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And so what the hell is wrong with me that I keep trying???
Codependency, that's what! Lol, I want to fix people!
I think you want to pull them out. The problem isn't on your end. The problem is with the people at the bottom of the hole. The're convinced everyone should join them at the bottom. Because life at the bottom has no LGBTQ, liberals, atheists, seekers, intellectuals or people who like the ACA. (All are from Satan in case you didn't know.). So they yell at the people trying to get them out, shouting religious platitudes and Bible verses and Bible codes. They try to tell the people above ground how they're doing everything all wrong, they don't like the type of rope that was tossed to them and they don't like what the rescuers think (they think they have spidey powers) or believe (more spidey powers). So sooner or later they start shouting that the people trying to get them out of the hole are disgusting.
Plus the conk on the head when they hit bottom gave them a superiority complex. They're convinced they're better, smarter and more righteous then the people who didn't fall down into the hole.
And so what the hell is wrong with me that I keep trying???
Codependency, that's what! Lol, I want to fix people!
The problem is Jesus is the fixer of life, no one else !
And it seems what your doing toward those who oppose the gay ppl, and by trying to change it and accuse them of being unloving not excepting and loving the LGBT, your actually behaving and doing the very thing to those who oppose what the LGBT represent by not loving and excepting and definitely respecting their choices but trying to change them .
It's a vicious circle and both groups keep going back and forth judging and accusing one another and no one really taking the step to go forward and love their neighbor and walk away and leave it alone and let ppl make their own choices regardless what they believe !! God will take care of the heart and do the fixing !!
Your first paragraph is contradicted by the quote of mine you included right after it. Reread.
If you do care about the suffering of people with HIV, then I am glad to hear it. I think this is the first time you'vever said anything like that. But then why not lose the disparaging "lifestyle" remarks, too? There's no one lifestyle that all gay people embrace. They are simply people.
In other words, you want me to embrace homosexuality as normal. Sorry, but I trust God's Word on the matter. I won't endorse sexual immorality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
I am trying very hard to not mock fundamentalists, Jeff. I am trying to have a dialogue, which is damn near impossible to do with people who often quote scripture in lieu of communicating with their own words. I get very angry sometimes at the misuse of scripture to twist the message of Christ, yes, and I have done my share of making fun of you out of that anger. It's always harder to deal with the perceived shortcomings of those who are supposed to be members of the same family than those on the outside, isn't it?
Well there's where we are different. I don't seek to mock people or have fun at their expense. I've been a victim of bullying growing up so I get kinda prickly when not only I see people like you act that way, but try to justify it. There is no excuse for that especially from someone who claims to be a loving Christian.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
But I am trying. I understand that you think the Bible is actually literally the "word of God". You have to understand in turn that I do not. To me, God is much bigger and wider and beyond human understanding, and so we have to seek him outside the book as well. That is where we get stuck.
You need to understand that there are many many churches out there that accept the Bible has literal and infallible. It is our foundation. It is more than just a book. It is the living Word. I can read the same passage a thousand times and God speak something new to it to me. If you reject the Bible then you basically can make up any version of Jesus that you want. This is why we now have churches for nudists or swinger couples. Christians like you seek to mold the faith into something that not only accepts but actually celebrates sin. My ancestors would be rolling in their graves if they saw that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
It appears to non-fundamentalist Christians, as well as non-Christians, that the excessive use of the Bible to point out sin lurking around every corner is simply an excuse for condescension and judgmentalism toward other people. It occurs to me that you may not realize how prominent that perception is and how strongly that repels people. The focus on SIN SIN SIN preaches exclusion rather than inclusion. Jesus was all about inclusion, first and foremost. The message was that anyone is welcome to come to God. It was not "you are a sinner". A person can come to self-examination for their shortcomings as they wind down the path, but they aren't even going to take a step unless they realize that Love is the reason for the journey, and that the Love is free no matter who they are.
I certainly believe you should approach people first with love and friendship and not condemnation, but there is also instruction. Instruction on the nature of sin and the consequences. That's not a personal attack. How is it not love to warn someone that they are walking in the path of an oncoming train?
