I don’t wish to continue arguing on this particular issue. It’s going nowhere. I will never change my view on this subject. I was asked my opinion by gobear and gave it. Ever since it’s been like a pack of rabid dogs coming after me. No matter. If homosexuals want to have the approval of everyone in the world on their lifestyle, I can tell you that it isn’t going to happen. It’s not normal or natural, it’s against nature. It’s an abomination in God’s eyes. It’s right there in the Word, I can’t help it if you choose to reject it and find ways not to believe it. Refuse to believe it if you want, doesn’t change the truth. God didn’t create Adam and Steve or Eve and Louise. He didn’t create them male and male or female or female. He created male and female. That should tell you something right there. I’ve given you the scriptures and you have your own twisted interpretation of them. Here they are again for anyone who cares to carefully read them plus a few more.
I’ve tried nicely to share my view and asked nicely for us to go on to something else and agree to disagree. No matter what names you choose to call me and those who believe as I do, I do NOT hate homosexuals. I care, if I didn’t care I’d sugar coat the truth to make you feel good. I am repsonsible before the Lord to tell you the truth. Love tells the truth even if it’s unpopular or not “politically correct”. I’ve said all I intend to say on this subject in this particular thread.
He didn’t create Adam and Eve either; it’s a Mesopotamian creation myth that the Jews picked up and made their own. If you bother to look at the original Hebrew and Greek you might find your understanding of the verses’ meaning is flawed.
In any event, even if you believe gay folk are on a straight trip to Hell, could you please ask the gaybashers in your church to knock off the persecution? Every attempt to repeal anti-discrimination laws is backed by the local fundamentalists, and I, for one, would like you guys to show charity with your acts and not just words.
heh, he, one night with me, Homebrew, and you might be a bottom, but I’ll guarantee you’ll be active!
OK, His4Ever, for your intransigence, I sentence you to listen to an evening of Stephen Sondheim, followed by shopping for shoes, champagne brunch, a pecs/shoulders/tri’s workout at the gym, and a mandatory Kylie Minogue concert. We’ll convert you yet! And your little dog, too! (evil Margaret Hamilton laughter)
gobear, you’re a proponent of what’s know in other contexts as appeasement. It didn’t work for Neville Chamberlain, and it didn’t work for the southern gradualists of the Civil Rights Era.
As long as you keep offering H4E a path of less resistance, she’ll take it. What H4E needs to understand is that she no longer has a choice: if she wants to live in the real world but cling to her wrongheaded (not to mention nonchristian) cult of hate, then it is SHE who will be marginalized, and not me. It’s my world, too–and I might mention yours–and since she’s the one who has built the closet, she’s the one who can retreat into it: I won’t cooperate with her by shutting myself up in HER closet. She does not recognize your humanity, so you have no obligation to appeal to hers.
And once again, I truly believe that, within her belief system, it is she who has succumbed to the sinful temptation to hate her fellow man. She’s been tested by God, in the agency of Satan, and has chosen narrowminded hatefulness over Christian charity. You do the math.
Go ahead and make those longterm plans, H4E; you’ll be left behind long enough to see them through.
Appeasement, I? BWAHAHAHA! Honey, I’m the farthest thing from an appeaser, as you ought to know from our numerous run-ins.
All you accomplish by screaming at fundies is feed their martyr complex --“Oh, these evil, depraved gay folk are screaming at me. It’s because they hate the Lord.” It doesn’t do any good. If screaming at them helped, trust me, I’d be breaking some eardrums.
If the fundie is being polite, it’s only right to respond politely and show them that their prejudices may be wrong. His4Ever is not going to listen now, but maybe, over time, she might come to the realization that she is contributing to the climate of hate that causes young men to be beaten and left to die on a cold Wyoming night.
How does responding to ‘hatefull speech’ (oh! how I hate that term, but…) with more ‘hatefull speech’ marginalize anyone but both speakers?
I can definitely see how Kirkland might be so pissed off, that he doesn’t weigh his words first. God know I am often guilty of that myself.
But going off about 'f*&%ing fundies, etc, is not going to garner equal rights for anybody. Rather, it will cast the speaker in a ‘radical’ light. And ‘radical’ thought does not get far in America.
That’s untrue.
