homosexuality and religeon

[glamorilla]

So do you think God really hates us?

 

[shepixie69]

God...no...other Christians...yes

No, I am not anti christian...I consider myself spiritual, and a liberal Christian, in the fact that

1) JESUS HIMSELF never said a damn thing about same sex relationships. He spent almost all His time with 12 other men. Not that he was gay...I think He was just love, and loved everyone.

2) the ONLY thing Christ ever preached against big time was hyprocrasy ...saying one thing with your mouth and doing another.

3) A lot of the conservative Christian religions seem to be almost anti-woman in my opinion. Paul the apostle said something about women not talking in church, even to ask questions.

I have read the Bible...I still read it. I've read every book. I'm not all that good at quoting, but I do know what is in it, and I believe the gist of what God is all about is Love.

she

 

[Queersetti]

So do you think God really hates us?

No, but Buddha gets a little pissy when we make him sit on top of our TV sets.

 

[killallhippies]

So do you think God really hates us?

it's possible, but does it really matter? i'm not too sure if i like god that much myself.

 

[Luna_Wolf72]

So do you think God really hates us?

No...i don't believe that the cornerstone of any religion is hate, usually it is the humans who practice said religion who drag the rules and regulations into it. For myself, i practice Neo-Native american shamanism (a cool way to say i feel everything is worthy of respect...rocks, trees, animals, people and that i believe in visions, herbal remedies and the power of prayer!!)
and i have always been content that God still values me, whether i follow his *teachings* or not. It is not by works that one is saved..it is by belief (biblical message) ...that's all for now
Pet

 

[Andreina]

So do you think God really hates us?

naw.. im sure he enjoys watching us

 

[oh21]

Re: Re: homosexuality and religeon

naw.. im sure he enjoys watching us

Oh that's good! I am going to have to try that line on the next southern baptist minister who trys to tell me "God Hates Fags."

 

[PinkOrchid]

 

[oh21]

Anyone who claims that "god hates <fill in the blank>" is projecting their OWN hatred and bigotry on others. No religion I know of, at its core (meaning minus dogma), promotes hatred, nor claim sthat god does anything less than love.

In the rural south where I live there is a tendancy to throw out the example Jesus gave of "let he without sin cast the first stone."

They also seem to forget (and I may be wrong on the numbering here) Matthew 7:1 which basically says however you judge others, so shall you be judged.

So many people seem to forget God has called them to be a people of love and compassion.

 

[killallhippies]

In the rural south where I live there is a tendancy to throw out the example Jesus gave of "let he without sin cast the first stone."

They also seem to forget (and I may be wrong on the numbering here) Matthew 7:1 which basically says however you judge others, so shall you be judged.

So many people seem to forget God has called them to be a people of love and compassion.

you know, when i lived in south carolina i never had any problem with the poeople down there. i had a boss who was a lesbian and everyone seemed fine with her, but i only saw her at work, so i wouldn't know how her personnal life was.

i have noticed more homophobes, racists and all sorts of intolerant assholes up here in yankee land then i ever did down south, but that's just my experience. everyones life is different.

 

[Netzach]

I'm a margianally religious post-Holocaust Jew, this informs my perspective.

I don't think God hates us.

I don't think God loves us either, not in the ways we'd like to be loved, or ways that make sense to us.

God is an unfathomable mystery to a simple ant like me. God happens. I certainly don't think he/she/it cares whether I like boys or girls as much as whether I do the right thing.

 

[barelylegalslve]

From the Nifty Archives...

Here's something really helpful I found on the Nifty Archives:

Anyway, ask and you shall receive someone religiously famous once
said. I asked for specific references to homosexuality in the Bible,
and here is what I got:

(Semi-long)

There are no homosexuals in the Bible.

Ruth and Naomi were no lesbians. David and Jonathan weren't gay.
Neither were Jesus and John, the men of Sodom, cult prostitutes,
slave boys and their masters, nor call boys and their customers.



