Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'm sure you'll find some way to justify harrassing and even threatening Christians.
Then don't read it. We have a right to preach the truth about immoral behavior.
How can you regain something you never had in the first place? This country was founded on the bedrock of traditional marriage. Your side took that away.
It has been christians who historicaly have persecuted and oppressed LGBT people. Christians are the oppressors. LGBT people, on the other hand, are not fighting to oppress christians, instead the same rights are been demanded.
Neither christians nor any religion invented marriage. It doesn't belong to any religion. Marriage and unions in general are a human heritage that have been practised for thousands of years prior to the invention of christianity an all other religions. Same-sex unions existed in almost every culture around the world until christians came with their homophobia and began to vilify homosexuality. That's why same-sex marriage hasn't been won in the US; it has been regained and it keeps been regained in more countries.
1) ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and,
2) ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Therefore to love God first is to follow the rest from God “This is my Son, whom I love. Listentohim!”
To love God is to listen Jesus:
Jesus defined marriage as 1 man + 1 wife (woman) being married ("united") and the two (1 man + 1 wife) will become one flesh.
To love your neighbor is to repeat Jesus.
Jesus defined marriage as 1 man + 1 wife (woman) being married ( "united") and the two (1 man + 1 wife) will become one flesh.
That is why sexual immorality including same sex is declared by God as idolatry (the breaking of the 1st Commandment)
Wow, twin!!! Do you EVER read the book you idolize. Jesus didn't define marriage PERIOD.
And if it was "so from the beginning, then we need your fictionalized story (a favorite thing to do among inerrant, infallible, literalists) to explain the following facts --where God not only failed to speak against some of the great men of faith--He helped them participate in polygamy:
1) Cain's son Lamech took two wives. Gen. 4
2) Sarai (the wife of Abram) gave Haggar to him as a second wife (Gen. 16:3)
3) Jacob had to marry Leah in order to later marry her sister, Rachel. (Gen. 29:16-30)
4) The holiness code had to come up with a method of protecting "lesser" wives (Deut. 21:15-17)
5) It is highly likely that Esther, married to a Gentile King Xerxes, was part of harem.
6) There was even a code REQUIRING the brother of a man who died to marry his widow (Deut 25:5-10)
7) David is chastised for adultery with Bathsheba and Nathan tells him God (Himself!!) would have given David more wives if he had only asked (2nd Sam. 12).
8) The code states a "king must not have many wives" (Deut. 17:16-17). The great wise leader, Solomon, had just a few--700 wives, plus 300 concubines where apparently there were no restrictions.
9). Lot slept with his daughters after a night of drunkenness--and impregnated both of them. God didn't visit Lot nor his daughters with plagues from Egypt.
None of these cases address the fact that God apparently had no problem with Samuel visiting a prostitute, nor that Judah was slyly taken in by a "prostitute" who later was discovered to be his daughter-in-law. He impregnated her, and when he found out HE was the father he reversed his original order to kill her and said she was more righteous than he.
So don't give us that bunch of baloney about it was "one man, one woman" from the beginning. Monogamy is a cultural more that is in our society today. I think it is a good one, but when one takes their traditions and try to turn them into Scripture--that is being a Pharisee. Because that's EXACTLY what they did. They established a tradition and then twisted Scripture to support it.
Many years ago I owned and read a book entitled You Can't Eat Peanuts in Church, and Other Little Known Laws. It gave examples of some of the dumbest laws that not only existed in statutes, but many still did.
Example: In Portland, Oregon there was a law stating you can't put an ice cream cone in your jacket pocket. Why? Who knows, but at some point someone thought it was a good idea.
Example: In Kentucky, there is a little known law that every state should adopt. A woman cannot move furniture in the house without her husband's approval. That ought to be EVERYWHERE.
Again, why? What brought on these laws. No one knows, but a number in that book were still in existence when I read it.
