Gay tendencies

Personally I’m always amazed at how people just make it up as they go along, which is easy to do if you just throw the Bible out the window. To say that the “NT” has nothing to say about homosexuality, merely shows that one has either never read the Bible or is merely parroting what someone told them or doesn’t except that the Bible is the word of God or perhaps all three.

There is what the Bible says about homosexuality:

(1 Timothy 1:9-10) in the knowledge of this fact, that law is promulgated, not for a righteous man, but for persons lawless and unruly, ungodly and sinners, lacking loving-kindness, and profane, murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, manslayers, fornicators, men who lie with males, kidnappers, liars, false swearers, and whatever other thing is in opposition to the healthful teaching

(1 Corinthians 6:9-10) What! Do YOU not know that unrighteous persons will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be misled. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men kept for unnatural purposes, nor men who lie with men, nor thieves, nor greedy persons, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit God’s kingdom.

(Romans 1:26-27) That is why God gave them up to disgraceful sexual appetites, for both their females changed the natural use of themselves into one contrary to nature; and likewise even the males left the natural use of the female and became violently inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males, working what is obscene and receiving in themselves the full recompense, which was due for their error.

(Jude 7) So too Sod′om and Go•mor′rah and the cities about them, after they in the same manner as the foregoing ones had committed fornication excessively and gone out after flesh for unnatural use, are placed before [us] as a [warning] example by undergoing the judicial punishment of everlasting fire.

(Genesis 19:4-5) Before they could lie down, the men of the city, the men of Sod′om, surrounded the house, from boy to old man, all the people in one mob. And they kept calling out to Lot and saying to him: “Where are the men who came in to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have intercourse with them.”

If you will notice that all these scriptures except the last one is from the “NT”.

With this in mind, if what you are saying, that homosexuals are born that way is true, then the Bible must be a cruel hoax and I can’t understand why you would worship a God that would create people and then tell them they where wrong, ungodly people because they were exactly what they were created to be.

Personally, I believe in a loving heavenly Father that wants what is best for us and has given us a book, the Bible, to help us to get the best out of life. We have been given free will, not predestination, and we make our own choices of who and what we are going to be. Our way of life is the way we choose to go and is not written in stone. If a person is on the wrong road there is nothing that says a person has to stay on it but the longer one stays on the wrong road the harder it becomes to get on the right road. But it can be done. Remember the scripture I quoted 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, that is followed by (1 Corinthians 6:11) And yet that is what some of YOU were. But YOU have been washed clean, but YOU have been sanctified, but YOU have been declared righteous in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and with the spirit of our God.

Notice that it says that is what some of you were, indicating that they had changed their way of life and brought it into harmony with God’s word.

I’ll leave you with one last thought:
(Malachi 2:17) “YOU people have made God weary by YOUR words, and YOU have said, ‘In what way have we made [him] weary?’ By YOUR saying, ‘Everyone that is doing bad is good in the eyes of God, and in such ones he himself has taken delight’;

 

Yes, long, long ago, when people thought that homosexuality was simply something sinful some people decided to do. But then research in psychology got people to thinking there might be more to it than that, and that some people might be predisposed to be attracted to members of the same sex, either by genetics or by deeply rooted childhood experiences. How naive of us to be "conditioned" by our more scientific culture to believe such things!

 

Scientific findings? Perhaps you can enlighten me?

I know of one study where after death there appeared to be differences in brain formation between homosexual and heterosexual brains but to me that's a little like looking at the lungs of smokers and nonsmokers, then saying; see the difference, this person was meant to be a smoker, rather than saying that possibly the persons life style made the changes.

Also I know of no indicators that show that if a person has them they will have to be a homosexual or if they don’t have them then that person can not be a homosexual.

 

There is a large gap between predisposed and actually doing something.

A person can be predisposed to anger but can learn to control his anger to point that he has no more anger than some one who is not predisposed to anger.

Just because someone is “predisposed” does not justify what a person does, no matter what “predisposed” condition a person may have, he is still responsible for his actions.

 

I agree with you on that. Just because a person is attracted to somebody, doesn't mean that (s)he has to act on it, and the Bible's prohibitions concerning homosexuality relate mostly to conduct--and of course to "lust". We obviously have to exercise some control over our sexual urges, and most of us do so for long periods of time. So what are the options for gays? (1) Lifelong celibacy, difficult even for some priests, but maybe possible, with the help of prayer and cold showers; (2) heterosexual sex outside of marriage: but the Bible doesn't like that either; or (3) heterosexual marriage. Given the divorce rate today, and the impact on spouses and children, that seems to carry risks. So which one of these does God intend? And how important is sexual gratification anyway?

