One comment about love ...

You're welcome, Eggy.

I haven't either. I imagine they have my picture and address posted at headquarters by now

I told them they "aren't supposed to talk to me anymore". So they don't. It works much better than "I'm a lesbian" or "I'm a Muslim", as the latter is quite clearly a Blatant Lie and the former tends to be taken as a challenge.

One thing I've noticed about those truly persistent evangelicals, --and this is by no means limited to religions-- is that they invariably seem to lack any ability to understand how anyone could honestly and truly believe in a faith or philosophy other than their own. They're genuinely baffled by members of other religions' inability to admit that they're deluding themselves.

"Oh sure, you say you believe that, but you and I both know the truth..."

Polite dismissals like "Sorry, I'm not interested", or "I'm a member of another religion" aren't taken at face value; no, people who profess to believe with all their soul in -- well, a soul, for example... if that's not compatible with the evangelist's faith, even if the prospective convert has claimed total and undying support of another faith, they're clearly wrong and lying to themselves. Obviously, as $religion_a is the only true faith and must therefore be the only thing that someone can really, honestly believe in. Remember, if you believe in $religion_b, you're only lying to yourself!

Hmm, yes; I guess I chose to walk a path that involved being hated and despised, rejected by members of my own family - even physically attacked once or twice by loving people like you. Pardon me for my uncharitable outburst which is just about to burst out - I'm not even going to try to stop it - but You Sir, are a fucking moron. Take a nice silver cross and cram it. Go kiss the Pope's behind.

I wish I could remember who said it but the best explanation I ever heard was because of 'inclusion/exclusion' -- the explanation was long and interesting, but for berevity this was the crux:

2 chicks doin the nasty -- theres only ONE thing missing, which you could provide = turn on.

An interesting point of view...

Personally I think 90% of people should just get over it... what someone does in the privacy of the bedroom is noones damn biz but their own.... and 2 people in love is a wonderful thing -- irrespective of what tackle is under the kilt. It's such a small (and certainly not my most attractive) part that you'd think it wouldn't matter so damn much.

And as for the 'butt thang' -- if it's so bad, how come so many preists are into it?

Riddle me that Batman

Siggy.

Evangelist Robert Tilton has always made me very cranky. (Especially after he got Matchbox Toys to stop the production of Freddy Krueger toys). However, after watching these videos I think I understand him better now...He even made me smile (and get out some air freshener)

http://www.weirdcrap.com/tilton/gods_will.mpeg

http://www.weirdcrap.com/tilton/gods_will2.mpeg

You're welcome Pen, and thank YOU for the encouragement.

Also thanks to everyone who responded here. Speaking out against bigotry is the first line of defense we who live in free societies possess, which helps assure subsequent generations of like minded people everywhere that they won't be subjugated by a fanatical, hypocritical, minority. I assume all of us have had some type of World History class(es), and most of us know what happens when that is allowed. NN

Give me enough time and I'll quote you chapter and verse in support of the practice.

No, Jon.... in MY opinion it makes you stupid.

And, in MY opinion, this proves it:


So, Jon.. it sounds like you've taken it upon yourself to perform periodic anus checks on 'suspect' men?

my $0.02, since this thread keeps getting in my way.

I don't believe there's any true faith when a congregation is told to exclude others. I also detest being told I'm not living to my full potential simply because I don't attend some sermon every Sunday.

I've tried living a life conducted by rules a Church has forced on me. Those were my darkest years, because I was led to believe I'd never be worthy and God would only love me if I suffered before I die.

I don't believe in the Church. But I believe in God simply because I interpret God to be Love. Your sexual preference, your race, your creed, etc should never matter. Love is love. And we're all entilted to have that, aren't we?

I can't say that I've read through this whole thread, but it seems like it turned into another case of anti-Christians vs. anti-Gays. Neither perspective is one I can respect, as they are both complete generalizations.

Maybe I'm in an unusual part of the world, but in the church I grew up in, and in the church I go to occasionally with my grandmother, there was no thought of excluding anyone based on who they are.

In fact at my grandmother's church, the pastor is a lesbian, and has performed several marriages for gay couples. Despite this, the congregation in no way feels that this is anything less than a capital "C" Christian church. The pastor is a pastor, first and foremost, and considers it her primary duty in life to guide her flock.

