Quote Originally Posted by jsn9333
Before you go and say what crazy motherfuckers like the Westboro Baptist people do "makes sense from a Biblical perspective" how about you read the Bible yourself. I'm not trying to be a dick here, but have you ever read the entire New Testament of the Bible (that is the part Christians primarily follow)? Have you?
Well, yes, as a matter of fact I have. It is from the New Testament that Christians get the idea of hell, this idea that sinners deserve to be tortured forever, which I think is a lot of the source of intolerance. Jews don't believe in hell, because they read only the Old Testament. Hell was a concept introduced by Jesus, and it is without a doubt the most baneful idea in the whole damn book. Nobody deserves eternal torture, because we are only capable of doing a finite amount of bad things in our finite lifetimes. Anybody who inflicts eternal torture on anyone is committing the most immoral act imaginable.

You mention that the New Testament is the part that Christians primarily follow, and I wholeheartedly agree (although people nowadays are willing to ignore those bits of the New Testament that promote things like slavery and women's subjugation). The reason Christians don't take the majority of their holy book seriously is because the Old Testament God is such a malevolent prick.

The Westboro Baptist Church is honest enough to say "Well, if we're publishing this book here and calling it sacred, we ought to take all of its contents seriously." Unlike the average Christian who only believes Biblical morality only insofar as it agrees with his already-formed pre-theistic morality, these people actually believe the Bible is more authoritative on morality than any of their preconceived notions of what is right or wrong. And that's the logical point of view to take, if you believe God is infinitely moral and if you believe the Bible is an accurate portrayal of that God's morality.

Because if not, I suggest you do before you go saying what makes sense "Biblically". Anyone can rip out of context one passage about what behavior may or may not be a sin and use it to justify yelling insults at people. But read the Bible as a whole before you say that is "biblical" behavior.
Well, there are some verses whose meaning cannot really be contested, if you take the verse seriously. "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:13) That can only mean that God considers gay male sex a crime worthy of death. What justification does a Christian really have to take God seriously in Exodus 20 (the Ten Commandments) but not Leviticus 20?

You can say that this is just the laws of an ancient barbaric tribe of nomads who lacked modern sophisticated moral philosophy, which they wrote into a holy book and falsely attributed to the mouth of the creator of the universe. I would agree with you, but I would go further and say that this is the origin of all Mosaic law, not just a few verses that don't mesh with our modern understanding of ethics.
Most Christians in America hate the Westboro assholes. And most Christians don't hate homosexuals.
Right, because they don't take the Bible nearly as seriously as they do.
Most Christians in America are not even fundamentalists.
Well, it may not be "most" but fundamentalist Christianity is no tiny fringe group. A surprising percentage of the American population believes in a literal six-day creation.
Beliefs of the U.S. public about evolution and creation
Its the idiots like Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson that give Christians a bad name. And to be quite honest (since I am a "fundamentalist Baptist"), most fundamentalists don't even like half of what Falwell or Robertson say!
Good.
Sure, God hates sin, and "fundies" like me see the Bible teaches homosexuality is a sin. But that doesn't mean God hates homosexuals any more then he hates a kid who tells a white lie. And that especially doesn't mean we're called, as Christians, to hate anyone.
No, sorry, you're wrong, and you need to re-read your Bible. God never calls for the execution of kids who tell white lies (although he does call for the execution of disobedient children in Deuteronomy 21). God does say that all gay men should be murdered, that their activity is a sin, and that sinners deserve everlasting punishment. If you honestly believe that my gay and lesbian friends deserve to be tortured for all eternity because of what they do in the bedroom, then you obviously hate my friends. That's like saying Jews deserve to be burned in gas chambers, but it's up to a higher power (like Hitler) to dish out the punishment, so it can't be said that you personally hate the Jews. Bullshit. If you think Jews deserve to be burned in gas chambers, you hate the Jews, and if you think gays and lesbians deserve to be burned in hell, you hate gays and lesbians.