THE BIBLE IS AN EMPTY CLOSET



"The issues about Homosexuality are very complex and are not
understood by most members of the Christian Church," according to
Bernard Ramm of The American Baptist Seminary of the West. This
evangelical authority on biblical interpretation says that, "To them,
it is a vile form of sexual perversion condemned in both the Old and
New Testaments." But as Calvin Theological Seminary Old Testament
scholar Marten H. Woudstra says: "There is nothing in the Old
Testament that corresponds to Homosexuality as we understand it today"
and as SMU New Testament scholar Victor Paul Fumish says: "There is no
text on homosexual orientation in the Bible." Says Robin Scroggs of
Union Seminary: "Biblical judgments against Homosexuality are not
relevant to today's debate. They should no longer be used . . . not
because the Bible is not authoritative, but simply because it does not
address the issues involved. . . . No single New Testament author
considers [Homosexuality] important enough to write his own sentence
about it." Evangelical theologian Helmut Thielicke states:
"Homosexuality . . . can be discussed at all only in the framework of
that freedom which is given to us by the insight that even the New
Testament does not provide us with an evident, normative dictum with
regard to this question. Even the kind of question which we have
arrived at . . . must for purely historical reasons be alien to the
New Testament."
Ideas and understandings of sexuality have changed greatly over
the centuries. People in biblical times did not share our knowledge of
customs of sexuality; we do not share their experience. In those days
there was no romantic dating as we know it today; marriages were
arranged by fathers. The ancients, as MlT's David Halperin notes:
"conceived of 'sexuality' in non-sexual terms: What was fundamental to
their experience of sex was not anything _we_ would regard as
essentially sexual: rather, it was something essentially social ---
namely, the modality of power relations that informed and structured
the sexual act." In the ancient world, sex was "not intrinsically
relational or collaborative in character; it is, further, a deeply
polarizing experience: It serves to divide, to classify, and to
distribute its participants into distinct and radically dissimilar
categories. Sex possesses this valence, apparently because it is
conceived to center essentially on, and to define itself around, an
asymmetrical gesture, that of the penetration of the body of one
person by the body, and, specifically, by the phallus of another. The
proper targets of [a citizen's] sexual desire include, specifically,
women, boys, foreigners, and slaves --- all of them persons who do not
enjoy the same legal and political rights and privileges that he
does." In studies of sex in history, Stanford classics professor John
Winkler warns against "reading contemporary concerns and politics into
texts and artifacts removed from their social context." This, of
course, is a basic principle of biblical hermeneutics. In spite of
all of this, some preachers continue to use certain Bible verses to
clobber lesbians and gay men today. Let's take a closer look at these
texts.


GENESIS 1:27

"God created people in His own image. In the image of God he created
them; He created male and female."

This text celebrates God's deliberate and equal creation of persons
who are male and persons who are female. Such a sense of equal
creation was not typical in the ancient world. According to Eastern
Baptist Seminary professor Douglas J. Miller: "Crude natural law ideas
are . . . read into . . . the early chapters of Genesis....This view
[supports] the 'physicalist' ethical model upon which heterosexism is
built....This view of creation is based upon the obvious anachronism
of reading 13th century definitions of nature into ancient Hebrew
texts." Those who use Genesis 1:27 against homosexuals should note
Paul's statement in Galatians 3:28 in which he is emphatic that there
is now no theological significance to the heterosexual pair "male and
female." According to evangelical Pauline scholar F. F. Bruce: "Paul
states the basic principle here; if restrictions on it are found
elsewhere . . . they are to be understood in relation to Galatians
3:28, and not vice versa."



GENESIS 19 (cf. 18:20)

The story of Sodom and Lot's duty of hospitality to his guests.

