“The Manhattan Declaration is an over 4,000-word statement of beliefs signed by over 400,000 people described as ‘a call to Christian conscience’ crafted in 2009. The app version, which includes a four-question poll on same sex marriage and abortion, launched in mid-October,” Martinelli reports. “A spokesperson for the Christian organization told the Daily Caller that the group is appealing Apple’s decision. ‘We’re making the argument that if [Jobs] would take a look at the Manhattan Declaration himself, he’d see it’s not written with any rancor. It’s written on a very even keel..] It’s just appealing to things that people want to come together on, that millions of Americans agree on.'”
Full article here.
Billy Atwell blogs for The Manhattan Declartation, “There are moments in non-profit work, if your goal is to spark social change, when you feel comfortable knowing that your methods are effective. One of those moments is when your radicalized opponents lambast you as homophobic, anti-choice, anti-woman, or something similar. I do not find comfort in these words, or find them in any way accurate, but appreciate that the message of truth is at least reaching their ears.”
“The Manhattan Declaration iPhone application was released October 14, 2010 as a resource to our loyal supporters,” Atwell writes. “But to a radicalized blog dedicated to promoting abortion, denigrating the dignity of women and the unborn, and supporting unnatural unions, this application is the scourge of human existence. What does that tell me? It tells me that we’re doing something right.”
Full article here.
The Manhattan declaration can be read in full here.
You say you believe in God? Aren’t you a bit old to have an invisible friend?
HELP ME JEEBUS !!!
seriously.. leave the app up..
whatever you want to believe in is cool by me, as long as no one is being hurt, and your not pushing your beliefs on me or my family.
And for those of you who dare doubt the power of faith….
Homerism has been good to me.
mmmmm… forbidden donut… aaaaggghhhh
“It’s just appealing to things that people want to come together on, that millions of Americans agree on.”
How did 400,000 suddenly become millions? It seems the spokesperson for The Manhattan Declaration has as poor a grasp of mathematics as he does of logic.
But then it’s standard practice for such groups to claim to speak for everyone whether or not they have everyone’s permission to do so. Well, I suppose if you claim to have a direct line to God, you can justify anything — and they never hesitate to do it!
“There are intelligent, educated people who are Christians”
There are also intelligent people who smoke. So what does that tell you.
Don’t like the message? Ban it.
Just like ol’ Mike, the gay Apple user. really dude. Shut the hell up. Live your life how you want. But you are in a huge MINORITY. The masses don’t have to condone NOR accept your lifestyle.
That section reeks of the same screaming ignorance embodied by the shrill cries of “death panels” that we heard last year.
Hey enlightened one… there are “death panels.” Do a little research….
I know I wrote to Apple. There is a difference between free speech and responsible free speech. What the people in the right and religious don’t get (or maybe they do) is their hate speaches have consequence and there is always someone with less then stellar intellience to go postal in the name of the words they preach. Apple did the right thing. I will spend again in the App. Store. Perpetuate your hate in your temples if you must, but no one should ever make it easier for you.
Manhattan Declaration can go to Android.
Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah
Stupid Human Tricks
I really don’t understand why people don’t get that the bible does not discriminate against people, but rather, does not condone specific acts.
In fact, it puts it homosexual acts on the same level as adultery, pre-marital sex, and other acts like thievery, drunkenness and extortion. (1 Cor. 6:9)
There are those that are married to impotent mates. The bible also doesn’t condone these people acting on their urges despite the fact that it would be difficult.
Although it’s obviously difficult for homosexuals to “not act” on these “natural” impulses, it’s no more impossible than it is for a man who is not married to do the same.
The mistake that people make is by assuming that God somehow views homosexuals as inferior, which is totally false. In no manner does the bible discriminate against people, only against actions.
People may be prone to like little kids, yet the majority would agree that it’s sick. In roman times, however, it was quite common for a man to have a “boy lover”. Does that mean that the Christians of that era should’ve adapted to the morals of the time?
Was it discriminating to not allow these into the early church?
Note, many Christians these days like to point the finger at homosexuals but think nothing of premarital sex, considering it abnormal not to have sex before marriage.
This is blatantly hypocritical. There are a few groups that don’t tolerate willful and repeated acts that God doesn’t approve of, but the majority make exceptions out of fear that they’d lose their constituents.
Pure hypocrisy.
@MooKoop,
Thank you.
BTW, to all of the conservative so-called Christians here; Jesus was the FIRST Liberal / Progressive. Chew on that for a moment.
The saddest part of all of this online hubbub, is that both sides can say whatever they want without having to look the other side in the eye and see the real person that they are attacking.
Believers, non-believers, hetero, homo, etc. we are all people sharing more than 99.9999999999% the same DNA. Why all the hate?
Perhaps marko is right. Stupid Human Tricks on all sides.
Oh yawn. Time they got over it and went back to their pews for a nice little bit of worship.
