Most people who oppose LGBT Rights tend to be Right-Wing extremist Christians; even though the New Testement, which they "follow" says nothing derogatory towards homosexuals. I just want to know why a group of people (who's person of worship is all loving) hates so many groups of people.

omg I love you. um I have no idea they are just crazy and stupid I guess. I mean gay people do nothing to hurt them in any way and they just keep on hating. blows my mind

brain washed is what it is al right 99.999% of the time

Actually, there are plenty of Christians that do not oppose LGBT Rights. Merely blanket-blaming "Christians" is a bit rash. What happens are those against all of this try to back up what they say by using religion. And the majority of passages that could be interpreted are in the New Testament. There are plenty of people that don't believe in God or anything like that, but are perfectly happy to believe when it comes to bash something they hate. Just how when you don't like someone, suddenly everything they do pisses you off; and you find 'real' reasons as to why what they are doing is pissing you off.

I am a Christian myself. I believe in acceptance, tolerance, love, and compassion towards everyone; saints, sinners, and the like. But the two [my beliefs and religion] do not have to correlate. Personally, I also believe that any religion can be good in someone's life if it teaches them good things. "Love thy neighbor as thyself" is a great lesson; no matter if Jesus, Obama, Buddha, or the bum on the street that reeks of scotch said it first. If you want to believe in the giant flying spaghetti monster (trust me, people do) I won't judge you for it as long as you don't do anything stupid/criminal in the name of your religion.

I'm assuming since you're here, you've seen the DRR show or at least pieces of it to know what the Dollars are about. It's a gang. Sure it's colorless, but a gang nonetheless. I feel its spoiler-safe to say that the Dollars are different from other gangs; and that good things can come from something seen as inherently evil. It all depends on the people involved.

There are good Christians, and Bad Christians. Just as there are good LGBT people, bad LGBT people, good sandwiches, bad sandwiches. And really, the "Christians" that believe in hating anyone, not just those of "non-traditional" sexual orientations, just hating in general; aren't practicing what they say others should. Having reasons to back up WHY you don't like a certain PERSON is one thing; but saying "I hate all gay people" is another. They can't say "all gay people will make bad parents" as I know for a fact that several same-gender couples make far better parents than a lot of other hetero-gender couples I know. Trying to say "Jesus doesn't like it" is even worse, especially how at the same time many of the same people are trying to lesson the impact of religion in the government.

I'm not calling myself an expert here, but I am saying that there is always room for more learning. If I put some research into this, I'm sure I could give you any number of reasons for either side. So in a way, I'm not for or against this issue as much as I am for more people learning more about the issue, and making an educated decision on it already; AT LEAST more people could google something before whining about it. In reference to the original question, I would probably say that for the most part those so opposed to the idea often haven't learned all they can; for just as there are a handful of "scriptures" against this, there are some for it as well. If any religion preaches against an entire group of people, they lose all credibility from me until they can name every single person in that group, and give me a reason why every single person in that group has done something worthy of getting hated. THEN, and only then, can you say the entire group is bad.

This is true.

Butterfly, I did not intend to offend you. When I was a Christian, I supported LGBT Rights as well. Also I did write that people who oppose LGBT Rights are USUALLY Christians. I didn't mean that ALL Christians opposed LGBT Rights

I can tell you why, but first let me clear up a few things, we do not hate homosexuals, but we hate sin. Leviticus 18:22
"Do not practice homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman. It is a detestable sin." While that may be in the old testament, it still applies as a sin. You see, we Christians believe in two parts of the Hebrew law, first is the ten commandments and the does and do not(s). These are the rules that God gave us to obey and the ten commandments and the one above are both included in this. Many people believe this to be included in the second part, which are the rules God gave the Hebrews because they could not keep the law. This was how the Hebrews kept themselves on a good standing with God. But we don't have to worry about that anymore because Jesus came down as fully God and fully man and took on the punishment that we could not keep and resurrected to display his power over death. But if you are still confused because that is Old Testament, read, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, "Remember this. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people-none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God." This is the New Testament, still applies. We don't hate the people, but we hate the sin (We believe that homosexuality is an act not how you are born). There are many Christian extremists who do not show the love of Christ because they forget that they are also sinners and their hearts are as dark as those who practice homosexuality. We want them to turn away from homosexuality because it doesn't please God, he still loves them and that's why he is giving them a chance to turn away from their life of sin and put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ so that when they die they will not go to Hell.


Also, most people who do not support LGBT, are not as upset about the gay people (there always has been), but they do not want the definition of marriage in the Constitution to be changed. God made the definition of marriage and we don't want them to change it just so they can go to Church for a few hours and then continue on with their life of sin. Hope this answered your question! :)

>>7 The old testament also says to stone women to death who are raped before marriage. You can't pick and choose what parts of it are still applicable.

Also, the correct quote is "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." It doesn't explicitly call it a sin in the original translations.

(I know there is a similar passage in the New Testament, but I still feel the need to point that tidbit out.)

I'm catholic and I'm pretty pro gay. And everyone else at my school cuz we're progressive and a lot of us are christians.

My parents are Methodist, and they're typically considered the most open minded about it. From what I have found out in a few questions, they say it is up to God, which is how it should be if you believe in God. they will let homosexuals in the church, participate in church programs, and the like, and they otherwise don't mind homosexuality. Me personally, I don't care, have sex with whatever gender you want to, but don't force it on me. For the ones that do get very vocal, and even physical about it, you need to learn your own scripture. Does it not say, in I think Luke 6:37, "Thou shalt not judge, lest you be judged, Thou shalt not condemn lest you be condemned..." or something along those lines?

I am a Baptist, and I have mixed feelings regarding homosexuality. I think being homosexual is a temptation, and the Bible states that it is not a sin to be tempted, but giving in to the temptation is a sin. So practicing homosexuality is a sin, but I am sure we have all experienced times where we found someone of our own gender appealing. I know I have, but I resisted the temptation.

I have no problem with letting homosexuals into the church, it would be unchristian to turn them away. That person could be seeking repentence for his homosexuality, or maybe he is seeking answers. The church is not reserved for the righteous, it is there for those who wish to give themselves to the Lord. It is for sinners who want to serve the Lord and lead better lives. However, I do not think people who are openly homosexual should be allowed to serve in the ministry.

On politics, I am against same sex marriage and child adoption by homosexual couples, but I support everything else they believe in. It is wrong to persecute them, but I support their right to free speech, the right to come out in public, and I support civil unions. Homosexuals are people and they should be treated as such.

>>12

Isn't that contradictory? If you support everything else that they believe in and think that it is "unchristian to turn them away," would it also be unchristian to allow them the same set of rights and privileges that you currently possess?

Your statement of "homosexuals are people and they should be treated as such" as a result proves contradictory. If you really believed that, you would allow them those same rights.

>>12 i find the bible stating "that it is not a sin to be tempted, but giving in to the temptation is a sin" hypocritical enough. i understand though; you have mixed feelings about homosexuality and i'm fine with it :3

I just want to say thanks to everyone for talking about this in a mature way and stating your opinions and beliefs clearly and not attacking each other outright. It make me happy to see people talking about a subject without being jerks.

I think extremist Christians have always had that strong sense of superiority. They always seem to believe their way is the best way and as an atheist looking in they seem to want everything to say the way it is, hence their conservative beliefs. The way they've been doing things hasn't been able to evolve to recent changes in society so they try to keep society to stay at their "level". So as for their anti-LGBT beliefs it stem's from the fear of change, it's something that can (and very may will) change American society as a whole which makes new unpredictable changes come from that leading to a presumed decline in the conservative church's power. There's my essay on that I know it's long, deal with it.

>>16
>essay
>5 sentences

:}

As a Christian (I guess)
I have to say that I don't oppose anyone's rights.
Rights are given to you at birth by the Almighty God.
The state is a false idol.

So, I think that if queers want to get married they should be able to.
But freedom works both ways and I think if a Christian church leader doesn't want to marry two people, he should not be forced to do so.

I think the reason they don't accept it is because it goes against God's law of creation, that's what one of my friends had told me (she is a strong christian herself)
But excuse me if I am wrong.

I accept it myself, I have absolutely no problem with it at all, and they can love whoever they want in my eyes. I don't have a problem if someone doesn't accept it, as they have the right to their own opinion.

Yes! Finally this thread! I'm a lesbian with a girlfriend, and I know people who oppose LGBTQ. I have a friend who is christian and one day I asked her what her opinion on LGBTQ was and she said she thought it was sin and wouldn't affiliate herself with those people. I never, to this day, told her I was lesbian. but we kinda drifted apart and stopped talking a while ago, so I guess its ok XD

I've heard people say "That's gay" or jokingly call somebody a "Homo." Sometimes if I have the energy (I have depression and some MAJOR social anxiety) I'll tell them "hey c'mon, that's not nice." I'm not afraid to go out there sometimes and say something to those people!

Srry I know that doesn't answer the question. Just thought I'd throw that out their.

~A person

Because the bible says homosexuality is a sin. Or that is how it has been interpreted as saying. This isn't hard to understand. But really, it's not just Christians. Pretty sure Muslims hate them too. Because their holy book says it's wrong (I think. Not as familiar with the Muslim faith)

>>22 You're right.
Muslims hate gays worse than Christians ever could.

But, it's super funny to me because all the SJW faggots where I live are all about Muslims.
They love them and then bash on the J-man and his teachings.
It's bullshit.

Fuck, I hate Muslims.

The basic concept of Christianity is tolerance,so all these "christians" who can't tolerate aren't actually "christians".
As for myself,I don't give a fuck about LGBT people as long as I don't see them "in action" let's say.It's gross to see 2 people making out in public,wether they're a straight or a gay couple.

@Kazehachi

Yes, I realize it sound contradictory when said. I just cannot bring myself to support any marriage that is not between one man and one woman of legal age. I also don't think it is good for a child to grow up with two "fathers."

Something about the bible and how kids are raised I think.
They need to notice that the bible can't apply to today because of how the world is and kids don't care if they have two dads or two moms.
It's not like the child can turn gay since Being homosexual is not by choice.

