I really don't see how people can believe in something like a god.
It all seems rather fake to me.
I'm assuming that you're sitting at a computor as you're reading this.
Where did that computor come from?
But... what I was wondering is why so many people have problems with gays. Before I broke up with my girlfriend, I had a couple of run-ins with some fundamentalists and being called a sinner and that I was going to hell. For having somebody I really liked.
I appreciate that a majority of Christians are not like this, but I was wondering why it happens?
Sasu xx
As a fundamentalist, I'm very sorry that you had this experience.
Anyone who is hateful toward anyone, regardless of the reason, isn't representing Christianity or Christian fundamentalism accurately.
"Christians always seem to single out homosexuality among all of the other sins".
That's a fair charge. I suppose it's true that we do talk about that one more than most others.
However, what I think you have to remember is that that's also the one we're confronted with the most.
For example, I don't see that many adulterers holding "Adulterer Pride" parades.
I don't see many gossippers demanding "gossippers' rights now!"
But we do turn on TV and see homosexuality, we do come to message boards and see threads about homosexuality, etc. So I think it's reasonable that we're addressing it a little more than most other sins.
Now, onto the part about why we believe it's a sin.
In the Bible, God uses something called "types" and "shadows" to illustrate a greater spiritual truth.
For example, you may have heard the story about God asking Abraham to kill Isaac.
Abraham takes Issac up into the hills to sacrifice him to God. When they get to the appointed place, Abraham builds an altar, performs the necessary preparation rituals, and begins the sacrifice.
But before he could kill Isaac he looks up and notices that God has caused a ram to become tangled up in the briars.
There are a couple of lessons to draw from this story, but the main "shadow" here is the ram. The ram represents the sacrifice on our behalf that God would provide in the person of Jesus Christ.
You get what I'm saying? Very often, in addition to the main lesson being presented, it's also being used to illustrate a greater point.
In this way, the Bible tells us that God has consecrated marriage for a holy purpose. The purpose of marriage between a man and a woman is to illustrate the relationship between Christ and the church, as well as hierarchy in the Godhead.
Men and women have specific and different roles in the marriage in order to make this illustration work. The wife submits to the husband by obeying him, and the husband submits to the wife by being a servant to her and sacrificing himself for her.
In a relationship between the same sexes, these differences do not exist and so the illustration fails. That is why it is seen as misrepresenting God's purpose and a sin.
Homosexuality is a sin and it's a shame that our human nature makes us want to say, "Hey, I might be a sinner but at least I'm not as bad as that guy over there", but we're blinded by our own sins.
You've sinned in your homosexuality, I've sinned in my gossip. So here we sit, a couple of sinners.
It would be foolish (as well as hypocritical...another sin!) to condemn you for your sins when my own are staring at me in the mirror but there's something very important that we must consider.
God is loving and merciful, but He is also righteous and just. His righteousness demands that He have a strict moral code and His judgement demands that He punish violations of that moral code.
That moral code is what we Christians mean when you hear us talk about "the law". Each of us has broken God's law and that makes us enemies of His and deserving of His wrath.
The good news is that while God is righteous and just, He is also loving and merciful.
Because He is loving and merciful, He has made a way for us not only to be forgiven for our sins, but also to be reconciled to Him and go from being enemies of God, to children of God.
The first thing we have to do is to repent of our sins. To repent doesn't just mean to say you're sorry, it means to look at your sins in light of God's holiness and be horrified by them and forsake them altogether.
Next we must place our faith in Jesus Christ, His death on our behalf, and His resurrection.
That means to believe by faith that a sinless Christ died in the place of sinful man in order to pay the penalty for our sins, and was raised again on the third day.
Sasu, let me ask you this:
If you were to die tonight, do you believe that you'd go to Heaven or to Hell? Why?
