I agree entirely with this thread, but just wanted to add that even the “straight supremacists” and the ones who act “holier-than-thou” also deserve the same love that we would give to any other “neighbor”.
And ** cjhoworth **, the hymn is beautiful 
You still don’t understand where I’m coming from, cj, and that’s alright. Although I don’t want to keep on and keep on concerning the subject of homosexuality, sometimes I feel I simple must say something. I feel the Spirit of God compelling me not to be silent. What you’ve yet to understand is that I’ve meant no hatred or animosity here. I’ll try to explain a little bit. You see, we Christians who believe God says this is wrong are not sharing that out of hatred at all. I know that we could make everyone feel good and happy if we’d only come over to the other side and say that it’s okay. But we’re looking at a bigger picture than this life or individual happiness in this life. There’s eternity to consider. We read what God says about this and what the results of this conduct will be and it’s out of love, NOT hate, that we come and share what we do. Truth is more important that anything else, including happiness. Now I know we can get bogged down in all the arguments about interpretations and whether or not the Bible is even really God’s word. We’ve been down that road. Just please try and remember that there are those of us who do believe the Bible to be God’s word and we do believe it teaches this conduct is wrong therefore out of concern and caring we try in a loving way to share this truth. I have called no one names or ever said I hated homosexuals. Yet I continue to read posts talking about my hatred, bigotry, etc. Also I’ve read someone talking about people who worship the Bible instead of God. I worship God but you can’t separate Him from His word. He will not violate His word in any way. If He did what kind of God would He be? Every promise will be kept to those whom the promise is directed, every warning and resulting judgement for ignoring the warnings will be carried out. Anyway, please accept that my motives here have not been hatred, bigotry, or any such thing. I don’t set out to deliberately hurt people. I’ve shared what I believe God wanted me to share and I’m sorry that many haven’t liked it. My beliefs on this subject remain the same but please don’t say I’m a hater for daring to disagree with those who accept this behaviour. Thanks for your time.
And just what is the message you’re trying to get accross, His4ever? Calling us an abomination is not convincing us that you Love us.
You job is to take the Gospel to all men, through your demonstration of Christ’s Love. It is the job of the Spirit to convict, not yours. You are trying to usurp the Spirit’s job by your condemnation.
You are to Love. Let God take care of the rest.
In all honesty, H4E, I don’t believe you came down that road with us; you kept saying that you intended to stay right where you were.
You’ve heard that old saw, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”? Apparently, it works both ways.
cjhoworth: I know you’re concerned that people are being driven away from Christ by the divisive attitudes you mentioned in the OP, but, at least in this particular context, they are having precisely the opposite effect. In MrVisible’s thread to the homophobes, I’ve seen more of the real love and kindness that make up Christianity than I have in the whole of the rest of my life. Not from H4E or awd_dsm’s hateful ramblings, but from you, Jodi, dreamer, andygirl, and of course the incessently inestimable Polycarp. I’m not a believer myself, but the humility, wisdom, and compassion you all have displayed in that thread is easily the best argument for faith I have ever heard.
I guess it’s like MrVisibile said: the more they speak up, the more people will see them for what they really are. And as long as the rest of us have Christians like you with which to contrast Christians like them, I think more people will be driven towards God than away. Kind of ironic, that bigotry said in God’s name might ultimatly result in more people embracing his real word. Must be one of those “mysterious ways” I’ve heard so much about.
dreamer I am glad you came to this board.
We’ve now got an extra christian.
The good kind!
(yes, we already had some, but you know one more wont hurt)
Do you think you draw more people to God by calling attention to their faults or by showing them God’s love by acknowledging that EVERYONE is a sinner and letting God worry about the things that don’t affect you?
Okay. Show me a homosexual on this board who has not heard someone say that they are either damned to Hell for their sexuality or that God says it is wrong.
We (non-hets) KNOW what you believe God and the Bible say. Really, we do. It isn’t conducive to anything holy to keep on saying “God and the Bible say that your lifestyle is sinful” if we know that and moreover it drives us away from you and your religion.
And what of those who are gay and do not act on their urges? Because sexuality is not dependent on action. Otherwise you’d have been devoid of it before your first sexual activity, and if that were true you wouldn’t have had any idea what you liked and didn’t like.
Oh, horseshit. I believe partially in the Judeo-Christian concept of God and I don’t think the Bible is good for much more than some useful general life lessons (hint: the ones about loving people, not the ones about what is an abomination). I think what you mean to say is that you believe God is inseparable from the Bible. That’s something completely different.
GAH! AAAAAAAAAUGH!