>>7(Yeah, that was a while ago, I know)
You are right that non-married non-virgins were told to be stoned in the Old Testament, However; there is a story I wanna tell. This can be found in John 8. The corrupt religious leaders at the time (Pharisees) came to Jesus with an unmarried non-virgin. They asked Jesus what they should do with her in order to trap him by making him say something that they could use to accuse him. Jesus then started drawing something on the ground.They kept questioning him until he finally said,"let the one of you who is without sin throw the first stone." They all left except the women. Then he forgave her for her sin and sent her away. I am not without sin and neither are you or you or you or homosexuals. It is not my place to judge anyone. God's gunna do that on Judgement day whether you or I support them or not. That's the sad truth. Unmarried non-virgins will be judged on Judgement day as well as homosexuals and every other sinner. We will all be judged the same way and depending on whether or not we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, we could either go to heaven or hell...



Also, the New Testament was originally written in Greek, so no translation is going to sound exactly the same, but they all say the same thing, just different ways. Also, look these up 1 Timothy 1:8-10 and this Jude 7...

The reason is because when it comes to marriage they believe in birth from a mother and father but if you're gay there won't be a birth but 2 ppl coming into love but they feel its sinful and they shouldn't be marry. At least what my dad told me that's why gay marriage is wrong. I don't believe it is but that's my familt belief.

I am a Christian, and I really don't care if you are or aren't gay. It was you own decision. But I am not all for it. In the Bible it does say, that a relationship should be between a man and a woman. But I am fine with a gay couple. That is just my own opinion.

I am Christian, but I don't really care if people like a same gender or not. They have the freedom to love whoever they want. It doesn't bother me.

Well for me, If two person really loved each other, even if they're gender is the same, its all good.

I'm athists

I'm a Christian, and I am fine with gay people. To be honest they are really cool. I have lots of homosexual friends. For me though, I prefer to be straight because I believe in the love between a man and women.

i think it boils down to creating an in-group and an out-group. im agnostic but it's always seemed to me that the in-group of christianity (especially western denominations) are white conservative gender normative heterosexuals. it's easy then to ostracize and ridicule the out-group, which we see happen a lot christians.

they're a religious majority with bragging rights because they're exclusive. they treat it like a secret club. if you dont fit in the narrow box of a "good christian" you're out.

it's incredibly hypocritical considering the essence of christianity is about forgiveness and nonjudgment, but that's people for you. jesus was also brown. and he wasn't born in december. he hung out with prostitutes. protestantism was literally invented to make divorce easier. christianity was used to justify the crusades. there's a lot of bullshit wrapped up here and it doesn't make any damn sense, but since leviticus (the same book that prohibits piercings and shellfish) says gay men are sinning, apparently queer people can't have equal rights legally or in the eyes of god. neat how that works.

I was born in a Catholic family but I'm into scientology. I do believe spirits are real b/c the fact I feel it does happen to people since we haven't discover much but the fact there is still stuff we don't know that's alive or fully aware what's around us. I don't believe spirits are revived so quickly but it take time for it to move on, who knows really. Jesus Christ is real and he was a black man because if you think about Geography wise of his county they're not white. The white people used that as a racist remark for purity that he became white but death brought him to that that color not because he was pure. The bible was changed of course because humanity are well made liars but we know the truth by experience what is wrong about it and someone mind able to contrast that. There's nothing wrong in sticking to your family culture it shows you would still respect it. I respect my family religion that's why I would pray or listen to what they'll say. Same as we share our belief let them as well don't shut them away either because you feel they're wrong but tell them why it is.

I don't think every Catholic person opposes gay rights, only the stupid ones do that.

I think it's mostly the fear that drives them to do this kind of thing. The unknown always scares

Oooo I'm reeeeaaally gonna get to make some points I've spent a lot of time mulling over aren't I?

Let's get a bit of a philosophical viewpoint out of the way here. I believe there are 3 general types of "right or wrong". Moral, Ethical, and Social. Moral wrong is derived from what you believe is right for yourself. Ethical wrong is based on how you interact with others. Social wrong is defined by society.

Lemme come up with a few examples here...

Masturbation - Now I understand a whole lot of people are perfectly fine with this, it just comes to mind what with the "sexual sin" topic at hand. So, this is something held by some people as wrong. However, it is something that (hopefully) you do by yourself, so it doesn't really hurt anyone aside from yourself. (Which is of course a personally defined point of whether you believe it is wrong or not. Slippery territory huh?)

An example of an ethical wrong would be stealing. This is something you do that harms an unwilling party. There's room for argument involving severity of the wrong, but at it's simplest, these are the forms of wrong that I believe have any reason to be enforced, as this is where defense of someone who has been harmed unwillingly falls.

Social is a very tricky setting, because it doesn't have much of a basis besides what the majority tells you. First example for social belief to come to mind would be abortion. We are NOT having that discussion here since it's off topic, but suffice it to say that something being written into law does not make it a good or bad thing.

I get that was kind of off-topic, but it sets the stage for how I think about the topic, especially in regards to OP's main question.

>>1 Short answer: Because most don't understand that moral wrong doesn't need to be punished by us. Whether or not homosexuality is a sin is irrelevant in the face of what consenting adults can do together. If two people agree to something, even if that something is sin, they are only committing "moral wrong" as long as it is between each other. For a Christian, it's loving to say "I believe what you are doing is sinful and you will not go to heaven by living in sin" (because honestly how much would you have to hate somebody to believe there is a heaven and hell and NOT tell someone if they are on the wrong path) but from there, the Christian's job is done. If the sinner chooses to continue the sin, they will be judged by God in the end, not you.

>>8 Incorrect. That is nowhere near the "correct quote" since it was written in Hebrew and English didn't even exist at the time. The closest thing to "correct" in English would be "And with a male, thou shalt not lie down in a woman's bed; it is an abomination."

I actually googled for some Hebrew just off of the semantics of you saying that was the correct quote, so I guess thanks for making me go learn something? http://hoperemains.webs.com/leviticus1822.htm


Now here I've got a bit of an off-beat question for the Christians around here that I as of yet have not been given a real answer to. (The best response I've received so far was "I don't like talking to you, you change how I think too much.")

Ok, so at the beginning, God made man for companionship. Theologically speaking, He cannot coexist with sin, so he made man sinless. However, relationship is pointless if a party has no choice but to be with you, so God made sin an option for man to choose. (Thus the Tree of Knowledge)

So God told man, "That tree over there you may not eat from, or you will be apart from me," thereby giving man the right to choose sin. It was a clear cut case of "This is what I want, this is what I do not want. Do as you will."

So what makes you think you can prevent anyone from choosing to sin?

it's seen as a rule, God made man and woman to be partners, not man and man, nor woman and woman. It's like how insest is a no-no, polygamy is a no-no, and pretty much everything other than one man with one woman is a no-no. People see it as, God made men with male genitalia, and made woman with female genitalia in such a way that we can have offspring only by male to female interaction. It's "ment to be" in their eyes, it's "the way God made it to be", and it's "How it's supposed to be". People of religon are usually the most prejudice people out their with these manners because everything is decided for them, and everything else is wrong. I'm not saying thats how all the people act either, but that's how they are ment to act based on their religion... If you are Catholic, or Christian and believe in evolution, you aren't supposed to, and many would say you don't belong with that religion thereof. It's just another thing that they see as not right, or un-just. Simple as that, not much to it... Sorry if this offense anyone, I'm not trying to say that everyone of religion are bad or anything, it's not like that...

hello yes actual Christian here speaking.
It seems like most people just think that the Bible is a book of a bunch of rules, but it honestly isn't. It's a book written by humans inspired by God, and it tells us about history, how to be wise, and how we are sinners and how we get saved and have a relationship with our Creator. It's just that being close with God means becoming more and more like him and getting farther away from sin, and in order to do that, we have to know what God is like and what sin is.
As for homosexuality, it's clearly mentioned in the Bible that God does not approve of it. He created man and woman to have sex and have children. He had the city of Sodom be destroyed because they were corrupt and were committing many sins, homosexuality being one of them. It's also mentioned in a verse that there were people who were murderers, were homosexuals, people that disobeyed their parents, etc. before He saved them. (homosexuals are in the same group as murderers, but so are people who disobey their parents.)
I think the reason why a lot of Christians are so against the LGBT community is because while we see it as them sinning, the rest of the world(or at least a large part of it) is so passionate in supporting them. God tells us to not be like the world. Also, it's our duty as Christians is to spread the Gospel and the love of God to other people. I think there's a flaw in how some Christians do that though, because they seem to be spreading hate against homosexuals instead of the LOVE of God towards people.
God doesn't hate sinners; he hates the sin. But a lot of people go around with signs that say "God hates homosexuals", and frankly, it's wrong. Just wrong.

tl;dr: God says homosexuality is sin, we believe it, we're supposed to spread God's Word, but a good chunk of us are doing it wrong, and I think we're misunderstanding each other.

My personal opinion: I do not support homosexuality, but I treat gay people like I'd treat anybody else. If one of my friends turned out to be gay, I'd treat him/her like how I did before but just make sure that I don't end up tempting them or something. God hates sin, no matter how big or small, but He does love everyone, and He'll never change.

It isn't the right they oppose. (As a good christian...) one would not support or bash these rights. There are different sets of rules for them. Their bible, their human rights, and their personal opinions. The bible says being gay is a sin, human rights say you have a right to do as you please, and personally it can differ. The thing is, yes it is a sin, but christians are not suppose to judge. The judging is God's job. We do not say they are going to hell because we can't knwo what is on the inside of that person's mind and what their relationship will be with God when they pass.
So, as far as over opinionated christians go, please don't mind them.
But as far as the..."normal?" christians go, we don't bash or support. It is a human right and we can accept this without supporting it.

basically.. why da hell would they care if others are gay or not.. i mean i dont give two sh!ts if they were gay, i care about myself and my life only.

I'm a Christian and I don't hate gays or lesbian or anything of the sort I do think its wrong for them to be that way though and many other Christians have gone treating them wrong, we are supposed to show kindness and spread our gospel. In our bible it says God does not approve of homosexuality but that doesn't mean he hates the individual either he hates the sin that surrounds the individual he loves everyone and wishes for you to turn away from the sin

I'm also a Christian and I support Gay and Lesbian rights. I say it's their life and their love, and if they want to fall in love with someone the same gender, so be it. We don't have the right to change that! Plus, isn't God suppose to love everyone, Gay or not?

i personally think the christian and me think a man was made for a woman so thats why the have this "i hate gays complex" put in the end u never know what GOD is thinking i sometimes think humanity made it up,i think gays are ok and i sometimes don't but does my opinion have to do with thier or your life??