 

Supposing that there even is such a thing as “being gay", look at it this way if a person has diabetes, sugary treats can be deadly so what choices do they have 1) avoid sugar altogether 2) ignore the problem hope it goes away 3) indulge and try and fix it with insulin 4) enjoy the high you get from playing with your sugar levels, all but the first have definite health risks.

But they love sugar.

So what do you tell them?

Personally I would tell them it’s up to them but if they want a long reasonably healthy life #1 is a pretty obvious choice.

 

I'd tell them: lay off the sweets. And if there's a God who hates homosexual conduct and sends gays to hell for it, definitely lay off that. The problem with the analogy is that, unlike you, I don't think it's as clear that God hates homosexuality as it is that diabetes is a medical problem. But it's still a risk.

 

First, I never said I was “up on” research that’s why I asked but I pretty much figured what you said is pretty much what I’d know if I was.

When you say; “people develop these tendencies though influences not of their own doing", I would say; people develop these tendencies though influences perhaps not entirely of their own doing.

Last, as I mentioned the difficulties encountered in changing them is never easy but the sooner you start the better, because it only gets harder the longer you go, the longer you go off course the farther you have to go to get back on course.

I can only assume that this was a reply to someone else, because most of what is stated here I didn’t say.

 

So we agree.

Yeah, I got the two of you confused. That part was directed at Heywood Flloyd. Sorry about that. You might have picked up on the confusion when I said :"It's possible to argue as Brother Olderwater has, that people who have homosexual inclinations do not need to act on them. I've given a reply to that. You, however, seem to be suggesting that there are no such deeply rooted tendencies, only sinful choices. What evidence do you have to support that conclusion?" See, I knew what your position was. I just thought I was talking to Heywood.

 

I believe hell is the common grave of mankind and that the righteous and the unrighteous both go there to await the resurrection.

Unless you don’t believe in the Bible, it’s pretty clear from the few scriptures I quoted earlier, 1 Timothy 1:9-10; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Romans 1:26-27; Jude 7 and that’s just some of the scriptures about the subject in the Bible, that God is not pleased with homosexual acts and we should not be doing them if we want to be pleasing to God.

 

It's not just gays: it's also Filth: as a quote from the radical Femminist in 5 Easy Peices said: Filth, it's the cause of BOTH maggots and riots; it's more than just dirt and the unclean environment. Man: what is there to do about Him?


With reference to Sartre's look by the existence of the Other, I find it easy to believe it was an abstract Existence Cristed in the authoritative Being of God OR at worst the country's failure to place people above things.

The Liberal establishment continues to folow the constant feeling that we dislike so and so, we feel the hemorhage from the other by SHIFTY EYES and the vermin tendency of absorbing shame. There is no shame. There is only the DISTRESS of visible threat; the liberals will pretend that it is and was personal to confront the stranger with verbose dogma of UNDONE materialistic thoughts of money, charts of Unplanned traffic and congestion, encounters with paranoid schyzofreniacs.


The LOOK is jolly on the spot; job not DONE = fired on the SPOT: as Sartre cried in the park of Beauville: filth, filth, filth! We fail the cause of Maggots and Riots. That may actually be hiding a failure of informing Credit to the environment Police, and the cause is considerately a love for the PEACEMAKERS of the world.

 

Wow! That was such a hard right turn, I lost my dimensional time shift helmet. You mind if we go back and get it?

 

There is a really simple explanation to this problem of gays and God. And when I say what I'm going to say please understand that I am in no way trying to offend anyone. God as Christians put it is not neccesarily right. Even Christians acknowledge that God is infinite and that we cannot possibly understand him or his ways. Gays are equal in every way with everyone else. It was christianity and the inbred fear they initiate that caused our societies view of gays. Pastors and such cannot say that God makes people gay as a test because in the bible it specifically shuns gays and states that they are not of God
Scriptural examples:
In the King James Version, Leviticus 18:22 is translated: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."
Leviticus 20:13: KJV: (King James Version): "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them."

Also if you read through Genesis 19 it states one of the reasons for Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed was their homosexuality.

A Quote from a Christian Theologist: "The Genesis passage is very clear, that the sin of Sodom that brought on the destruction of the city was indeed linked to homosexuality." R. Albert Mohler.

