The whole gay thing...

If you believe that Jesus died for your sins, then you are a Christian. However as an agnostic, you should question whether Jesus is indeed God, whether it is scientifically literal that he was resurrected from the dead.

Your opinions towards homosexuality should not be bound to dogma. Gay people have been around before Christianity existed. When one is denouncing homosexuality, they are talking about potentially millions of respective individuals who live through bigotry for genetic factors which they had no choice in. The great thing about Christianity is that it has been widely accepted that the Bible is not word-for-word literal, for it was written by mortal men, said to have been inspired by God. Thus you can have any interpretations...

My advice to your friend? Take the Sermon on the Mount literally, and treat gay people according to Jesus' teachings of love, forgiveness and compassion

I do not know if it is a sin or not because I am scrupulous and no longer trust my own judgement.(I feel almost everything is a sin and if I think something is harmless I question myself so I cannot have any say on this)

I do wish that this area was given much less importance because many people being pained and I wish that we would try to help those people and that even if homosexuality is sinful it is not cruel and by focusing on helping people we would do more to glorify God.

I do wish people would be more charitable about homosexuality because there is a difference between warning someone of wrongdoing and being cruel. Can one "admonish" someone for homosexuality and not cause them much pain? By admonishing what we believe is sinful or is sinful we should never commit a sin ourselves and cruelty is a sin. No one should be treated cruelly. I feel sad about this because many people are being hurt by this debate.

I think God's wisdom is in the Bible, but I do not dislike science because when researching science (I like astronomy best) I am filled with wonder for God and I want to become an astronomer because I love science and space and that God's work is so intricate and interesting.

How should one react to this which causes so much pain? I do think there are far greater offenses to God that must be more quickly responded to. Still, it cannot be ok to say "ok this can just slide because it is not as important"... but if responding is gravely wounding no matter how you do it what would the correct action be? In what situations and for what actions must a stand be taken? When someone is being hurt? When you know them well? I do not know. This topic has always brought confusion to me. Is it ok if I just forget about this, and focus on lessening pain and the actions which bring it?

A sin is a sin and homosexuality is sin, as Christians we know it is because it is what is written in the Word. With that being said, gay bashing has been taken too far. Unbelievers don't know nor do they understand homosexuality behavior is wrong, they believe it's ok because the world has taught them it's ok. They are only behaving as the world has taught them to behave.

We can pray for those we know and set a Christ like example for them.

So be good and pray?

JoanOfArcInvestigator said:

So be good and pray?

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What do you want to do?

Are you planning to conquer the issue on your own and make it all better?

Jake255 said:

What do you want to do?

Are you planning to conquer the issue on your own and make it all better?

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No, I want to be loving to other people. I want to know what is correct and incorrect, in religion, in science, in philosophy ect. It is terribly interesting to come closer to the truth.

I am not homosexual, contrary to what last year bullies said, I don't really get crushes on anyone.

I just fear that thinking and forming opinions on homosexuality one way or another on this will offend God because I will end up hurting someone or saying it is good to do bad. I don't really know which one is which in this case.

I suppose I should just stay out of it because it only comes up in Bible class and I can just say "Well, I wish people would spend more time glorifying God trying to stop people from suffering and trying to stop the most atrocious sins than protesting same-sex civil marriage. But I do not think churches should be forced to marry some-sex couples." It will come up again in Bible, I am almost sure of it, especially since we are on modern-day church and people argue about this a lot. (not in class but it might happen)

Living Christ like is loving people, it is why I mentioned it. A sin is a sin, all of it is against God. Gay maarriage is a hot topic however because it breaks down traditional family units, established by God.

People should be warned of sin, still I think less time should be given to this, it would be better to show our compassion to those who are persecuted because of their love of God and oppose those who harm them more than oppose this, I think. Though this issue has brought many attacks on Christianity which must be dealt with. If I cannot do anything, does it matter if I know if it is wrong or not? I think if attention is given to this at the same time we should oppose those awful over-sexualisation in media which has served more so than this, to ruin the value of chastity.

But yes sin is against God so I will not permit myself to sin and will try to encourage goodness in others, though I consistently sin in various ways, but what should my actions on this be? Just set a good example for people and pray? I can try my best to be good, being an outsider I don't really have much to do in front of people lol, and I can certainly pray. What else should a person do? I could say in Bible also "We are forgiven for sins because of faith but if we are truly have faith we should try to abandon sin and follow God because we love Him and hate to hurt Him" if someone says it is ok to sin?

It is difficult to remain unmoved by the world's ways, we are consistently inundated by violence, sex, drugs, etc. We are certainly told to avoid these things, among other things that could take our focus off of God. We are in the world, but protected from it, as long as we remain faithful to Christ, He will give us strength and courage to stand up against satan's attempts to redirect us from following after Christ.