I as well am a Christian. My family is very strict wen it comes to religion and they tend to overexaggerate when they see Gay couples in public. I am the only one in my family who believes that Homosexual and gay relationships are not against God. For God himself does not exclude anyone. He loves all despite who they are, what they've done or where they've gone. I truly wait for the day that everyone will accept one another.

not all christians oppose gay rights, I'm christian and i think homosexuality isn't against God at all

Some Christians are fundamental when it comes to religion and take whatever is in the bible to fit their own agenda and emotions toward whatever that they despise and take things to the maximum degree with what their religion is against.

While the Bible does address homosexuality, it does not explicitly mention gay marriage/same-sex marriage. It is clear, however, that the Bible condemns homosexuality as an immoral and unnatural sin. Leviticus 18:22 identifies homosexual sex as an abomination, a detestable sin. I Googled it for you. :3

I go to a Catholic/Christian school despite not believing in most of their teachings, so I asked the high priest of the school about it and he said that "the church believes in marriage the couple is expected to love each other truly and deeply, AND to provide children in our world....since gays cannot, that is why the church disapproves"
I don't agree with that at all, but that's what he told me

Having read a good deal of the bible and being for the most part a christian myself, i can say the only part in which homosexuality is denounced (or even addressed) is in Leviticus where it say snot to sleep with a man as you would a woman. What 90% of people who follow this way of thinking don't realize is that Levitical laws are really only followed by hardcore orthodox jews. people stress this small passage and yet those same people disregard eating kosher and MIXING FABRICS, two "laws" which exist in the same book. The whole thing really is rather hypocritical and ill-informed, but tragically small southern pastors largely use the bible to push their own agenda, not taking into consideration all the text that DOESN'T support their radical ideas. As a liberal AND christian and just decent human being it's really hard for me to see this kind of thing and even harder to be judged when i tell people because when you live in the south, you get lumped in with those guys...

Hey, im christian and im okay with people being gay or lesbian.

god is as flawed as any man

They don't

they say that you should live the way God intended and apparently he didn't intend for guys to love guys and girls to love girls. (my catholic mom gave me a speech) But, a lot of Christians don't HATE them because they accept everybody

Not too long ago there was thread about opposing gays to get marry. There's a good amount of information in that tread I replied to the other one, it'll be hard to say what my belief was again.
P.S I have no problems with gays, I was once pansexual but my lover is no longer my love. I told her she'll be my 1st and last girl I'll ever be with b/c I really gained something for the same sex when I really didn't look at other girls like that and made me ignore a man.(I asked her out she broken up with me) It's like when you feel something and failed to match this persons wants it's just best to leave. I forced myself to last with that person to make her not feel alone and to feel something for once other than hate. I'm glad she said the word over than to continue on the pain because I promised her I would never leave until she said the words. Sometimes there can be many reasons why people go against it but I'm not against it but choose to not be with another girl.

I'm a christian, and I do not hate or have anything against homosexual people. However, I do believe that it is sinful to partake in homosexual activities. The Bible clearly states homosexuality is a sin in Leviticus Chapters 18 and 19, 1st Corinthians chapter 6, and Romans chapter 1.

"If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltness is upon them." (Leviticus 20:13)

This is pretty clear on the view of homosexuality in the old testament. Now some could argue that because it is the 'Old Testament' it could be somewhat.... outdated. However it is again stated to be wrong in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, which is in the 'New Testament'

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God." (1st Corinthians 6:9-10)

So the bible does CLEARLY state that Homosexuality is sinful, or but simply it is really bad. Now I'm not one to put down someone for their sexuality, it is just the truth. God did not make people to have same sex relationships. However I will not tell you what to believe, this is just the belief of Christians. Now also please do not dislike Christians now, some to take this belief to extremes, but as a Christian I am commanded to love my neighbor as myself, and it should not matter what your sexuality is or what your beliefs are. So I still love you guys no matter what you choose to believe.

3D6 respect, RK, this is how everyone would think in a perfect world.

RK your responce was beautiful. I personaly am pan. You disagree and find homosexuality wrong and thats your opinion and your entitled to as so long as you dont harasss others. and the thing is you didnt you respect and accept people for who they are even if they belive or act differently from you without trying to shove your own ideals onto them. Im proud to have you as a fellow Dollar RK thanx for being a good person

Regardless which testament they follow that says "Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve" they refuse to admit that if they were following the testaments, polygamy and oppression of women is supported by it, and they arent begging for that to be legal.
Also, the "In the beginning there was Adam and Eve" argument, your religion claimed there were only two people, I think they kinda needed to be opposite psychical genders to produce more people, now the world faces the concern of over population
I dont think we need many more Adam and Eves, you may hate it, but gay people are saving the world from starvation by slowing down growth
A common argument of population is that "We have like, so much space left in da wurld, so like, how R we like, overpopulated and stuff?" There's two answers really, oxygen, remember we cut down the items that give us more air to make homes for these new people, thus population rise = breathable oxygen decline
And secondly, we cant support feeding everyone, literally speaking based on figures, you have more than what we need to feed all the people, except, thats only if you dont factor in, feeding the food, sorry vegans but you're a minority, assuming you're people, I know a lot of people find it hard to believe and you're less respected than vegetarians. If everyone switched to eating plants, thus reducing need to feed cows and such, guess what we run out of first, plant foods, and a massive decline in oxygen as demand for "murder free" food rises

After going to a catholic school and studying Jesus and Christianity I believe that Jesus would have been friends with homosexual people because he was allegedly friends with many other people of sin, like prostitutes and such.

also a little theory: Homosexuality exists because humans have very little predators and therefore it is what is supposed to slow down the birth rate in order to prevent over population.
Note: this is only a personal theory of mine and may or may not be true, it is just an idea to consider

Just to clarify: The state of being homosexual is not a sin, but acting upon those urges is considered to be a sin. At least, in the Catholic church. I can't speak for other denominations.

I'm neutral/leaning towards against on the marriage aspect, though I get a bit peeved when people go on about equal rights since technically we all have the same rights and abilities. Homosexuals can get married- just not to someone of the same sex. I can't get married to someone of the same sex either. It's a door that's never been opened before.

I agree heavily with RK. It's more of a case of love the sinner, hate the sin. It's best to treat those whose lifestyles we disagree with with respect. One of my friends is a lesbian and while I made it clear that I have pretty straightfoward opinions, we're still very close.

Dont know

Not all Christians hate same sex people or oppose same sex relationships.

Indeed. I am Christian and I have nothing against same sex relationships. It completely depends on the person. Besides, there are also a lot of people who are not christian and don't accept gay rights either. Well, either way I think people who think like that are stupid. What is the big deal if someone loves someone else with the same gender? But then again, a lot of humans like to make a big deal out of every small thing.

>>57
Ignore that post I realized that this is the conversation >.<

^

i don't know :P

>>1

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/lev/gay_list.html

It doesn't have to say it i the New Testiment because bigots don't read the bible. They just do what they are told because their parents were the same religion and passed it to them as if it was fact. "Reason? Logic? Those are silly, Jimmy. Just do what I do, and hate people for no reason. Oh, and stone your mother to death tomorrow because she fucked the milk man."

I prefer my fiction with more swords, and magic. Less poverty, rape, and misogyny.

I have Christian beliefs, but I fully support LGBT. I personally am asexual, and only three of my friends are actually strait. One of my best friends is gay, and he know I will hurt anyone who hurts him because of it. I believe people cant help who they fall in love with, and its not like they asked to be born the same gender as the one they fall in love with. Gay, lesbians, and all the other sexualities should be allowed the same rights in my opinion.
I think the reason some people hate on it so much is a mixture of misinterpritation of their scripture (unless it flat out says its bad, i dont know a lot about other religious views on the topic), misunderstanding, and environment. For some the hatred and prejudice has just been passed down and taught in families from millenia of misinterpritation, misunderstanding, fear, and failure to gather information. Some may also have had bad experiences. I can use a personal example in that I had some femle friends over to hang out and watch anime and one of them is lesbian, well at the time I still considered myself straight and had a crush on a boy, and so did my other friend. The girl, we'll call her T, was aware of this but still, the entire night was pushing and trying to flirt and snuggle with us, and would not back off. Now if I wasn't smart enough to understand that that was one person, and not all are like that, I may have developed a prejudice too.
These prejudices have been engrained in peoples minds since a young age, or were developed through life events, or other times just pure ignorance, but that is my belief on why some people in general hate the LGBT community.

/bump I know it is a lot ,but read kimiko's rp

LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS!

Sorry, Mulan reference. Let me obliterate this thread.

>>4 Butterfly here has a point. That's like calling all white people racist because some white people are racist. However, it's a stigma nonetheless. Gays think all Christians hate them, so they hate Christianity. Which, I don't blame them for. I'm asexual, and although it's never happened to me personally, a lot of people think asexuals will go to hell.

Because apparently, you have to feel sexual attraction towards the opposite gender only, just not act on it. You can't juts not feel it at all. That's cheating... or something.

>>7 Okay, you, need to read the whole bible or get out. First off, only New Testament applies. Jesus died for our sins, all of the rules of old testament are wiped clean and we start anew with new rules.

Second off, I googled the 1 Corinthians versus you gave. Here's what I got.

"9 Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, 10thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." It mentions the male prostitutes, but not homosexuality.

Here's your link:
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=1Corinthians+6

RELIGION CAN NOT AND SHOULD NOT BE A FACTOR ON GAY MARRIAGE!

Okay? Get it? No? You're a fucking idiot. Marriage was around before the bible was around. You can't say "the bible this". The bible did not create it, therefor it does not hold all of the rules to it.

Leviticus is a lie. As I mentioned, all old testament rules no longer applied after Jesus died. HOWEVER! If you want to argue that it still does, let's pull out Leviticus, shall we?

Ah... here we go. Leviticus 19:17 You shall not hold hate in your heart.

