I get the impression you think I was being dismissive of your post that I responded to, and I wasn't at all. Of course I'm aware that Jesus is quoted in the New Testament as having said that, and if he really did, that's a good thing.
I find the perspective that "what I believe is 100% right and anyone who disagrees with any part of it is 100% wrong" - and I'm not saying that I think you're like that all, and actually there some non-believers on this board who I feel look at things from this perspective themselves -I find that perspective arrogant.
I find it arrogant when someone claims they know what God thinks is an abomination and they know what God thinks isn't an abomination, and if a person doesn't see it that way, that person doesn't quite understand.
I have no idea if there's a higher power and nobody else here does either, despite how much a person might insist they know that there is one, or they know there isn't one.
I know as much as anybody what God feels is an abomination and isn't an abomination, and this is what I know - I have no idea if there is or isn't a God, and if there is a God, I have no idea what God feels is or isn't an abomination, and neither does anybody else, not only here, but across the whole planet.
OK. People are conditioned by what they have experienced. What constitutes facts has funny way of changing on us. People who say they know something is true with a capital "T", are usually expressing their firm belief that that is so. Also people who say that you are 100% wrong, have that same belief.
Quick analogy just to get Michchamp to accuse me of a straw man argument. The sun will rise tomorrow. A statement of fact, no?
Well we know now, the sun doesn't actually "rise" in the sky - it just seems to as the world turns.
There are people who would swear up and down that the sun will rise tomorrow is Truth with a capital T. Those same people, who if you disagreed with them, would say they know for a fact that you are 100% wrong.
The argument has always been, what can you actually know is true with a capital T?
Very little actually, mostly because our beliefs about our physical world come from our own experiences (reading, sensing, experimenting). The problem is all of those things can rather easily fool us into believing things that aren't true. Yet we still believe wholeheartedly whether we are fooled or not.
Everyone who has different experiences (from all inputs), will vehemently disagree with your stated truth.
For me, I am not going to judge what others believe is a fact, I am just going to say that I believe differently. Sometimes rather pointedly, as I am a product of my experiences also, and I may tell you my truths, in an effort to sway you or convince you. In the end though, my belief is that we have free will, and convinced or not, people will believe what they want.
. . . and bravo for that. Otherwise how would this thread be going past 90 responses and still be entertaining the readers?