God wants a relationship with us so when we pray, we are growing that relationship. As we mature in Christ it is Him who is doing the work in us, conforming us to Christ.

JoanOfArcInvestigator said:

But I do not think churches should be forced to marry some-sex couples.

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I don't know of anyone who does think that.

The whole gay thing is actually a more "recent addition" to the bible, one of those statements put in there by someone who wasn't an author of the text, but decided to put it in there while translating it. The original text doesn't say much on the matter. Also, the people of Sodom, without the context of that sacrilegious addition, are never indicated to be homosexual.

a3et6st said:

Hi there, I'm not necessarily a Christian but that doesn't mean I dont believe in a god. I think everyone is over reacting with the whole its not ok to be gay thing... Jesus died for our sins, so that we could live our life and not have to worry about every thing. And whats your opinion on the bible? My extremely Christian friend said that he heard the voice of god saying that we interpreted the bible wrong and we should give up on it. Thats what I also personally think.

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First I'll start with the Bible. Your friend, I think, is putting too much faith in a voice that claims that "we translated the Bible wrong and should give up on it" there is no reason to put trust in a simple voice in your head. If the Bible can not be trusted what are we putting our faith in? If you believe in Jesus, that automatically makes the Old Testament and some of the New Testament correct, since both the New and Old Testament give account for what Christ came to do. I have no reason to assume that God's word is mistranslated in anyway. I am sure there are some translations that may have been done, it happens.

So I have no real reason as to doubt God's word. If people try to say that over a topic such as homosexuallity, they are most often trying to justify it.

You can look at older bibles and see that the "on man shall not lie with another man..." Doesn't start popping up until fairly recent versions of the bible.

One thing about Sodom and Gomorrah:

One thing that you will know when you look at the passages of Sodom and Gomorrah, and other passages alluding to it, is that they never specifically mention homosexuality. They say things such as "abomination" "gross immorality" "going after strange flesh." Most interpretations I've read are something like "Homosexuality is an abomination. Sodom and Gomorrah was about an abomination, therefore it was homosexuality." But the idea of homosexuality being the sin is never introduced directly in scripture.

What do I think it is? I think the sin was rape. The men wanted to rape the angels. You can tell this by how aggressive they were to Lot and his family.

PsychoSarah said:

You can look at older bibles and see that the "on man shall not lie with another man..." Doesn't start popping up until fairly recent versions of the bible.

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This is a nice attempt to try and justify homosexuality, but it still doesn't make God change His mind about it.

God sanctioned marriage in the beginning with Adam and Eve, He gave the law in Leviticus 18:22 in regards to this and called it detestable. A man should not lie with another man - at all - no exceptions.

Romans speaks about people worshipping the created instead of the creator and in this God gave them over to depraved minds, women exchanging sex with other women. This was not "added later" as you suggest.

How difficult is it to read what the Bible says about a matter and then just believe it???

I would like to add that the public educational system has an agenda, it is to cause our generation to believe, adhere and basically fight for all that hates Christ. We have been taught that homosexuality is ok and God says it's not, the educational system hates Christ and will do all in its power to turn us away from Him. We can see this is working because of how our generation clings to the ways of this world and homosexuality is a forerunner.

We need to stop listening to the world and start listening to what God is telling us, He said to not be yoked with the world.

Jake255 said:

I would like to add that the public educational system has an agenda, it is to cause our generation to believe, adhere and basically fight for all that hates Christ. We have been taught that homosexuality is ok and God says it's not, the educational system hates Christ and will do all in its power to turn us away from Him.

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Wow. If you think that disregard for your particular religion is hatred, I wonder how you'd react if you experienced actual hatred and oppression.

It's called secularism and it protects all of us from having to live by the baseless rules of various religious factions. Unless you want the government to endorse Satanism, as well?

Cearbhall said:

Wow. If you think that disregard for your particular religion is hatred, I wonder how you'd react if you experienced actual hatred and oppression.

It's called secularism and it protects all of us from having to live by the baseless rules of various religious factions. Unless you want the government to endorse Satanism, as well?

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It's not hatred for any religion, but it IS hatred towards Christ. The problem with secularism it makes up its own rules as it goes along and eventually (as it is now in the US) anything goes. A lack of morality is what you get - and it is what we have.

There is more hatred for Christianity from the secular world then there is hatred towards the secular from Christianity. It's quit amazing, but if a person lacks the Holy Spirit and the peace He offers, that's what you get, too. What do you do......

Why do you just assume I've never experienced hatred and oppression? It's a very wrong assumption. I grew up with it.

Cearbhall said:

I don't know of anyone who does think that.

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Then you are misinformed. Businesses have been forced out of business because they refused to service same-sex marriages. There is talk they want to force churches to marry the same.

You need to do some research BEFORE you post again.