Bubba Watson Gets Involved in the Gay Professional Athlete Debate

[NM Golf]

This always brings me back to the quote often attributed to Gandhi, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians, they are so unlike your Christ."

[RonTheSavage]

Originally Posted by Kieran123

Well, proof of god's existence is nowhere to be seen - so right off the bat, you are living a life based on myth which is wrong.

Im living a life based on FAITH , not myth.

I guess there's no way to handle this Jason Collins thing without an uncomfortable religious discussion?

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by Kieran123

Quote:

Originally Posted by saevel25

If you take Jesus most profound statement,

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

There isn't much you can go wrong if you do this. If you base your dislike of christianity on the people of the church who decide to live outside this statement, then that is very wrong. I was raised in a roman catholic household. My uncle is very much a hypocritical zealot. Him and I clash. I actually filter his emails to my trash bin because i get to worked up combating him on religious topics. My mom, very devote catholic, is a 180 from my uncle. She lives her life in a chrisitian way, but respects all other's for how they live there life. She doesn't impose her beliefs on others.

Well, proof of god's existence is nowhere to be seen - so right off the bat, you are living a life based on myth which is wrong.

And the preaching has begun.

Not being able to see something is not proof of its nonexistence.   Simple belief in something is not proof of its existence.  All that proves is that even if you can't see it,  you can still believe it.  You can't see sub-atomic particles either, but physicists are pretty darn sure that they exist.

If I take a sealed glass jar and tell that there is air in it, you have to take my word for it because you cant see it.  If I tell you that it is a pure vacuum in the jar, you have to take my word for that too.  It may very well be neither, but you have to take my word on faith if we want an intelligent dialog based on its contents.  There is no way to prove the nonexistence of something just by saying that you haven't seen any proof that it does exist.

[Zeph]

Religion can't be proved and can't be disproved either. You can't compare science to faith by using sub-atomic particles as an example. Same goes with air and vacuum. We can see air and we can see the effects of vacuum. It can in no way be compared to a deity.

[Kieran123]

Originally Posted by 14ledo81

And this is where all religious "arguments" end.

Agreed :)

[Kieran123]

Originally Posted by Fourputt

And the preaching has begun.

Not being able to see something is not proof of its nonexistence.   Simple belief in something is not proof of its existence.  All that proves is that even if you can't see it,  you can still believe it.  You can't see sub-atomic particles either, but physicists are pretty darn sure that they exist.

If I take a sealed glass jar and tell that there is air in it, you have to take my word for it because you cant see it.  If I tell you that it is a pure vacuum in the jar, you have to take my word for that too.  It may very well be neither, but you have to take my word on faith if we want an intelligent dialog based on its contents.  There is no way to prove the nonexistence of something just by saying that you haven't seen any proof that it does exist.

Yes, but you're speaking about a jar with air in it, not 'God almighty'

Big difference between a jar with air in it, and something as extravagant as god.

No one does things in the name of air in a jar. But it would make as much sense if they did

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by 14ledo81

I can't change how anyone believes, but I do believe the same God that made me, made you, and everybody else.

If we ever meet, please don't punch me in the face.  I have seen your my swing thread, and you are much bigger than me.  I would not stand a chance.

LOL ... I should clarify that I was being (extremely) hyperbolic there. ;)  I'm not punching anybody in the face.  Never have, never will.  Also, most of my disdain for that person hinges on her being a mean person and horrible co-worker.  It just so happened that she also was a "Christian."  (The quotes are obviously because regardless of what she says, shes not a very good example of a Christian, based on her actions.)

Anyways, I do have another question for you.  You say homosexuality is a sin, comparable to theft.  (I think that was the example you used)  Most of the examples of sins are pretty obvious and straight-forward, and everybody would agree they are sins because they are hurting somebody.  The person you killed, the person you stole from, etc, etc.  Obviously, homosexuality is not hurting anybody, so I don't think that is a fair comparison.  My question is, can you give any examples of sins that would generally be agreed upon by most people as sins, yet that aren't hurting anybody, similar to homosexuality?

Originally Posted by Fourputt

To all concerned:  Trying to discuss religious beliefs or faith by using logic is illogical.  Having unshakable beliefs based purely on faith instead of hard evidence is illogical, so trying to use logical debating points is fruitless.  The turn the other cheek or do unto others as you would have them philosophy is rarely practiced by those who profess to have the strongest beliefs.  Adherents of both the Bible and Koran have a tendency to pick and choose the passages from those books which best suit their views and ignore those which don't.  Differences which  most of us would (or should) see as insignificant have been the cause of many bloody wars throughout the last 2000 years of our history.

Great post.  You actually deserve two thumbs up for this, I believe, but it won't let me.  Will you settle for two snaps? ;)

Seemed somewhat apropos to the topic.

