“Apple has expressed disappointment in a new Mississippi law allowing government workers and some private citizens to deny goods and services to LGBT citizens,” Bracey Harris reports for The Clarion-Ledger.
“In a statement Thursday,” Harris reports, “the corporation said the Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act ’empowers discrimination.'”
We want Mississippians to know that our stores and our company are open to everyone, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love. — Apple Inc.
Read more in the full article here.
SEE ALSO:
Mississippi governor signs religious freedom law over objections from Apple, others – April 5, 2016
Carly Fiorina: Tim Cook’s opposition to Indiana religious freedom law hypocritical – April 6, 2015
Tim Cook forging unusual path as a social activist ‘on behalf of Apple’ – March 31, 2015
Does Apple risk blowback over Tim Cook’s gay rights activism? – March 30, 2015
Apple CEO Tim Cook says ‘religious freedom’ laws are dangerous – March 30, 2015
Tim Cook: Apple ‘deeply disappointed’ with Indiana’s new religious-objections law – March 27, 2015
Apple CEO Cook makes ‘substantial’ donation for gay rights activists in U.S. South – December 19, 2014
Alabama sexual orientation anti-discrimination bill to be named after Apple’s Tim Cook – December 4, 2014
Russian memorial to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs dismantled after CEO Tim Cook announces he’s gay – November 3, 2014
Apple investors don’t care that Tim Cook is gay – October 31, 2014\
Goldman Sachs CEO: Apple’s Tim Cook coming out as gay ‘will resonate powerfully’ – October 31, 2014
Human Rights Campaign: Tim Cook’s announcement that he is gay will save countless lives – October 30, 2014
Apple CEO Tim Cook: ‘I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me’ – October 30, 2014
Apple joins Gay Pride parade in Austin, Texas – September 21, 2014
Apple releases video highlighting employee participation in San Francisco’s LGBT Pride Parade – July 8, 2014
Tim Cook, Apple employees march in LGBT Pride Parade in San Francisco – June 30, 2014
Apple inviting employees to march in annual San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade – May 7, 2014
Okay, cue the rants.… 3-2-1
Good for Apple. I know you shareholders are gonna say Apple needs to focus on making products instead of having an opinion, but it’s not always about the bottom dollar folks. As for the conservative bunch of the website, your just gonna have to get more comfortable with gay couples because their comfortable with straights.
I’m an intolerant bastard…
…intolerant of improper your use of “your” & “their”.
You mean “intolerant of your improper use of “your” and “their”.
Just trying to make sure I am clear on that. Because you just corrected me on spelling and grammar when you turn around and have a mistake yourself. It’s a internet blog, I don’t think this will show up in 100 years from now on a stone tablet. Half of us are using our phones to type this crap in, and good luck being a straight A student on spelling and grammar when using your phone.
“your” and “their.”
I don’t understand the correction. The ampersand is a symbol which represents the conjunction word “and”, right? What’s the mistake?
“improper your use” vs. “your improper use”
try again folks.
“…intolerant of improper your use of “your” & “their”
“…intolerant of your improper use of “your” and “their”
i could care less about the and, but i can see how that was the focal point.
So you could care less?
I suspect he couldn’t care less : )
Neither is me.
Tim Cook is a hypocrite by stating on Apple’s “diversity” webpage: “We believe in equality for everyone, regardless of race, age, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.”
Tim Cook hates established religion because it tells him that what he does with his homosexual acts is immoral.
When Tim Cook hires an executive who is religious and therefore believes homosexuality is a sin, then I’ll believe he really believes in “inclusion” and “diversity.”
Those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom and open-mindedness. Question: Isn’t the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? They refuse to tolerate its importance in our lives. — Ronald Reagan
Are you seriously saying that religious people are persecuted in this country?
We are a secular republic. With separation of church and state written into the first amendment of the constitution, along with equal protection and the ability to practice any religion we want, whether that’s a traditional faith or the Flying Spaghetti Monster… These type of laws are only written to discriminate against people who are different that fundamentalist Christians don’t like because they want a particular version on Leviticus enacted into law. It’s the same thing as Jim Crow laws in the south, and they’re only trying to pass this stuff now because they’re losing the debate nationally and in society as a whole.
There’s nothing wrong with religion, or practicing it. But Jesus Christ never said anything was wrong with gay or transgendered people, he said love everybody “love thy neighbor”. He was a hippie by modern standards, and this adherence to the Old Testament is maddening especially after Martin Luther reformed the whole thing 400 years ago.
These type of laws have nothing to do with freedom of religion, we already have that in this country. They are only there to oppress a minority that is different, or those who wrote it feel that don’t adhere to their vision of society. It’s shameful and I’m glad apple and other companies stand up to these type of things in our nation.
Just because I disagree with someone or can’t identify with their lifestyle doesn’t give me the right to tell them what to do or keep them from all of the equal opportunity that I enjoy in this country. I personally could care less what someone’s sexual orientation is, what their religion is, or what they believe politically. They have a right to be whatever they want in this country, we are a free secular society. The first republic established without a state religion of any kind, and the unique place in the world where anyone can practice anything they wish. But no one has the right to discriminate against other people from having that same equal opportunity to be who they are. Driving people back into the closet is not healthy, and causes immense psychological damage.