This is every religion on the planet. From the pope to Billy Sunday. If you have a problem with religion and by your posts I think you do, then just leave it. I can not prove god does not exist nor can you prove he does. So if you want to believe in some man in the sky who really loves us but just can not seem to make himself known but by some group of books that are contradictory and bipolar then is that a god that needs my devotion? If god exists IMO he is a dead beat dad. But I don't try to say the bible is a book of love and all one has to do is just love each other. That is having a childish view of the world. It never works. Just as the secularists say that abstinence does not work because no one uses it, so too with just love each other. You go to parts of Syria or Iraq and just try to hug it out with ISIS and see how fast your love theory will last. About as long as it takes gravity to pull your cut off head to the ground.
Um...in the SKY? LOL. God's not in sky, unless maybe you're 4 years old.
You seem to be confusing me with someone else. I have never and would not say the Bible is a book of love. It's a collection of writings of different types.
Don't try to oversimplify what I mean by love being the path. Remember that I am a survivor of the 9/11 attacks. I know better than any of you on here what misuse of religion does up close and personal. I carry pictures in my head you never saw sitting on your couch looking at video shot from a quarter mile away. That's exactly why I will ramble on about the importance of acceptance, of seeking our commonalities rather than our differences, of breaking down our propensity to divide into Us versus Them despite the odds, until the day I step through that door I dodged in 2001.
Yes! You know I was a fully immersed in the-bible-is-the-infallible-Word-of-God-ness for most of my life. I studied, I searched, I "hid it in my heart". And I had epiphanies and revelations, some very similar to Rbbi. It was intoxicating. Now, when I look back at those years from a different perspective, I see the mental illness aspect of it that produced some really unholy attitudes and behaviors.
There was some good mixed in with the bad, though. Love can penetrate even the darkest places. There is always hope.
I've had some experiences myself. Mine were all extremely positive but unnerving. Sometimes I think of them as defense mechanisms in overdrive. Sometimes I think of them as proof of the brains amazing ability to heal. Mostly I just think of it as "going sane".
It appears that kids who grow up with this type of abuse are good at achieving dissociative states. I was concerned I was starting to lose touch with reality when I felt like I was picking up some alternate channel and special messages where everywhere. In a way I was because my entire worldview was shifting rapidly. I had been drinking heavily and must have caused some damage to myself and when it rewired it was intense. I had this belief that i was the biggest POS on the planet and I started getting messages that I was loved. I liked it, whatever part of my mind I was accessing felt good and it made me feel safe. Then I decided that I was taking it to far and should probably look for a rational explanation before I crossed the line from "that's nice" to "that's real". I found those rational explanations. I literally had to prove myself right by being unable to prove myself wrong. It didn't take long and it made me mad and I was angry with Micheal Shermer for a few hours.
I have felt "grace", like relieved of your pain forgiveness. It's my opinion that is compassion turned inward. Maybe that's why you always here about 'love your brother...love your enemies" In order to extend it to yourself you have to practice on other people.
The problem is Jesus is the fixer of life, no one else !
And it seems what your doing toward those who oppose the gay ppl, and by trying to change it and accuse them of being unloving not accepting and loving the LGBT, your actually behaving and doing the very thing to those who oppose what the LGBT represent by not loving and accepting and definitely respecting their choices but trying to change them .
It's a vicious circle and both groups keep going back and forth judging and accusing one another and no one really taking the step to go forward and love their neighbor and walk away and leave it alone and let ppl make their own choices regardless what they believe !! God will take care of the heart and do the fixing !!
"What the LGBT represent".
There in a nutshell, you've got it. They represent our fellow human beings, our brothers and sisters and children and friends. Our neighbors. That's what I see. You see sin.
Yes, you are correct, I am rejecting and not accepting the choices of those who claim to be Christian who do not accept a certain group of people because of the way they were born. It is wrong. It was wrong when "they" were black, it was wrong when "they" were Jewish, and it is wrong when "they" are of a different sexual orientation. And it would be wrong of me to keep silent about it.
And um, yes, Jesus can fix things that I can't. I guess the part where I was laughing at myself for my flaw of codependency went right over your head.
The vigorous push-back against an openly gay lifestyle originates from deep within the human genome. We can no more easily overcome our innate resistance to enthusiastic acceptance of same sex concupiscence than we can enthusiastically embrace mass suicide. Either one carried to the reductio ad absurdum could have resulted in the extinction of humanity as we know it. Not any longer in 2016 when the planet groans under the weight of 8 Billion of us but earlier, much earlier than is supported by a Creationist viewpoint. Our DNA doesn't care. It is programmed to keep us a successful species and functions at an existential level. There was a time than none of us can remember (but our DNA does) when our present position at the top of the planetary pecking order was not an is. We were neck and neck with Homo neanderthalus with Homo cro magnon right behind. Fertility and xenophobia allowed Homo sapiens to prevail and the rest is history. Natural History.
