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Questioning My Sexuality and My Faith
Posted 06-17-2008 at 09:23 PM by ScranBarre
After poring over every reply in a very active thread on this forum regarding as to whether or not one's sexual orientation truly is a "choice," I once again find myself depressed, miserable, and feeling less spiritual than ever. I haven't been to church in weeks as I feel like a hypocrite singing hymns and shaking hands with fellow Christians while internally I know that I'm defying the will of God by being in a clandestine long-term relationship with a member of the same gender. Reading the judgmental comments from many people on that thread once again reaffirmed my belief that there really isn't a welcome place in this world of ours for anyone who is non-heterosexual. 
I'm beginning to wonder if folks like Jerry Falwell, Ann Coulter, George Bush, Pat Robertson, etc. are truly onto something. After all, they have many loyal supporters. If it were up to them they'd probably detain every homosexual and bisexual person and keep us confined in a concentration camp in Guam so that we would no longer negatively influence the superior heterosexual general public.
I've been feeling ill lately. Sure, yesterday was an amazing day, but today was just a jaunt back down into the doldrums of depression that I can't cure because I'm too afraid to seek professional help after an unpleasant experience in the past with therapy. I just don't understand why God is such a cruel entity. He creates people like me just to laugh as we make ourselves sick with worry and guilt before finally condemning us to hell. Why? How could a deity derive pleasure out of the suffering of his offspring?
A part of me wants to cut ties with my partner, castrate myself, and then go on living my life alone in rural Montana so that I will no longer be tempted to commit sin. Yet another part of me wonders if doing so will be a waste of my life. In philosophy class in 2007 here on campus a lot of our lectures revolved around either proving or disproving the existence of a higher being. I deducted that I'd rather live my life believing in something and be wrong with no consequences as compared to living my life refusing to believe in something only to have to pay the ultimate price in the end when I'm wrong. As such is this a gamble I really wish to take? Do I really want to spend the next 60 years alone and depressed in order to make a God that may or may not exist be happy, or do I want to live my life loving someone else, only to condemn myself to hell if I'm wrong?
Better yet, why is it that we can put a man on the moon, solve complex mathematical problems via the quadratic formula, and develop advanced nuclear weapons, yet we still can't create a medication to help those of us afflicted with an inferior sexual orientation to be made "well" again? Maybe I should just be like the rest of my peers---drown my sorrows in alcohol and then sleep with the next thing that moves.
I'm beginning to wonder if folks like Jerry Falwell, Ann Coulter, George Bush, Pat Robertson, etc. are truly onto something. After all, they have many loyal supporters. If it were up to them they'd probably detain every homosexual and bisexual person and keep us confined in a concentration camp in Guam so that we would no longer negatively influence the superior heterosexual general public.
I've been feeling ill lately. Sure, yesterday was an amazing day, but today was just a jaunt back down into the doldrums of depression that I can't cure because I'm too afraid to seek professional help after an unpleasant experience in the past with therapy. I just don't understand why God is such a cruel entity. He creates people like me just to laugh as we make ourselves sick with worry and guilt before finally condemning us to hell. Why? How could a deity derive pleasure out of the suffering of his offspring?
A part of me wants to cut ties with my partner, castrate myself, and then go on living my life alone in rural Montana so that I will no longer be tempted to commit sin. Yet another part of me wonders if doing so will be a waste of my life. In philosophy class in 2007 here on campus a lot of our lectures revolved around either proving or disproving the existence of a higher being. I deducted that I'd rather live my life believing in something and be wrong with no consequences as compared to living my life refusing to believe in something only to have to pay the ultimate price in the end when I'm wrong. As such is this a gamble I really wish to take? Do I really want to spend the next 60 years alone and depressed in order to make a God that may or may not exist be happy, or do I want to live my life loving someone else, only to condemn myself to hell if I'm wrong?
Better yet, why is it that we can put a man on the moon, solve complex mathematical problems via the quadratic formula, and develop advanced nuclear weapons, yet we still can't create a medication to help those of us afflicted with an inferior sexual orientation to be made "well" again? Maybe I should just be like the rest of my peers---drown my sorrows in alcohol and then sleep with the next thing that moves.