Study Proves Liberals More Intolerant Than Conservatives
44% of those with “consistently liberal” views would block or “unfriend” someone on a social network because of different political views. Only three in ten “consistently conservative” would do the same.
Source: Pew Research Center “Political Polarization & Media Habits” study, June 2014
Way to cherry pick data from a massive statistical study. There are many damning things about both sides of the political spectrum in That report… Specifically how 63% of conservatives only have like minded friends. It’s in the section titled “echo chamber” see? I can cherry pick too.
That study has absolutely nothing to do with my response to your initial comment. Nor does it have anything to do with the point I was trying to make.
Why is the Angry Left so angry?
“Progressives” convince themselves that everything they’re doing is for the greater good, which supersedes the rights of any individual. It’s a case of “the humanitarian with the guillotine“: we’re doing this for the overall good of humanity, so it’s OK to start killing people. Or to be really, really mean to them in the comments field.
There’s the fact that advocacy of big government is by its very nature a quest for power and control, for the ability to use force against others—a cause that naturally attracts the bitter and intolerant.
There’s the fact that those of us on the right are accustomed to encountering a lot of ideological opposition. For most of our lives, the left has controlled the high ground of the culture, such as it is: the mainstream media, Hollywood, the universities, the arts. So we’re not used to crawling into a “safe space” and hiding from ideas we disagree with, which makes it easier for us to regard ideological opposition with a degree of equanimity.
But beneath all of these factors, there is something deeper, something more elemental. Something metaphysical… It’s all about immanentizing the eschaton.
For the secular leftist, the end state is social and necessarily political. It is all about getting everybody else on board and herding them into his imagined utopia. There are so many “problematic” aspects of life that need to be reengineered, so many vast social systems that need to be overthrown and replaced. But the rest of us are all screwing it up, all the time, through our greed, our denial, our apathy, our refusal to listen to him banging on about his tired socialist ideology.
For the Christian, the ideal end state is safely in the next world and therefore is never in doubt. For the individualist, it’s in his own life, and it’s mostly under his direct control. For the leftist, however, it is all outside his control. It requires other people, a lot of other people, and those SOBs usually refuse to cooperate. Talk about rage-inducing.
If the whole focus of your life is on getting everybody else to agree with you on every detail of your politics and adopt your plans for a perfect society, then you’re setting yourself up to be at war with most of the human race most of the time.
Which means an awful lot for the Angry Left to get angry about. — Robert Tracinski
Read more: Why is the Angry Left so angry?
Because you republikan bastards are liars obstructionists and racist.
Finally showing your true colors for the nation and world to see and whip your asses in the 2016 election.
Trump is an asshole representing your crooked spiteful flock of vindictive maniacvs that have killed thge spirit and fabric of this great country that we the people are goinbg to take back.
Watch it. Your bigotry is showing.
Fsuck you
I think you’re projecting. ESPECIALLY on the racism part. Liberals are demonstrably race obsessed and determined to keep people with different skin color filed in racist little boxes.
Sad that you can’t hack into the liberal mind with reason injection and replace the cheap magic show and cartoons with rational processing and reality. It’s going to be Steamboat Willy in there forever.
Mean, nasty, angry little liberals everywhere these days. Have they started ordering their snazzy black Hugo Boss uniforms and jackboots for the after election demonstration yet?
You’re so full of Nshit that your eyes are brown and blind too…
Name anyone nastier(and smaller) than, McConell, Bohner,Trey Goudy and your whole inbred failed army of degenerate asshole republikkkan congressmen.
For that matter, name anyone angrier too.
You
VOR you must be new around here. Nothing will budge First, 20 blah, blah from his dogma.
That’s because conservatives are generally naive, uneducated and ignorant. And probably stupid.
That kind of person lacks the ability for deep, considered and informed thought.
The red states should become their own country. Let’s compare GDPs 5 years later. Ha, ha ha. We are tired of carrying your dumbasses.
“That’s because conservatives are generally naive, uneducated and ignorant. And probably stupid.”
That statement isn’t bigoted at all………
Bigoted indeed. But the stereotype does hold true far too often. If you rely on someone else to tell you what to do (Faux News, the Bible, etc) and you don’t assess new information as it arrives, then by definition a person is uneducated and ignorant. That’s not a judgment, that’s reality. Bleeding heart liberal wackos may be more interested in touchy feely emotional warm fuzzies than anything else, but in general, they are more tied to the realities of the modern world than those who spend all their energies trying to roll back time to a simpler age.
It’s useless to debate with liberal-leftists, the goalposts are perpetually being moved because they have no foundation, intellectual, moral or otherwise. What are the core principles of liberalism? Ask 10 liberals and you’ll get 10 different answers. James Burnham put it best: “Liberalism is the ideology of western suicide.” It’s not necessarily the cause, but definitely its manifestation.