OH SNAP! Guess all of those gay haters don't read too well, do they?

Here's just a whole list. Feel free to see EVERYTHING THAT YOU'RE DOING WRONG in the same book as that one verse everyone holds so dear.

http://leviticusbans.tumblr.com/post/23730370413/76-things-banned-in-leviticus

Oh? Not enough? Leviticus 19:18 You can't hold a grudge! OH SNAP!

Still need more? The second commandment "Love thy neighbor as thyself". The greatest commandment according to the bible.

ARE YOU WILLING TO JUSTIFY FORGETTING THE GREATEST OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS JUST TO HATE SOMEONE?

Ugh. I can go all day with this.

So, to answer your question. Why the gay hate? Those that hate gays are not real Christians just like feminazis aren't really feminists.They're just a sad excuse, and they obviously don't read the whole bible. Ignorant biggoted idiots.

>>73

All gays do not hate Christianity, and that is the EXACT same logical fallacy that was stated with the white people annology. Generalization applies to all things, and shouldn't be done to any of them. Most homosexuals I know identify as Christian, and I've even had one guy block me outright for being an Atheist.

At the very least you understand the fundamental concepts of reading. Definitely not logic, but you do understand reading. Why should he read the whole bible if only the New Testament applies?

I support LGBT rights because I support equal rights for all; everyone should have equal opportunities under the law. That doesn't mean everyone is equal - they're just seen that way under the law, because that's the best way to go about it.

I'm also a Christian, and hence am in the camp of supporting the sinner but not the sin. Also:

>>73 and >>8 The rules of the Old testament were for a particular people, God's Israel. Why were some of them so harsh? Read what Israel did and you'll get a pretty good idea - 'Oh, thank you God for miraculously saving our entire civilization from captivity, now we're going to worship some other god.'

Those rules don't apply to Christians nowadays, but they still demonstrate God's attitudes, since if you read the whole bible you'll come across Malachi, in which God states that 'I, the Lord (i.e. Jesus) do not change.' God stays the same, and his attitudes towards homosexuality always have too.

My friends always understand and respect me when I outline my views towards homosexuals; the homosexual act is, in the biblical God's eyes, an abonimation. That doesn't mean it's 'evil'. It means it's not how he designed it. He therefore doesn't look favourably upon it, so when people decide to do it, they're disobeying him, and that's the evil 'sin' part. When Adam needed a companion, god did not create another man. He perfectly created a woman out of Adam; thus, man and woman are supposed to come together. We make a whole. Man and man cannot make a whole. Could he have designed it that way? Sure, he's God. But he didn't, and the pot can't complain to the potter.

Alos, few people seem to acknowledge the image of Christ and the Church that marriage is supposed to symbolise, which the bible also outlines. That can't be done with two men or two women, as the Church is the 'bride' of the male Christ.

Also, calling someone 'not a real Christian' because of what they do is low and silly. A 'real Christian' is spiritually saved by Christ; it has nothing to do with how much they sin. God looks on the inside; don't judge people as part of or not part of the faith by what's on the outside.

On the subject of Leviticus being a large amount of BS, I agree. Leviticus states that women are near worthless compared to men, men being worth 50 Shekels and women being worth 30. Also, it says god shuns people with disabilities. This doesn't sound right to me. Oh, and check out Deuteronomy for some ridiculousness as well

To elaborate on the subject of LGBT, I completely support them. To clarify, I have never read the bible, and I don't currently plan on it. I have only been to church a good 3 times. The info I used above was from other sources discussing the bible.

My uncle is gay, 2 of my friends are lesbians and 1 is transgender. I accept them all because I grew up with the idea that God loves and accepts everyone, and that's how I like it. As I said before, I believe Leviticus is a load of BS, and that is where it is said, "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination."

For more http://www.religioustolerance.org/ashford01.htm

I personally don't see why its still a big deal. God doesn't force anyone to be with him, and LGBT doesn't (usually [don't say never, tried on me])force anyone to be LGBT. No laws should be made to prevent anyone from natural rights, and no hating or stereotyping should occur on LGBT or religious people.

I am however wondering what you mean by "extremist" or "radical" Christians. While some may be strongly focused on their religion, whens the last time a Christian blew up a building? But don't think of the crusades as a time when Christians were bad. First off, those were Catholic, not Christian, usually started by the pope. Also, they were done for non-religious reasons, such as land and money, with religious excuses. And its not as though the ones they were fighting were innocent. Muslims, the main opponent of the Catholic Crusades (that's what I'm calling them, its more accurate), were also attacking, plundering and slaughtering, even though everyone loves to point out that time as a point when "Christians" were bad. Even if it was them, no one is coming back to apologize, and its not like they still do that today. So please, answer me. What is an extremist Christian?

>>7 I too identify as Christian and I believe in God, but there are points in your post that don't sit well with me or the Roman Catholic view as it has been taught in my region.

--- I apologise in advance for digressing from the thread's topic. For my opinion on homosexuality and Christianity, please skip to the end of this post. ---

[From here on I will use "they" as a personal pronoun for God in order to express the Lord's triune nature that doesn't fit into human concepts of gender.]

"Jesus came down as fully God and fully man and took on the punishment that we could not keep"

This used to be something that really bothered me. Why did God subject their own son to such punishment (whipping, carrying the cross and a crown of thorns, being humiliated and crucified)? Because this is the punishment they [God] designated for us and our sins, maybe as an answer to the original sin we're supposed to have inherited?
If that is so, how can we still believe that God is an omnibenevolent and all-forgiving parent to all of us if they [God] demand a punishment such as this in order to forgive us? Even more so when Jesus Christ, our innocent messiah, had to take our punishment on like a sacrificial lamb in order to appease God's rage against the sinful? Was this the only way to accomplish salvation? Wouldn't this make God the same vengeful deity the Old Testament made them out to be?
Then what about Christ's teachings from the New Testament that showed us time and again a new portrayal of our Lord as the loving parent who would even welcome back their prodigal son? The same Lord whose out-stretched hand is always waiting for their lost children to find their way back to them? Are these teachings invalid?

As long as one believes in the interpretation of Christ's death as a punishment from God, one will not find a satisfactory answer to this theodicy question or at least none that agrees Christ's teachings; there will always be infusible contradictions.

In school, we used to discuss this with our Religious Education teachers (one of whom was a priest) and - lo and behold! - they had long cast this interpretation away. According to modern Roman Catholic theology, Jesus Christ's didn't die a sacrificial death to salvage the sinners, he died to express God's sympathy for all injust suffering on earth. God is with us, the weak and the just who are tormented by the evil in the world, all those that have to endure the consequences of human sin that is committed against one another. Christ's death is saying, "You are not alone. The Lord is with you and suffers with the rightful. Their pain is the Lord's pain and whatever sin you commit against your neighbour, you will commit against God."

As such I do no longer believe in The common concept of Hell as the place where sinners are tormented on God's orders, either. Pope Benedict XVI described the state of Hell as I understand it quite well:

“Perhaps there are not so many who have destroyed themselves so completely, who are irreparable forever, who no longer have any element upon which the love of God can rest, who no longer have the slightest capacity to love within themselves. This would be hell.”
What the Pope really said about Hell

Another important aspect of Christ's crucification is how he remained virtuous and rightful till the end. He did not use violence against the sinners, he did protest against the Roman occupation of Israel (compare Sermon on the Mount), but not once did he resort to violence against those who strayed from the right path, not even against those who did not recognise their own faults. His death reflected this stance. It showed us that our Lord wants us to build his realm effectively, but peacefully without giving in to the vicious circle of hate and violence, even if we're tempted by the injustice in this world.

To fully understand this approach to the theodicy problem (aka How can God let there be evil in the world?), one has to let go of the notion that God is omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omnisciencent. God can only be two of the three but not all at the same time as they contradict each other. If we follow Christ's teachings, we cannot and deny our Lord's omniscience and omnibenevolence, thus only omnipotence remains as the questioning characteristic.
Upon further examination, one will indeed realise the contradictory nature of God's omnipotence. God could have been almoghty before they created us, but as they did and bestowed us with freedom and a will of our own, God must have given a part of their omnipotence away to us to make free will possible. So, as long as we are free to do both good and evil, which is an inseparable quality of true freedom, God cannot be omnipotent, and here lies the reason for the evil our the world: Our Lord cannot interfere without taking our freedom for us, and thus, they suffer with the injustly treated in all their [God's] love and omnibenevolence for us, their children.

----------------end of digression-------------

I believe in Christ's teachings and the New Testament's interpretation of God as loving parent, and I do not see any reason for which our Lord would punish righteous people who love each other in a mutually trusting, committed relationship only because of their gender. Otherwise, God would have to consider transsexual or intersexual people sinners, too although they were born this way.

Regarding the biblical references, I think people are too rash and tend to interprete them with a modern mindset. We need to step back and look at the authors really meant instead of just following the scriptures word by word. The bible was written by humans not by God or Jesus Christ, therefore we have to examine te human socio-historical context of these statements of belief:
- What does homosexuality actually mean?
- Which ancient Hebrew or ancient Greek words were used that have been translated into homosexuality nowadays?
- Is their translation correct or did the authors imply something else?

I find it hard to believe that the concept of homosexuality with consensual, mutually loving, trusting and committed partnerships between equal partners existed when the biblical texts were written. It's more likely that homosexuality was associated with rape, prostitution, pederasty and other possibly humiliating relationships where one party took advantage of another. As such, it would be understandable why our ancestors forbid homosexuality. But with gay marriage as we have it now, I don't think our Lord would condemn anyone for having found their companion in life regardless of gender.

>>78 Treating the bible as a non-spritual text places you outside of the born-again Christian perspective, giving you no position to judge Christians who understand the bible through spiritual communication with God, and the fact you're so concerned with the 'human socio-historical context' means you must have no concern for what the God of this text actually thinks.

You'll probably sound smart among atheists, but pretty foolish among any born-again Christians, who know that God himself is the first port of call when it comes to misunderstandings with his word.

You also have a pretty daft concept of 'love'. Did your parents not discipline you when you were younger? If god made us perfect and we disobeyed him, would you call it 'loving' for him to say 'oh well, boy'll be boys'?