Total Comments 24
Comments
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Sometimes people who call themselves "Christians" are the meanest of all people. Look at all the Catholic Priests who molested kids all pretending to be the robed clergy that god has ppointed. Yet, they will condemn others when they should comdemn themselves.
It is not anybody's job to judge you for your sexuality. We can judge you for being honest, being nice, and if we want to be friends, but God will be the ultimate judge and he knows you and loves you. Keep the people who love you close to you and stay away from people that are mean.Posted 10-19-2008 at 03:31 PM by starborn
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God love you any wayPosted 04-09-2009 at 09:02 PM by gina02
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You wrote this back in 2008. I'm learning how to blog.;-) Your story makes me feel sad as I read it. Don't feel that way. God knows everything about you before you come into this world and before it happens. You were put in this world because you are to be yourself. God does not judge, he loves you no matter what. He knew. Stay strong in Gods faith. Mabe you were put in this world just the way you are and show people you can be gay and have a strong faith in God. He loves you no matter what. You are a part of this world. Hurting yourself is not what God want, he wants you happy, healty and Bottom line beleive in him. This is the God I know. :-).Posted 04-28-2009 at 04:09 PM by vickieadams
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i just created this account so i could share my words with you...
i know you wrote this over a year ago so its unlikely that anything i have to say will impact the decisions you were debating in this entry, but i hope that they help you for the future and help anyone who like me, is brought to this page in search for their own answers.
you brought up your philosophy class and the notion of believing in something that may be wrong and not having consequences or not believing in something that is there and later suffering the consequences.
heres the delio. religion [whichever faith anyone chooses, if they choose to do so] is an attempt to answer lifes questions. religion gives people answers, security, belonging, faith, strength, and much more. the fewer uncertanties we have the "easier" our lives are, the anxieties we live with. lets face it, no matter how exciting it might be, the unknown is scary; and fear is our worst enemy. with fear we as humans coward away from lifes greatest plesantries. when we are unsure of what to expect, there is always the possibility for pain and as a survival mechanism we shy away from potential pain.
this brings me to the original point, is it better to believe in something that may be wrong and not suffer the possible consequences or to not believe in something that is there and suffer the consequences. with this statement, you are doing just that, shying away from the unkown because of the possible pain or lack of pleasure. but think of it this way, if you do beleive in something that is wrong yes you would not be suffering the harsh punishment promished to nonbelievers, but are you not suffereng the nonpleasure of a life not confined by rules of something you find does not even really exist.
now, i am not arguing that god [or any other diety for that matter] does or does not exist, but simply clarifying that none of us know for certain, we only know through our own faith and that which we have come to feel in our hearts. no one can tell anyone that their faith or belief is wrong because it is simply that, HIS/HER OWN faith or belief.
my question to you is why believe in something that tells you to hate yourself. i say this, first is i know religious folk who are homosexual and are proud to both be enthraled in their religion as well as who they are as a person [a homosexual]. in the judeo - christian faiths, man [people] was created in gods image. this is not humans were created on a conver belt and oops, machine malfuntion this person was wired wrong, hence homosexual; but each individual created in gods image. the way i interprate this line is like platos forms, forms are in the mental world [god world] and are perfection, that which can not be attained in the physical world, objects that we see on earth are mere representations of these forms. thus god is the form, humans are the representation of god in the physical, imperfect world. so because humans are in this imperfect world, homosexual or heterosexual, there will be imperfections to humans, humans are not and can not be perfect. these faiths also speak of a god who is loving and "good", now tell me this, what kind of good and loving being would create something that he/she/it knowingly does not like and force that thing to live under laws that say that it is no good. the second thing is, you need to love youself, how you are, whoever you are. before you can expect anyone else to accept and/or love you, you must accept and love yourself for who you are.
that being said, you can put on a facade, you can even try to convince yourself you are something you are not; but you can only hide from the truth for so long and then it catches up with you. be yourself. love yourself. live your life. you can give yourself the answer to lifes questions, you can find strength and security and belonging within yourself and when you do, you will find it easy to find that in others. you do not need stucture and rules to tell you who you can or can not be or how to be you. we are not born with instruction manuals. the world is your canvas, life is your paintbrush, paint a rainbow for the world to see and love the you you are.Posted 07-16-2009 at 02:02 AM by inevitablove
