:
The Church of Sweden likewise on an official level considers the Catholic Church in equally unfavorable terms and it’s members who follow the teachings (As opposed to Cultural Catholics) to be sinful individuals among other things, so again they make a rather nice parallel.
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By their fruits we should be able to see if they are truly Christian. Not seeing much in fruits of Faith from the ‘Church’ of Sweden but tons of fruits of despising God.
 
ATraveller said:
I didn’t mention anything about the Vatican or Papal States.
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You sniped at the Church of Sweden being an arm of the Swedish state. I likewise indicated that your Church is under the thumb of a state, several actually since if the Dubia crisis has shown us anything it’s how much clout the German party has in the Pope being so unwilling to speak out against them.
ATraveller said:
By their fruits we should be able to see if they are truly Christian. Not seeing much in fruits of Faith from the ‘Church’ of Sweden but tons of fruits of despising God.
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And what does your opinion mean exactly? The Church of Sweden doctrinally considers Catholics to be bad Christians, among the worst actually since I don’t believe the claim that the Pope is the Pontiff of Satan has ever been recanted.

As far as they’re concerned your faith is in vain and deeply immoral too. You think they’re sinners, they think you’re a sinner. Doesn’t this just stand as proof that the idea that we shouldn’t ensure religious convictions should be enshrined above the rights of individuals is to not put too fine a point on it is not going to work to your benefit?
Joe1 said:
I’m confused, what are you guys arguing about?
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The main case in the Australian SSM case is that the rights of believers (i.e: Their dislike and unwillingness to aknowledge same sex relationships) should be enshrined above a gay couples freedom to marry.

I’ve shown an example where this logic is going to lead to a very bad place, in Sweden the supreme Church is pro same sex marriage and declares clergy who refuse to perform them grave sinners. Likewise in turn the goverment in an effort to respect and promote the religious convictions of the State religion is taking action against individuals who do not agree with the religious convictions of the Church of Sweden, by sacking and denying services to people who do not agree with it’s moral tenants; exactly what the Catholic Church and other assorted conservative denominations want to do in Australia today.

TL;DR: “It must be law because my religion” is not a good argument, because as believers sometimes discover all too late is that the majority religious conviction that carries the day isn’t always what they want and they may find letting people who they disagree with do their own thing is likely preferable to another religious majority ramming their beliefs down their throat.
 
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Rau said:
To what right do you refer?
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Typo, I meant to say “shouldn’t”. I mean I’m assuming that posters does not agree that the Church of Sweden should be using it’s power to ensure that people who don’t agree with same sex marriage should be fired from their jobs for breaching moral codes? They don’t agree with that, but they still want the Catholic Church to be allowed to do exactly the same thing?

Considering that Catholicism is not the largest religious group in Australia…Yeah that’s not going to work out very well for you guys in the long haul when the majority starts to use that right to conviction on you guys.
 
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Verdanty said:
As far as they’re concerned your faith is in vain and deeply immoral too. You think they’re sinners, they think you’re a sinner. Doesn’t this just stand as proof that the idea that we should ensure religious convictions should be enshrined above the rights of individuals is to not put too fine a point on it is not going to work to your benefit?
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I don’t care what they think of me. They should care what God thinks and He’s quite clear about those who claim to be ‘Christian’ and rebel openly against Him.
 
ATraveller said:
I don’t care what they think of me. They should care what God thinks and He’s quite clear about those who claim to be ‘Christian’ and rebel openly against Him.
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Many of them do care what God thinks, and they think Catholics are offensive to him. Again, Australian Catholics want to force their religious convictions on the masses. Rau above who posted that link to the Church of Sweden article suggested it was somehow wrong what the Swedish Church was doing (imposing it’s beliefs upon the masses) when the Catholic Church does exactly the same thing on a much wider scale.
 
Verdanty said:
The Church of Sweden is merely exercising autocratic power as the Catholic Church does within its own institutions.
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As I noted earlier, if that is the case, then the debate is moot. If the “State” is instructing the Church, that’s a different matter. But if the Church of Sweden is an organ of the State, there is no analogy to the circumstances typical in other countries.

I presume there is no likelihood of the government requiring the Catholic Church in Sweden to change its objections to SSM?
 