According to evangelical Bible scholar William Brownlee: "'sodomy'
(so-called) in Genesis is basically oppression of the weak and
helpless; and the oppression of the stranger is the basic element of
Genesis 19:1-9." Yale's John Boswell notes that "Sodom is used as a
symbol of evil in dozens of places [in the Bible] but not in a single
instance is the sin of the Sodomites specified as Homo- sexuality."
Listen to the prophet Ezekiel (16:48-49) on the sin of Sodom: "As I
live, says the Lord God, . . . This was the sin of your sister city of
Sodom: she and her suburbs had pride, excess of food, and prosperous
ease, but did not help or encourage the poor and needy. They were
arrogant and this was abominable in my eyes." (Cf. Matthew 10:15) The
men of Sodom tried to dominate the strangers at Lot's house by
subjecting them to sexual abuse. Such attempted gang-rape is about
humiliation and violence, not same-sex affection.


DEUTERONOMY 23:17-18

"You shall not lie with men as with woman: it is abomination."

"Abomination" (TO'EBAH) is a technical cultic term for what is
ritually unclean, such as mixed cloth, pork, and intercourse with
menstruating women. It's not about a moral or ethical issue. This
Holiness Code (chapters 17 - 26) proscribes men "lying the lyings of
women." Such mixing of sex roles was thought to be polluting. But both
Jesus and Paul rejected all such ritual distinctions (cf. Mark
7:17-23; Romans 14:14,20). The Fundamentalist Journal admits that this
Code condemns "idolatrous practices" and "ceremonial uncleaness" and
concludes: "We are not bound by these commands today."


LEVITICUS 18:22 (20:13)

"There shall be no female cult prostitute of the daughters of Israel nor
a male cult prostitute of the sons of Israel."

These terms, KEDESHA and KADESH, literally mean "holy" or "sacred."
There is no Hebrew derivative of the word "Sodom" in this passage; the
King James Bible supplied it erroneously. The Hebrew words here are
references to the "holy" female and eunuch priest-prostitutes of the
Canaanite fertility cults, of which Israel was to have no part.
Moreover, Louisville Presbyterian Seminary Bible scholar George R.
Edwards notes that "No prophet uses the noun for male cult prostitute
or discusses the activity such a person pursued. The prophets, in
fact, are as silent on the subject of homosexual acts as is the whole
tradition of the New Testament teaching of Jesus. This is," he says,
"a very significant silence."


ROMANS 1:26-27

Pagan "women exchange natural use for unnatural and also the [pagan]
men, leaving the natural use of women, lust in their desire for each
other, males working shame with males, and receiving within themselves
the penalty of their error."

Furnish gives us perspective in turning to the writings of Paul.
"Since Paul offered no direct teaching to his own churches on the
subject of homosexual conduct," says Furnish, "his letters certainly
cannot yield any specific answers to the questions being faced in the
modern church.... For Paul neither homosexual practice nor
heterosexual promiscuity nor any other specific vice is identified as
such with 'sin.' In his view the fundamental sin from which all
particular evils derive is idolatry, worshiping what is created rather
than the Creator, be that a wooden idol, an ideology, a religious
system, or some particular moral code." In Romans 1, Paul is
ridiculing pagan religious rebellion, saying that the pagans knew God
but worshiped idols instead of God. To build his case, which he'll
turn against judgmental Jews in chapter 2 --- he refers to typical
practices of the fertility cults involving sex among priestesses and
between men and eunuch prostitutes such as served Aphrodite at
Corinth, from where he was writing this letter to the Romans. Their
self-castration rites resulted in a bodily "penalty." Catherine
Krueger comments in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
that "Men wore veils and long hair as signs of their dedication to the
god, while women used the unveiling and shorn hair to indicate their
devotion. Men masqueraded as women, and in a rare vase painting from
Corinth a woman is dressed in satyr pants equipped with the male
organ. Thus she dances before Dionysus, a deity who had been raised
as a girl and was himself called male-female and 'sham man.'" Krueger
continues: "The sex exchange that characterized the cults of such
great goddesses as Cybele [Aphrodite, Ishtar, etc.] the Syrian
goddess, and Artemis of Ephesus was more grisly. Males voluntarily
castrated themselves and assumed women's garments. A relief from Rome
shows a high priest of Cybele. The castrated priest wears veil,
necklaces, earrings and feminine dress. He is considered to have
exchanged his sexual identity and to have become a she-priest." As
such, these religious prostitutes would engage in same-sex orgies in
the pagan temples all along the coasts of Paul's missionary journeys.
"Paul's conception of Homosexuality," as Thielicke points out, "was
one which was affected by the intellectual atmosphere surrounding the
struggle with Greek paganism." Says Scroggs: "The illustrations are
secondary to [Paul's] basic theological structure" (Cf 3:22b-23,
Paul's own summary), and Furnish adds: "homosexual practice as such is
not the topic under discussion." Doesn't what Paul says in the
beginning of Romans better describe these pagan orgies he meant to
ridicule than it does the mutual love and support in the domestic life
of lesbian and gay male couples today?