From a debate perspective, absolutely, having an opponent who is changing their stance makes it near impossible. But perhaps having moving goalposts is a more constructive way to exist in a society? I understand the value in having goals and principles and being unwavering… but when a society is shifting in a direction, is more harmful or helpful to accept – or appreciate – that things change over time and whether you agree or disagree with it, the changes are happening. Not suggesting one would need to change their core beliefs but I think many people have an unbreakable link between not changing their own beliefs and never being willing to accept anything or anyone that also doesn’t share those core beliefs.
It’s hard to discuss these things in generalities. Of course change is a part of life, however a lot of change happens because of specific, human actions, such as government policies.
One example is immigration. The Mass Media and liberals comment on the shifting demographics of the country as they would the changing of the seasons, “it’s inevitable, deal with it”. I disagree vehemently. Particularly when mass immigration leads to the unemployment and underemployment of my fellow citizens and was created by, and can be stopped, by government action.
I have no problem talking to someone else who has different beliefs in good faith. However I never hear calls for liberal progressives to change their beliefs and be willing to accept what they disagree with. To their credit they are perpetually on offense and that’s how a minority of our citizenry has been able to so dramatically change our culture in a few generations, though undemocratically.
Yes, there is persecution of religion by the federal government. Have you ever heard of The Little Sisters of the Poor or Notre Dame or Christendom College? All of these religious entities have been told that they cannot practice their religious beliefs, when it comes to the mandatory purchasing iof nsurance, without the government imposing fines. They are all currently defending their religious freedom in court.
And, I am sure you are trying to egg me on by misrepresenting the first amendment, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” Basically, the federal government cannot impose a religion on us and cannot interfere with our practice of same, I.e. Sharia Law. Which is quite different from you saying it is okay for the government to try to free us from religion.
Yeah, as in passing a “religious freedom” law in the government, which is expressly against the first amendment and the establishment clause. That would be the government endorsing a religion, and “establishing there of”
Therefore, having the government of any state in the union passing a law endorsing religious beliefs of any kind is unconstitutional by definition. Thank you for making my point for me, by misunderstanding the establishment clause and the 1st amendment.
As for the Norte dame case, they have public employees working in their organization, and they accept public funding. Any agency or company that employs public Persian or accepts public funding must follow the Eduardo protection clause and eeu employment statutes. This includes (in our fucked up health care system) providing health care for their employees. What they are objecting to is the mandatory coverage of birth control… If they don’t want to pay for birth control, that’s fine. But they must then reject all public funding, and terminate all public employees. Their argument is essentially “we don’t have to follow the law because we don’t like it” . That is an extremely slippery slope to go down… In this country, the government makes the law, and we follow it to the best of our ability.
There is no “gods law” governing this nation, which puts the church’s interests above the republic. That would be a theocracy, which we are not.
Your first sentence is unequivocally wrong. It goes downhill from there.
Finally, a liberal saying at least one thing that I agree with. “Any agency or company that employs public Persian or accepts public funding must follow the Eduardo protection clause and eeu employment statutes.” However, is it really fair of you to use this argument in this case only? What is your opinion of a private bakery that doesn’t want to promote things that are against their religion?
A private business has the right to refuse service if they see fit (no shoes, no shirt, no service, etc…) . But once it’s put into law that discrimination is allowed and encouraged, based on a principle of religious exception instead of societal foundation, then the law ceases to be a tool of protection.
“Just because I disagree with someone or can’t identify with their lifestyle doesn’t give me the right to tell them what to do or keep them from all of the equal opportunity that I enjoy in this country.”
But it does seem to give THEM the right to tell others what to do or keep them from keeping the faith. Just ask a Christian cake baker. I’m curious if there has ever been any attempt by the LGBT crowd to persuade a Muslim cake baker to service and cater a gay wedding. And why haven’t we seen the Federal government under Obama go after Muslims here in the “57+ states” who discriminate against gays?! It seems lopsided of the LGBT crowd in their selection of religion. Seems like they have targeted a selective segment on whose lifestyle they want to persecute, er, change, but not others. To me, that sounds like an anti-Christian religion agenda perpetuated by a leftist hate group! If one religion is forced by the government to abandon its tenets to satisfy the “who they love” crowd, then shouldn’t that apply to all religions here in America?!? And why hasn’t this been done, especially the Islamic Sharia Law crowd?
Also Apple says, “our company are open to everyone, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love.” “how they worship” SERIOUSLY Apple? You do know how stupid that makes you look! Apple forgot to add, ‘where they live’. What has Apple done to express their displeasure with the government of Saudi Arabia? There, they passed LAW to kill gays. Does Apple boycott that country or does their ‘Holier then thou’ principle’s sake stop at the waters edge and for Apple in the Middle East it is business as usual?!?
http://www.towleroad.com/2016/03/saudi-arabia-gay-executions/
Thank you. Wow! Ben Shapiro is a genius. Thank you, I had never heard of him.
Dang it. Wrong video.
Did you have a little “Open Mouth, Insert Foot” moment there?! ; )
You and your kind are going to lose sooo badly this election.
You speak of freedom, yet persecute anyone who doesn’t believe what you believe. Who’s the hypocrite?