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by Kieran123

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fourputt

And the preaching has begun.

Not being able to see something is not proof of its nonexistence.   Simple belief in something is not proof of its existence.  All that proves is that even if you can't see it,  you can still believe it.  You can't see sub-atomic particles either, but physicists are pretty darn sure that they exist.

If I take a sealed glass jar and tell that there is air in it, you have to take my word for it because you cant see it.  If I tell you that it is a pure vacuum in the jar, you have to take my word for that too.  It may very well be neither, but you have to take my word on faith if we want an intelligent dialog based on its contents.  There is no way to prove the nonexistence of something just by saying that you haven't seen any proof that it does exist.

Yes, but you're speaking about a jar with air in it, not 'God almighty'

Big difference between a jar with air in it, and something as extravagant as god.

No one does things in the name of air in a jar. But it would make as much sense if they did

I don't really care if they do anything in the name of a jar of air or in the name of God.  My point was that if you can't see something, then you can neither prove nor disprove its existence from that lack of evidence.  Your apparent belief is fairly simplistic.  You have seen no convincing evidence of God's existence, therefore he can't exist in a logical world.  Others believe that the writings in the Bible were divinely inspired, and as such, that is all the proof they need to believe its teachings.  Those Divine teachings exist, so He must exist.  Their logic is irrefutable too, unless you can show concrete proof that He didn't inspire the authors of the Bible.

You make this flippant statement, smugly confident that you are smarter than those who believe in God, because you believe that your logic is more pure than theirs.  However, your belief is based solely on a lack of evidence, while theirs is based on tangible evidence.  That actually puts them on a firmer footing than you.  They have faith in the Book, while you have put your faith in nothing.  In your case it isn't a jar of air, it is simply an empty jar.

[14ledo81]

Originally Posted by NM Golf

This always brings me back to the quote often attributed to Gandhi, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians, they are so unlike your Christ."

No doubt they would be different.  Christ himself was perfect.  The only living person to fulfill God's law.

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

Anyways, I do have another question for you.  You say homosexuality is a sin, comparable to theft.  (I think that was the example you used)  Most of the examples of sins are pretty obvious and straight-forward, and everybody would agree they are sins because they are hurting somebody.  The person you killed, the person you stole from, etc, etc.  Obviously, homosexuality is not hurting anybody, so I don't think that is a fair comparison.  My question is, can you give any examples of sins that would generally be agreed upon by most people as sins, yet that aren't hurting anybody, similar to homosexuality?

How about bestiality?  (although I guess you could say that harms the animal??)

Premarital sex?

Looking at porn?

Having evil thoughts about someone? (not acted upon, kind of like wanting to punch someone in the face )

I actually do not think that homosexuality (in certain ways) does not "hurt" anybody.  It may not physically hurt, but it goes back to the point I raised about society beginning to "ok" these things.  I believe as some of these sins become more commonplace, it can hurt someones faith.

[Rick Martin]

Originally Posted by Rick Martin

Other than Brian Gay

I wonder if the PGA Tour has any gay golfers, past or present.

tried to keep it tour related

[Zeph]

I don't really care if they do anything in the name of a jar of air or in the name of God.  My point was that if you can't see something, then you can neither prove nor disprove its existence from that lack of evidence.  Your apparent belief is fairly simplistic.  You have seen no convincing evidence of God's existence, therefore he can't exist in a logical world.  Others believe that the writings in the Bible were divinely inspired, and as such, that is all the proof they need to believe its teachings.  Those Divine teachings exist, so He must exist.  Their logic is irrefutable too, unless you can show concrete proof that He didn't inspire the authors of the Bible.   You make this flippant statement, smugly confident that you are smarter than those who believe in God, because you believe that your logic is more pure than theirs.  However, your belief is based solely on a lack of evidence, while theirs is based on tangible evidence.  That actually puts them on a firmer footing than you.  They have faith in the Book, while you have put your faith in nothing.  In your case it isn't a jar of air, it is simply an empty jar.

Again. You CAN see air. And we're not putting our faith in a jar of air. We don't put our faith in anything actually, but we can see air, and it's existence is proven.

[cipher]

Originally Posted by NM Golf

This always brings me back to the quote often attributed to Gandhi, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians, they are so unlike your Christ."

There is misrepresentation in any faith, I caution against forming a consensus about any belief or faith based on limited experience within such a group.

Also in regards to the other posts, the metaphors are pointless, either you believe the cosmos always was or you believe God always was.  What difference does it make for anyone here to say that one is a myth or a fact when either conclusion takes an leap of faith.

