Debt to Parents

Children do not owe their parents a single thing. Parents have children completely of their own volition, they usually enjoy the acts that creates the child. The child has their own life thrust upon them, and by the time they are aware of the fact that they had no choice in their creation, they can't do anything about it. Well, they can, but it would likely involve a large amount of pain and cause severe amounts of emotional trauma to those who know them. They are pressured into thinking that they have a gift, even if they don't want it, and that ending that would be a terrible thing to do - some even invoke religion, suggesting that God will send them to eternal punishment if they try to get rid of their 'gift.' I don't think anyone should be expected to repay someone for a gift that was forced upon them since before they were remotely conscious.

Imagine it this way - imagine that Person A are the Parents, and that person B is the child

A, because he wanted to, put a book in your house, unbeknownst to you. When you finally discover the book, you start to read it. The book is, in general, uneventful (kind of monotonous), though some parts in it made you laugh, other parts make you cry out of sadness, and some parts, yet, fill you with rage or disappointment. Person A, then, demands, not only that you keep the book which he wanted to give to you, but also that you pay him back for having given you the book in the first place. Though you enjoyed a few passages from it, or even if you enjoyed all of it, why should you have to pay him for slipping a book, that you didn't ask for, into your house?

Response to Lauren - full post here

Well, as we were saying in class, many of the ideas behind Christianity are indeed heavily related to Greco-Roman and Hebraic histories and cultures. Many of the stories in Christianity can be found be in other religions which predate it. I would recommend that you look into the similarities between the Zoroaster and Jesus. In fact, I would recommend you look up many other son of god - death and resurrection god-men, like Osiris, Dionysus, Attis, Tammuz, and so on. Stories of deities becoming flesh, dying, passing through hell, and being resurrected are a religious commonplace. Which is fine, given that these are often metaphors; often times, however, religious people claim that their religion is unique and more correct than others.

Hidden Openness

In response to Lauren - full post here


I agree, the Westboro Baptist Church is really outlandish. I think it is a terrible thing when a group is so incredibly openly hateful towards everybody. On the other hand, it's also a good thing that they are so openly hateful. Due to the open method they practice most people have grown to understand that the members of the WBC are unreasonable; Few people support the WBC's endeavors; in fact, I wouldn't doubt if it brought more people to the cause for gay-rights.

Sometimes an even worse thing can be hiding your discrimination from the world, while you continue to try to indoctrinate people into thinking that this discrimination is warranted. Imagine if the WBC had an enormous wealth and the ability to lobby the government, because it provides aid to those in need, to prevent gay marriage. The Catholic Church, for instance, decided to try to lobby the government in Washington D.C. When the Catholics found out about the new legislature with potential to allow gay marriage they threatened to discontinue providing services for 68,000 people in need; they threatened to cease providing shelter for the homeless, offering food to the hungry, and helping cure the ill. This is probably largely due to the fact that equality for homosexuals is against the catechism (Part 3, Section 2, Chapter 2, Article 6, lines 2357-2359).