Here you go dogsbody…
2 Tim 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
2 Tim 3:17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
It says throughout the Bible that these things are from GOD.
dogsbody, I’m not quite sure what you think I’m suppose to get out of the site you keep mentioning, Yes, I did look at it.
What exactly do you mean by fine Christian people? Unitarian Universalists don’t believe in GOD, they don’t believe in Jesus, they don’t follow the Bible, as a matter of fact, they don’t believe anything that’s Christian.
I looked at the homepage of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Montgomery, Alabama, and this is what it said they believe:
Now how exactly is that Christian? What is Christian to you Esprix?
**JerseyDiamond wrote:
Christians are to follow what GOD says, not question what GOD says!**
Okay… if that’s the way you want it…according to the Bible, (KJV version):
**Leviticus 20:13:
If a man lieth with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
Exodus 22:18:
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.**
Okay, JerseyDiamond, I am an admitted homosexual and I’m Wiccan. Twice over, according to the Bible and your God, I should be put to death. You have your orders, now follow them. I live in Austin, TX. Please let me know when you’re in town. Don’t worry, the police won’t be notified.
**Esprit wrote:
Freyr, really, dear - the only good thing about hitting your head against a brick wall is that it feels good when you stop.**
Very true. Okay, I’ll stop. I’m really surprised that JD so brazenly admits to pure, blind, unthinking obedience. shudder
So, JD, I presume you also “looked at” the passages which are mentioned that are in the same books of the Bible, and are generally conveniently ignored by those folks who say that homosexuality is bad?
Just asking.
Oh, and BTW, you obviously didn’t go digging deeply enough into the UU site. There is a whole group of UU Christians (I forget their acronym, though, hang on and I’ll go hunt it up). And yes, they do believe in Christ, and they do consider themselves Christian.
They just also believe in “…the inherent worth and dignity of every human being.”
However, I’m with Freyr, and once I’ve located the UU Christians I’ll be leaving this thread.
Uh, HELLO?? Which thread have you been reading and responding to all this time? If 1: this is a thread about how homosexuality is wrong to a Christian, B: Matthew Shepard was murdered for being homosexual, Third: I am a Christian, and Lastly: I said I think he did something that was wrong…
Please employ that mahvelous brain of yours and tell me what you think I might have been talking about. Show me that you’re really the worthy adversary I thought you were, not just a gainsayer.
As pointed out, you didn’t look deep enough - there are plenty of UU Christians.
The people who follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Just because they don’t follow him the same way you do doesn’t make you, or them, any less Christian.
One of the many problems of the religion - people like you get lumped together with people like Polycarp. Sad that I needs must call you both the same descriptor, because, really, child, he’s far out of your league.
Esprix
:rolleyes: Devil’s advocacy is lost on today’s youth. Don’t they teach children Swift in schools anymore? {sigh}
Esprix
When this thread came up I glanced at the OP and moved on, but once again last night I had another frustrating conversation with my “scarily becoming more fundie” sister.
One thing I can’t seem to make her understand is that there are all kinds of “Christians” and it’s been that way since the beginning. Christianity has been constantly evolving since the first believers. This to me certainly calls into question the infalibility of the modern day Bible. And naturally she had never heard of the Apocraphal texts or the Gospel of Thomas.
Barring that, I then appeal to her sense of justice or try to at least. And find of course that she has been indoctrinated with the old lie that “this country was founded on Christian principles”. Sorry honey, this country was founded on what I’d like to think of as “universal truths”. She’s under the false impression that the “Fathers” intended for Christians to rule this land. It really discombobulates her though when I ask her “Which Christians, the Baptists, the Pentecostals, the Catholics?”
I worries me because I’m beginning to get paranoid. I’m beginning to think that people are becoming so divisive because it’s in “someones” interest to do so. I’m not sure who, I’m pretty sure why, money and control. I don’t like thinking this way but why else would so many of us hold so many bad feelings about minorities and gays? Why would we now after beginning to make such progress 30 years ago all begin to start to shift back to this intolerant way of thinking? It’s almost like it’s become a virus spreading throughout this country.
In the end it shouldn’t matter whether you think being gay is right or wrong. We live in a country where we are free to love who we please, practice the religion of our choice, and speak freely our minds. Dislike what you will, but stop trying to actually curtail these freedoms through legislation. There are still some of us left who will fight you.
Needs2know
Esprix, sadly they do teach Swift, but the students often find the modest proposal is not a bad suggestion at all. I was the lone person arguing against it in my freshman rhetoric class. The other students could not understand why the teacher did not fail me for thinking the wrong thing. Sadly, it was a Christian school and most of those darlings had been to Christian high schools, while I was the product of our lovely public school system.