It's easy to apply human wisdom to the bible and twist it into whatever message you like. But those who listen to the Lord know better than to be engulfed in such pride. It's easy to put the Lord beneath you and judge him for this and that, but that's only because you know how much judgement you yourself are under.

God loves homosexuals. They have as much potential to be saved as anyone, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. He did not, however, design mankind to be homosexual, and if working against his design isn't a sin, I don't know what is.

>>79 I don't know what you want to imply, but I am a baptised and confirmed Christian and I do communicate with our Lord through prayers.

I have never denied the Bible as a spiritual scripture, but I am not narrow-minded enough to blindly accept its every word. Aren't we allowed to explore its meaning? To deepen our understanding of God and our religion by studying it from various angles like the socio-historical one and discussing what we have found?
I think we are even encouraged to do so, and so did my RE teachers including the priest. Theology doesn't mean to only praise and swallow everything that is given to us by the believers who came before, but to study and to ponder it and to find out what they wanted to teach us about our religion. There are enough people who couldn't accept this approach, and those are usually the "first ones to leave Roman Catholic theology seminars", to quote one of my RE teachers.

Neither have I said anything against displinary measures, and if you had read the article on Pope Benedict XVI's views on hell, you would have seen that I did not deny God's judgement on the individual. What I reject is the interpretation that we are collectively born sinners and need the grueling physical punishment of our dear Messiah in order to obtain salvation from our Lord. If God had really demanded this, we wouldn't have done anything as individuals to deserve salvation and our Lord wouldn't be the one as we know them. We were born again through what Jesus Christ gave us, through his teachings and many eye-openers for which he had to suffer great injustices and even death before God resurrected him to stay by our Lord's side.

It is my creed that we will be judged after death and that we will have to bear the consequences of our sins, until we become worthy to stay with our Lord, but I do not believe that it will be physical punishment as we will have given up our mortal body. My idea of purgatory is a spiritual one, as the modern Roman Catholic's is, where the Lord will show us how much harm our sins have caused, where we will share the (emotional) pain others received through our deeds, until we become fully aware of the burden that our sins are. Only then will we be able to redeem them and ultimately return to our Lord's side as salvaged souls.

If the Lord's design for humankind were to reproduce, then what about all those who were born impotent, infertile or hermaphrodites? What about those who are born in a body of the wrong gender or those who have died before they could give birth to any children? Are they all to be considered sinners from birth no matter how righteously they may live?

Research has shown that there is a genetic component in homosexuality, even animals have shown signs of it, and I refuse to believe that our Lord would send anyone to purgatory or hell solely for a characteristic they were born with when they have lived according to Christ's teachings.

In my view, there's a purpose which God has created homosexual people for as there is for everyone else, and they all fit into his design. I for one am convinced that God created us humans different but equal because the Lord wanted us to learn from each other's variety, to mature and prosper through our interactions with one another, but that is just my very personal opinion.

>>80 You have a lot of interesting ideas. Have you put them before God, or are you more interested in your own judgement? Don't you know that the Lord makes mankind's wisdom into foolishness, or have you wisely reinterpreted that passage as well? Exploring the Bible means asking God for guidance, because only he will reveal mysteries to you. Or have you wisely reinterpreted where it says that too?

The point of the Bible is that we can't do anything to deserve salvation, and that's why Jesus had to suffer the way he did - because sacrificing lambs was never enough to wipe away all our sin (old covenant practice). We needed a perfect human to die, and the only one who fitted the bill was God's own son in human form. Now anyone who believes on him shall be saved. Not by works, so that no-one can boast.

And birth problems originated from the Fall, not before it, like diseases did as well. Of course all these things are part of God's design, but that doesn't mean they're for good.

>>81 I'm not sure what you question is, particularly the first paragraph eludes me. Would please you elaborate some more?

Regarding the justification of a socio-historical reading of the scriptures, here's an article on how the former Pope Benedict XVI spoke favourably of this method:
Reading Genesis with Cardinal Ratzinger
Like this method, I base most of my ideas on what I have learned by reading the Bible, other theologic texts and discussing with my various RE teachers.

I consider the whole sacrificial practice with its resemblance to those ancient not necessarily Christian cults of blood to be questionable in the light of Christ's teachings. Why would the Lord assign a hereditary, collective sin to all human beings? And what's even stranger is the thought of how the Lord would need to make their own son Jesus Christ who is free of sin die in order to absolve that original sin.
Doesn't this sound like a relic from the Old Testament, this vengeful God who demands a sacrifice for Adam's, our ancestor's first sin? Have you ever wondered about that? How this idea could possibly match Jesus Christ's teachings of our all-forgiving Lord? Doesn't it seem contradictory, how the loving parent that our Lord is puts such a burden on their each innocent newborn?

According to modern Christian theologists, the answer to this problem should be that there is no original sin to be absolved in this sense, but that Adam's and Eve's sin is to be understood as the first disobedience against God's law and thus, it marks the first time humans have decided to leave the path the Lord laid out for us, the path towards evil. However, to say that this first sin is hereditary and puts even the innocent in the state of a sinner goes against Christ's teachings, and so does the idea of a vengeful punishing God. Therefore, this concept has been abandoned and replaced by a different explanations one of which I mentioned in my other post (>>78). I know there's theologic evidence for this, we've read it in RE, but I cannot recall the title or the author anymore.

If we assume the modern Catholic's hermeneutical approach of a non-literal reading of Genesis (which rejects Creationist theories), I think it is safe to say that diseases and hereditary conditions are not to be interpreted as consequences of Adam's and Eve's fall. Otherwise, you'd have to consider all ill people as sinners, a concept Jesus Christ has greatly distanced himself from through his wonderous interactions with the sick and the disabled. He was the one to bring those outcasts back into the Israeli society that had abandoned them because of said concept.

First of all, I'd like to appreciate the honesty and information given from the people who've posted before me. Reading this has given me a few things to reconcile over.

But second of all I'd like to pose a question that I will give my own answer to: Is homosexuality a choice?

From the Christian perspective we're all born as sinners. Lying, cheating, stealing, killing, lusting are all things we have in our hearts and minds. Some argue that condemning any non heterosexual persons is unfair when they're born that way.

Homosexuality on its own is not a sin, acting on it is. Just like how in the Bible it states that a man lusting for a woman in his heart is a sin in and of itself the same could very well be applied to another man or a woman with another woman.

Homosexuality is viewed as a social problem because it's supposedly genetic and one's sexuality has a big impact on their lives. However, if it's a choice it's really not much of a social problem, is it? One could compare this to issues involving race but that would be different. You're race/ethnicity will never change. You can choose to have a sex change or do a sexual act with a person of the same gender.

Does this mean I don't like homosexuals? Goodness, no. I have friends who are very open and honest about their homosexuality, just like I have friends who may do other sinful things.

And I understand that it isn't easy by any ordinary means to renounce ones sexuality or marriage, I'm not sure I could do that myself, but I've heard stories and sermons of preachers and pastors who have stayed away from acts of homosexuality despite their being homosexuals themselves purely because their love of God was stronger than their desire. Even if you're born a homosexual the Bible states you have the strength to fight every and all temptation that tests you.

Do I think Christian homosexuals still go to heaven? Not for me to decide. It's up to those individuals to reconcile with themselves and do what's best for their relationship with the Lord.

>>82 In simple terms: do you ask God to verify your beliefs and/or correct you if you are wrong?

To the second point, I'm not interested in the surface-level 'wisdom' of humanity and how it's applied to the Bible. My issue is with the precedent set by adopting such a method; mankind makes its findings more important than God's, and seeks to listen to its own voice more than it seeks to submit to its creator's.

To the second point, sin was not 'assigned'; laws were assigned, and they were disobeyed, and thus sin - or disobedience - was born. Mankind was then 'in sin', for they had the knowledge of good and evil and had disobeyed God. 'By the offence of one all men were made sinners.' Sure, you may not like it, but it's there and in many other places and hard to reinterpret.

To the third point, no, it doesn't seem contradictory. Those who think that the Old and New Testament Gods are different have a poor understanding of both, likely because they're trying to be intellectual towards the Bible instead of meditating on the Word with God. The difference in the two parts of the Bible was not the God, but the covenant he made and the people he made it with.

Heredity sin is in no way a 'punishment' when one bears Christ in mind and realises that there is no sin any more, and diseases have to be a product of the Fall because they wouldn't have existed before it. And if they would have, then I'll be the one asking what kind of God would put that in his initially perfect creation.

Just remember that 'The Lord will give you understanding in everything.' Whatever you think and whatever I say, put it before him. If we believe in the same God, we'll get the same answer in the end.

It's also worth remembering that there's going to be more deception in the last days, which we're obviously in. Why would we value modern human theology over studies closer to Christ's physical appearance? It reeks of human pride to me; the spirit behind it is not sound.

>>84 "Just remember that 'The Lord will give you understanding in everything.' Whatever you think and whatever I say, put it before him. If we believe in the same God, we'll get the same answer in the end."

Agreed. I'm gradually getting the impression that we aren't that far apart in our basic views, just that we're emphasising different aspects.
The only point I have to strongly disagree on is the relation between diseases and the Fall. Like the Fall, I believe diseases to have become possible in the divine creation when the Lord decided to bestow us with the gift of freedom. To make us humans perfect would have meant to keep us from being truely free (cf. >>78) as freedom implies the freedom to err as our hearts do when we go against God's wishes, or to develop in an unfavourable direction as our bodies or minds do when they fall ill. However, these two are not necessarily linked by a causal connection or those who suffer from hereditary chronic diseases would not fit into Christ's teachings.

Maybe I should also explain what sin means for me. I understand sin a an act that has been committed against the Lord's teachings, not as a state or an characteristic like hair eye colour that one can inherit. That might be my main issue with the idea of the "original sin": It seems to imply that even newborn children have done something wrong when the only thing they have done is to come into being. In this sense, it disturbs me greatly to think that "We are all born as sinners."
Nonetheless, I agree that we are all potential, even probable sinners as we all have the same innate notion to turn away from the Lord's teachings and to choose the easy way instead of the right one, just as Adam and our ancestors did. This is the reason we need our Lord's guidance through Christ's pointers to help us stay on the right path.