Any faith has certain subjects of morality some things are right and some our wrong.  Because Bubs spoke to his view as it relates to his faith, does not mean he is commenting in a bad way on that persons "choice" or the way they were "born".  The difference does not matter to me.

You can see by my capital letters what I believe, but we each have our own convictions about what we believe.  Why on a golf forum do we need to put a wedge between belief systems or personal choices.  The Gandhi quote is correct in some sense but it does not have to be that way, and it is no different for any other faith/believe to be misrepresented.

[Love-13]

Out of curiosity, what is ignored?

I wouldn't say that there is a lot ignored from the bible, just simply that all Christian religions change what they use as true doctorin in the bible based on the world and social views changing. A few examples of what I'm talking about are as follows: First and foremost probably the biggest one people can relate to is marriage vows and how women are viewed. Traditional marriage vows are taken straight out of the bible, and there is one key phrase that ultimately describes a woman's role in a marriage and in life that has been altered. It is "to honor and OBEY thy husband" this is how it reads in the bible, because a woman's job in those days was to stay home cook clean and do anything that was asked of their husband. They were property, they were not allowed to think for themselves(the term "free thinking women" described witches a few thousand years ago and they were burned at the stake), they just did what was asked of them. As the world changed and women were viewed in the world as equals, those words were changed to "honor and LOVE thy husband" because women were finally viewed as individuals Another is blacks were never allowed rankings in Christian religions. They were descendants of Kane who was a mortal sinner and was punished by god. Then when the world started viewing all races equal, all of the sudden all races in Christian religions were viewed as equal as well. Now I know the argument on that is that god felt that Kane's descendants had been punished enough and he decided to lift their punishment, so we will just leave that one as a draw. Another that was mentioned earlier was keeping the sabbath day holy. No working, or playing, simply a day of worship and relaxing. This has just been basically set aside without explanation because there is no other religious reason that this can change other than the world demands work on Sunday now a days and if most are working then the ones that are not should be able to play. I could go on and on, but I think you catch my drift. And don't take me as a Christian basher, or an atheist, I'm not. I do believe in Christ and god. I don't believe in organized religion because I feel it's done more harm than good to the world. I know some people need the structure in their lives of religion to service so I respect people's beliefs and reasons behind them, I justfeel that when Christ created his "church" he meant not to prosecute anyone who didn't believe in him or god, he just simply meant to encourage people to live a life of love and respect for others. He wanted his followers to set an example not to necessarily to recruit people to his beliefs but to recruit people to his morals and way of life. To love everyone, to lend a hand, to help and teach others your strengths that may be their weaknesses. Not to judge. That all people whether black, white, Hispanic, Asian, male, female, child or adult are all equals. I do believe in a higher power, I just don't believe necessarily that anyone actually speaks to them. I don't believe the president of the church I was brought up in or the pope or any other prophet actually speaks to god. Simply put all Christian religions are political, they all get together and discuss changes to the faith and hot topics that may need changes in the faith to keep their church together so people won't leave their religion because their religion doesn't believe the things that popular social acceptance does. It has happened many times in the past and will continue to happen in the future. And it will happen with gays and gay marriage, 5, 10, 20 maybe 50 years in the future when the world has finally accepted gays, the religions will follow. There will always be some radicals that will never get on board just like some racists out there but overall popular acceptance will win out in the end. Wow what a discussion to jump in on for my first post haha. I was just gonna jump in on a post and introduce myself and this was the first thread I came to haha. So anyway, my name is Corey, I am new here just signed up last night. I live in utah, I joined here because I do a lot of random searches online golf related and I end up here quite a bit reading through threads and it seems to be good discussion and some good people who have great insight and enjoy helping others and giving opinions and support on adventures etc. I'm an avid golfer, been a single digit handicap for awhile now, but just don't get to play enough to get to that scratch goal that I've had for so long. But I just love the game so since I'm not able to play all that often I love to read about the game and how others are doing with it, watch golf, and golf movies of course, give my friends tips after their rounds to help them improve and enjoy the game as I do. My ultimate goal is to become a scratch golfer and help a buddy of mine that's an vid golfer who is probably a 20-25 handicap get to single digits. He can hit the ball so far, he crushes me off the tee, but needs a lot of help with his short game, consistency and most importantly course management. He updates me after every round he plays and he's already broke 90 this year after I told him to stop playing so aggressively, lay up play to the center of the greens not the pin etc. Not sure why I included all that about my friend, maybe cause I have yet to play this year so my only access to the golf world this year has been helping him improve haha. Anyway, just wanted to say hi, and hopefully I didn't make any enemies with my first post. I love debate as long as you can keep emotion out of it, and religion is one of those topics that's hard to keep emotion out, so I was kind of surprised by the thread but since it all started with bubba, I guess it's golf related. Anyway, hi, I hope to have a lot more good discussions and insights with everyone here.