What I'm getting at here is that being gay and being Christian are not mutually exclusive. And that some Christian churches do in fact welcome, cherish, and support everyone in their communities, regardless of who they are. To me, this is the true meaning of Jesus' love.

Ananda... I agree wholeheartedly. As a matter of fact, one of my roomies is gay and a pastor.

I have absolutely zero issue with religion. I have my personal thoughts on it, but I would never suggest it should be outlawed, etc.

My issue is with people who tend to talk from both sides of thier mouth: They think that X is morally wrong, yet they do not hate X. Bleh.

Carry on...

If their anuses are bleeding they are probably doing it wrong and need lessons. Hahaha! A lot of us don't go there, either, so there is no reason to fixate on it.

Yeah, uh... if there's blood involved, something's going horribly wrong. Next time, use lube. Even I know that.

So on a more serious note, now that I think about it, you've focused a lot on man-to-man anal sex... is it gay sex you're opposed to, or gay love? Am I allowed to have a girlfriend if we don't have sex? What if we got married? Would it be okay for us to have sex then? How do you define sex, anyway? Orgasm? Holding hands? Somewhere in the middle? Penetration's obviously not happening...

There ya go Catherine, bringing LOGIC in to it!

He'll never reply now!!

As we all know, the correct answer is :

"Everything I think is icky - which ranges from Men holding hands, girls kissing, and the Bravo channel"

Aw well.. King Kong died for our sins.

Siggy (fnord)

Hail Eris!

No, no, I really want to know. Is it okay for me to be in a relationship with another girl and remain celibate? If not, can I be celibate by myself and just be attracted to other women? If that's also bad, how is it functionally different from being attracted to men and being celibate? Is it the "impure thoughts" bit?

Ok, the serious answer, as best I can recollect from my long past catholic upbringing:

No, this would not be ok - depending who you were talking to the citing would range from impure thoughts, to one of the deadly sins (in this case lust), perhaps to breaking the commandment on coveting your neighbours wife.

The more fundementalist may further argue citing Levitcus that homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of god.
(despite the fact that gospels of the new testimate were supposedly the teachings of christ)

The near orwellian view of 'impure thoughts' (nearly 'thought crimes') would probably be the most common reply.

Your milage may vary depending on who you talk to - there are some deeply religious folks out there that think that love is a wonderful thing, irrespective of the gender of the people.. Those are the folks who's opinions on such matters I'd be inclined to respect a lil more.

Siggy.

Well, okay, so would my "impure thoughts" and/or sin of lust be quantatively different than that of a heterosexual who was sexually attracted to a member of the opposite sex?

It seems to me that a lot of the speech regarding the "Christian" definition of homosexuality tends to refer pretty explicitly to gay sex, usually male-on-male, and not to actually being gay. It would seems there's a lot of distinction between the two.

As for Leviticus 18:22, ("Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." or 20:13, ("If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." I can't help but notice that the wording seems to strongly come out in favour of me hooking up with girls.

But seriously, until I meet someone who follows ALL of Leviticus, I'm not really interested in anyone just selectively quoting from it. I've reread it just now, and it's kind of insane.

(On closer inspection, the phrase "their blood shall be upon them." -- is this possibly another case of improper technique? I guess they didn't have Astroglide 3500 years ago... )

I would say no - no difference, but that would be logical, so I'm probably wrong on that one...
First thing to remember with fundamentalists is that logic is the bathwater that the baby of tolerance gets flung with...



Which is the part that I find the most amusing -- this is to say, I've gotten drunk and stoned with freinds at parties in the past, and they've put on a porno or two (or three or four) - and although I find absolutely nothing 'wrong' or even 'disgusting' with any of my friends who are of that bent - I do have to leave the room when the man-love porn hits the small screen..
.. I can only watch OZ without feeling a lil squeemish because of the outstanding storylines.

You can still love love, and still be a little put off by the sex aspect - I think they fixate on it perhaps.



Or I could say that I lie with a woman on my stomach, which makes it AOK to lie with a man on my back.... The (partial) quoters of Levitcus tend to leave the last half of the quote anyways, let alone follow all of the book... We had a recent batch spouting that here in Vegas not so long ago -- made me want to say 'Well you won't mind me stoning you to death for speaking louder than me - you beligerant cow'.