Concerning the separation of the Old and the New Testament, the Old Testament is so full of specific laws on and partially conflicting expressions of how to serve God correctly that I have a hard time figuring it out, and it seems that I am not the only one. By the time, Jesus Christ came to us, the cultural context of the OT had already changed so much that even the minds of scholars such as the Pharisees had come to look more at the literal laws than at the meaning behind the words (cf. law of Sabbath, Markus 2:7, 23-27).

It was only through Jesus Christ's guidance and his reinterpretation of the Old Testament that we regained our view on the purpose of those rules our ancestors had received from the Lord. Therefore, I agree that the Old Testament is unsuitable for us believers to use on its own and that it should not be separated from the NT, as we are unable to interprete one of them correctly without our Messiah's teachings or the Jewish concepts lying underneath respectively.

My wariness of the Lord's seemingly arbitary depiction in the OT may be due to the different and much older covenant of that time (one that matches the ancient sacrificial cults and their way of thinking) as you have pointed out, but Christ's teachings make the Lord feel indefinitely closer than the OT's elusive one even though the Lord is supposed to have remained unchanged. No matter how I look at it, the only way for me to resolve this inner conflict is to overthink my understanding of OT's portrayal of the Lord, for a God whose rage needs to be appeased with sacrifices cannot be the same as our Messiah told us about.

Which brings me to the use of methods like the hermeneutical approach. As intently and as often as I ask the Lord for guidance in my prayers, to correctly interprete the signs we receive remains a challenge that we often fail to live up to, at least that holds true for me. This is where analytical methods can help us discover facets of the scriptures that may have remained unnoticed to our dull minds otherwise.

In the same way, I feel it is beneficial for us to take other people's findings and interpretations into account as our human views are often limited. I do not mean for us to immediately accept them as true, but if you consider another believer's opinion with a grain of salt like we do in this thread, you are most likely to see a new aspect or a well-known one of our Lord's teachings in a different light. A careful exchange of religious views does not seem superficial to me but enriching.

As I know about my own mind's inadequate nature, I cannot hope to figure every intricacy of the scriptures out all by myself. So, I appreciate modern theology not as some pointless, proud or blasphemous claim to have understood in their divine entirety but as a mean to raise my awareness for the different possible readings of the Bible, one of many ways to broaden my horizon and deepen my understanding of our Lord's design.

I suppose this is also what you try to to accomplish by "meditating on the Word with God." Can you explain the method you mean in detail? Is it prayer?

I'm Catholic and personally support gay rights. I don't see what's wrong about liking each other,don't mention about the gender. I have 4 bestfriends and 2 of them are gay. Of course I was shocked when they tell me so, but they're my buddies and I will not hate them because of that. When they told me about their male crush, I'll be like a friend who listen a story about a straight people who telling about their straight crush. Besides that, they're an average normal person.

I know that holy bible said, that is a sin if we sleep with the same gender. But still, holy bible was written by normal humans.

My friend ever asked this question to my catholic teacher, "Is it a sin to become a gay person?" and my teacher answer,
"It's not for me to decide, It's God's. But for my opinion, it's okay as long as they don't bother another person like kissing in public and so on."

I personally am both Catholic and a bit right wing, though I'm independent. I don't believe that it's wrong for a person to be gay. I don't like the idea of having someone else's ideals forced on me, and I don't believe in forcing my beliefs on others. If a gay guy starts telling me I'm wrong for not being gay, I'll dislike him. If another Catholic yells at one of my gay friends for being gay, I'll dislike him. I don't think a persons sexuality has anything to do with who they can be friends with. I don't think that gays should attempt to force Catholic churches to accept them and marry them (I'm aware not many do this, but some do) because it's very hypocritical. Both sides in this case are far too hypocritical.

I know this has probably been said before, but I don't necessarily have the time right now to read every single person's comment :P Instead I just want to say something short (forgive me if it is longer than I expected XD)

Christians believe that homosexuality is a choice and it is sinful. It is a sexual sin, and sexual sins are some of the hardest to break. But it should be known that true Christians are not the ones saying things like, "Gays should die" or something along those lines which I have seen some "Christians" say online. Hate the sin, love the sinner. I am a Christian, and I also have gay friends. Do I agree with their lifestyle? No, I don't, but I don't go up to them constantly and say, "Homosexuality is a sin, so you gotta stop being sinful." With that point, it should also be known that in Matthew 7:3 it states " Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" (NIV). It is not our job to go up to people and start condemning them for their sins when we too are sinners ourselves and are equal in the eyes of the Lord. But even though God sees our foolishness and our sinful ways, he calls everyone to repent and go to Him and receive Jesus and the Holy Spirit so that they shall be in a relationship with Christ and have eternal life after death. Homosexuality is a sin to Christians, and so it lying, murdering, lusting, etc.

So in conclusion: everyone's a sinner, no true Christian should be condemning others with hate but instead try to lead them to Christ by showing them the love of God. Be careful about what people say and make sure to try to not label all Christians as hateful people or something just because certain individuals do or say unrighteous things while using the name of God to back themselves up. But also remember that it's perfectly fine for people to disagree with things, just don't be hateful towards each other because of disagreements. Heck, some of my bestfriends are Atheists :P Of course I'm still going to try my best to point them towards Jesus, but it's up to them whether to accept Him or not.

I hope what I said makes sense and wasn't too long :P with that, I take my leave :3 love you guys! lets all do our best as Dollars to spread joy throughout our communities and the world! ^_^

>>85 'meditating on the Word with God' is the practice of asking the Lord to reveal the mysteries of the scriptures to you before, as and after you read the Bible. You set time aside to think of things of heaven and not of earth, and that includes perspectives on the scriptures.

It's better to think of being 'in sin' as imperfection rather than wrongdoing; it's a nature, not 'sin' itself but the state of being where one, indeed, will inevitably sin. Likewise, God's righteousness is the opposite nature. As long as mankind is 'in sin', we can't be fully together with God. Also, if we weren't born sinners, why wouldn't we kill all our newborn so that they would enter eternal life immediately perfect? No; all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We're on this Earth so we can come to Christ and be one with him now and forever; we don't, and can't, start that way.

As for diseases, by belief stems from the fact that many things did, according to the Bible, stem from the Fall. Pain in childbirth. The ground being 'cursed'. It's not hard to think that diseases could be part of the latter; that or they simply weren't to be found in the Garden of Eden (why would they?), so as mankind getting kicked out of there was the result of sin, mankind having to deal with disease can also be said to be a result of sin.

As for perfection, I'd say God made us more perfect by making us free; he made us perfect to begin with, but gave us the choice to not be perfect - for as long as we were obedient, we were perfectly perfect. Had we not had free will, we would have been like the glued-together blocks in the Lego Movie - imperfectly perfect.

Boku no Pico

>>89 1. Spiritual meditation seems like a good idea to me, but as I have pointed out before, I do not trust my human mind to be able enough to only rely on this method in order to understand our Lord's will. But to each their own. We may use walk different ways, but our destination shall be the same, God willing.

2. Ah, I see. I don't think I will ever be able to accept "original sin" as a state due to the heavy historical implications the terms "sin" and "guilt" carry in my culture, but I'll do my best to think of it as a weakness of the heart that we inherit along with our humanity.

Well, as for your example with the newborns. We don't kill them because the Lord has taught us to cherish the time and the bodies we were given on earth as they are divine gifts to us (Exodus 20:13; Markus 12:31). I'm convinced that, love as Christ meant it includes the mortal vessel of our souls for as long as we reside in them.

3. This is where we diverge. I do not think of Genesis as a historical account of our creation. I am an advocate of evolutionism as much as I am Christian at heart, and I do not see any reason for which they should contradict each other. The Lord did create our world as they caused the big bang. And again, we could feel their presence when they blew life into the first organic molecules that bumped into each other to form the first single-cell organism. And it is the Lord who gave our ancestors the first notion of consciousness and therefore made them the first humans.
But do I believe in Garden Eden as a location or in the depiction of the Fall as historically accurate? No, at least not in the literal sense.

Genesis tell us what our ancestors' wanted to convey to us through the symbolism of their time, and that is that God is our creator and that it is us humans who disobeyed our Lord and turned away from them. Garden Eden was a state of blissfull ignorance to the possibility of our own human weakness or the "sin" as you may prefer calling it.

4. I think you're right when you wrote that humans were created perfect as long as we follow the Lord's teachings. But as I consider the Fall part of the Lord's design, I'd say, our first state of innocence was an imperfect perfect state, we had yet to mature through hardship and temptations. The true state of perfection awaits us after our resurrection as we will have known sin by then and have resisted or overcome it through our time on earth and the Lord's judgement / the purgatory.

>>91 1) Then rely on God. It's good not to trust yourself, but when you're talking to him, you can put all your trust in him.

3) Evolution and the Bible can't coexist the moment you read that God made the animals to reproduce according to their own kinds. Evolution doesn't work like that.

Once you start to hold the scriptures in a higher regard than you do human science, there's no reason why Genesis can't and shouldn't be literal. In fact, if it's not literal, a lot of the Bible makes less sense and has to be de-literalised as well.

But each to his own. As long as the Christian lines their interpretation up with the rest of scripture and with God, they should find the answers they need, and as long as they believe that Christ is Lord and did what he did and why he had to do it, they'll have their salvation anyway.

Wow. I see quite a bit of 'Muslim' hate here. To put things in point, yes, we Muslims are bound by faith to not practice homosexuality. However, you don't see Muslims shove their sexualism ideals on others. Or at least, that's not Muslims are supposed to do. As with different faiths, sexuality is a matter of personal ideals. You can provide backings to your own ideals to try and change his mind if he or she is of immediate concern. If not, you tolerate them and carry on. 'Lakum deenukum waliya deen'. Google up what that means. To clarify beforehand, you might put up examples of 'Muslims' who spread hate and intolerance on same sex relations. The Qur'an is the 'complete word of God' and Muslims are supposed to follow it. Having sex before marriage is a sin, but that doesn't stop Muslim teenagers do they. Alcohol, ham and a few other foods are prohibited. Again, you see a lot of 'Muslim' people at nightclubs. Muslims are supposed to pray 5 times a day but there are many who neglect their duties. *neglect their duties* Case in point, being a Muslim, or calling yourself a Muslim; doesn't make you the perfect example for the whole lot (extremists and terrorists shown on TV being the perfect example for this statement). Before you let your ignorance take over you, use google for research please. Better than nothing. Muhammad SAW advised his companions and himself did not practice homosexuality, but I've never heard of a Hadith (Sayings on the Prophet SAW's life) shun or belittle homosexuals that weren't uncommon around Arabia at the time. That is all. Sorry if I offended anyone. I was a little butthurt myself. Once again, my apologies.

