Homosexuality and Religion

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Temptation does not require knowledge of right and wrong. Temptation preys on those that don't know right from wrong. Temptation comes from Satan. The Devil will tell you that those of the same sex are mopre desirable than those of the opposite sex. In the absence of knowledge that you accept telling you the contrary, you merely go along with that. It is almost mandatory for me as a Christian, to try to convince you that it is wrong. It's a harsher challenge that you face, and if you seek it out, there is help from Jesus Christ to overcome that temptation.

Attacking the source of my beliefs. That indicates to me that you'd prefer that I shut up...

In the entire history of the Church, only two such changes have been made. Both came as the result of Fasting, prayer and ultimatley revelation. The first was to forego the freedom of religion and ammend our doctrine to comply with the laws forbidding polygamy. The second was to extend the rights and duties of the Priesthood and the temple to all worthy men regardless of colour. I've heard people say something about the mark of Cain or the curs of Ham, but I don't know the full story, so I'll not comment further.

But such changes are indeed rare. The official statement from the First Presidency was to express sympathy and hope for those who are afflicted with that sore temptation, but they still do not legitimize those behaviours. When I am accused of hatred of gays and lesbians for simply stating and advocating my religious beliefs on the topic, it's harder to have a more level headed perspective.

I won't indulge in any such attacks because I don't know eniough about them to do so. I also believe that if you tried to share them you'd confuse the hell out of me...

I prefer a modified version of Gorgias's teachings...

Gorgias: Nothing exists.

Something has to exist, so let's continue...

Gorgias: If anything exists, it is unknowable.

While perfect knowledge of anything while yet finite and mortal is impossible, I believe that we can know parts of what's going on. TRhe whole is beyond the scope of any form of knowledge--including Science.

Gorgias: If anything is Knowable, it is incommunicable.

There's the rub. Sure I can tell you the things I know, but I can't back it up well enough for you to gain knowledge from them. They are not as inscrutable as I hold them to be in the abscence of my experiences scrutinizing them. Since you don't have those same expreiences, they hold little value to the reader...

Also, Having done a paper on Wittgenstein, I'd like to suggest that the word liar may not be acceptable. Liar implies deception with malicious intent. I do not seek to deceive.

But I suspect that they, as a minority, lack the force to get their way, and since this is a highly contentious issue, there is enough threat of a backlash from those that would be offended by this.

They make their sins my business, then I'll share my religious objections with them. In your words, tought sh*t - that's life.

To resepct or tolerate such changes would also violate these beliefs. While I won't violently object, I will speak against this change.

When I went throught that, I was blocked even more by pride. My own selfish desires were paramount, but the lack of perspective also generated a sense of anomy. In that time I didn't give two ****s about the dogma. But the absence of any notion of right and wrong being superior to another, or any notion of why I'm here, I sought alcohol and marijuanna to numb my own mind.

But reason and intellect did lead me to where I am, and points out inadequacies in other faiths. The logic I see is that if these changes are possible in my own life and the lifes of those I've heard stories of, it can work for all. I don't believe that any other answer I have heard can deliver near the joy I do feel now.

I understand that belief, and once bought into that, but I no longer believe that. I believe that mine WILL work for all of you if you will follow that path.

If you have Faith in Jesus Christ and His ability to change the human heart as he did for Saul of Tarsus (later known as the Apostle Paul), then having faith in Him and praying for His help to change. Have the faith to follow the example set in the New testament. Whoever loses their life in teh service of Christ shall find it. By losing yourself in teh service of God, you will find the freedom from the temptations that plague you.

Point taken. But that doesn't negate my original point in this. You've given an excellent worldy objection (and one I should have come up with but didn't). This gives more strength than simply a spiritual one.

Yes, the original Greek did make that clearer. I just presumed that it meant as God loves us...

Pondering your actions will give you a chance to think things through and act according to God's laws...

This is the option I would agree with. As you resist this temptation, you will develop spiritual strength, and this will bless your eventual husband.