I CORINTHIANS 6:9 & TIMOTHY 1:10

Paul's reference to malakoi and arsenokoitai.

Evangelical New Testament scholar Gordon D. Fee of Regent College says
that these two terms are "difficult." The Fundamentalist journal
admits: "These words are difficult to translate." Of arsenokoitai, Fee
says: "This is its first appearance in preserved literature, and
subsequent authors are reluctant to use it, especially when describing
homosexual activity." Scroggs explains that "Paul is thinking only
about pederasty, . . . There was no other form of male Homosexuality
in the Greco-Roman world which could come to mind." Ancient sources
indicate that the malakoi were "effeminate call boys." Though Paul
seems to have coined arsenokoitai, it refers, perhaps, to the call
boys' customers, although nobody knows for sure. Paul's main point,
however, is clear: Christians who slander and sue each other in pagan
courts are just as shameful as robbers, drunkards, the greedy, and the
malakoi and arsenokoitai (whatever they were). The other kind of
pederasty in Paul's day was that of the slave "pet boys" who were
sexually exploited by adult male owners. The desired boys were
prepubescent or at least without beards so that they seemed like
females. These men had wives for dowries, procreation and the rearing
of heirs. They had "pet boys" for sex - hardly the picture of gay
relationships today.
The Bible is an empty closet. It has nothing specific to say about
Homosexuality as such. But the Bible has plenty to say about God's
grace to all people and God's call to justice and mercy. Jesus
summarized God's law in these words of scripture: "You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all
your mind . . . [and] you shall love your neighbor as yourself."
(Matthew 22:37-39).

 

[barelylegalslve]

Also, Nifty... Further Reading

Again, this came from the same thing.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY:

John Boswell "Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality"
(University of Chicago, 1980);

George R. Edwards "Gay/Lesbian Liberation : A Biblical Perspective"
(Pilgrim, 1984);

Victor Paul "Furnish The Moral Teaching of Paul"
(Rev. ed. Abingdon, 1985);

David M. Halperin, John J. Winkler, Froma I. Zeitlin (Eds.) "Before Sexuality:
The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World"
(Princeton, 1989);

David M. Halperin "One Hundred Years of Homosexuality and Other Essays on
Greek Love" (Routledge, 1990);

Donald J. Miller and Robert E. Romanelli, "Heterosexism and the Golden Rule,"
Journal of Gay & Lesbian Psychotherapy, 1 (4) 1991;

Robin Scroggs "The New Testament and Homosexuality"
(Fortress, 1983);

John J. Winkler "The Constraints of Desire. The Anthropology of Sex and Gender
in Ancient Greece" (Routledge, 1990).

If you would like to learn more, write to Dr. Ralph Blair, 311 E. 72 Street,
New York, NY 10021. He is the founder of Evangelicals Concerned, a national
organization dedicated to assisting lesbian and gay men and churches better
understand Homosexuality and the good news of God's grace and peace. Dr. Blair
is the editor of a quarterly literature review on religion and Homosexuality
which will be sent to you free upon request.

 

[Ms_Lilith]

God made us in his image and likeness, and he made us beautiful. He made each of us the way we were meant to be made, as he makes no mistakes.

And God loves each of his children, fully.



Each of those lines is taken from the teachings of the catholic church.

Tell me, using that, that God hates homosexuals.

 

[Rhys]

So do you think God really hates us?