In any case, there's no need for anyone to be wanton, and usually those who are believe they need to arbitrarily decide due to being "smarter than thou" with their pell-mell made beliefs. Why listen to them? We have the internet for friends and discussions, and no ado arguments by not-so-apt people.

>>93

We don't see YOU shove those beliefs on others. Don't conflate the idea that when someone says Muslim that they are attacking you personally. There are hundreds of MILLIONS of Muslims that support ISIS. ISIS has be pushing people off of buildings while they were blindfolded in the name of your religion. Why? Because they were gay. That was some of the people they sent to death by fatal leap. That was their only crime. The Quran told them it was unnatural, and an abomination. Neither of which are true, but if you want to be a bigot, that's fine. It's completely natural, and if it's an abomination is a personal matter and if you think it is that's fine. When you let that personal thought become personal action... Then you are a bigot. It's fine people think you an idiot, but the real charm is when you open your mouth to prove it.


WARNING: EXPLICIT!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr7d1sTDNts

And Lot! (Remember) when he said unto his folk: Lo! ye commit lewdness such as no creature did before you. For come ye not in unto males?--29:28-29

Homosexual acts are condemned as unnatural. (Will ye commit abomination such as no creature ever did before you?) 7:80-81

Male homosexual activities are condemned as unnatural. 26:165-6

Male homosexuals commit abominations and act senselessly. 27:54-55

Male homosexuals acts are condemned as unnatural. 29:28-29

So, let me be perfectly clear. You are a person, and an individual. You are just as much human as the rest of us. I do not have the energy to hate people on an individual bases even if I wanted to. As a group, however, hating is easy. Much less energy is required, and it's doesn't even take more than one term to exemplify my distaste: I dislike religion as a whole. Not just yours, but all of them. They all condemn things, and universally aren't good. Jainism is the closest thing to a peaceful religion that exists today, and even they have blood in their past. We are DOLLARS here, and I don't see past that while you are here. Our differences do not matter individually on this board, and as such everyone should understand that. Our individual ideas shouldn't mean anything to one another. We are here to get things done. To make a change.

>>95 ...Where did you get the statistics that said hundreds of millions of Muslims out of approximately 1.6 billion were supporters of ISIS? And out of this "support" does it specifically give details to what about ISIS they were in support of? Creating an Islamic State? Their enforcements of gender roles? Or the invasions and mass murders?

>>96

This isn't something I'm prepared to validate with you here. Whether I validate it, or not it doesn't make it less true. Use some Google-Fu if you need more convincing. Last I checked we aren't a debate club, and this isn't formal. You can vet everything I said via Google just as I have through many different sources, many of them Atheist with no derived agenda or bias other than intellectual conversation. There may not be hundreds of millions of open supporters, and I'm sure some of those numbers would vanish all together if ISIS was removed. Also, I don't care what they support about ISIS. It's all incorrect, and they abuse the Islamic faith for political power.

You're more than welcome to refute my posts, and when you do list where you found the information if you find it necessary.

When ISIS tossed people off a building, there were dozens of people that couldn't do anything paralyzed by either fear, or indifference. No one did anything, and many participated in stoning one of them men when he didn't die after the fall. That's not support?

Almost all of Iraq, and Saudi Arabia have similar ideals to ISIS, and are just as abhorrent. Syria is slowly becoming no better.

>>97 No, that's not necessarily support. You should know the difference between coercion and consent. You should also know that you yourself need to provide information and sources if you're going to ask that of others.

As a Muslim, ISIS can go get swallowed by a pit and die. They don't practice Islam and they don't represent it no matter how much they want to be called an "Islamic State" anymore than the Ku Klux Klan represented Christianity. Conflating Islam with ISIS is a delusion these guys share with Islamaphobes. I won't even call them "extremists" because they aren't practicing an extreme version of my religion. They aren't like the X-games of Islam, what they do doesn't resemble the core aspects and teachings of Islam at all. What they've done is co-opted Islamic religious symbols and used them to promote their own ugly, disgusting, power-hungry agenda. I hate them to the core of my soul, and I hate anyone who thinks that what they do and what my religion teaches are one and the same.

Now, back to the topic. It's true that in Islam engaging in male homosexual acts is considered a sin, but I've always found that irrelevant to the question of LGBT rights. This is because I've always felt that one's religion was an individual relationship between them and God and does not really warrant third party conversationists butting in. You don't know what struggles an individual is going through, the state of their heart, and who is better loved by God. You're not privy to that kind of information. Yet people act like they are superior to others because they don't commit a particular sin but commit plenty of others. As a heterosexual guy, it seems stupid for me to deny LGBT rights over religion because the question of homosexuality and Islam isn't something I have to grapple with myself. I don't know what its like to be homosexual and Muslim and I think decisions regarding such should be made by each respective individual who is actually in that position. As outsiders, all we can do is respect their choice and their right to make that choice themselves. We really are only responsible for carrying our own burdens and should stop picking at the shoulders of others.

>>98

I completely leave it up to them, they are the one demanding it. It was only a suggestion. I don't have expectations of anyone, and you shouldn't either.

Secondly, I know the difference between coercion and consent, but that doesn't make you not guilty of support. The same defence was used for Nazi's. Should Nazi's be pardoned of their crimes for their deeds? Should we all just say, "Oh, they were coerced so they didn't mean it." Fuck that. They could walk away. They could leave the streets, and go inside their homes, and pray for a better fucking god that could stop these atrocities (not that it would change anything, but maybe give them solidarity and relief in their own conscience.) Islam doesn't get a pass here. Sorry. I apply critical thinking to this the same I do with Anti-Balaka, Boko Haram, and all the other Christian terrorist groups that are promoting literal, and extreme versions of that religion. They all get pegged on this one, and they are all individually responsible.

>>99

You're very wrong. A lot of what they teach is a very literal interpretation of what the Quran says. They quote it, and use it as a tool, and many have went to them due to the faith. If you want to hate me for stating a fact, then do that; I don't care. It's doesn't affect me either way as I wasn't born to an Eastern country, and I am an Atheist.


While I agree with you, it shouldn't be a problem they have to talk with their imagination about. They shouldn't have to struggle with 2,000+ year old doctrines on whether, or not they are okay. They will spend so much time of what little time we have wondering about things that don't matter until you're dead, and even then most likely they will still not matter.

>>100
http://www.ted.com/talks/lesley_hazelton_on_reading_the_koran?language=en#t-13014

I found her Ted Talk on reading the Koran to be a very enlightened response to the whole "They quote it, and use it as a tool argument" and how that doesn't compare with Islam itself. I guess hate is too strong of a word, rather I am frustrated and saddened by people who choose to live in smug ignorance without bothering to learn the thing they make casual opinions on.
I mean I was focusing the LGBT rights debate from a religious perspective because the opening comment in this thread had to do with Christianity and LGBT rights. Obviously if one does not believe in God, then it's still their right to choose how they want to live, so my point is the same.

I think, if I remember my bible stories right, in one part of it there was the stoning of two men who lay together. I really think that it's for each person (if they believe in god) on how they interpret such stories.
In my own world of opinions, I think saying that two people of the same gender should not be allow really just came from people -and I'll refer to Asian hierarchy here as they opt to have sons to continue the family name- wanting to have offspring someday.
If you read through history there is tons of mentions where two people of the same sex would be together and nothing was said and then ones where everyone has something to say about it.

dudes yiu are free to talk fir this freely but relax really its not.like.you can change sm1 behind a pc !! dont be so.intence about it cause.religions are.complicated and in every turn there is a different opinion that can oppose an another ... so try to convince through meaning not facts ... and dont storm this comm. now plz !

I am a christian, and i think that if you love another woman, or man then that is perfectly fine, but to us it is not right. As christians, i don't think that we are really saying that you can't come here, or there, but I think that that stuff is wrong too. So don't be coming down on all christians. We aren't that bad.

Please don't go generalize all christians...if u really are a follower of christ u wouldn't hating ANYBODY and if u disagree with anybody u can't judge them because no one is perfect and all u can do is to pray for others

>>104 You can call it wrong, and you can thinks it's wrong be anyone is allowed to tell you that's bullshit, and you should keep your opinion to yourself. Just because you let a two thousand year old book tell you what to believe doesn't mean you're free from criticism. The very fact you think it's wrong shows the level of ignorance on the claim when a shit load of other animals practice it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_displaying_homosexual_behavior

It's completely common in nature, but you've let a book tell you it's not, and THAT'S the problem I have.

>>101

I must admit, I am guilty in this thread for not using my best logic skills. It's not that I haven't learned, it's just that I have different information than you, and mine is definitely better if you think that Ted talk does anything short of clarify that the speaker should take a bit more time to breathe than speak because her logic seems as circumspect as yours.

This has been a topic among Atheists for a couple of years now. The rest of the world is coming in on a conversation that we've been having for quite some. To give you sources to the last few years of conversations from Sam Harris, Aziz Ansari, Bill Maher, The Young Turks, Richard Dawkins.. Christopher Hitchens even spoke about this before he died; this isn't a new topic by any means. To go through and give the same speech over and over and over is tiring, and frankly getting the same dull rehashed information from theists is fucking irritating. Not that you've done this, and I apologize for making statements, and not citing. I probably should have. I'm still not concerned about the validity of my statements, but often enough a lot of it is side-stepped by apologetic that's created for the purpose of evading these things, like your Ted talk that wants to say that direct quotes from the Quran aren't Islamic, or follow only a certain set of ideas that make it okay that it says them in the first place. This is no more removed from criticism than the prior post I commented on here. Apologetics do not win arguments; they make them longer though.