There may be good reasons for making something into a law. But when we take something that is in our culture and try to make it a "biblical" law, it is as sinful as any sin. It adds to Scripture which we were warned against doing"---- everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; (Rev 22:18)
Now stop with the nonsense and read for yourself what Scripture says rather than letting some preacher tell you about it.
For those who have an interest: You Can't Eat Peanuts in Church and Other Little Known Laws, Barbara Seuling, author.
On the Amazon website one poster wrote the following which, without him recognizing it, is the crux of the problem with the bible and "laws."
Quote:
This book has me laughing big time! It is full of old outdated laws still on the books. After laughing a while I began reflecting on what event(s) must have occurred to inspire such laws. It gives some insight into the pitfalls that the human races runs into when making laws and rules. A very funny read!
Warden - your rhetoric is getting further and further away from what you once believed. Your nine points does not negate anything God set forth... it does illustrate the rampant sin that exists in all people from Adam forward.
And then you said "God apparently had no problem". Now you are fictionalizing what was never stated - and twisting it to mean something totally false. God is NEVER okay with sin.
Christ died for you... and this is what you give back. I am not saying you have to agreeable to me - but at least be accurate with the Bible that God provided.
Warden - your rhetoric is getting further and further away from what you once believed. Your nine points does not negate anything God set forth... it does illustrate the rampant sin that exists in all people from Adam forward.
So, would it not have been a much better proposition for God to have created people in His actual image, i.e. perfect, rather than imperfect human beings? Or, didn't God realize that lesser beings would, through no design of their own, perform in a manner inferior to that of a god? I mean, God creates an imperfect human being and then demands (with punishment of death) that they be perfect. I can never get my head around that one. Maybe I need a new head. Or ...maybe very little of what mainstream Christianity teaches us is actually true.**
Besides, why are we still equating one's design, i.e. their sexuality, with 'sin'? We've already pretty much established that God failed in his original design to create beings that were perfect. So why would God single out homosexuality (the topic under discussion) as being a specific 'wrongdoing' when we're all equal in the 'wrongdoing' department? I can't get my head around that one either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DRob4JC
And then you said "God apparently had no problem". Now you are fictionalizing what was never stated - and twisting it to mean something totally false. God is NEVER okay with sin.
I refer you to my above comments.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DRob4JC
Christ died for you... and this is what you give back.
Not addressed to me, I realize this. But, again, would it have not been better had God created people perfect from the start? Also, had God not then made 'sin' punishable by death KNOWING that his imperfect creations were designed to 'sin' we would not have had the need for a 'Savior', would we? Having done it right from the start would have saved a lot of trouble in the long run.
Hmmmm ...sometimes I think that I maybe think too much about things . . .
**I do believe in a Creator God though I acknowledge my complete lack of ability to describe "Him" or claim to think for Him other than in a rather simplistic 'loving' way. It's the 'fundie' Christian version of a harsh and vindictive God (those folks who DO claim the ability to describe "Him" and think for Him) that I have issue with.
Warden - your rhetoric is getting further and further away from what you once believed. Your nine points does not negate anything God set forth... it does illustrate the rampant sin that exists in all people from Adam forward.
And then you said "God apparently had no problem". Now you are fictionalizing what was never stated - and twisting it to mean something totally false. God is NEVER okay with sin.
Christ died for you... and this is what you give back. I am not saying you have to agreeable to me - but at least be accurate with the Bible that God provided.
Show me where God had a problem with any of it. When Israel turned to idolatry He punished the nation. When David, with all his God given wives (he got Saul's wives) committed adultery, God punished him. How about Lot? Was his punishment for offering his daughters to be gang raped that he ended up sleeping with them?
What about Judah who slept (unknowingly) with his daughter in law who had tricked him. Did he suffer or Tamar, his DIL? No, Jesus is descended from one of Tamar's twins by Judah.