Reagan is dead. Time to live in the present, Mr. Fist.
MDN? Your lack of a “Take” speaks volumes.
It must just kill you to have a homosexual running Apple.
You Obama-voting fools were sold a bill of goods. Remember this the next time you are asked to waste your vote on a stupid quest to “make history.”
“Making history” for making history’s sake is stupidity. On top of that, you’ve now got the worst race relations since the 1960s because Obama is a moron who had the chance to say, magnanimously, on his first day in office: “Now we turn a new chapter. We put the animus aside. We stop blaming each other for the sins of our forefathers and truly unite as one nation.” And we would have.
But, nooooo, he had to be petty., He had to play the race card repeatedly. He was always out for revenge for things none of us who are alive did or were responsible for.
He had to stoke racial tensions whenever the opportunity presented itself. Obama is a pitiful failure. He couldn’t even do the one good thing he had in his power to do. He blew it because he’s a petty, egotistical, small man.
He’ll be lauded by the obtuse for being “the first black president” for the rest of his life, but the cold eye of history will regard him for what he was: a failure who squandered his moment, made the world less safe, made the country weaker militarily and economically, inflamed racial tensions, vastly increased government dependence, failed to uphold laws on the books, failed to secure his country’s borders from criminal invaders, and signed a failed, costly “healthcare” law that was repealed immediately after he left office.
I didn’t vote for President Obama. Twice.
I voted for the candidate I thought best for the Country, not Party lines.
Unlike Republicans and “Conservatives”, I stood behind whichever Commander In Chief was elected, even George W. Bush. You don’t like America? Apple? Tim Cook? You have a choice.
LEAVE. You are no longer needed.
Apple, and Tim Cook, should stick to producing electronics and stay out of politics.
Me like the new Tim Cook.
Not all religions are intolerant of homosexuals. Promoting the religions that are intolerant of homosexuals and demoting religions which are not – THAT IS religious intolerance (in addition to just being intolerant.)
Put simply, your religious freedom never allow you to infringe the religious freedoms of others.
Even simpler, your freedom does let you remove freedom from others.
That wouldn’t be freedom at all – that would be oppression.
There is no space for religion in law. Law should be rational and secular at all times.
Same goes for the workplace.
So a big thumbs up for Apple on both counts.
Not all religios creeds believe homosexuality is a sin btw.
If they do, they are on the road to oblivion as they are so far behind the zeitgeist.
Amen
“Religious Freedom” Act like “Patriot” Act is Orwellian doublespeake for Fascism.
Fwahatever, you have time-warped back four years. It really does not matter, you may have changed your handle every two years, but you have not evolve an iota.
Tim Cook is not a hypocrite. He embraces diversity as much as a person can. Eventually you hit a boundary where subsets of the diversity mix practice exclusion of other parts. You just happen to believe that your exclusion trumps LGBT rights. Most people disagree with you.
I do not believe that Tim Cook hates established religion, as you assert without basis. You are the one who appears to be the hater. And you overstep even further when you generically assert that “established religion” considers homosexual acts immoral. YOUR chosen religion may do so, but others do not. Despite your massive ego, you are not the center of the universe and your religion is not the only one with a voice. Despite their personal beliefs, our founding fathers saw fit to protect freedom of religion in this country. They must have known people just like you and realized the need to protect the rights of others.
I have never hidden the fact that I despise your belief system. In my opinion, you embody many of the undesirable qualities that are driving this country into political gridlock while also promoting bizarre policies like open carry of firearms and regressionist social policies. It must be very difficult for someone like you to even consider the possibility that you might be wrong when your ego demands that you must be right. You can fabricate and twist data and torture logic all you want but, in the end, your beliefs are no more valid than the LGBT person down the street.
It humors me to think of all of the LGBT people you likely interact with on a daily basis without realizing it. That’s the real world.
Or:
Tim Cook – a homosexual – condemns free thinking people who do not want gay activists running roughshod over their rights in their State.
The people have spoken Mr. Cook: ‘Tolerance’ is only tolerance if it goes both ways.
At least in Mississippi it won’t now be a one-way street.
‘Tolerance’ is only tolerance if it goes both ways.
So true.
“Tolerance” is un-American.
If you tolerate your black neighbor, if you tolerate your gay neighbor, if you tolerate your Muslim neighbor, you are a bigot.
Stop tolerating, and I nstead, try turning that tolerable neighbor into a friend.
Mister Rogers couldn’t have said it better.
Only after a 2nd cousin married a Moroccan woman did I really begin to know and appreciate Muslim ways. The children are innocent of cant, hate, and hypocrisy and we all hope to keep it that way. We haven’t told them about the Internet yet.
“Tolerance”, My how you twisted that word off of the original context!
Apple (i.e. Tim Cook) rail against North Carolina, but do business with countries and cozy up to regimes that punish homosexuals with death, floggings, imprisonment. I do not support North Carolina’s new legislation, but Apple’s hypocrisy is just as worthy of condemnation.
Apple does business wherever there is business to be done. And they rail against injustice wherever they perceive the injustice.