I suggest you read Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity by Bruce Bagemihl, which discusses the wide incidence of homosxual behavior among animals in the wild.
First of all, thanks for putting words in my mouth in order to be able to quote something objectionable. I never said “f*&%ing fundies.” I said fundies, which is a word I learned from–wait for it–fundamentalists themselves, and which I did not use as an insult. (The first time I heard the term, in fact, was from my fundamentalist ex-boyfriend, so I don’t even share your elsewhere-expressed monolithic dislike of fundies.) I merely tried to frame the discussion in H4E’s own idiom, that of temptation and sin. If that sounds like hate speech to you, then maybe you get my point.
And the important thing here, *gobear, is to make it clear to H4E that she is the radical, not me. Asserting my humanhood and reminding everyone who it is who built the proverbial closet is not radical; it’s baseline human truth.
You need to stop thinking of societal acceptance of you as a person as a privilege that you need to earn by bowing and scraping, and instead think of it as a right that you were born with; to stop thinking of H4E’s world as a status quo that you must chip away at a little at a time, and to think of it as an active effort on her part to chip away a little at a time at your rightful place and time on this planet.
She’s the transgressor here, not you, and certainly not me.
Then stop. But you didn’t stop, did you? I think my questions have been very reasonable, and I certainly haven’t called you any names or been hostile to you. I am a Christian too, and I wouldn’t do that. But if you choose to declare your beliefs, you must expect to be asked to defend them. Especially around here. And if you choose to base your beliefs on a requirement that you follow Old Testament pronouncements (as you understand them) or New Testament exhortations, then it is reasonable to ask why you only follow some but not all. If you won’t answer this question for me, at least ask it for and to yourself. Think. God gave you a brain, and He wants you to use it. You may reach a different conclusion than what I have or will, but at least be sure you have thought out your position.
You are not the arbiter of what is or is not an abomination in God’s eyes. You do not get to tell thinking adults that they are wrong in their understanding of God’s will – especially when you are unwilling or unable to defend your own understanding it. You do not decide what is or is not “the truth,” and it is presumptuous and insulting for you to take it upon yourself to inform others of “the truth.” And it is cowardly – cowardly for you to try to do so and then airily announce you’re through discussing it. You may feel you have the Sword of Truth And Righteousness in your hand, but that doesn’t entitle you to whack people with it and run.
If this subject is something you don’t want to discuss, then by all means shut up about it. Leave off the parting shots, the “I don’t care whbat you say, here’s ‘the truth’”, and every other indication that you haven’t really thought through what you profess to believe. Just shut up about it.
[quote]
I’ve tried nicely to share my view and asked nicely for us to go on to something else and agree to disagree. No matter what names you choose to call me and those who believe as I do, I do NOT hate homosexuals. I care, if I didn’t care I’d sugar coat the truth to make you feel good. I am repsonsible before the Lord to tell you the truth. Love tells the truth even if it’s unpopular or not “politically correct”. I’ve said all I intend to say on this subject in this particular thread
In other words, you’re going to stick your fingers in your ears and chant lalalalalalalalalalala I can’t hear you …
You’ve contradicted yourself in your last two posts, you see. First you allow that you don’t have to follow all of the Old Testament Laws, then you go ahead and list the Leviticus passages again. Either this is a double standard or you’re being hypocritical.
If you can stike the Leviticus passages you don’t like, why can’t others?
So we’re reduced to the Romans and Corinthians passages. The Corinthians passage refers to (in the KJV) the “effeminate” and “abusers of themselves with mankind”. How does that mean “homosexual”? Or does it only mean nelly queers are condemned? You bears are safe. Since, in English, mankind is used to mean “humanity”*, abusures of themselves with mankind must refer to Masochists. Only those into the slave role in a S&M relationship seem condemned here. Hey, you’re the one who claimed the words were plain English.
In the Romans passage you’re missing the cause & effect. It says that some people “changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator … For this cause God gave them up …”
So the Sin (read: cause) was changing the truth of God into a lie and worshiping the creature more than the Creator**. The punishment was God giving them up to some recompence.
But let’s skip ahead to Romans 2:1
You must read the whole work in context to understand. In chapter one, Paul is setting up “mankind” to be wicked, he’s not singling out individual sins to condemn.