What other conclusion can one reach except it isn't a problem for God if there is no punishment and in fact there are blessings for those having multiple wives--or even sleeping with prostitutes? I'm not promoting multiple wives or prostitution. I'm just pointing out that the Bible does not illustrate one man, one woman throughout its entirety. Never, ever. That's what the Bible shows. You are trying to promote something it does not.
There is no doubt that when adultery takes place it is evil in God's sight. There is no doubt that marrying women from other nations was sin in the eyes of the Hebrews. God had no problem with Solomon's 700 wives, but in the tale of Sheba we see him again entangled with a foreign woman. He already had numerous foreign wives, but the affair with Sheba was the last straw for God. But did God punish Solomon? No, He punished the entire nation by breaking it in half after Solomon's death.
You and many others turn cultural conventions into God's "laws,". Scripture does NOT support monogamy--and God never punished His followers for polygamy UNLESS it was outside the nation of Israel. Even when Paul admonishes in 1 Timothy 3:2 that "overseers" should be the husband of one wife, he does not make that a requirement for all the Christians he was writing to.
Now I've been married to only one woman--and very close to 45 years now. She is the only woman I have known "biblically." I think our culture has a good basis with monogamous marriages. But when I try to make a cultural more into a biblical law I violate the witness of Scripture and insult God in His kingdom by trying to be god myself.
You need to look at your heart deeply. There is nothing wrong with owning a Chevy automobile, but when it is twisted into a biblical commandment it is flat out sinfulness. There is no difference in making monogamy into a biblical law than there is making a Chevy into the same. Both are ignorant. I might be able to show someone where Chevies are more acceptable, better looking, and more reliable---it just isn't biblical to require it. Besides, long ago Christianity left even the idea of monogamy by tacitly accepting serial monogamy--marriage, divorce, remarriage and divorce ad nauseum. My sister is a fundamentalist like you. She divorced her husband after he beat her--then married a man who had been married three times before. The two of them are now married for 25 years. But, no neither one divorced any previous partner "biblically." Yet your church would most likely accept them regardless. That's because Christianity became culturized to accepting unbiblical marriages and divorces. Churches would lose almost half of their congregations if they did not.
There are fine reasons for monogamy, but there is absolutely no biblical commandment. And it is disgusting to see stupid, and I mean very stupid, platitudes about one man/one woman as God's plan that not even He followed throughout the OT. The monogamy He was interested in was between Israel and Himself. He didn't have a problem with prostitutes, He used one to help the Hebrews at Jericho, the lineage of Jesus comes through a trickster Tamar who played the prostitute (and God blessed her through her descendants)), He used men with multiple wives and the only thing He was clear about was that men shouldn't fool around with another man's property--which is what all women were back then.
I can only point out that your rhetoric isn't biblical. We probably agree with cultural aspects of monogamy.
Next time your church feeds you some harebrained idea that something is God ordained try reading the Bible for yourself and asking "if this is so, why is this happening? Every day ai question my beliefs, because that which grows thrives and that which does not dies. Without questioning cherished beliefs you own nothing yourself, it is just a submission to brainwashing which churches are quite adept at doing.
Last edited by Wardendresden; 03-20-2016 at 04:51 AM..
I'm sure you'll find some way to justify harrassing and even threatening Christians.
<snip>
I notice that you quoted this piece from the article:
Quote:
A Christian husband-wife team in Iowa who turned down a recent request from a gay couple to hold a wedding ceremony at their Gortz Haus Gallery business has now been subjected to harassment, threats and vulgar emails, as well as being targeted in a state Human Rights Commission complaint.
but did not quote this part:
Quote:
The location served as a Lutheran church for nearly 65 years and is a popular destination for couples tying the knot, but other couples have cancelled ceremonies amid the dust-up, according to Life Site News.
making it very obvious that this business (not a church) that happens, coincidentally, to be run by Christians, denied a service to a gay couple that they routinely provide to heterosexual couples.
That is the very definition of discrimination.
