The Upside to a Religious Upbringing

November 8, 2009 By Guest Contributor 15 Comments

Sex columnist Dan Savage explains the benefits of having a religious upbringing.

As usual, he’s a joy to listen to:

(via Atheist Media Blog)

Filed Under: General, GLBT 15 Comments
  • http://spsein.blogspot.com/ Gabriel G.

    Unfortunately, people will see this and just say, “oh but that part wasn’t meant to be taken literally,” ignorant of the idiocy in that statement.

  • P

    Excellent excellent excellent.
    Thanks for starting my day off in a good mood, HM!

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/gettingfreeftw gettingfree

    Nice video.

    This makes me think of this other classic example of hypocrisy from a bible-quoter…

    http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/10/16/cherrypicking-illustrated/

    … priceless.

  • maddogdelta

    That video is so full of win! Thanks for finding and sharing it!

  • cathy

    Wow Dan Savage made it through two and a half minutes without saying something racist. That has to be some kind of record.

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  • Bethor

    @Cathy

    Wow Dan Savage made it through two and a half minutes without saying something racist. That has to be some kind of record.

    I’ll admit I only know the guy via his Savage Love column but… what ? I wasn’t aware of him regularly voicing racist ideas.

  • http://friendlyatheist.com Beth

    Kick-ass. He’s exactly right.

  • Twin-Skies

    @Bethor

    Maybe she has him mistaken for Michael Savage?

  • sc0tt

    I’ll admit I only know the guy via his Savage Love column but… what ? I wasn’t aware of him regularly voicing racist ideas.

    He blamed the African American community for anti same-sex marriage legislation – he wasn’t the only one, it was a rather popular topic on radio talk shows. The theme went something like this: the genpop was marginally in favor of same sex marriage but black support was much lower – therefore it was their fault Prop 8 passed et c.

    It wasn’t a well-thought out position (he retracted the article), but the racist label is undeserved.

  • muggle

    Wow, a variation on the challenge I like to throw out to Christians: read the buybull cover to cover 5 times in a row, skipping nothing and without guidance from your religious reader.

    I do that because everyone I’ve ever known who has has lost their faith by the third read, except one whose doubts kicked in on the fourth.

    Hmmm, I read it as a teenager too.

    Love this, because it drives me nuts when you call them out on some ridiculous law in the OT and they say it doesn’t apply because of Jebus but sure remain fond of the big 10 and hating gays.

  • http://www.banalleakage.com martymankins

    Twin Skies beat me to my comment to Cathy mistaking Dan Savage for Michael Savage.

    Dan makes a valid and very excellent point about the pick and choose method, based on people’s prejudices.

    I’ve read the bible from cover to cover at least a few times growing up in religion. It’s meant to offer suggestions on how to live your life, not to be a literal word-for-word on how to live and how to treat others.

    FWIW, Dan’s comparison of the African-American lack of support at the voting booth and some people’s positions during the Prop 8 vote in Calif actually had some good points to it. His point was that black people had to fight for marriage rights at some point and why wouldn’t they support others in their fight for marriage rights.

    I admit it came out a bit judgmental, and Dan could have voiced it better, but I got the point he was trying to make.

  • Spurs Fan

    The comeback I usually deal with is when Christians scrap the OT by mentioning that Paul still lists homosexuality as a sin in the NT. Usually my response points them to Paul’s view on women not being allowed to speak in church. Typically, their response is “Well, at that time, Christians were having problems with gossping…” and then we let the “I guess I don’t believe everything applies in the Bible applies to my life” discussion.

    Small steps.

  • Eliza

    @martymankins

    Dan makes a valid and very excellent point about the pick and choose method, based on people’s prejudices.

    I’ve read the bible from cover to cover at least a few times growing up in religion. It’s meant to offer suggestions on how to live your life, not to be a literal word-for-word on how to live and how to treat others.

    I can just see the subtitle now: “The Holy Bible: Some Suggestions You Might Want to Follow.”

    Clearly, many people would disagree with your assessment of the purpose of the Bible, Marty.

    How is a believer supposed to decide how closely he/she should follow the Bible?

  • BlueRidgeLady (Formerly Anonymouse)

    I didn’t see the statistic on which ethnic group was included as responsible for Yes On 8, however, it’s widely known that it was because of religious folks. Many of these people are Mormon (who have racist ideology themselves, and I do not believe any self-respecting black person would be a Mormon, but there are a few). But is it wrong to also mention the rest of the evangelical community? It would make sense that African American evangelical community was largely responsible, if more African Americans were at the polls than ever before?

    The thing is, there’s no way to prove either way. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING wrong with pointing out the struggles between one group in need of civil rights and another. The best way to go about discussing Yes on 8 is to say that bigot religious people were intent on not granting American freedoms to American citizens. Discussing whether those bigots happened to be black (which would make it hypocritical {a typical Christian virtue}, since black people have had to fight so hard for their rights in this country) isn’t really going to help the situation or lead to a constructive discussion of why Prop 8 was wrong.

    Once again, I am looking up the actual text of the racist comments..so if someone wants to enlighten me please go ahead.