God is love?

[Pix]

I dated a girl who was an extremely devout Christian. Her best friend was gay and she didn't care at all when I told her I was bi. Then there's my best friend's mother. She's catholic, goes to mass several times a week, spends all her free time volunteering, lives with her gay son and has a very strong loving relationship with him, never tries to guilt or condemn him over it.

I know that's just anecdotal, but those happen to be two of the most devout Christians I know, and neither of them harbour an once hatred for homosexuals. A lot of Christians do, but that's due to THEIR particular interpretation of scripture, not because of any bigotry inherent to Christianity itself.

Disagree. And not just gays, but the Bible condones all sorts of horrid practices, including rape, stoning children, and slavery and even sacrificing one's own daughters to God (and I'm talking New Testament as well). Luckily the Enlightenment helped our species become better people, and Christians took to ignoring the many parts they didn't like and focusing on the few parts they did. So what I see is that some people are good people IN SPITE OF, rather than because of, the Bible.

Just saying.

However, I do think the antigay bigotry is getting to be more & more ignored, and one day will be overlooked as stoning disobedient children, slavery, and making women cover their hair and being silent in the church. That is, Christianity will continue to evolve along with the rest of us...just a bit more slowly is all. :tongue:

[Juniorlove]

Not going to debate about my beliefs, but I definitely don't feel that God is the bible.

[Juniorlove]

Disagree. And not just gays, but the Bible condones all sorts of horrid practices, including rape, stoning children, and slavery and even sacrificing one's own daughters to God (and I'm talking New Testament as well). Luckily the Enlightenment helped our species become better people, and Christians took to ignoring the many parts they didn't like and focusing on the few parts they did. So what I see is that some people are good people IN SPITE OF, rather than because of, the Bible.

Just saying.

However, I do think the antigay bigotry is getting to be more & more ignored, and one day will be overlooked as stoning disobedient children, slavery, and making women cover their hair and being silent in the church. That is, Christianity will continue to evolve along with the rest of us...just a bit more slowly is all. :tongue:

The bible just as any other literature from back in that time had all sorts of wicked punishments and such for people of many kind. As time has progressed we have slowly but surely moved away from such practices. As you've said it's just moving slowly but slowly it is moving.

[Brendan]

Disagree. And not just gays, but the Bible condones all sorts of horrid practices, including rape, stoning children, and slavery and even sacrificing one's own daughters to God (and I'm talking New Testament as well). Luckily the Enlightenment helped our species become better people, and Christians took to ignoring the many parts they didn't like and focusing on the few parts they did. So what I see is that some people are good people IN SPITE OF, rather than because of, the Bible.

Just saying.

However, I do think the antigay bigotry is getting to be more & more ignored, and one day will be overlooked as stoning disobedient children, slavery, and making women cover their hair and being silent in the church. That is, Christianity will continue to evolve along with the rest of us...just a bit more slowly is all. :tongue:

The New Testament still stands as one of the great texts in the history of Western wisdom literature and those who take its positive truths and seek to live their lives in accordance with them will be much better off for it.

[VileKyle]

Not going to debate about my beliefs, but I definitely don't feel that God is the bible.

You're definitely right there. Man wrote the bible, not God. It's man's interpretation on what they believed at the time. Man's ideas have changed over the years, so we are interpreting that religion differently now than we did then. Unfortunately not all of the interpretations have changed. I may not claim to be Christian any more, but that's how I understood it.

[LONDONER]

... I don't hate the Christian, I hate Christianity...

Initially I would go along with you on that but with one exception; I don't hate anyone or anything. First of all the word itself is very negative and it surprises me how those who supposedly puport to be Christian, can hate anyone. "I hate fags" etc. It seems a singularly un-Christian thing to do.

[MisterTinkles]

As a survivor of a childhood of Ritual 'Satanic' Abuse, I have seen and been put through things that you have never been through.

Aside from being locked in a closet for an excess of two weeks, on more than one occasion, I was beaten, had my blood cut from me for purposes of ritual magics, raped repeatedly and without mercy to please the 'god' Asmodeus', drugged, forced to take an anthame and bury its blade to the hilt inside the chests of dogs, cats, chickens, a few goats and some other critters. Drank from chalices containing all sorts of stuff. You know, breast milk, semen, blood of other members of the circle.

And all of that is part of what I recall, I recall very little between the ages of 8 and 14 - I guess I should assume that the nightmare and night terrors I get were from loving, happy times with pink ponies and rainbows and not assume that from age 8 to age 14 it got a lot worse than in the years before.