Christianity does not condone same sex practices, in fact according to their core beliefs it is an abomination in the eyes of God (Leviticus 20:13) No one religion can claim that it is the one and only truth, each religion has some truths and some falsehoods within it. Being gay is not a bad thing, if that is what makes you happy in your life then go for it. I myself am bisexual, so I understand quite well the gay's point of view.

 

... is doomed to failure. Thereby it is important to remember our ancestors.

The trust attempt is to do with believing in the mankind oriented government. That's Right?: hmmm...

 

I think DDoright has the right take on those scriptures. Taken in context, I think the passages you quote are referring to promiscuity, pederasty, prostitution and debauchery, all of which are real problems in our era of sexual liberation--whether in a homosexual or heterosexual context. I don't accept your view that God was simply giving dictation to the men who wrote those passages. "The Bible should be taken seriously, but not literally." M. Borg

 

The "core beliefs" you speak of are those of some Christians. With due respect to the fundamentalist Southern Baptist "theologian" Rev. Mohler, with whom I disagree about practically everything, the most detailed list of Sodom's sin is found in Ezekiel 16:49 "Pride" and "prosperous ease" are at the top of the list the list, followed by the complaint that they were uncharitiable to the poor and needy," and finally that they were "haughty" and "committed abomination before God." Why is it that most of that list is so often left out by people like the Rev. Mohler? The incident described in Genesis is not your typical act of same sex love. It is about a mob of Sodomites who were threatening to commit gang rape on strangers to town who were guests of Lot. As for Leviticus, the passage quoted is correct. Note that it applies only to male homosexuality. My question is, if we take this as God's will today, why do we reject so many of the other taboos of Leviticus, like shaving and eating shellfish, or the mandate to put rebellious children to death? Rev. Mohler would explain that there are some parts of Leviticus that were repealed by Christ's sacrifice, and others which are not, those being ratified by the various passages of the New Testament cited by Olderwater Brother. Maybe so. I still wonder why Jesus himself had nothing to say about the subject, if it is a "core belief" of Christians, while he had plenty to say about divorce and uncharitableness toward the the poor. Neither of the latter sins seem to be a problem for Republican politicians and the Evangelical voters who elect them to office. I wonder why it is that the only parts of Leviticus most people ever hear are the passage you quoted and all of the dietary and ritual stuff. The parts that speak to me as truly inspired are:
“You shall love the stranger as yourself,”
“The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning.”
“You shall not curse the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind.”
“You shall not stand idly by while your neighbor’s blood is shed.”
“You shall not go about as a talebearer among your people.”
“Do not hate your brother in your heart.”
“Do not take revenge or bear a grudge.”
“You shall not reap the corners of your vinyard, but rather leave them for the poor.”
“You shall respect the elderly.”
“You shall use honest weights and measures.”
“In judging a dispute, you shall not show undue favoritism for the poor or the rich.”

Why is it that the religious right speaks so often of Leviticus 20:13 as"their core beliefs" and so seldom of the rest?

 

Having said that - Let me repeat --

I believe just as strongly that others naturally prefer people of the same sex. What person has not seen a 12 year old boy and knew, without asking, that he would be gay. The strongest argument I believe is that why would someone chose to be gay if the choice were theirs? Would they chose being ridiculed, shunned, lose the respect of their parents - would they chose to be the object of senseless violence, or job discrimination?

These things are imposed by society to enforce compliance and uniformity of their norm. [/COLOR][/I][/B] It is not pain inflicted on them by God - but by society. Would someone with an honest choice chose to open their self up to all the humiliation and pain that many homosexuals do? I think not. My opinion is they were born with the future desire for people of the same sex. They need them for comfort and companionship just as surely as I need my wife. People do not, at age 10 say to themselves - "I think I want to screw with males, or females any more than straight people do. It is who they are.

Oh yes, they do have a choice - but for most a monastic, celebate lifestyle is not practical. If I should deny my desire for females I could do the same - but I think not.

It is not a real choice, just an illusion of a choice. Plus a terrible guilt trip to think they alienated their parents and loved ones and society because they chose to do so.
God is not interested in this obsession that has developed on whom one sleeps with - unless it is in lust of licensuousness.

 

And what is 'letcherous'? The difference is that in one case one believes he can touch and won't, and in the other case he believes too little in touching and touching often occurs. I'm not going to ask which is Moral and which is not. I'm going to ask What is what is.

Love is a what only if the society recognizes it. No?