Everyone has a right to believe whats right and whats wrong, but they should keep their opinions to themselves. I am a Christian and although I do not believe in homosexuality I have no right to judge others. The bible says that we as humans should not judge one another but leave it to god. There are some crazy Christians out there who freely hate on homosexuals which is just wrong and yes as you said goes against their own religion. At the end of the day God loves all his children and not all Christians hate on homosexuals.

Don't you see you're doing the exact same thing you are accusing religions of? A lot of people practice their own faiths but there is only friction when lack of literacy and tolerance clashes. Most religions including Hinduism, Islam and Christianity has this huge emphasis on tolerance. It depends on the individual in the end. If you have something against us that's your issue. Although I do sincerely hope you look at things from the different perspectives there are. I wont get into a debate or argument, but instead of blaming the distinct populace, generalizing the statement might be more accurate. Scientifically speaking, homosexualism hinders population growth and development of new variations. But we are humans who possess sentiment and emotions. Don't chalk it up to justify it. They made a choice; leave them be if it repulses yyou. Their sexual identity is their own freedom

>>97 So I'm "demanding" that you at least point me in the direction you heard this nonsense? You'd rather write paragraphs on how you shouldn't need to back up what you say as fact because it isn't a "formal debate"? You just said hundreds of millions of people out 1.6 billion Muslims support ISIS. That's an incredibly bold statement. Ironically, I asked where you got that from AFTER I used some "Google-Fu" and couldn't find a TRACE of this statistic...

>>You're more than welcome to refute my posts, and when you do list where you found the information if you find it necessary.

What Jeko said here >>98 makes sense. You're saying that you're not inclined to tell me where you got such an outrageous statistic... I can't really give you a list of info to back up my claims because for one, I have no idea where you're getting your information from. And the fact that you don't care about the specifics of the statistics makes you're entire argument moot. At least tell me where you got this from so that /I/ can look up the details.

>>97 Welp.
While trying to find what you were talking about, I did find this: http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/commonwordcommonlord/2014/08/think-muslims-havent-condemned-isis-think-again.html#

hmmm maybe if God didn't want homosexuality then we wouldn't have homosexuals in society, everybody would be straight as a gate and it would stay as man and woman. I think that if there is a God and we're his so called "perfect creations" (I think I read that somewhere correct me if I'm wrong :p) then it doesn't really matter in the end; don't you think?

I actually thought the ten commandments were the words of God or something like that, so if that's true and I am correct, then doesn't that mean the bible itself has been made by man and that the bible is just the personification of human thoughts or just a history book?

I apologise if I'm wrong in so many ways aha which I assume I am, my opinions are just from things I read in the past and could be totally invalid etc.

;-; we don't we just state what we think. a proper Christian should NEVER insult someone's personnel beliefs only state there own and maybe try to change someone's beliefs but never insult or say bad things about it!
And the Bible does appose gays it says that love and marriage should be between a man and a women, but it also says to be kind to those who do bad so that way they can see the bad they do, and change there ways before it's to late. God loves all humans and it pains Him to see us sin and us Christians simply should try to change people who do bad but never insult or oppose them, and a lot of the stuff that happens to gays happen to Christians. Like there was this openly gay bakery and a couple came in and said they wanted a cake for a traditional wedding and the bakery refused to do it. So this stuff is happening to both sides!

>>111 the Bible is written by men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit of God therefore it was written by God! And although the Ten Commandments don't say it there are a ton of other laws in the Bible that say marriage is between man and women and we are not perfect we are a sinning race that as imperfect as it gets we just can become better by trusting God to help us God is the only perfect being so you were wrong about a lot of things but hey no offense taken!

>>113 I see where you're coming from, plus I don't think I'm in the position where I could argue against your points since I don't actually practice Christianity (I'm Mormon but only in name not in practice). I was just stating my personal opinion ^_^ but you have given me some insight so for that I thank you.

I'm Christian, so I have no choice but to oppose LGBT rights. Christians believe God created us to marry and love the opposite sex, not the same sex as you are. Although it's not in the Ten Commandments, it is written in the Bible. And if you do and support LGBT rights, then it's a sin.

>>115 BS. I know enough christian people who have no problems with LGBT+, and LGBT+s who are christian. Why exactly would God create us humans to love only the opposite sex, and for what reasons would a world, made by a god with that belief, even have LGBT+?

>>116 Then that Christian did not read the bible correctly, cause it's in there. But your post answered your question why Christians oppose LBGT rights. The answer is, if they want to oppose it, they oppose it. If they support it, they support it. There is no answer to this question. God created us to have free will, so we can do whatever we want and believe whatever we want to believe. I don't support LBGT, but I don't oppose it either. That's what I want to believe in. That's why he can't control us, because we have free will. But every decision has a price. Make the wrong move, your toast. Get hurt, don't tell us it's our fault, cause we warned you. Like I said, Christians are humans, they can make decisions. Just don't regret your decision.

>>117 So you honestly believe that the loving christian god will make everybody suffer, who is LGBT+ or supports them? I mean, what's the point of a god, that gives you free will and still doesn't want to see certain things in his creature? (Besides the fact that 'free will' is a concept I'm not really sure about.)

The loving Christian god may or may not make all LGBT people suffer, but that isn't the point. For a religious Christian, all they need to know is that their loving god says that homosexuality is an "abomination", and to not do it. No mention about judging other people or hating other people for their sexuality. Only to not participate in it, and let god sort it out and handle it. The rights of LGBT people have nothing to do with Christianity, unless said Christians take the whole thing into their own hands. The rights issue are all just politics.

Also, there are many theologists and philosophers who take into question the idea of god making people LGBT, while saying that it is a sin. Some of them think that it is a test given by god to those people, to go against their nature and follow god (by not committing the acts of homosexuality) because god understands that they can overcome it, and become greater for the struggle.
But that's just some opinions.

Because the world is closed minded (manly the republicans and the elderly) and its religions fault for it.

I think the reasons for this, are most likely that when Christians are young, they are surrounded by others that pass on the belief that homosexuality is wrong. I'm imagining the stem of this belief comes from the statements of 'God' in the bible.

In the bible, I know that at one point it does mention that you shouldn't spill the seed, a.k.a., not have sex for reasons other to procreate. But I'm not expert on the subject of this.

I'm personally atheist, so I kinda feel like I'm out of the matrix in some aspects. I get to see the world without the belief of an almighty power dictating everything. I hope that doesn't offend anyone however.

That's Incorrect Not All Christian Oppose Gay Rights

@121
the part where you are pointing out is the basis for the "don't masturbate/ anything that isnt vaginal sex" argument, but that one is kinda ignored by most people.
What you were thinking of was the "you shall not lie with another man as with a woman, for it is an abomination", ect, ect.

Its supposedly satans thing which os why its "ok" to hate lgbt. I think anyways dont take my word for it, its just speculation.

well you were right about that but... christian hates "gays" because they are a disgrace to the religion and they don't respect their gender.. well if they abuse their gender too much that's what happened's to them
if they can change the world will be a better place to them

#for/gays/dont take it literally (peace)

>>115
You always have the choice to change what you think about things. God gave you a brain, you're free to use it to think for yourself. So just because you're Christian doesn't mean that you have to oppose LGBTA+ rights. I know some Christians who don't– after all, isn't Christianity, at its core, about acceptance? And being all-accepting requires an open mind.

Besides, what's written in the Bible isn't always concrete. Part of religion is interpretation, and things change as time goes on. For example, do we stone women who get a divorce? Can I put you to death for wearing two different fabrics at the same time? Or if you planted two different plants in one field? Those rules came from the Book of Leviticus, the same one that called homosexuality a sin. Are we prepared to follow the teachings of the entire Book of Leviticus? I doubt it, because honestly if we started living our lives strictly following Bible rules, we'd probably be dead within a day. Times change, and a book as old as the Bible can never stay 100% applicable to modern lifestyle. So now that the LGBTA+ community is gathering courage and becoming more visible, don't you think it's time to let the "homosexuality is sin!" argument be put to rest?

>>126
Why shouldn't gay people take that literally? Is that supposed to be sarcasm?

Christians aren't supposed to hate gays. In the technical sense, Christianity bans gay sex, not gay people. And while that's still pretty shitty, it also bans even thinking about women in an unclean manner, and disrespecting parents, and a whole load of other things that people don't follow on a day to day basis. It's another case of people cowering behind religion to further their own agendas. They take only what they want from the word just so they can detract from the core of it- acceptance and love.

Read a bible. Jesus is harshest on those who show false piety, not average joe sinners. WWJD? Not make others afraid to be alive because of the kind of love God put in their hearts.

So to directly answer the original question- it's because some poor people are full of hate, and will use any excuse to express it.

^^^You've got a really good point there. I can get behind that

>>114 you're welcome as a Christian it's my duty to tell people about God so I'm happy I could help (:

Just as you say Christians are attacking the gays this is pretty much the opposite what I see here people here are attacking Christians but thats beside the point

The bible from what I know of it never really comes out and says being homosexual is wrong but it does always refer a marriage between a man and a women suggesting that homosexuality is wrong and is a sin but that being said we are all sinners in this world so me personal I believe that just because a person is gay doesnt mean that I should hate that person even though being a christian suggests that being a homosexual is wrong

Most of them are ignorant people who don't know what they are talking about. In the bible, though it is says it is sin to date those of the same gender, it does not mean that God hates them. In the bible, it says God loves all his children. So why do these ignorant people that call themselves Christians say that God hates them? It's because those people are not actual Christians.

Please note that not all Christians oppose homosexuality -- many accept it. However, it's still a common belief that gay = bad. I find that many religions, not just Christianity, are big on tradition, so I guess they find it hard to let go of old ideas. Actually, this can be said for humans in general, but I guess religious people sometimes put a bit more emphasis on it.
There aren't really any places in Bible where it says homosexuality is bad. If it is ever (heavily) implied, that would suggest that whoever was in charge of writing that book put their own opinions into it; actually i believe that's been happening for a long time, and is probably how "gay is bad" found its way into the Bible, if it did at all.
Although, I believe the Bible does state that straight relationships are the way to go. This would mainly be for reproduction -- it's just instinct, so humans don't become extinct.
So, to answer your question, any Christians that oppose gay rights oppose it because it's what they've been taught most of their lives, they have some misunderstanding of the Bible or Christianity in general, or just lack of understanding in some cases.