On top of those things, I also got to witness - no experience, the presence of malevolent spirit entities. Demons if you will. Yeah sure some of the time may have been an LSD trip (or whatever else was added to the chalice to ease us kids into the ritual). But some of it was not.

I'm most certain up their in your shielded ivory tower with your mommy and daddy protecting you from the horrors of life that you only had to deal with the monsters in the closet and under your bed. I, not so blessed with sane rational parents, had to face the monsters that reside in every dark corner, and worse, the monsters that reside in the dark corners of the human heart.

Now I have no idea if that makes me superior than you or anyone else on this thread, but I do seriously doubt anyone else on this forum has had these "unique" types of experiences. If they have I empathize with them, and my comment about 'melt your brain' does not, and never will apply to them.

And I still believe that if you witnessed these things first hand that it would drive you stark, raving mad - as I know plenty of other ritual abuse victims who were driven mad, insane - driven to split personalities, driven to self destructive behaviors which only by the Grace of God have I survived to this late age with only one suicide under my belt, and only a minor drug and alcohol addiction which I managed to find a way to get out of 18 years ago.

When I say my personal life experiences are what drives me to a belief in God, I am most sincere about that.

And no, I do not feel welcomed here on this thread. It is been made perfectly clear to me that my kind are not welcomed here.

Just like the Christians you all seemingly enjoy to talk about and bring up thread after thread here on Gayspeak don't like your kind.

Every week a new 'anti-christian/Anti-Theist' thread is started and I bite my tongue and allow you all to go blithely around viewing your opinions on religion.

The only reason why I opened my mouth on this thread was because some witty person had this to say:

Don't bring up anything anti-christian.

dvdbrn will get all butthurt and start accusing you of persecuting him lol

And while its true you all are not burning Christians at the stake (Yet, but I have to wonder how many have a secret desire to), from this side of the issue it hurts every time one of you witty characters have something to say about 'Christianity'.

While faith may not be important to you, there are those who rely on faith to survive yet one more day on this earth. There are those who do take offense and or get hurt each time some anti=christian decides to spout off their views and opinions.

Just as you, a homosexual, hates to have someone call you a faggot, or to point out that gays are promiscuous (Oh yeah, sure let me take the sting out of that and say that some ain't that way) Or HIV infested - oh let me reduce the redness there by pointing out that only 1/5th of the gay population has been tested positive... And all of the other stuff that you take as gays being persecuted hurts, and hurts deeply.

Your words, your antichrstian rhetoric hurts others that come here, others who have a faith and who already struggle to reconcile faith with their homosexuality.

The last thing they need is their 'peers' making it twice as hard and hating on their faith.

I am very happy you decided to speak your mind on this!

I cant speak for others on here, but I love debating. I can pretty much say I am addicted to it.
And sometimes that gets me into a LOT of "hot water".

But those who know me well, know I dont say what I say to enrage people, but to get them to open up and express themselves. I WANT to hear your views, otherwise I would keep silent.

How are any of us able to learn about differing viewpoints, other cultures, other people lives and experiences if we dont debate?

Yes, we can talk and chat all we want, but that really doesn't bring out the "truth" in us.
Debating gets people worked up enough to let go of some of that hesitation to speak about things we normally wouldn't. And I know I push the limits sometimes, but I dont do it to be mean or hateful, I do it because I want people to learn.

As I have stated in so many other posts, I have people come to me with their problems and always asking me questions. Well, I have found out that forums such as this is a great tool to use to get others to see there is more in the world than whats on their own little street.

None of us can appreciate what has happened to someone else, or what their views are, unless we can open up ourselves to constructive debate.

BA - I dont think anyone on here was cornering you and bashing you personally. You seem to be the only one on here that has spoken up as being on the side of religion. So it may seem you are the one getting the bullwhip, but its more of an "uneven match" as I see it, and that may be why you feel "abused" this way.


I especially like your posts. You seem to be the opposite of me, even though we do agree sometimes. So that is what draws me to your viewpoints and opinions. Plus, you write really long "speeches" like I do sometimes.

I tend to get drawn to people who are in opposition of me, just so I can debate with them.
And I have driven a couple of past friends mad with my "picking fights" with them.

I realize some people dont like debating, but in this type of forum, this is what it is about.
Otherwise we would never have anything to say or learn from each other.