Just to let you know, Apple is an American company, headquartered in the USA, so they have a much stronger interest to voice their opinion about any domestic legislation that may be detrimental to their business. As an American company, this is in fact their fiduciary duty to their shareholders.
As for other countries (such as Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Russia, Iran, and likely soon Cuba), Apple has always expressed their displeasure with rules that restrict their business there, but has always complied with local laws whatever they may be, much as it has in the USA.
Apple may or may not pull their business out of North Carolina, just as they may or may not pull out of Iran, or Russia, depending on if that would be detrimental or beneficital to their business.
Apple takes the moral high ground except when it affects the bottom line…I get it. Money is more important than PR…absolutely. But holding US citizens and state governments to a higher moral and ethical standard than Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Russia, Iran, etc. is hypocritical.
No, Joe, it isn’t hypocritical at all. You lack a complete understanding of that word. And your assertion regarding Apple and the high moral ground is absolutely untrue. Apple has always supported the moral high ground even when it was unpopular and people like you warned that they would lose business. Your assertion that Apple believes that money is more important than PR is so ridiculous that it defies the imagination. Apple has lots of money precisely because it places more importance on other things. Chew on that…
Correct.
And one could easily argue that Apple’s presence in countries such as China, Vietnam, Russia, and Saudi Arabia enables local populations and brings positive social change; in a way, better than completely withdrawing from the market.
Apple’s public statements about injustices in the US don’t stop at the American border. The world’s largest company (by market cap) has a very loud global voice, and whenever they say something, the world hears them. This includes all those dictatorships where gays are killed by the state.
As I said, Apple has a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to voice their displeasure regarding legislation that is, in their view, detrimental to their business. And the South Carolina public toilet law can easily be detrimental to their operations in SC (when talented trans-gender have to leave the state because of the draconian law).
Do not ask for whom the bell tolls Predrag…..
Leviticus 18:22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. 23. Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion
I didn’t say it. God’s word the Bible said it. So get over it already. And besides what does this have to do with selling Apple Products anyway???
Yeah, it’s the OLD testament. Jesus never said anything like that, and if you’re a Christian following what Jesus says I think is more important.
Also, God did not write the book. Men did after centuries of years of oral stories passed down, the bible as we know it today, the canon, was put together in the council of Nicaea from May 20th to June 19th in AD 325. And it incorporated most of what was being preached from the pulpits throughout the Roman Empire. The torrah, or Old Testament, was written down in Hebrew in the 7th century BCE. Prior to that it was an oral tradition. And even after those original written texts were written down they were modified massively throughout the following centuries. By the time the book was translated into English, it’s quite different from the original Hebrew and Greek texts.
All of the books reflect the social conventions of the time, and more modern translations also reflect the social conventions of the translator.
Man, you’re wrong in so many places, I’m not sure where to start.
So yea, don’t eat bacon either:
Leviticus 11:4 reads:
Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
Every preacher that ever lived cherry-picked the Bible for his sermons. It could hardly be otherwise, since the Good Book has been heavily edited by a skunkworks of ideologues for tens of generations and thus contains all kinds of errors and contradictions. Plus it presents moral codes set in stone that were rather harsh, in the Hebrew Old Testament, but presents a kinder, gentler, more forgiving, liberal Jesus in the New Testament.
It is all rather confusing to a new arrival to planet Earth, until it is explained to the alien how the concept of God evolved through tribal renditions, and speciated over generations into the spectrum of sects we have at present. At that point the alien would nod in understanding—evolution being the cosmic imperative—and quietly depart for a more sane star system.
God didn’t write the bible. What you call Christian today is aall derived from a collection of fables written by man — mostly Aramaic and Hebrew speaking Jews. The new testament, put to parchment at least a decade after the actual events by authors who had no firsthand experience and didn’t bother to cite references or quote witnesses, was largely assembled and edited by my namesake, a Roman, in the city of Antioch. Centuries of corrupt church meddling, schisms, document decay, and politicized manipulation actively re-edited and removed entire sections of the Bible. Today there are over 30 different versions of the bible in english alone.
Man created the myth that you call a Christian God today. Reality is much more complex, and man will probably never know the whole truth.
Better to learn how to live amongst your fellow man today than to cite a 2000 year old fairy tale to justify whatever bigotry you feel you want to do anyway.
Call the Bible what you will, but one day you will stand before this God and you will find out you were wrong! I feel sorry for you!
But which God? The one who wants to punish you, or the one who is the embodiment of Understanding, Forgiveness, and Love? In my experience it is other humans that want to punish me in His name. Any God worthy of worship defies definition and soars far above our petty grievances.
Here’s a thought: The Creator is perfectly understanding and loving and forgiving. We all get a pass. But perhaps in the bliss that is Heaven our ‘reward’ is being blissfully happy shining the shoes of those that more closely adhered to the principals of his words.
Thankfully, there won’t be a lot of shoes to shine….
Steve Jobs didn’t wear shoes
Also, supposedly didn’t wear suits, either.
