Unless you’ve spoken to every Christian in the world, I doubt that this is so.
I believe it is entirely up to God to decide whether or not homosexuality is immoral or not. I don’t believe it is. If I did, however, I wouldn’t care, though, because it is not my business. It is between you and your beliefs.
Sadly, even though I no longer go to Mass, and don’t wish to believe that one religion is the true one (I don’t believe in a hell), I find myself unable to break away from the beliefs of my childhood. A Messiah who preached that the most important thing was to love one another and treat one another as one wants to be treated is all that matters, to me.
It’s called “representative sampling” in statistics. You don’t have to interview every single Christian in the world, just a wide enough sample that represents the general population. In my 40 years, I believe I’ve met enough Christians to make an intelligent judgement about the majority. You guys have rose-colored glasses on, and wish to believe the world is a lovely, tolerant place. Well, it’s not. It’s a world of hate, bigotry, and misery. I have endured enough insults from the church crowd to know how the majority feels. I don’t include you three. You three are all good, decent people, but your goodness does not outweigh the hate Christians have in their hearts towards gays.
I regret the beating being taken by those in the Christian community who do love their neighbor and who would seek to help him out of a difficult situation.
Gobear,
While I respect your right to your position, I must say that it is based on faulty premises. You said that it takes an adequate sampling of the population to know what they are about. How many people calling themselves “Christians” (which can be a far cry from actually being one) do you have in your sampling? Even over 40 years, would this sampling be 500 or 1,000 people? And did you take your sampling from various places? Did your sample come from the same time frame? Did those sampled meet a certain criteria for a true definition of the whole?
I suggest that your sampling might be quite different if it were in deed scientific? And based on scientific sampling, you might see a different kind of “Christian”. Rather than hearing only from outraged extremists (they are usually a group’s members who run off at the mouth and attract more attention than the average member), you would hear from concerned citizens and from those who don’t care. You would certainly hear from more than 500 or 1,000 to get a valid sampling. And you would not be able to spread your sample over 40 years.
Further, to distrust God based on your confidence in a faulty sampling of people who “claim” to know God is equally unwise. I suggest that you take the time to seek Him personally. I guarantee that you will find Him desirous of a relationship with you rather than dismissive and judgmental.
Poly,
How can you feed such a frenzy with your words? You should know that most of the “fringe” of Christianity isn’t even “real” but rather they are imposters desirous of stirring up trouble. How can you give credence to their actions and words. They don’t speak for us any more than a Russian Senator can speak for an American state.
Fuck this. OK, fine, I’m wrong, and all Christians love gay people. It’s pretty fucking clear that having lived and traveled all over the United States and abroad, having even BEEN a Christian doesn’t mean a goddamn thing to you people. I’m obviously too stupid to form opinions on my own or to have made any intelligent observations. Since you’re determined that I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, I quit. You win.
THe fact is, there are MILLIONS of Christians in the world.
By your logic, I could say that because there are say, about 400 radical Muslims that support Osama Bin Laden, then Muslims by large are a radical, violent bunch.
gobear, I wish I could tell you that you are wrong. Unfortunately, I have to agree with you.
The vast majority of evangelicals believe that homosexual conduct is immoral, and AFAICT that’s also true of a sizable minority of churchgoers in the old mainstream denominations.
In the mainstream denominatons, change is slowly seeping in, but if you’re gay and Christian, it’s still got to be a chore to find a church where the members are accepting of who and what you are. As for the evangelical denominations…you and I might not live long enough to see significant change there.
I wish the church was better than that, but I don’t believe it is.
In a country where laws such as the Defense of Marriage Act can get passed, with extensive lobbying from Christian organizations, I don’t think gobear’s assumption is acutally unreasonable.