Some of it makes sense when put in the context of the age -- the parts about making slaves of the people of other nations -- before the industrial age slaves were pretty much the 'machines' of the age.. so making slaves of your own people could be seen as a pretty crappy thing.
Likewise some of the issues on how you should beat them -- guidelines were set to limit injury.

By todays standards and society its pretty nuts, and just as society has evolved, so has 'the word' (from the old to new testimates) -- I think it needs to evolve more personally, but with so many people clinging to the literal words and ignoring the message it's supposed to bring, I don't think that will happen within my lifetime.

But then again I'm an athiest, so what the hell do I know

Siggy.

All the stuff in the Old Testament makes me think that what was really going on was that Yahweh just kept getting horribly frustrated with the ancient Hebrews' bad hygiene.

Well, what you have to remember is that this stuff was the 'whole law' not just religion. And it was a way of life to them, hence rules on food hygene and so on.

A lot of the you must not eat this (unclean) animal, was because it was impossible to store it in that climate. Remember, they didn't have fridges back then.

I'm guessing at least half the sexual stuff was for similarly non-religious reasons.

And I'm still waiting to see a gay priest talk about Sodom and Gamorrah (sp).

Right, exactly, Siobhan. There is actually good reason for a lot of the restrictions on food. The question is, is the evident biblical edict against homosexuality really referring to gay people, or the practice of male-on-male temple sex, something that several of the ancient Hebrews' neighbouring religions practiced? More to the point, were the ancient Hebrews sophisticated enough to know the difference? They were clearly sophisticated enough to understand that some foods and practices were really probably not a good idea. (Though whether you believe that they were so informed directly by God, or by some sort of proto-scientific system of classification is another question altogether.)

In context, Leviticus should be taken as a set of rules for the priesthood -- how to conduct sacrifice and what's safe to eat and what's not, that sort of thing. Presumably, the rules apply to everyone, however, to excise a single passage from Leviticus and hold it up as an independent commandment from God is to ignore the context of the rest of the book.

To assume that the surrounding passages have nothing to do with the passage itself would be like if in Matthew, we saw "And Solomon begat Roboam; and don't have sex with boys and Roboam begat Abia..." -- it's completely incongruous and makes absolutely no sense as to why it would be there in the first place.

Examine the previous passage, Leviticus 18:21:
"And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord."

(Molech == Moloch, "The King"; referring to Baal)

In 2 Kings 21:6, ("And he made his son pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger." the phrase "pass through the fire" is used to describe Moses' grandson Manasseh doing just that -- either sacrificing his son to Baal, or putting him through a ritual to Baal.

(Fun fact -- Moses' grandson was probably also named 'Moses', but referred to in most texts as 'Manasseh', probably as a quick edit to clean up Moses' family name.)

So in the context of Leviticus 18:21, "seed" is used both to refer to semen, as well as children. So child sacrifice and ah, "fluid-related" temple activity (use your imagination) is definitely out. (Note the second half, "neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord." -- this is putting it firmly in the context of a religious ritual. It's not saying the act itself is necessarily bad, it's saying the act in the context of another faith is bad.

On to Leviticus 18:23! ("Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion." we see what seems to be a pretty clear condemnation of beastiality. (No Catherine the Great jokes, thanks!)

But again, put in historical context, what we today would call beastiality was something that was part of several of the Hebrews' neighbours' religions at the time. There's no question that beastiality is a pretty bad idea, but more out of common sense -- issues of consent and risk of injury, and so on. The fact that it was explicitly outlined in Leviticus as being against God's will speaks volumes about the practices of neighbouring faiths.

And these are just the two surrounding passages. Like I said, you can only take the book as a whole. It's easy to quote individual lines to back up a political agenda, (as you can see!) but if you're not willing to look at, and indeed, follow the entire work, quoting segments from it is meaningless.

Edit: fixed typo.

Hear! Hear!

Catherine,

We might - or many of us might, call it 'beastiality', but in actual fact it's bestiality.

words and more words -


God is love

Do we live our love?

Do we know God in human form?


"Let's see action..." Pete Townshend