“In addition to technical problems, there were cultural problems. An AT&T rep asked Steve Jobs to wear a suit to meet with AT&T’s board. One of Steve’s deputies responded*: “We’re Apple. We don’t wear suits. We don’t even own suits.””
http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-were-apple-we-dont-wear-suits-we-dont-even-own-suits-2010-7
But apparently Steve had no problem conforming to the Hollywood moguls form of appropriate attire and wear a tux, so I guess Steve’s “think different” non-conformity coolness only went so far…
Equally I feel sorry for you, wasting your life not only prostrating yourself before an imaginary friend, but a genocidal, infanticidal POS like the god in the Bible.
Spend eternity with that c**t? No thanks.
“authors who had no firsthand experience”
Completely wrong. Obviously you haven’t read what you rail on about so authoritatively…
Huh?
Which of the New Testament authors walked with Jesus?
14 of the 27 New Testament books have been attributed to Paul, the origin of the others are mostly unknown and in dispute. What part of your Bible was written by any of the apostles or by Jesus’ family?
Are you serious??!!!
Try the Gospel of John for starters.
Also Peter – Peter’s Epistles?!????
BWAHAHAHAHA
You’re a flaming noob!
Go home you ignoramus!!
Wil, I’ll respond to this one since it’s more inflammatory.
The gospels weren’t written down until a century after Jesus’s accepted life span. And we know this from many corroborating sources from the time period, as well as the testimony of Jesuit priests since the Middle Ages. They are the historians and scientific order of the church, and have generally had an objective view of their faith.
As to your point about being wrong in so many places? Name one thing in my previous post that is incorrect. My dates are correct for the council, as is my dating for the original Torah. Some scholars think it was written down later in the 6th century BCE, after the Hebrews left Babylon, but most accept the 7th century.
And yes, men did write the bible. And every other religious book on the planet. Divinely inspired or not, men were the authors.
A common misconception, a meme:
“The gospels weren’t written down until a century after Jesus’s accepted life span.”
From the writer of the Gospel of Luke and Acts, who travelled with Paul, Mark, et al…
«/ THE AUTHOR TO THEOPHILUS: Many writers have undertaken to draw up an account of the events that have happened among us, 2 following the traditions handed down to us by the original eyewitnesses and servants of the Gospel. 3 And so I in my turn, your Excellency, as one who has gone over the whole course of these events in detail, have decided to write a connected narrative for you, 4 so as to give you authentic knowledge about the matters of which you have been informed./»
…obviously many eyewitnesses were still alive and kicking, when this was written. And Paul, who had personal relations with Peter, John, etc. obviously wrote this…
«/First and foremost, I handed on to you the facts which had been imparted to me: that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures; 4 that he was buried; that he was raised to life on the third day, according to the scriptures; 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and afterwards to the Twelve. 6 Then he appeared to over five hundred of our brothers at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7 Then he appeared to James, and afterwards to all the apostles.In the end he appeared even to me. It was like an abnormal birth; 9 I had persecuted the church of God and am therefore inferior to all other apostles — indeed not fit to be called an apostle./»
Funny how the belief in a Supreme Being or Consciousness 2000+ years and counting, that is found all over this world in one form or fashion is a fairy tale but a man or woman, born as a man or woman, has the body parts of a man or woman, can dictate that they are not man but woman or not woman but man and in todays complex reality world THAT is truth?!?
Ben Shapiro had an excellent take with respect to the judges enshrining gay marriage into the Constitution and how it would affect daily life in America, when he appeared on the Rubin Report.
Needless to say when government can literally fine businesses into insovlency because they refuse to cater gay wedding because it goes against their religious beliefs, it’s not religious people who are forcing their beliefs onto people.
Thank you. Wow! Ben Shapiro is a genius. Thank you, I had never heard of him. Very refreshing.
Reading the holy roller nut cases leads one to believe that we as a species have absolutely no chance of spiritual evolvement beyond the simple tribesmen that ceremonially dance naked around a fire!
The Bible is god’s word? Give me a break! It was written by men. Men with a need to control man’s mind and boy did they do a good job.
They wrote it with themselves in mind, because they were men with human failings of which they were righteously unaware. Plus they brutally expunged female gospels and recast Jesus’s mate as a whore.
Riiiiight. You need to stop reading self-published ‘scholars’.
My primary source is the Harvard scholar James L, Kugel, who reads and writes Hebrew and like a true scholar separates his faith from the archaeological and linguistic evidence.
Whoever this gentleman is, he is in the vast minority. Even the most liberal historians I know of don’t hold this type of view.
Wil – Did you not read “The Da Vinci Code” ? I believe about 40 million copies of the book were sold before it was made into a major motion picture. The theme had something to do with the divine femininity – which eventually leads to the realization that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ partner and perhaps a Rabbinical equal to Jesus. That in itself is quite a revelation. Of course the Da Vinci Code is modern fiction…
…and here, ladies and gentlemen, is the average 21st century person’s understanding of the Bible, its origins and its historicity. Even with so much access to reputable scholars, even though more archaeological evidence has been collected to support the Bible in the last 70 years than in the previous 300 years before that…We get the Da Vinci Code.
Ask yourself, how did an uneducated (as was the norm for women back in those days), demon possessed woman because equal to Jesus? People who can’t separate fact from fiction.