“I really don’t understand why people don’t get that the bible does not discriminate against people, but rather, does not condone specific acts.”
———————–
True, the bible says “man shall not sleep with man”, but the bible also says that eating shellfish is an abomination..
That’s right, if you believe everything the bible says, then you’re going to hell for eating that shrimp cocktail..
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wacky political screeds really belong in the iBooks section. Not the app section.
Fundamentalists just love to quote where LEVITICUS SAYS:
“Man shall not lie with man.” It is an abomination.” (Leviticus 18:22)
But the fundamentalists never seem to quote Leviticus’ other outrageous passages such as:
Eating shrimp and lobster is an abomination. (Leviticus 11:11)
“Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.” (Leviticus 19:27)
“…do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear material woven of two kinds of material.” (Leviticus 19:19)
The “shellfish” law in Lev 11:11 was part of the Mosaic Law. Jesus himself said died when he did.
There were a lot of laws back then, many of them cleanliness laws to protect a primitive people.
There was also a law that you had to bury your own excrement outside the camp and not touch a dead body as they were considered unclean. This was LONG LONG before medical science confirmed the existence of bacteria that carried disease.
This was at the same time that other nations were using excrement for medicinal reasons.
Many of these rules made sense at the time to both set apart the Israelites and to protect them.
Just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t mean that it’s invalid.
“Just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t mean that it’s invalid.”
——————-
and just because it’s in the bible doesn’t mean it’s true/and or the “word of god.”
The Bible is written by man, interpreted by man, and is just as flawed as man.
As for Lev 11:11, water animals having fins and scales were ceremonially clean for food; this ruled out such creatures as catfish, eels, lampreys, rays, sharks, and the crustacea, many of which live on sewage and decaying matter and often are contaminated by the bacteria that cause typhoid and paratyphoid fevers.
Lev 19:19 applied to anyone who was NOT a priest. This served to emphasize the separation of holy and unholy.
Certain actions, such as tattooing the flesh, making cuttings upon the flesh, imposing baldness on the forehead, cutting the sidelocks, and destroying the extremity of the beard, were prohibited by the Law, possibly, at least in part, because of being linked with prevailing idolatrous practices of neighboring peoples.—Le 19:26-28; De 14:1
We may not FULLY understand why laws were applied, but stating that they are ridiculous without even trying to put them into historical context…
“The Bible is written by man, interpreted by man, and is just as flawed as man.”
———————————-
For a person who obviously hasn’t done a lot of research on scriptures that he misquotes, that’s a bold statement, my friend.
Whether you believe the bible is the word of God is another matter. I may believe it is, but it’s because I’ve done the research. I haven’t had any premonition. Just plain old study. What I found wasn’t a revelation, just a harmony of message that is far too complete to have been conceived by man.
You have a right to your opinion, but an opinion that isn’t well researched doesn’t hold water, I’m afraid. I don’t know your background, but I’d suggest you actually do your own research into whether it is or not before you repeat quotes from websites or people. At least try reading the whole thing.
I certainly don’t try to give opinions on a book if I’ve only read the dustjacket.
” What I found wasn’t a revelation, just a harmony of message that is far too complete to have been conceived by man. “
———————
I too have studied.. And what i found was far too many inconsistencies to be anything I can consider to be the word God.
“Spark Social Change” Is that your way of saying “force everybody to think like me” ?
@MooKoop
“There were a lot of laws back then, many of them cleanliness laws to protect a primitive people.”
Primitive people?! You need to read the real history of folks who lived during that time. Your assumption is greatly ignorant of how advanced those pagan folks were.
@GreeOne
Jesus was the first “Liberal / Progressive”!!!! HAHA… I am glad he was if he ever existed but definitely not even among the first 1 billion Liberal / Progressive people. Read some books… read a bit of world history… it will help you to know that when Adam and Eve came around human kind already had a language to communicate and write, knew about mathematics, physics laws and many other things… so believe it or not Jesus would have been just another guy on this planet.
@ truth:
We can tell by your screen name that you are very open-minded in your approach to people with other ideas.
Me, I fully endorse Apple’s efforts to keep the App Store as clean as possible of all these propagandist apps of any flavor. If the only reason that the app exists is to extol a point of view, then it’s not an app, it’s a book, and it belongs in the book store.
I am a sinner, to people who believe in an invisible bearded man in a dress who lives in the sky.
Whatever.
The real issue is that Steve Jobs and his team at Apple are going to carefully decided what to do next. They have Christian customers, and Non-Christian customers. Both sides have equally green money. This is a business issue not a religious one, because whether you believe in all the unprovable theories these Manhattan-ites proclaim or not, the business that Apple runs is vulnerable to negative PR from both sides.
I think Steve & Co will carefully consider what is right for Apple as a business: strategic neutrality.
Personally I would love it if all religious-based apps were required to be written in non-hate-language. But religion is used to fuel hate. Always has been. So it’s hard to insist that apps be unprovocative.
It will be interesting to see what happens next.