Verdanty said:
Rau above who posted that link to the Church of Sweden article suggested it was somehow wrong what the Swedish Church was doing (imposing it’s beliefs upon the masses) when the Catholic Church does exactly the same thing on a much wider scale.
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This is false. I objected to the Government telling the Priests what they must do. You later explained that the Church of Sweden is essentially an organ of the Government. That changes the situation entirely in the context of the thread.

A Church deciding to introduce SSM as an integral part of its practice, and then requiring its Priests to conform is not particularly newsworthy.
 
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Verdanty said:
I’ve shown an example where this logic is going to lead to a very bad place, in Sweden the supreme Church is pro same sex marriage and declares clergy who refuse to perform them grave sinners.
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Where does this church get it’s authority, teachings and right to even do this? Do they even believe in Jesus and God? There is only one Church that Christ created with only one form of marriage (Between a man and a woman).
 
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And the yes side just hit back against the schools argument with a tv ad.

I wonder what nick will vote
 
Joe1 said:
Where does this church get it’s authority, teachings and right to even do this? Do they even believe in Jesus and God?
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Same place you get it, tradition and a really old book with a variety of authors and editions of it.
Joe1 said:
There is only one Church that Christ created with only one form of marriage (Between a man and a woman).
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They agree there’s one church as well, the community of believers which all Christians are in; even the ones such as Catholics that they think are entirely wrong.

They think that the form of marriage, like many Protestants elsewhere, isn’t so great a concern since it is not a sacrament and has taken a variety of forms across time. There have been plenty of Gods chosen faithful with vast hordes of concubines (and some quite frankly rather homoerotic passages on David David and Jonathan - Wikipedia) which suggest to them marriage is not eternal neither found in one format alone.

I should add I don’t buy into any of this, I think both you and they are wrong and it’s quite frankly sad. To me this would be like trying to use the Aenid to try to decide what I was going to have for dinner tonight (which, was actually a thing in the middle ages when people thought the Aenid held prophetic powers because they mistook a passage we now to to describe Augustus as one heralding the coming of Jesus). On that point they agree with me books can be read entirely wrong, as they would think you are currently doing so,
 
Verdanty said:
Same place you get it, tradition and a really old book with a variety of authors and editions of it.
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Oh. I see. Your telling me their church was around 2000 years ago with an Apostolic Succession that goes all the way to St. Peter? Who Christ gave his Church too.
Verdanty said:
They think that the form of marriage, like many Protestants elsewhere, isn’t so great a concern since it is not a sacrament and has taken a variety of forms across time. There have been plenty of Gods chosen faithful with vast hordes of concubines (and some quite frankly rather homoerotic passages on David David and Jonathan - Wikipedia) which suggest to them marriage is not eternal neither found in one format alone.
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David did not have a homosexual relationship with Jonathan. Read the Bible. Also God created the format of marriage at the dawn of time. Christ even said the same thing, that marriage is between a man and a woman.
 
Indeed, the reason it makes the news because despite being rather depleated, and the claims of an Islamic takeover (not an insignificant increase in the population I agree, but still a small minority) this is really the only religion of any consequence in Sweden.

It may be hard for Americans to picture this in perspective but Catholicism is less than 1% of the Swedish population, and there are very few Swedes actually in it; it’s almost entirely immigrants from predominately Catholic states like Poland. The Church of Sweden was the only real power against Same Sex Marriage, and now that it insists resistance to it is a sin there is no acceptable excuse for “religious” individuals to object to it. The others are essentially viewed as rather odd cults and don’t enjoy the same level of pandering and respect shown to as the Church of Sweden’s authorities sometimes require from the politicians.

TL;DR: The case is newsworthy to an extent because there it finally puts the lid on the issue once and for all, not unlike the same way to suggest interracial marriage might be wrong would elicit negative reactions from all sides.
 
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Joe1 said:
David did not have a homosexual relationship with Jonathan. Read the Bible. Also God created the format of marriage at the dawn of time. Christ even said the same thing, that marriage is between a man and a woman
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Which part of “I don’t believe this” wasn’t…Nevermind.

God created marriage between one man and a harem, and then one man and one woman. He’s changed it once I find it no great shock that some of his followers might feel another change could be in the works, or indeed that the link I posted was feasible.
 
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