Btw, the idea of God being divine Feminine is not Hebrew but an old fertility myth going back thousands of years before Christ. Baal and Astheroth. They demanding temple prostitution and infant sacrifice. Not Yahweh at all.
Wil –
Historicity? I think ye be pissing in the desert, intent on creating an ocean!
Kugel is a primary source, not my only one. Kugel summarised the mainstream linguistic studies of the Bible, proving its multiple authorship.
Other sources condemned early codifiers of Christian doctrine for rejecting gospels not conforming to to a program explicitly calculated to gather popular support in its war against the Romans. Smaller numbers of cultists who appreciated the likes of Mary Magdalene were rejected.
The manipulators of history left traces, which scholars are prone to study. Religious belief itself is pure, but when wrongheaded can lead to holy war. Scholarship examines the base human instinct to kill those who look, think, or worship differently by examining actual history. So far, what we’ve learnt is God 1, Humanity 0.
And yet the assertions you list about Mary M. cannot be supported the historical situation of the time: women were not allowed to be educated much less ordained rabbis, Mary made no claim to divinity, she never reported to have performed miracles, women’s legal testimony were considered invalid, etc.
Perhaps the reason why Mary worship was rejected was….because she wasn’t worthy of veneration? No, that would be too much common sense. Too much masculine thinking.
As for your comment about the” war against the Romans” – with all due respect, are you daft?
The Jewish people longed for a Messiah who would free them from the tyranny of the Empire. How disappointing then Jesus must have been to tell his disciples to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar and to God what is God’s” — as it is recorded in the very Gospels? Now is that historical, or pure religious belief? I submit to you that it is both.
I play chess. I concede.
Kugel is an Orthodox Jew and rejects, out of hand any possible historical, literal, canonical understanding of the scriptures. Not surprising, his background was in poetry. The fact that he would comment on the Christian Gospels and the Epistles with fanciful notions of “brutally expunging ‘female’ gospels” makes me pause with an eyebrow raised.
Well, my studies are not done. The search for truth has many way stations, and has no end. It is the journey itself, as the Buddha said, that brings enlightenment. I only know that enlightenment does not come from the Internet.
Your studies are not done…and yet you feel compelled to make authoritative comments regarding the Bible, its origins, Jesus, his teachings, etc.
In the words of the Buddha, “Respect of self comes when one’s actions are aligned with one’s beliefs. Anything else is a delusion.”
I am hardly an authority. I have read books and formed opinions, but i change my opinions as I read more books and reconsider matters. I don’t fancy myself as a person who has the charisma, or force of logic, to change anyone’ else’s opinion. Indeed, a decade of posting on the Internet has proved to me that that can’t be done. It seems nobody listens, only reacts.
My book learning and life experience are inadequate to answer your criticisms. I have to accept that, whether or not mercy exists.
No one is claiming you as an authority. But when You make a lot of of assertions in the form of declarative statements of what how the Bible was really formed, who decided what, etc, you are speaking authoritatively. Then when someone like myself calls you out on your comments, you demure and say you’re ‘on a journey of enlightenment’ so as to try to avoid accountability for what you write. It’s dishonest.
OK your point is clear and I will recuse myself. Thank you for saving me from further opprobrium. I’ll stick to mathematics from now on. Religion and politics suck, anyhow. But Wonder Woman still rules!
We lost a lot of good people. I’m done with you Alliance types.
And allegedly were homosexuals, banning marriage for priests….
Hmmm, you didn’t raise that point…can’t imagine why….
«/ Reading the holy roller nut cases leads one to believe that we as a species have absolutely no chance of spiritual evolvement beyond the simple tribesmen that ceremonially dance naked around a fire! /»
Where would you place the spirituality of Darwin’s theory of creation by abiogenesis aka evolution? Was Darwin a man or a god?
And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,
(Romans 1:28)
—
Teachers Unions Back Bill Allowing Adult Males To Shower With
Young Girls In Massachusetts
A bill that would allow adult biological males to shower or change alongside young girls has earned the endorsement of two prominent teachers unions in Massachusetts.
—
http://theaquilareport.com/teachers-unions-back-bill-allowing-adult-males-to-shower-with-young-girls-in-massachusetts/#.VwbxoEv1sF8.facebook
You do realize that’s not what the bill actually says right?
Go to the Massachusetts state website and read it. There’s nothing like that in there.
jesus was nothing but a camel fucker.
Attacking Christians and their beliefs is just low-hanging fruit.
Go insult some Muslims, and get back to us, tough guy.
It would be more accurately described as addressing their mental illness. It is shocking that in 2016 there are still so many delusional people that kill and commit other atrocities in the name of imaginary friends in the sky.
My friend is tougher than your friend, tough guy.
You don’t have any friends.
“2016 there are still so many delusional people that kill and commit other atrocities in the name of imaginary friends in the sky.”
I have to disagree with that. Today, in 2016, the delusional people of today kill for money, drugs, turf, gangs, tennis shoes, heck, even iPods/iPhones, otherwise known as the god of materialist things.