God (whichever one you chose to believe in) doesn't hate anyone.
Its people who hate. They also can't read because the message of Christ's life was love and tolerance.

 

[Rhys]

Re: Re: homosexuality and religeon

No, but Buddha gets a little pissy when we make him sit on top of our TV sets.

LOL

I guess that makes the Angel that has a christmas tree branch stuffed up her ass queer.

 

[Queersetti]

you know, when i lived in south carolina i never had any problem with the poeople down there. i had a boss who was a lesbian and everyone seemed fine with her, but i only saw her at work, so i wouldn't know how her personnal life was.

i have noticed more homophobes, racists and all sorts of intolerant assholes up here in yankee land then i ever did down south, but that's just my experience. everyones life is different.

I have heard other people make that observation, and I wonder if the actual level of bigotry is lower in the south, or if southerners generally, are a little more polite, and so, show their negative feelings less.

 

[Rhys]

I think its a combination of both and the education level. I went to a Bible Belt University and compaired to some of the places I went to school, they were really polite to the gay crowd. However, Dallas is a big urban area. Strangely enough, Hawaii is not so tolerant. Oklahoma, well, you just sort of expect bigotry there because of the ignorance factor. (and I apologise to any Oklahoman's that might post here in advance) I think it depends heavily on the level of gentility, yes...but education is a big factor

 

[PinkOrchid]

 

[ithaqua]

Religions have been crafted in the past to promote hatered. War gods are created specifically to rally the troups into killing the opponent of the moment.

Christianity is an example of just such a religion, although it gets there through years of borrowing from other religions. The god of Abraham was just such a war god.

I often find it ammusing when individuals quote the bible passages and then give a moddern interpretation of the contents. This is past the height of rediculousness, especially when it relates to Gay issues since there were no Gay issues at the time of the wrighting of the bible.

Sexuality was, and people did what came naturally, end of discussion. Of course the bible is nebulous on the subject of homosexuals, the subject didn't even exist back then.

So to answer the question

"Do You Think God Really Hates Us"

No, I don't think god really exists.
I think some religions really do hate us.
I think some people really do hate us.

And If god really does exist, I hope to hell that he hates us too.

How else do you explain the color "Avacado".

 

[killallhippies]

I have heard other people make that observation, and I wonder if the actual level of bigotry is lower in the south, or if southerners generally, are a little more polite, and so, show their negative feelings less.

it's possible that southerners just hide behind politeness more, but i agree with pink orchid. i would rather not hear it. they're allowed to have their own opinions no matter how stupid they are.

 

[april-wine]

Love can never be wrong.......

 

[ReBeLBeLLe]

I only know of two areas in the bible that actually speak about same sex practices. Almost all other areas are left wide open to interpretation and amongst most of those they also speak of abuse. Leviticus speaks directly about a man shall not lie with a man as with womankind. Romans refers to men and women changing their natural use to that which is against nature.

Now I have had a hard time dealing with these two areas. They're pretty explicit. In Leviticus it is actually termed as an abomination just as beastiality is. As we travel through the bible we learn that certain behavoirs and decisions can keep us from entering the gates of heaven. As a christian, one also learns that one that believes in God, and yes in the trinity, one shall have everlasting life. Now which way is it going to be? How can one commit sin and yet enter the gates if one truly believes? Under the circumstances with even the bible contradicting itself in areas all I feel one can do is live the best that they can in a most compassionate way and hope that when the day of judgement comes that all of your actions will be weighed and the true heart of the individual is what will be judged.

Some may say I am making excuses...that I want to live my life the way I want and just because the majority of my acts are good intentioned I can live with the false hope that that will be enough. The truth is no one knows. One other truth I believe in is that no man will be my judge come judgement day, therefore I tend to worry less about man's judgement than I do God's. If he finds in me something less than that which is acceptable to him I guess I will be doomed to hell. We all justify what we do and why we do things in different ways. A Southern Baptist feels drinking is sin. While Methodists do not teach against drink, they allow no alcohol in the church. Jesus brought down his wrath upon a marketplace for those getting drunk. Maybe the true lesson is in being true to ourselves and anything which makes us less than who we are is wrong. We all know a drunk is nothing like their reasonable selves. Catholics teach against masturbation, although it is a most natural act.