Let’s not get into the trap of disliking Catholics as a group for a position their religious leader holds or even for part of the dogma the church teaches. I know a very bright young catholic who somehow has found faith and is being confirmed in the catholic church, even though he is gay and doesn’t accept that it is wrong to “commit homosexual acts.” He seems to think that his situation is little different than the millions of Catholics that practice birth control despite the church’s teachings.
Who doesn’t sin in the eyes of their own church or religion if you look at all their behavior closely? How may of you Christians never masturbate? How many give 10 percent of your gross pay to your church. How many even know all the things you are not supposed to do? It is not just Christians of course. I have seen Jews eat bacon sandwiches and Muslims sneak food during the day during Ramadan. Not all members of a religion fail so obviously, but even those who do do not suddenly lose their faith. It certainly give anyone the right to harass them.
There is a doctrine (in Catholicism at least) that is often obscured by religious teachers that says that each person must follow his or her own conscience with God’s guidance. Following such a path may be lonely as your fellow Catholics my believe you are sinning, but according to doctrine you don’t need their approval.
Personally, the homosexual acts I have committed felt good, not just physically, but spiritually as well. I can see no wrong or sin in them and suggest that people worry about their own sex life.
What I don’t understand is why people focus so much on homosexuality, unless it is simply that most people aren’t homosexual. Homosexual acts are not in the least bit tempting for most people and thus condemning people who commit them puts the condemners on fairly steady ground. They can feel less hypocritical because this is a rule that they haven’t broken. It may also be jealousy. Since homosexual acts don’t result in pregnancy, there is a feeling that the participants got away with something without having to pay for it.
In any case as I am not Christian, Christians have no more right to harass me for homosexual acts than I would for harassing my Muslim co-worker for eating during Ramadan.
Actually, I have to agree: homosexuals are wicked creatures, and it is your Christian duty to put some Zyklon-B in our bath salts. However, after you’ve gotten rid of us evil gay folk, you still have another enemy:
Left-handers!
That’s right, left-handed people are evil. First we have Bbilical justification. In Matthew 25 in the parable of the sheep and the goats, God puts the sheep on His right and the goats on His left. From this, we can clearly tell that God favors right-handed people, and left-handed people are minions of Satan. We should not let left-handed people around our kids because they might start imitating these diseased beings and start writing with their left hands! It’s obvious that left-handed people are defying God, and they must be lying when they say it’s inborn, because all right-thinking people know it’s really a choice.
I also think that left-handed people need to stop asking for special rights for protection. If someone chooses to use his left hand, then he doesn’t deserve to have a job or an apartment. God-fearing right-ahnders don’t need any special protection, so why should the left-handed minority get any? If I choose not to hire one or rent an apartment, that’s my right as a real American. And we need to keep them out of the military. guns were made for righthanders, and you can’t trust a left-hander not to screw up and shoot his own side, so to protect our soldiers, we need to exclude them.
So, off to the crematoria with you sinister (ha,ha) beings to the hell you so richly deserve.
Esprix, now that’s Swiftian exaggeration!
Here is something interesting
http://www.ualberta.ca/~cbidwell/eses/dc-warn1.htmI believe lee, that they are focusing because they are being directed to focus on this issue. I know for certain that my own sister didn’t think much about it one way or the other. We’ve had friends and aquaintances that were homosexual. It was never an issue with her until she began attending her current church where condemnation of homosexuality is coming directly from the pulpit. I too was attending this church for awhile. I liked the pastor at first, he was very witty. Then more and more the tone of the sermons began to change. Granted I only went for a month or two before the day came that they asked us to sign a petition to block homosexual marriage in Hawaii (or some other state, I can’t remember) I never went back.
It seems to me that plenty of people simply would not care about this issue if it were not forced on them. Somehow it even seems to be tied up in their own salvation. I’ve tried to explain to my sister that I don’t think she’ll go to hell if gays in Vermont can get married. It just doesn’t effect her in any way. I honestly think that in her case she’s becoming more and more intolerant to other people’s differences because she feels it’s her obligation. Just a theory but I can find no other logical explaination. Knowing my sister and knowing she has changed, she was never this intolerant before.
Needs2know
Why do Christians care? According to them, we are all errant, but those of us “not in the know” simply haven’t “seen the light,” and it’s their job to “share the Word…” blah blah blah. We know the old song n’ dance. It bores me, but sadly, it affects me as well.