Sexuality does not determine a specific behavior. You would do well to remember that. Being gay does not mean you’re going to spend your entire life fucking members of your own sex. Being bisexual doesn’t mean you’re going to stay with one sex forever. And being straight doesn’t mean you’re going to be with the opposite sex forever. It merely makes you attracted to a particular gender or genders.
It is not a behavior. It part of who one is just as eye color and hair color. Is there something unclear about this?
And it isn’t so much that your beliefs on this subject remain the same but that you have repeatedly stated that you will not change your mind even in the face of your elders, people who, I would take a guess, know a little more than you do, realized they were wrong.
Is it not clear to you that you’ve made up your mind and stopped thinking? You might as well just not post if you’re not open to being wrong. Life is about change, and you’re not open to it.
His4Ever in particular and other participants in this thread in general:
I’ve started a thread that I hope will address the issues here in a more general context over in Great Debates, and I would very much welcome your addressing the questions raised there.
It’s at http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=134739
HIS4EVER –
It’s funny the Spirit doesn’t expect you to see your arguments through then. It’s odd that the Spirit apparently thinks it’s okay for you to make people feel bad about themselves, and alienated from Him, while you go your merry way, confident of your own salvation. That doesn’t sound like the Spirit to me. It sounds like Error with a capital “E.”
You cannot tell people they are damned to hell and say there is no animosity there. It just doesn’t wash. People don’t believe you. Ask yourself: Is there one person here whose heart I have turned, or whose mind I have changed? Or do they all now think less of me, and less of Christ, due to my “witness”? You are to Love God and Love your neighbor. You are affirmatively not to judge your neighbor; you are told this very thing in the book yo assert is the Word of God. Why do you only obey part of it, but not the others?
YOU DO NOT HAVE THE SECRET TO “TRUTH.” YOUR INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE IS NO MORE INHERENTLY “TRUTHFUL” THAN MINE. In fact, it is less so, because I am willing to explain and defend my iterpretation; you can’t be bothered. Don’t come in here and tell us what “the truth” is; you DON’T KNOW.
It is the love of a turned back; the love of a closed fist. TELLING SOMEONE THEY ARE DAMNED IS NOT AN ACT OF LOVE. For you to insist that it is is delusional.
Then why don’t you follow His word? Because you don’t and you’ve admitted as much. Woe to you, you hypocrite!
You are a hater because your words speak of hatred, not love. You say you are motivated out of love but you say nothing about it. Your witness is all about division, and alienation, and the disapproval of God. You speak of in the tongues of men – certainly not of angels – and you have not love. You are a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal. And that is all you are here, because there is NO LOVE in your posts.
Show me one time when you have said one thing positive about anyone here – where you have been a witness to the love of God in this forum. You never have. Never.
It’s not the Spirit that moves you to do this – to sow anger and hatred and sadness. C.S. Lewis said, Nothing that is good can be laid at the foot of the Devil, and nothing that is bad can be laid at the foot of God. So you can claim and claim and claim that you say and do these things in the name of God, but you do not.
H4E reminds me of Miss Clack, the vicious Christian busybody from Wilkie Collins’ novel, The Moonstone. She spreads gossip, backbites, and harasses a dying woman, always excusing herself by pleading her “Christian duty.”
(Bantam paperback edition, p. 16)
H4E might profit from a study of 19th century English novels; so many Victorian writers, from Trollope to Thackeray to
Eliot, dissected the religious hypocrisy of their times. Alas, I fear that H4E avoids bookshops and libraries as dens of inquity and free thought.
Sorry, that should be p. 216.
Silly gobear … everything H4e needed to know she learned in Leviticus:rolleyes:
What a long, strange trip it’s been. But hey, I’m glad I came here too and thanks.
dreamer, I know you and I don’t have the same spiritual philosophy, as was hashed out in a number of atheism-themed threads, but I’d like you to know that your openmindedness and generosity are quite inspiring, even to an infidel like me.
Oh, and His4Ever?
Maybe you should check the expiration date on your prescription bottles.
I remember that we would sing a hymn at Mass sometimes, something like,
“And they’ll know we are Christians by our love…”
His4Ever, this doesn’t apply to you.
But this one does:
Check the plank in your own eye before worrying about the speck in someone else’s.
As for the “truth”, you have stated out right fucking LIES about Catholicism.
Let’s forget about what you believe about homosexuality. You were proven wrong so many times on Catholicism and Jack Chick, yet you still sit there and bear FALSE WITNESS.
THAT, my friend, is a sin.
Karma, babe, ain’t it a bitch.
I suggest you also read and study the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.
We sing this as a hymn in Mass, and it is one of my favorites.