I understand that there are Christians out there with a compassionate and caring attitude of acceptance towards homosexuality. But the image being presented by Christianity in the US can’t be said to be gay-friendly. The term “family values” springs instantly to mind, as does the protests against Gay Days at Disneyland, and oh, the exclusion of gay pastors from churches and the refusal to perform gay marriages in churches and churches’ staunch opposition to the inclusion of homosexuality in sex education classes…
It’s not an unfair conclusion to think that the compassionate, caring people who believe that gay folks are the same as anyone else are a minority, and a very quiet one at that. Having spent all my life since adolescence putting up with bigotry and prejudice which, when called into question, is invariably defended from a Christian viewpoint has made me justifiably cynical about claims that Christianity really doesn’t feel that way, it’s just a few wackos on the periphery.
You want to prove otherwise? Go right ahead. I’m eager to see more mainstream Christian denomination start supporting gay marriage. I’d love to hear about more sermons where intolerance towards homosexuals is decried, and gay people are welcomed, just like anyone else. I’d very much like to see Christian organizations lobbying in support of gay marriage, and gay rights in general. That’s what it would take to dispel my perception that homophobia is a major component of US Christianity.
While I think Christianity should be practiced the way RTFirefly describes (hell, I’m not going to tell any other religion how it should be practiced, I just can’t think of a better way to phrase it), the literal interpretation of the Bible (and the Torah, and the Qu’ran) is that homosexuality is a sin.
I think it is commendable and wonderful that there are those who look beyond words to the meaning behind the religion as a whole and love their gay neighbors, but the majority of Christian churches don’t see it that way.
I do know what he is saying. BUT, I get the impression that gobear is then starting to paint a picture that Christians for the most part are very intolerant-which I have not seen.
Guin, gobear has done us the courtesy of being honest with us about the reality of his experiences with Christianity and Christians. He’s done so in a way that, IMO at least, isn’t an attack on anyone. Abuse isn’t called for.
Billions, actually. And by and large, Christians outside America (which largely means the Third World, since there are relatively few Christians in Europe) are far more conservative on issues related to sex and gender than are those in America.
No, that’s not remotely equivalent to what he said.
Hi, SIN, good to see you. I’ve read your posts for a while.
**I suggest that you take the time to seek Him personally. I guarantee that you will find Him desirous of a relationship with you rather than dismissive and judgmental.
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Oh, God is not the problem. Christianity is. Specifically, the book upon which Christianity is based.
The book says homosexuality is an abomination before God. I, and many, choose not to accept that. I choose to simply dismiss Paul much of the time, but others choose to dismiss the entire book. That does not mean dismissing God, or even the Christ.
I don’t know how the sites that give numbers of adherents to the various faiths arrive at their totals. But from many accounts, church is a great place to go if you want to be alone while you’re in Europe.
Exactly what percentage of Europeans would describe themselves as not belonging to any religion, I don’t know, but it’s surely a much larger chunk of the population than here in the USA, where about 90% of the population considers themselves to be Christian, IIRC.
Perception is everything. If everyone who tell you X self-identifies as a Christian, it’s a good indicator that the only people who believe X self-identify as Christians.
I dunno. I think part of it is the self-identification. While the majority of Christians may not act in a way that drives homosexuals away from Christ, they also don’t do anything to bring them close to Christ. And they don’t, by and large, proclaim their faith.
Those who do proclaim themselves as Christian either agree that homosexuality is abomination, and act in such matter as to drive gays away from Christ, or they are Polycarpian (if you’ll pardon the liberty) in their understanding of God’s love.
And the former are much louder. Whether they are indeed more common, I’m not certain (although I believe it to be so, as it takes cojones to actually live a Godly life), but they certainly seem to be.
Again, Poly hit it right on the nose. When the only Christians you see and hear tell you you’re damned . . .
Thank you. I posted without the knowledge of your reply. For some reason it was not there when last I read and it took some time for my post to hit. Anyone else having problems? I am on a T1 and it seems sluggish today.
I would still hold to what I said, Andros. God uses Christians to witness to others. Mind you, the proper defintion of Christian will make that last sentence mean something totally new.
