I'm afraid I've has a rather busy period recently, and have not been able to reply. I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. But I'm pleased to see that
@Clizby WampusCat has rebutted you on the slavery question. So to answer your objections to gay marriage:
No, I am saying on what basis besides subjective emotion are you restricting marriage to only those who consent? Actually, requiring consent for marriage is a Christian principle borrowed by the secular humanists. But they have knocked out the rationally objective foundation to the principle.
Ignoring the red herring there, the salient point is that you do agree that a marriage should be based on consent. So, that answers your question: no marriage between adults and children, animals, plants or inanimate objects, because none of them are able to give consent.
Therefore, your slippery slope argument is invalid. But even if it wasn't, it still wouldn't matter; the point is whether it is moral to deny marriage rights to gay people. And it isn't.
Yes, that is a Christian principle. So that Christian principle you are going to arbitrarily keep but not the other principles about marriage being only a man and a woman because you feel sorry for gays.
Society has no need to base its laws on anything Christians believe. You're welcome to be bigoted against gay people if you like. Just don't expect religion to have any say in the laws of the land.
No, the definition of marriage goes beyond just a personal relationship. For society marriage has always had a functional aspect to it. Gays cannot engage in sexual intercourse. Legally in the past, a marriage was annulled if it wasn't consummated by sexual intercourse. Gays cannot perform that act, which also involves a real union of persons. Two homosexuals cannot form a true union, only a heterosexual couple can joint together biologically to form a single reproductive unit, irrespective if the unit actually produces children. Only the heterosexual union is actually recognized by biology.
Ah. So a marriage is not valid in your eyes if it cannot produce children? So people who are too old to produce children, or infertile for some reason, or who choose not to produce children - they shouldn't be allowed to marry either?
Of course, nobody checks with straight people who wish to marry that they are capable of and willing to bear children. Therefore, your argument falls apart.
Of course not, an apple is still an apple even if it has a worm in it.
"of course" you should not annul marriages of people who cannot or will not have children? Fine. Then we agree that you do not have to be able or willing to have children in order to get married.
Or are you willing to follow your arguments to their logical conclusion?
If your objection to gay marriage is that it cannot produce children, do you then think that all straight couples who cannot have children should not have the right to get married?
No, atheism is an intrinsic component of Communism, read Marx.
Atheism
may be an intrinsic component of Communism, but Communism is in no way an intrinsic component of atheism. All atheism means is "does not believe in Gods". Therefore, to say that you have the right to free speech because you were born in a Christian nation not an atheist one makes no sense. And that's ignoring the fact that many Christian nations throughout history took a very dim view of free speech, and that it's the values produced by the Enlightenment and liberal democracy that you have to thank.
Yes, but they dont have an objective foundation for that belief and that causes a slippery slope. That is what happened in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, among other nations that abandoned their Christian founding principles.
An interesting side debate, but let's stay on topic. Here's the point you refused to answer again:
"Being an atheist says just as much about you as being a theist: it has nothing to do with your morality. An atheist could be an anarchist, a communist or a humanist. A theist could worship God, Allah or Satan. You'll find that humanists have a very active conscience and believe in freedom of speech very strongly."
Do you concede this, and that therefore it makes no sense for you to speak of "atheist countries" that deny rights to free speech?
No the overwhelming majority of thinkers they utilized were Christians and the Bible. While it was not founded as officially a Christian nation, they did deliberately found it on many Christian principles. This can be seen in the DOI and the Bill of Rights.
Thank you for that concession. You're quite right: the United States of America was
not founded as a Christian nation. In fact, the Founding Fathers were strongly influenced by deist principles. In a more modern age, many of them would undoubtedly have been atheists and agnostics.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica explains it clearly and briefly:
The Founding Fathers, Deism, and Christianity.
"Although orthodox Christians participated at every stage of the new republic, Deism influenced a majority of the Founders. The movement opposed barriers to moral improvement and to social justice. It stood for rational inquiry, for skepticism about dogma and mystery, and for religious toleration. Many of its adherents advocated universal education, freedom of the press, and separation of church and state. If the nation owes much to the Judeo-Christian tradition, it is also indebted to Deism, a movement of reason and equality that influenced the Founding Fathers to embrace liberal political ideals remarkable for their time."
Basically, these are the values of humanists. Good for them!