Doesn't stop people from wanting to pursue love and relationships.
It is your stance that everyone should follow their heart and have all that they desire then? "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9) "Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart." (Proverbs 4:23)
The problem is you assume everything you believe regarding sin is automatically right and that you can't be wrong.
All are born in sin and fall short. "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." (Psalm 51:5) "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) Those who know God's law and yet disobey Him, live in sin. "So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." (James 4:17) Sin only brings death unless one turns away and repents. "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
Well, this is the liberal forum so we do not interpret those verses the way you do and if you were to actually study those verses carefully and not just superficially read the English text, you would learn they are not referring to modern day gay people. Homosexual wasn't even added to Corinthians or Timothy until the mid-20th Century, and it doesn't refer to homosexual women. And Leviticus deals with ritual prohibitions among the Israelites and pagan prostitution.
This is just ridiculous. How was the homosexual of those days any different from today? Are they somehow more sophisticated today than the gays of antiquity, and that makes them unique or exempt from God's word? No homosexual who lives in their sin will go to heaven, unless they turn away from it in repentance.
Living in ignorance is certainly a choice. But keep in mind those beliefs do cause a lot of suffering. Thus I'm not going to change my stance about the harm conservative beliefs cause.
Sometimes the truth does hurt, and it can be devastating for families who deal with this. "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)
Sounds like pride to me. An unwillingness to accept you might be wrong. The Church supported the notion that the Sun revolves around the Earth for a long time, because their understanding of the Bible says it does. The Church was clearly wrong. The Church blindly read the "thou shall not suffer a witch to live" verse, and burned alive/murdered thousands of women in Europe and America despite the original meaning of the verse referring to women who murder others using poison. The overwhelming majority of the women killed were innocent of such charges. Over 90% of Americans objected to interracial marriage on Biblical grounds. The Jews have suffered at the hands of Christians for the past 2000 years due to Jewish leaders calling on Romans to execute Jesus. Gays are just the modern day target for self-righteous Christians who use the Bible as a weapon of hate, instead of a tool of love. Christians have been wrong numerous times in the past with disastrous consequences. This is no different.
You'd be mistaken in your assumption of my character. I am first to admit wrong, and often I am. Of the many sins I struggle with pride is not often one of them. Many Christians and the 'Church' have been wrong many times for many years, and continue to do so. You are assuming that my understanding of the word comes from the 'Church' or somewhere else. I was not raised in the church, and I spent most of my life an Atheist. My understanding comes from years of study since I came to know the Lord four years ago. It is my belief that a true Christian does not use the Bible as a weapon of hate to hurt, humiliate or destroy the lives of sinful people. A true Christian loves God first and his neighbor second, regardless of any distinguishing characteristic of that person. We are all sinners, and struggle with it. We can certainly sympathize with those who struggle in the same areas we have. We did not have a self-righteous Savior who didn't suffer as we do, in fact quite the opposite, wouldn't we attempt to be like Him if we are truly His?
If we did not care for a persons salvation, we wouldn't bother saying anything at all to those we believe are living in sin. Not one can truly and fully understand the workings of our Creator, and for anyone to claim they do is both prideful and wrong. It is He who decides who shall enter Heaven, and who does not. He wrote the story and He has the absolute right to decide how the story unfolds.
