So, can we be free from hate?

[Texas Lynn]

Is God free from hate ?

Good question: if God is a God of Love, at least toward humans, such would seem incongruent.

It would seem according to Western Tradition God as we view God would be beyond pithy emotions, certainly as related to these struggles among humankind.

No doubt some fundamentalist will follow this with a Bible verse which indicates the tribal god of the OT expressed hatred toward the Amorites, Hittites, Jebusites, et al and will then express an intuition that that means the Architect of the Universe is indeed capable of hatred so those who are different from them had better watch it.

 

[Apollo Celestio]

Hitler accused Jews of being promiscuous, of being all pimps and harlots, and of spreading syphillis just as right-wingers of today villify LGBTs for propaganda purposes. It's all in Mein Kampf.

I'm asking for posts, give me posts from this site. That isn't relevant.

Well, in the case of the Lord, he is not. But I don't claim he has hate for things he does not have hate for.

 

[Texas Lynn]

I'm asking for posts, give me posts from this site. That isn't relevant.

Posts of what?

Well, in the case of the Lord, he is not. But I don't claim he has hate for things he does not have hate for.

Who does?

 

[IamRedeemed]

There are SEVEN things which GOD hates that are listed in the Book of Proverbs:

Proverbs 6:16-19
These six things does the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:

• A proud look,
  
• a lying tongue, and
  
• hands that shed innocent blood,
• A heart that devises wicked imaginations,
  
• feet that be swift in running to mischief.
  
• A false witness that speaks lies, and
  
• he that sows discord among brethren.

 

[IamRedeemed]

The Bible never refers to God as the "architect of the universe".
I have seen you say this many times, and the only source I have ever heard it from
is from Freemasons. Are you involved in Freemasonry, or happen to read from a
Freemason Bible?

Good question: if God is a God of Love, at least toward humans, such would seem incongruent.

It would seem according to Western Tradition God as we view God would be beyond pithy emotions, certainly as related to these struggles among humankind.

No doubt some fundamentalist will follow this with a Bible verse which indicates the tribal god of the OT expressed hatred toward the Amorites, Hittites, Jebusites, et al and will then express an intuition that that means the Architect of the Universe is indeed capable of hatred so those who are different from them had better watch it.

 

[IamRedeemed]

Actually it is a sure sign that the speaker is cognisant of the mindset
of the one who speaks in opposition to her. Do you deny that you subscribe to and
promote humanistic and relativistic reasonings?

I may be "ignorant" as you say to some things pertaining to the 2-3% of the deviate population,
as I know I was ignorant to the existence of the "Gay Night Clubs" with the dark mazes and the holes
in the wall that gay men unzip and enter "it" into for anonymous copulation, that's for sure.
Yep, I had no idea, until a homosexual young man made it known to me on national television within
the past week.

But one thing I am absolutely not ignorant to is the Word of God.
And above all things, even after the heavens and the earth pass away,
His Word will still be standing, so guess which Rock I'm holding onto for dear LIFE,
literally and figuratively?

The accusation of "relativism" is a sure sign the speaker has long since lost the argument.

I'm not talking about RUBES [Rich Urban Bikers] but One Percenters (a group of which I suspect you are ignorant of much as you are ignorant of the real lives of LGBTs).

BTW, the use of the term "those who practice homosexuality" is a most unfortunate effort to validate despising those with differing capacities to love. One does not say comporably "those who practice heterosexuality" so it is an obvious effort at slurring people and as such is most regrettable.

Overuse of smilies also does not mask one's lack of erudition.

 

[Phinehas2]

Dear Texas Lynn,

Good question: if God is a God of Love, at least toward humans, such would seem incongruent.

You say ‘if’ God is a God of love. Don’t yuou know one way or the other? If you do think God is a God of love, what leads you to that view?

 

[Texas Lynn]

Dear TexasLynn,
You say ‘if’ God is a God of love. Don’t yuou know one way or the other? If you do think God is a God of love, what leads you to that view?

If one says "if X is true or not...." it does not indicate that the person speaking or writing that believes it or not. It is a common device used in rhetoric.

I believe "God" (the real God) is a "God of Love" and that would necessarily mean the evil attributed to him by some is inaccurate.

 

[Phinehas2]

Dear Texas Lynn,

If one says "if X is true or not...." it does not indicate that the person speaking or writing that believes it or not. It is a common device used in rhetoric.

Yes, granted but why would anyone who knows and loves God cast hypothetical doubts? I know God is love because of what Jesus Christ has done and how it has changed my life for the better.

I believe "God" (the real God) is a "God of Love" and that would necessarily mean the evil attributed to him by some is inaccurate.

Yes but I asked you how you know/ I know the God whose testimony is in the Bible is love because of His testimony, but how do you know?

 

[Texas Lynn]

Dear TexasLynn,
Yes, granted but why would anyone who knows and loves God cast hypothetical doubts?