Going back to the site that originally reported the issue, (Life Site News, a pro-life, pro-family site), it seems clear that the discrimination was indeed against the law in the state of Iowa at the time of the incident.
This site reported the issue in an attempt to gather support for their campaign to "defend true marriage" and concluded the article with mention of cases in several other states.
Quote:
The couple quickly filed a legal complaint before the Iowa Human Rights Commission, saying that state law forbids any public venue from denying the use of its premises on the basis of sexual orientation.
The link to the Life Site article is in Washington Times article.
Now, I'm not condoning any of the emails or any harassing statements made to the business owners, however, I contend that the business they lost as a result of their action was entirely appropriate.
Maybe, if you were wanting to find an example of harassment of Christians, you could have found a better example.
I'm sure you'll find some way to justify harrassing and even threatening Christians.
Then don't read it. We have a right to preach the truth about immoral behavior.
How can you regain something you never had in the first place? This country was founded on the bedrock of traditional marriage. Your side took that away.
The problem is they own a business that serves the PUBLIC. They do WEDDINGS for the PUBLIC. They are not a CHURCH. Since the do weddings for other people--they must also offer the service to ALL people.
What do evangelicals NOT understand? Discrimination is WRONG, is is ILLEGAL.
I cannot sell my goods to the public, but refuse to sell to blacks. Or refuse to sell to Hispanics. Or refuse to sell to Asians....UNLESS I have a PRIVATE club where I can then control membership.
OR I have a legitimate CHURCH and I can show that by selling or providing a service goes against LONG HELD doctrinal belief.
As for those in teh article being harassed, that is a far cry from being strung up on a barbed wire fence in the middle of Wyoming and left to die.
When people make decisions, there just might be consequences and as the decision maker is exercising their "rights" so will others when they "harass" or draw attention to a business that discriminates against another human--and that is probably the real issue--people are not patronizing it as often?--the business is LOSING money because people are going elsewhere, just like they wanted.
The message of Christ is in the Bible. And that message includes being against sexual immorality. Which includes homosexuality.
According to a small minority of bible readers. Many people who read the bible have a different interpretation and have NO problem with the LGBT people coming to church, stopping by for dinner or evebn being teachers in their community.
It has been christians who historicaly have persecuted and oppressed LGBT people. Christians are the oppressors. LGBT people, on the other hand, are not fighting to oppress christians, instead the same rights are been demanded.
Neither christians nor any religion invented marriage. It doesn't belong to any religion. Marriage and unions in general are a human heritage that have been practised for thousands of years prior to the invention of christianity an all other religions. Same-sex unions existed in almost every culture around the world until christians came with their homophobia and began to vilify homosexuality. That's why same-sex marriage hasn't been won in the US; it has been regained and it keeps been regained in more countries.
I notice it doesn't bother you one bit that Christians are being harassed and threatened. And you call us the oppressors? Homosexuals are demanding that Christians accept their immoral lifestyle or be severely punished. Here's a thought, how about just leaving nice business owners alone who don't want to get involved with a wedding?
Society has a whole has traditionally accepted marriage as being between man and woman so again, you're not retaking something back. Cultures that fully embrace a homosexual lifestyle tend to be destroyed. The Roman empire for example. I bet they couldn't phantom that one day, they would be toppled.
According to a small minority of bible readers. Many people who read the bible have a different interpretation and have NO problem with the LGBT people coming to church, stopping by for dinner or evebn being teachers in their community.
Since when do denominations like Baptists and Catholics equal a small minority? The VAST majority of Christian denominations in the US do not support the lifestyle or gay marriage. Worldwide, it's a bit less but look at the chart here and see just how much red there is for gay marriage. A LOT. In fact, the pretty much the only green are European churches.
You have to read the Bible with blinders on because it never speaks of homosexuality in a positive light.
This verse puts it along side slavery as sin:
We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers--and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine
1 Timothy 1:10
Care to explain to me how that verse is NOT talking about homosexuality?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