Paul says later “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified” (Romans 2:13) and he adds “[those] which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness”.
So what exactly is “the law” which Paul speaks of? Perhaps we should consult the words of Christ. (Remember him, he’s the one Christianity is named after)
repeated again
Again in Luke, but that’s repetitious.
Paul, in the very letter you’re using to condemn, says
emphasis added. He repeats that message in Galatians 5:14.
The writer of James goes so far as to call “Love Your Neighbour” the Royal Commandment in chapter 2 verse 8
I’ve read this book more than once. And I find it repeated over and over that we’re not to judge other people. We don’t get to say what is sin and what isn’t. But I also find that Christ only requires two things from us. “Love God. Love Everyone”.
And that’s the gospel in a nutshell.
*ex: That’s one small step for a man. One giant leap for mankind.
. . . and all you have accomplished by having diverted this discussion from one of the dehumanizing wrongheadedness of homophobic cults of pseudoChristianity into a discussion of my tone of self defense, is to exhibit the fact that you hold H4E’s feewings in higher regard than your own human rights. Which is more worth your energy to defend, gobear, H4E’s huwted feewings or your rightful place in society?
You’re one the outside looking in, and liking it; I cannot live that way.
Where on Earth do you get the idea that I think of societal acceptance as a privilege? You do not know me at all, do you? And I don’t thinkof H4E’s world as a “status quo”–her world is a sad little room devoid of art, Broadway, literature, or natural fibers–H4E needs to be shown that the world is a much bigger place than she has heretofore dreamt of, and that her prejudices are wrong. Like I said, if you think yelling will help change her mind, go ahead.
And no, I am NOT on the outside looking in. Jesus, do you pay no attention at all? We’re in the freaking center, and she’s on the outside, but I’m trying to draw her into the real world.
Um, because you’re begging H4E for permission to be human, rather than explaining to her that it’s not up to her to define your humanity? Because, faced with a representative oppressor, you argue for politeness over and above rights?
No. He and I are trying to show her that her understanding of her own Scripture, as well as science, is flawed and she needs to reexamine her beliefs. We both seem to think that dealing with her with reason will be more productive than simply shouting at her. So how is that asking for her permission to be human? We’re explicitly telling her she’s wrong.
As I have said over and over, I’m not begging anybody for a godddamn thing. I’m trying to engage H4E in a civilized conversation because calling her names and swearing are really USELESS tactics. Nobody I know responds well to that.
DO YOU THINK YELLING AT YOU IS AN EFFECTIVE TACTIC TO GET YOU TO SEE THE VIRTUES OF EMPLOYING REASON AND COURTESY IN A DISCUSSION?
Didn’t think so.
If you think screaming is going to help, good luck, sister.
**
Actually, I’ve been translating a clay tablet I found in an archive room of the nearby Musuem of Anthropology. It’s in a strange dialect of Hebrew and some sections are in a cypher. The tablet appears to contain a new section of Genesis. The lost sections of Genesis are as follows-
But in the midst of plenty Adam knew loneliness.
So did the Lord fashion a helpmeet for Adam and named
him Steve. The two men were happy together. They
tended the Garden and its animals. Together did they
give tigers stripes. For, they were slimming.
Together, did they give peacocks tails. For, they were
fab-u-lous. Together, Adam and Steve remade the banana
so that none should doubt that the world was God’s
creation. “Behold the banana,”, said Steve “It comes
in a convenient wrapper. It is easy to peel. Its shape
fits perfectly into the mouth of a man.”
Adam nodded and said "Mark, as well, that its
shape is also perfect for sliding into a man’s
fundament. Thus all shall know the will of God-that
men should put things in their fundaments and so
stimulate the prostate gland which the Lord, in his
infinite wisdom, has placed therein.
Then came the day when Adam cautioned Steve to be
wary of gluttony. For, Adam said, Steve’s thighs were
beginning to grow fat. So Steve left Eden and went
into the Land Of Nod. -This is all I’ve got so far.
Again, If you believe Jesus invalidated the old law, why are you quoting it? If Jesus made the laws in Leviticus null and void, what does it matter what 18:22 or 20:13 or any other prohibition in Leviticus says?