The doubts are not "cast" upon God, but upon those who want the god they worship to be evil.

I know God is love because of what Jesus Christ has done and how it has changed my life for the better.

Sort of precludes missionary work among the depressed, doesn't it?

Yes but I asked you how you know/ I know the God whose testimony is in the Bible is love because of His testimony, but how do you know?

This is a begged question for which there is no answer.

 

[IamRedeemed]

God is not capable of evil as there is no evil within Him. However there are some who claim they know Him, yet refuse to acknowledge His righteous judgments and call those judgments evil and "hate" as well as those who accept the righteous judgments of God and choose to conform to His will and His ways, rather than the world's are evil spoken of by the same.

Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate. Titus 1:15-16

 

[Texas Lynn]

God is not capable of evil as there is no evil within Him.

Agreed.

However there are some who claim they know Him, yet refuse to acknowledge His righteous judgments and call those judgments evil and "hate" as well as those who accept the righteous judgments of God and choose to conform to His will and His ways, rather than the world's are evil spoken of by the same.

Such accurately describes the promotion of hatred against LGBTs and the claim of divine sanction to do so.

Nothing is more "conforming to the way of the world" than accepting the hatemongering against LGBTs and willingly participating in it because to do that one need only accept conventional wisdom. It takes courage to stand up to the bullying of the oppressed.

 

[Anglian]

We are told to hate the sin, so we cannot be free from hate there. But we are told to love the sinner, so we must be free of it there.

My own Church, like other Apostolic Churches, holds to the view that active homosexual behaviour is sinful; it holds the same view of fornication and adultery. One of the oddest things is how many fornicating adulterers there are who go on about homosexuality; motes and beams come to mind.

As an ascetic religion, Christianity tells us our bodies are temples of the Spirit and that we should not defile them; it also counsels us not to be slaves to our bodies and its desires: that would include the temptation to judge and hate others, even as it would the temptation to demand that the Church changes its teaching because it makes me personally uncomfortable.

Homosexuals who take the teaching of the Church seriously bear a heavy cross. After all, adulterers can stop being adulterers and stay with their spouses; fornicators can get married ( and hopefully change their ways); but those with a homosexual inclination are called to celibacy if they take the teaching of the Church seriously.

Those who carry this cross deserve only our love and admiration. Every day in our evening prayers we ask that God's judgement will be given to us according to His mercy and not our deserts; as I stand in the peril of judgement I do not judge others. Their sin the Church condemns, and so do I; but only God, the one Just Judge, can pronounce judgement.

Let us practice His command of love; whoever loves is of Him.

In peace,

Anglian

 

[Texas Lynn]

Homosexuals who take the teaching of the Church seriously bear a heavy cross. After all, adulterers can stop being adulterers and stay with their spouses; fornicators can get married ( and hopefully change their ways); but those with a homosexual inclination are called to celibacy if they take the teaching of the Church seriously.

Certainly the above is clear indication of the madness of such a call and how such superstition needs to go go the way of trial by ordeal and curing broken legs by conjuring.

One thing wrong in your item about "other sexual sins": Fundamentalist churches are chock-full of the divorced and remarried who harshly judge LGBTs, who are sexually active as such within second-and-thereafter marriages. The mote in the eye thing is a heckuva lot bigger than you let on earlier there.

 

[Anglian]

Dear Texas Lynn,

Coming as we do from very different traditions( I am from the Coptic Orthodox tradition) we may not agree on definitions of 'madness' and 'superstition'; I rarely find it useful to apply such names to things which Christians have believed from the beginning - our atheist friends would apply both epithets to the whole of the Faith.

I had feared I had been a little harsh on fornicating adulterers, but perhaps not; I am with you in thinking it hypocrisy to condemn only one of the sins of the flesh.

In peace,

Anglian

 

[Texas Lynn]

we may not agree on definitions of 'madness' and 'superstition'; I rarely find it useful to apply such names to things which Christians have believed from the beginning -

Madness is self-destructive or socially destructive attributes; superstition is irrational beliefs which have been disproven. In some situations they say "people are reluctant to talk about the elephant in the room". My using those terms is merely a declarative sentence "there's an elephant in the room."

I had feared I had been a little harsh on fornicating adulterers, but perhaps not; I am with you in thinking it hypocrisy to condemn only one of the sins of the flesh.

Given how the patriarchs of old raped warring tribes' wives and daughters and then enslaved them, committed polygamy; patronized prostitutes; committed concubinage and levirate marriage, etc., the condemnation of LGBTs and the hatreds expressed toward them by right-wing Christians is just another example of hypocricy.

 

[Anglian]

Dear Texas Lynn,

Madness is self-destructive or socially destructive attributes

An interesting definition. Those of us with a non western perspective might, if tempted enough, think that applies pretty widely to a society with a high divorce rate, a high abortion rate and rampant pornography; no doubt this is a caricature of the West, but I noted the other day a report from the European union which said there was a divorce and an abortion every 30 seconds, and that the number of elderly now exceeds the number of young. So there are many types of behaviour which, depending on where one stands, might come under your definition.