Wow… I can’t believe you got 5 for 3 on this already. Must be atheist night here at MDN.com
Did you enjoy it, Mr. Camel?
Meanwhile, Apple stock still underperforms, Watch bombs, iPhone sputters, iMac stalls, iPad slips, iPod and Mac Pro almost gone….
But hey, long as Tim can buy his wedding in ‘Bama….
Of course, Apple stores in Saudi Arabia okay. A place, you know, that actually executes homosexuals….
Priorities….
Apple isn’t a Saudi company. They are headquartered in America (in California). It is their fiduciary duty to voice their displeasure with laws that may be detrimental to their business and to the society.
They voice similar displeasure elsewhere where they do business, but since they aren’t headquartered there, they have much less influence.
Doing business in places such as Russia, Iran, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, or hopefully soon to be Cuba, doesn’t prevent them from complaining against discrimination at home.
Oh my gosh. All these preachers should start reading the Bible and stop just memorizing verses to use against “’em siiiiinnersssss!!!!” ugh, the malignant fools. You won’t win anyone over with your destain for what is different. Jesus was way different than these people that will cast anyone into Hell except themselves, even if God told them that they’re the one going there. “Oh, surely not me. I the biggest congregation, far bigger than the one down the road.” They make me sick.
Try being a woman and putting up with this shit
You simply cannot force a pastor in a church to marry Adam and Steve and force him to go against what the church believes. That is against the constitution. Changing the laws is leading to that. The lady in Kentucky, regardless of how much you didn’t like her, was set up all with cameras, when the two guys who want to be girls could have just plain gone elsewhere. It’s the politically correct agenda for rights, not what the Gods word says. I don’t enjoy trying to explain to my kid public display of affection between Adam and Steve.
This is an Apple board. The question is not about the law being passed, it is about Apple’s reaction.
I personally don’t see any positives in Apple taking social stands of this sort. Why alienate and anger customers?
I would feel better if Apple was not in the interesting position of not taking the same approach with all of the much less tolerant countries (to the point of death and torture) it does business with.
Regardless of what Apple does or says, it always makes me think energy is being expended with these issues instead of being focussed on quality issues. I would love for Tim to speak out publicly about how shameful it is to leave iTunes in its bloated and ridiculous state, or apologize for Photos, or soldered RAM. If he took this tack he would have no breath available to take issue with anyone else.
With respect to everyone in the discussion:
If you haven’t read the bill, why is it that you think you’re qualified to comment?
Go read the bill here: http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2016/html/HB/1500-1599/HB1523SG.htm
Then, if you have objection to a specific part of the bill, quote the section you object to and explain why. Only then can we have a rational discussion. I’ve read the bill and have no objection to it, but I’m willing to learn from someone who disagrees with me (especially as it’s difficult to learn from someone who does not).
Ok, let’s start with a few sections:
– Decide “whether or not to hire, terminate or discipline an individual whose conduct or religious beliefs are inconsistent” with their beliefs or moral convictions.
What this means in English is that you can fire anyone for being different than you. So for example if you religion states, and you believe that the bible is literally true and says that the earth is the center of the universe and is 6000 years old, if someone gives the scientific age of the earth or that it revolves around the sun you can fire them for that. That’s just a little bit objectionable.
Medical and therapy professionals can decline “treatments, counseling, or surgeries related to sex reassignment or gender identity transitioning” and “psychological, counseling, or fertility services” to people whose lifestyles violate their religious beliefs.
This violates the Hippocratic oath that all doctors take to “do no harm” and is not healthy for society. In addition, if a doctor works in a baptist hospital for example, and that hospital has a “religious belief” that women should be subjugated and obey their husbands, or that children should “honor thy mother and father”, then an 18-20 year old married female could walk into an emergency room for treatment from spousal abuse and the doctor who helps her injuries could be fired for attending to a patient.
My logic may sound extreme, but that is how these type of laws are put into practice if you look throughout history. Not to mention the leeway it gives with respect to “sincerely held religious belief” that could thoretically apply to anything at all. So if you own property, and the county assessors office finds out that you are gay, or black, or a woman (since those people aren’t allowed to own property in some extreme views of chrtisranity and other faiths) that county official could take your property without cause or warning. And if you sue and get a judge that agrees with that view? You could be sent to prison simply for excercizing your constitutional right to own property.
This is why religion and government are separate in this country. We are scared of sharia law, but the extreme right wing Christians want to basically put the same type of thing in place in This country. There aren’t any Christian theocracies in the world right now, but there were… Look at what happened in Spain during the inquisition and you can see where this can lead too. That’s why the founders gave everyone the freedom to practice any religion they want and prohibited the state from sponsoring or establishing one of their own. I stand by my statement that these laws are unconstitutional and as the person below said, will not hold up to a Supreme Court challenge.
So bearing in mind that the Bible also advocates slavery does this mean police officers who turn their backs on investigating modern day slavery rings can claim their deeply-held convictions prevented them from doing so, meaning they keep their jobs?
This law is horseshit and will not survive a court challenge. All it proves is how televangelists can twist messages and cause fear amongst the gullible.