I hope you don’t think that this sort of thing legitimizes your arguments. In actuality, it makes you sound silly. Responsible Christians are humble enough not to say that they are the voice of God, Himself.
**
I know, this is the old standby argument. However, consider this. You believe in, and actively support, a deity (real or not) that will torture people in Hell for all eternity for being gay if they don’t recant, become celibate, and beg forgiveness for having desires that they neither choose to have nor can change to heterosexual feelings. You tell them this. How are they supposed to react? “Thanks for the warning”?
Torture is hateful. Supporting torture is hateful. Hell and damnation are hateful ideas, and a God that would use them is hateful. I don’t know how you can say that you don’t hate gay people if you would be able to enjoy Heaven knowing that they were burning in a lake of eternal fire. I don’t think it’s loving to accept torture of any human being – not even murderers or rapists, let alone people having consensual sex with people they love – and let alone for all time!
While it’s nice of you to think of gay folks when you speak up, I’ll remind you that you are doing so, in your own words, because of the “Spirit of God” telling you to do it. I have to say that I personally feel that worshipping a god of judgement that tortures anyone who doesn’t worship Him (or, worse, doesn’t worship Him right) is not a loving way to behave – no matter how loving you, or a torture-enducing deity, says it is.
**
When did God give an interview? Even the most literalist admits that human beings were divinely inspired to write the Bible.
If God is loving, isn’t He concerned for our happiness?
I realize you think you are being loving. I think you need to carefully examine what love is. Warning someone about potential danger is a nice thing to do, sure. Saying that torturing people if they don’t accept said warning is divine, just, and loving is quite a different story.
**
I do remember. Just because you think you’re being loving doesn’t mean that you are, just as somebody saying racist things but saying “I’m not racist and I have black friends” isn’t necessarily so. People judge you by more than what you say you are. You say you are trying to be loving, but yet you don’t question the idea of Hell. You don’t seem to have a problem with God using torture as a threat to regulate behavior. You don’t seem to argue that putting people in suffering and pain isn’t love. I’m sorry; your track record wins. You are no more loving than a centurion offering Christians one last chance to worship the Emperor before throwing them to the lions.
**
It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to call myself a liberal for people to know that I am one when I espouse environmentalism, corporate reform, religious freedom, and welfare programs. It’s obvious from my stance that I am one.
**
Hmmm, so sending bears to tear children to shreds: OK. Torturing non-believers for eternity in a lake of fire: OK. Drowing the entire human race save a couple: OK. Changing one’s mind or lying: Not OK.
Haven’t you ever heard of the difference between the old and new covenants? Haven’t you ever read the huge lists of Biblical contradictions and inconsistencies?
God can, indeed, be separated from the Bible. Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and many others have been doing it for years. I know you think everyone else is deceived, and thus, are unsaved and going to Hell. So are, no doubt, many others. Is this still loving in your eyes? How is a romantic relationship between two adults wrong and sinful, but chucking people into a fricking lake of FIRE love?
If this is love in your eyes, I beg, please hate your fellow man. The rest of us will be better off.
**
You are not ‘daring to disagree’. As I said, by your own words, you are compelled to do so. Who gets credit, you or God? You’re speaking the words that God, Himself, have compelled you to say, but yet you get credit for having the britches and ‘daring’ to speak up on an anonymous message board?
I’m not saying you’re a hater. I don’t think you consciously hate gay people. It’s not fair; you say you don’t. I’m saying that the idea is hateful even if you say it isn’t, simply because of the demands of compassion and reason. Sadistically torturing those who cross you isn’t loving for humans, and it’s not loving for God, either.
fluiddruid, that was beautifully put.
Yeah, hi, I’m anya, we’ve not really had an opportunity to speak.
I have known many good Christians and Jews from this board. I am not a Christian. I have heard the message of yours, about
gays and lesbians, in real life, and i do not hear any love and concern in this message in real life! I read the newspapers and get some news from television. For you see, in small local newspapers like I sometimes read, i see letters from people who know that gays are going to hell and that women should not work outside the home. I have seen letters that equated contraception with abortion. I have seen letters for the Ten Commandments in school and against the notion of the Ten Commandments in schools.
I therefore ask you, what you are trying to accomplish on the SDMB, with its good Christians and Jews, its agnostics and atheists, the practicing Pagans, the Muslims, Buddhists, and every other religious faith, with such statements.
You are trying to witness, but keep finding your way to the pit.
And while i am here, can anyone recommend a good bible to re-read?
Ok, are you lumping all Christian denominations together in your attack, or is it just aimed at Catholics?
Please clarify who you’re ranting against, because not all Christian denominations are bible bashers with a holier-than-thou attitude.