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by 14ledo81

How about bestiality?  (although I guess you could say that harms the animal??)

Yes, you could say that it harms the animal.  Bestiality is comparable to pedophilia, in that the animal (or child) is a victim.  They have no say in the matter.

Originally Posted by 14ledo81

Premarital sex?

Fair enough.

Originally Posted by 14ledo81

Looking at porn?

You watch your mouth! (I am apparently a sinner of the highest order)

Originally Posted by 14ledo81

Having evil thoughts about someone? (not acted upon, kind of like wanting to punch someone in the face)

Or like wishing that they suppressed who they were to make you feel better about the world?  Not acted upon, I agree, that's not hurting anybody.  But telling gay people they are sinners, telling them they should pretend to be something they aren't, telling them they don't deserve the rights of others, those are all actions and can be hurtful.

[Ernest Jones]

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

Obviously, homosexuality is not hurting anybody,

Well it might have stung a bit the first time.

On a more serious note,  gay people are just people. I know a bunch who I can't stand, I know a bunch who I really like (actually some that love as they are close friends) and I know a bunch who I am indifferent about. Kinda like all other people.

As to whether they are born gay or become gay, who the hell cares?

I certainly don't worry too much about them turning the rest of the world gay. LOL.

[mvmac]

Originally Posted by Rick Martin

I wonder if the PGA Tour has any gay golfers, past or present.

I would be very, very surprised if there haven't been.

Originally Posted by iacas

Personally, I don't really care. They're people too, and should be afforded the same rights and privileges as every other human being. As we move farther and farther from religion as the basis for our laws, the better in this type of situation.

Very much my viewpoint as well.

Originally Posted by iacas

I encourage you to actually read about it. "Choice" can be defined a bunch of ways, but in many cases, I think you could actually be wrong. Not the majority, but many. I didn't define "early" but in some people it's not until their early teens, from some of the things I've read recently (I'm somewhat interested because if it WAS genetic, that should completely end the debate as far as I'm concerned, but alas, it's not, and I tend to lean Republican, but on this issue most of them are off their rockers).

From what I've read, sexuality can be linked to various factors: utero development, genetics or hormones, in some cases environmental reasons.  Some studies have been able to find a gene linked to reproductive behavior that governs sexual preference in female mice.  So there's not one definitive answer but trends, favoring biological over environmental.  I get biological is not the same as genetic.

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by Zeph

Again. You CAN see air. And we're not putting our faith in a jar of air. We don't put our faith in anything actually, but we can see air, and it's existence is proven.

Now I think you're just being pedantic.  His point stands.  You can't prove something doesn't exist just because you can't see it.

Kinda reminds me of ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_a_tree_falls_in_a_forest

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by Zeph

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fourputt

I don't really care if they do anything in the name of a jar of air or in the name of God.  My point was that if you can't see something, then you can neither prove nor disprove its existence from that lack of evidence.  Your apparent belief is fairly simplistic.  You have seen no convincing evidence of God's existence, therefore he can't exist in a logical world.  Others believe that the writings in the Bible were divinely inspired, and as such, that is all the proof they need to believe its teachings.  Those Divine teachings exist, so He must exist.  Their logic is irrefutable too, unless you can show concrete proof that He didn't inspire the authors of the Bible.

You make this flippant statement, smugly confident that you are smarter than those who believe in God, because you believe that your logic is more pure than theirs.  However, your belief is based solely on a lack of evidence, while theirs is based on tangible evidence.  That actually puts them on a firmer footing than you.  They have faith in the Book, while you have put your faith in nothing.  In your case it isn't a jar of air, it is simply an empty jar.

Again. You CAN see air. And we're not putting our faith in a jar of air. We don't put our faith in anything actually, but we can see air, and it's existence is proven.

If I put a clear, sealed jar in front of you, how can you tell me what it contains?  Or doesn't contain?  If you can see air under those conditions than you have the best eyesight in the history of eyes.  I'm not talking about atmosphere, with water vapor and dust and other impurities.  It's either pure, filtered air, or 99.999999999% vacuum.  You can't say if there is something there or not unless you believe what I tell you.  People look at religion in the same way.

A Christian sees the Bible as the divine word of God because he has been told that this is so and he believes the minister who told him - he sees it by his faith.  The atheist sees the Bible as a book written by a bunch of superstitious ancients who lacked the education to properly understand and interpret what they were seeing - he sees it by logic.  For all we know from the available, tangible evidence, they could both be right, or they could both be wrong.  Or the truth could lie somewhere in the middle.  Both believe just as strongly in the rightness of their viewpoint.  No amount of rhetoric will sway those beliefs.  And since no proof seems to be forthcoming, I don't see any resolution to this debate.