My atheist friends would say our whole Faith is an irrational superstition which has been disproved, and from their point of view they are as right as you are from your own point of view. Perhaps we come to an agreement on tolerance from different roads. But we are not told to tolerate sin.

On American fundamentalists I shall have to bow to your experience as I have none. But I'd like to think they are God's children too and to extend my love to them. Mind you, they may not want it - but heck, it's coming their way ready or not

Peace,

Anglian

 

[Texas Lynn]

An interesting definition. Those of us with a non western perspective might, if tempted enough, think that applies pretty widely to a society with a high divorce rate, a high abortion rate and rampant pornography; no doubt this is a caricature of the West, but I noted the other day a report from the European union which said there was a divorce and an abortion every 30 seconds, and that the number of elderly now exceeds the number of young. So there are many types of behaviour which, depending on where one stands, might come under your definition.

"Non-Western Perspective," huh? Just what exactly is that? Some sort of perspective idealizing peasant life in Szechwan, Cameroon, or Bolivia? I guarantee you the "small-town values" globalized or not of every society everywhere all the time is a facade over the fact every place is a "Peyton Place" (A novel of the 1950s by Grace Metalious later made into a popular movie and TV show about adultery, intrigue, crime, murder, and various other unpleasantness in a small town) and anyone saying otherwise whether sporting a santized view of Salt Lick, Kentucky, or the plucky people of Oudagoudagou, Burkina Faso is either confused or lying.

Perhaps we come to an agreement on tolerance from different roads.

Perhaps, but...

But we are not told to tolerate sin.

Let me tell you something: every society, every where, tolerates "sin" of some type or another. It's just some claim not to while being very highly selective about it.

On American fundamentalists I shall have to bow to your experience as I have none. But I'd like to think they are God's children too and to extend my love to them. Mind you, they may not want it - but heck, it's coming their way ready or not

Agreed. I love them but I hate their sin.

 

[BigBadWlf]

God is not capable of evil as there is no evil within Him.

When a trumpet sounds in a city,
do not the people tremble?
When evil comes to a city,
has not the LORD caused it? Amos 3:6

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
that both calamities and good things come? Lamentations 3:38

"Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, 'This is what the LORD says: Look! I am shaping evil agaisnt you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your wicked ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.' Jeremiah 18:11

I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by Ezekiel 20:25

However there are some who claim they know Him, yet refuse to acknowledge His righteous judgments and call those judgments evil and "hate" as well as those who accept the righteous judgments of God and choose to conform to His will and His ways, rather than the world's are evil spoken of by the same.

If you made posts against black people as you do against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters it would be called hateful
If you made posts against Hispanics as you do against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters it would be called hateful
If you made posts against Muslims as you do against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters it would be called hateful
If you made posts against the handicapped as you do against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters it would be called hateful
If you made posts against Buddhists as you do against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters it would be called hateful
If you made posts against Jews as you do against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters it would be called hateful
Just because you attack an unpopular minority does not change what you say into love nor does it justify your petty personal prejudices

 

[Anglian]

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"Non-Western Perspective," huh? Just what exactly is that? Some sort of perspective idealizing peasant life in Szechwan, Cameroon, or Bolivia?

.

Dear Texas Lynn,

My own Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church, has been witnessing to the Faith since St. Mark came to Egypt in A.D. 54, and since the Arab conquest in the seventh century we have been under persecution from Islam. Our perspective is formed by our continuing to witness the Risen Lord in the face of a society where Christianity is regarded with great distrust and, sometimes, hatred.

If we had adopted some of the values to which you refer we would not still be Christian. For us, living our Faith daily is to carry our cross for the Lord, and as a monastic Church we believe in the asceticism of denying the things of the body to live our struggle with sin; so, for example, we fast for about 250 days a year; not total abstention from food, but a vegan diet.

It is from such perspectives that for all the good things in it, the West sometimes seems incurably addicted to self-indulgence.

Of course, we are all sinners, and it is recognition of that which makes us love the Lord who came to redeem us from the shackles of sin. Homosexual activities, like heterosexual sins of the flesh are, the Church teaches and has always held, sinful; so we abjure them. At the same time we hold the repentant sinner close in love, knowing that if he is repentant, he may well be several steps further on the road to God than we are, still lying defiled on our bed of sin.

But the Gospel message is one of repentance and amendment of life - to all, active homosexuals, fornicators and adulterers included. For that I am grateful, for if I were judged according to my deserts rather than His mercy, then the outlook would be bleak. But as it is, He is the propitiation for my sins and for the sins of us all - and that is the good news for sinners everywhere. But we don't show our repentance by persisting in sin, even though, being human, we shall stumble again and again.

In peace,

Anglian