Just gotta keep on doing our part.
Sounds like a good article Toxic - I’ll read it more thoroughly later. Thanks for the link.
Esprix
That soft thwapping sound is me banging my head on my wall to the gentle, soothing music of Holst.
So what some of you are saying is that since, in your perception, God doesn’t like homosexuality, every gay person is essentially spitting on a cross when they hold hands with their partner.
My problem with this logic is that the next step seems to be that gay people deserve what they get, because God hates them.
By this arguement, it seems to me that you have the right to be offended by anyone who doesn’t exactly fit your definition of what is a Christian.
My next question: JD, what is your definition of a Christian? If you don’t mind, please go into detail.
Again, I’d like to mention that several denominations do embrace and accept gay Christians. Individual churches do as well- in fact, several religions are arguing over interpretation of doctrine as it applies to homosexuality right now. The mainstream Christian perspective is changing. Thoughts on this?
What hurts sometimes too is I find it harder and harder to stay with my faith and reconcile it to my beliefs on things like homosexuality, abortion, feminism, birth control, premarital sex, etc etc.
It’s getting harder and harder for me to go to church. Which sucks. I don’t believe God or Jesus condones these ideas? So why must I turn my back on my faith, if the people who teach it are saying things I don’t agree with at all? It sucks and it’s very painful. I have always been a Catholic-I love hearing about the saints and the old prayers such as the Rosary. Yet I don’t believe that Mary or Jesus would deny someone love because of the fact that they had their tubes tied, had an abortion, are homosexual, etc etc.
Whatever happened to Do unto others, and Whatsoever you do to the least of my brother, that you do unto me? I thought that God was in all of us, and thus we are all God, and God is all of us?
So I don’t go to church, because of the people who say these things. But I haven’t turned my back on God.
Okay, I lost track of this but I have to wade back in. God forbid (literally) Jersey and Joe be the sole “voice” of Christianity.
JERSEY says:
Time to turn the Miracle Ear back up. Very few people in the legitimate science community think that any statistically significant percentage of avowed homosexuals are homosexually oriented by choice.
Well, I don’t always say it (“Hi, I’m Jodi and I’m a Christian!”) but I do avow it when relevant, since such avowal is part of my perceived duties under my faith.
God can, yes. You cannot. Because you’re, y’know, not God.
Prepare for a shocker: I don’t think the Bible is the verbatim word of God. I do not believe it is inerrant. So “the Bible says it’s wrong” is not the end of the analysis for me. And an “it is, too” from you is not going to change my mind.
Show me where God said, “Thou shalt not think with the brain I have given you.”
You have no right to post as if you speak for all Christians. You do not. You speak for yourself, and for perhaps those others who ascribe to your apparently fundamentalist views. You do not speak for the millions of people who are moderate or liberal Christians and who believe that God’s message of peace and understanding and His exhortation that we judge not lest we be judged prohibits us from condemning the peaceful, harmless actions of others. I say this not to attack you, but because I myself have been attacked in the past for not forcefully speaking out against those who would claim all of Christianity for fundamentalism. So kindly speak for yourself. For example, when you say:
I say, baloney. You have no right to declare that God expects sheep-like behavior from His followers; He might expect it from you, but He expects the exact opposite from me. Faith and inquiry are not mutually exclusive, and a faith that is adhered to knowingly, through questioning and introspection, seems to me to be a richer thing than one adhered to through ignorant devotion.
ESPRIX:
Thank you.
::: applauds Jodi ::::
Very well said. I’ve been staying out of this, because a one-sided debate is about pointless, and Ms. Diamond apparently has chosen not to respond to any of the questions I’ve asked her.
Guin, I hear your pain. As I recall, Catholicism is welcoming of a variety of intellectual views and standings on moral issues (all within the magisterium), though much of that apparently does not filter over into the Eastern Rites.
Perhaps the last thing I want to do is to proselytize an active member of another denomination, but if you ever reach the point where you feel you just have to change, or simply need somewhere else to get some spiritual nourishment on a one-shot basis, give me an e-mail and I’ll try to be some help. 'Kay?
I’m sorry polycarp, what was your question? Maybe I did’t catch it!
Jody, you are going to believe what suites your lifestyle, regarless of what the bible says, so great, have fun. I’m sure I you will find many people who will believe your ‘if it sounds logical and feels right, do it’ beliefs, so I wish you all the best…good luck
I’ve noticed the same thing about the fundamentalists I know. They desire structure in their life and idealize traditional societal roles. Therefore, they lean towards beliefs give them that.
So it can go both ways, Joe_Cool.