All I can do is hope that by loving an individual, irregardless of their sex, that I will not meet his condemnation. And just so that I can march happily through this life I remind myself what the true purpose of sex is anyway. Procreation. Let's face it, if we all were homosexuals we would have disappeared from the face of the earth many years ago. I've born my children, and can have no more. I've fulfilled my "duties" as a woman. Does this mean that I think those that practice homosexuality without fulfilling their "duties" are condemned? No, but it is just a way in which I can accept myself and the choices I have made. One day this will all be answered. I only hope that loving is the most important trait of all....

 

[PoliteSuccubus]

This is edited from an article orginally about Christains accepting Wiccans instead of villifying them. But I thought the revelent points were valid in this case as well...(for full article, please go to Pagen Thread. On a personal asside, I am Christain-Wiccan, and Wicca is one of the few relgions that accepts all parts of sexuality without question.)

Edited from: A Christian Speaks of Wicca and Witchcraft
by James Clement Taylor

A Situation of Strife and Shame:
There are many Christians today who believe that anyone who is not a Christian is doomed to an eternity of suffering in hell. Any decent person, believing this, would be compelled to try to save as many people from this fate as possible. But is this belief correct?

Jesus Christ, having noted the faith and righteousness of a Roman centurion, a Pagan, proclaimed:
"Assuredly I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 8:10-12)


If we accept these words as true, and surely we should, then it is clear that heaven will contain many who are not Christians, and hell will contain many who are! Clearly, throughout the Gospels, Jesus Christ sets forth the criteria for entrance into the kingdom of heaven, and those criteria include love, kindness, forgiveness, and a refusal to judge others:
"For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (Matthew 6:14-15)


"For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you." (Matthew 7:2)

"But go and learn what this means: `I desire mercy and not sacrifice.'" (Matthew 9:13)

"Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." (Luke 6:36-38)

Is it not clear? Anyone who fails in these things, will calling himself a Christian save him? Anyone who obeys God in these things, will being unbaptized condemn him? Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to Me, `Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven." (Matthew 7:21)

Yet it is not by good works that we earn our way into heaven, because there is no way we can earn the free gift of God's mercy and grace, which alone can save us. But it is clear that it is not by faith, in the sense of sharing the Christian faith, that we are saved, either. The faith which saves us is not faith in the goodness of our works, nor faith that we have the right theology and/or belong to the right church.

We have persecuted them, and God will hold us accountable for this, you may be sure, for He has said, "Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me." (Matthew 25:40)

Let us, from this point onward, repent of our misdeeds and declare that henceforth we shall obey Christ our God, and not judge others or condemn them, so that He will not have to judge and condemn us for our sins.


Gayheros.com has a piece on Paul the Apostle.

Who in their right mind would ever think that St. Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, writer of Epistles used by Christians to condemn gay people for centuries, might himself be gay?

John Shelby Spong is the Episcopal bishop of Newark wrote an article quoted there that says, among other things:

"To me it is a beautiful idea that a homosexual male, scorned then as well as now, living with both the self-judgment and the social judgments that a fearful society has so often and unknowingly pronounced upon the very being of some of its citizens, could nonetheless, not in spite of this but because of this, be the one who would define grace for the Christian people. Grace was the love of God, an unconditional love, that loved Paul just as he was. A rigidly controlled gay male, I believe, taught the Christian church what the love of God means and what, therefore, Christ means as God's agent. Finally, it was a gay male, tortured and rejected, who came to understand what resurrection means as God's vindicating act."


There's no way that we'll ever know if Paul was really gay. But Bishop Spong, who is straight himself, married with two children, defends the scandalousness of this thesis by calling attention to other well-known scandals: that Jesus could be born apparently illegitimate, that he hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors, that the Messiah could be crucified like a common criminal, -- these "scandals" seem to be that way that God works.