Existential Punk

Adele & Peter: Queer & Christian: Conversation 7

Peter says, 'Here, Adele shares more of her painful experiences with ex-gay ministries, how she attended Pat Robertson's Regent University (TRULY!), and how these experiences nearly led her to suicide...'

In the next segment, i ask PETER a few questions! So, STAY TUNED! Adele

UN Gay Rights Declaration To Be Signed By Us, FINALLY!

FINALLY, President Obama is doing something tangible to help the LGBTQ community at large world-wide by formally endorsing 'a U.N. statement calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality, a measure that former President George W. Bush had refused to sign.' Not that i have much hope in the UN enforcing this as they are not very successful in keeping the slaughter of innocents in Africa and elsewhere from happening, but it is a step in the right direction. At least it is way more than Bush EVER did for our community!

Read the entire article at Huffington Post.

Language And The Essence Of Morality

It is always interesting to me when Christians, whether conservative, liberal, or somewhere in between (i REALLY hate labels but sometimes they are a necessary evil to bring home a point of view.) use things, like Scripture, to perpetuate a belief system. In regards to Scripture interpretation i think we must realize we bring our own personal stories, experiences, culture, etc. to the process. i know from living in western culture i bring that to the table when those from Biblical days had no idea what our western culture was at that time. It amazes me that we do not use the entire capacity of our brains and we think we have G-D and all G-D's ways and intentions figured out. It's arrogant considering we actually only use about 10% of our brain capacity. To explicitly say we have G-D all figured out is to our detriment in my opinion!

So, i really began thinking about this after posting comments on some blogs recently and once again when this came in my Google Reader this morning. This is a REALLY interesting piece and i hope you will read it with an open mind and ruminate on it a while, allowing it to marinate in the juices of your soul. HT Andrew Sullivan:

Patrick Tucker searches for the essence of morality:

According to Hauser, the human brain learns right from wrong the same way it learns language. The vast majority of the world’s languages share at least one thing in common: a system of guidelines for usage. This is called grammar. Just as languages have rules about where to put a subject, an adverb, and a predicate in a sentence, so too every culture has a set of guidelines to teach people how to make moral decisions in different situations. So just as learning a language means learning not only words, but also a system for putting the words together, the same is true for morality; there are very specific “commandments” that are unique to every culture, but there are also softer usage guidelines. People who have mastered the moral guidelines of their particular culture have what some might call principles or scruples. Hauser calls this a moral grammar.