The Bible was the vehicle by which world leaders got their ideas through to the masses. Natural urges and instincts did the rest. Those who could not be reached by either were stoned and/or sacrificed. So, if you are gay and confused by what seems like an unreasonable amount of anathema to the (to you) open acceptance of same sex attraction, commitment and procreation, well you now know the reason. I've seen nothing, nothing at all to indicate that if things ever got to the point where people with a same sex attraction and lifestyle reached predominance in the world, that there would be much more tolerance for open displays of opposite sex attraction. Rank does have its privileges.
I've had some experiences myself. Mine were all extremely positive but unnerving. Sometimes I think of them as defense mechanisms in overdrive. Sometimes I think of them as proof of the brains amazing ability to heal. Mostly I just think of it as "going sane".
It appears that kids who grow up with this type of abuse are good at achieving dissociative states. I was concerned I was starting to lose touch with reality when I felt like I was picking up some alternate channel and special messages where everywhere. In a way I was because my entire worldview was shifting rapidly. I had been drinking heavily and must have caused some damage to myself and when it rewired it was intense. I had this belief that i was the biggest POS on the planet and I started getting messages that I was loved. I liked it, whatever part of my mind I was accessing felt good and it made me feel safe. Then I decided that I was taking it to far and should probably look for a rational explanation before I crossed the line from "that's nice" to "that's real". I found those rational explanations. I literally had to prove myself right by being unable to prove myself wrong. It didn't take long and it made me mad and I was angry with Micheal Shermer for a few hours.
I have felt "grace", like relieved of your pain forgiveness. It's my opinion that is compassion turned inward. Maybe that's why you always here about 'love your brother...love your enemies" In order to extend it to yourself you have to practice on other people.
Very insightful, those last two sentences, L8. I am going to share that with my daughter. She is dealing with bipolar disorder and substance abuse/self-medication. She's doing well, and yesterday she said she was working on learning to love herself more. I think there's a lot of value in what you said. Thank you!
Why get mad? Christianity is a religion based on the creation of the bible. Constantine commissioned his bishops to create the bible by sifting though the books and deciding what was the word of god and what was not. There are not even any direct writings only copies of copies. That said the religion is created out of the teaching in those 66 books. I also don't believe its the word of god because I don't believe in a god. But to tell those who do they take it too literally is ridiculous. The West Borough Baptist Church out of Kansas is one of the most Bat Crap crazy bunch of nuts I have ever seen, but to tell them they take this or that too literally is in and of itself nuts. From the very beginning of Christianity its always been an interpretation game. If you focus on any particular part of the bible you can base a religion on it. If someone wants to believe as say the Jehovah's Witnesses do that Jesus came invisibly in 1914 and took power and is waiting to destroy the world soon and they can prove it because of the times time and half a time passages in the book transferring the year for a day rule, then so be it. I do not argue with JWs when they come to my door on how to interpret the bible, only that they have predicted the end of the world many times over the past 100 plus years and never has it been correct. Nothing they have ever taught has come to pass. I do not get into the weeds. Because I do not have common ground, I don't believe in Santa so why debate on the color of Santa's sleigh? The only fact I pointed out was that the bible teaches that being gay or homosexual is a sin. Its that simple. If you want to be gay I don't understand why you don't just go do your own thing and quit trying to twits the bible into sanctioning your acts of what it feels are sin?
I just got done with a year-long class reading McCulloch's history of Christianity book, but thanks anyway
I don't think anyone "wants" to be gay, but ironically, there don't seem to be any actual LGBTQ people in this conversation.
However, like the fundamentalists, you seem to be caught on the nail of "what's in the Bible = Christianity". A major disconnect here is that not all Christians accept that idea.
In other words, you want me to embrace homosexuality as normal. Sorry, but I trust God's Word on the matter. I won't endorse sexual immorality.
Seriously, did you really need the Bible (God's Word) to tell you that homosexuality was wrong? I'll bet you knew it was wrong long before you were able to read something as complex as The Holy Bible! And this constitutes the essential FAIL of the resistance to a number of lifestyle issues facing humanity. Those with agendas hide behind authoritative writings instead of putting their own hides on the line.
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