Prideful rejection of the Commandments. Not my problem.

Our Holy books are explicit in this.

Your can't play Civ IV if you never put the disk in the drive. Do you demand a refund claiming that it's defective because it won't run without the disk in the drive? If you don't accept the program, it can't help you. It won't help you if you don't try to do as commanded...

I envy you. It would be easier to get along with people if I could understand the way they feel, but my own past is not so pleasant, and I have felt the blessings of repentance. It just seems frustrating when my own testimony is rejected because it's religious stuff...

If common law couples (heterosexual couples that live together but not legally married) gain some rights, then they should apply to same sex couples.

I suspect that you are joking, but you have hit on a valid point. A beautiful woman is a strong temptation to fornicate, but resisting the temptation to fornicate is what builds the character.

All pornography does is strengthen the desire to fornicate. It is a dangerous process that erodes your will to resist, thus eroding your character instead of building it.

I believe that would fall under the category of safe sex.

How about added risks of sexual relations by those not fully biologically mature? If two 12 year olds is actually more dangerous than two 16 year olds, and this was scientifically supported, then shouldn't it be taught?

 

Safe sex =/= no sex. Since for there to be safe sex there needs to be sex in the first place. Telling children to obstain from sex for moral reasons is immoral. There is nothing evil or wrong with having sex, it harms nobody - provided both (heck, even all three + ) are willing obviously.

However schools don't tell children "Okay, for homework I want you to partner up with somebody in class and f**k each other's brains out." they simply tell children the facts, no lies, no "If you don't use a condom you'll get some sexual disease and/or the girl will get pregnant" because that's not always the case. As far as I know, to lie is a sin no matter what - we established that earlier - so even if you're trying to lie to children to 'protect' them from running off and having unprotected sex it's still immoral because you're lieing to them. Tell kids the truth, what one can be sure of, not some hogswash that they shouldn't have sex because if they do they're being right evil little bastards.

 

Umm... then why would it worry you if gay marriages were legalised?

 

well as far as i can see, Gnarff and Nog are ignoring the fact that several rules from god has been changed over the time and that some rules that aint changed, just aint uphold by any christians anymore, but they both want to hold on to the silly condemtion of homosexuals, since they argue out from beliefs, not facts, it is impossible to change their fanatic minds
Whenever people trust believe more then facts, i tend to ponde on human folly.

 

Um, I think it would be a good idea to tell them that message, and the only thing I would add is the word "eventually". If you go around having unprotected sex, you won't ALWAYS get some disease or ALWAYS get someone pregnant, but eventually the odds say you will. Further since you never know for sure which sexual encounters will result in diseases and/or pregnancies, I think it is far safer to teach children to always use a condom, because to do otherwise is playing with fire. If you don't use a condom, chances are you will eventually get a disease or get someone pregnant - those are the facts - so I don't see why it's so terrible or immoral to teach students that.

 

Was it planned that a link to a pollingpoint.com Gay Marriage Survey link is one of the ads right now on my page

 

Sorry, Aldeth, I meant that in as a single-case basis. Having sex ONCE without a condom won't ALWAYS result in an STD or pregnancy. I do find it immoral that teachers tell children that if they don't use a condom they 'WILL' get a disease.

Even two 16 year olds can have as much condom-free sex as they want provided another form of contraceptives is being used. They won't get a disease provided they only have sex with each other.

 

I must have a super robust character by now then. I've spent large portions of my adult life resisting the temptation to fornicate with beautiful women. Does it count if they are unattainable and/or don't want to fornicate with me? If so, then the strength of my character knows no bounds!

 

@DR:
It will work for everyone that dedicates themselves to God. Living according to God's plan for you is the only way to eternal joy, and it is the best and safest way to lasting happiness in this life. That is our claim. Notice the condition, the 'dedicates themselves to God' part. If you aren't willing to dedicate yourself 100% to God, then we aren't promising anything, and those homosexuals that will never change obviously won't dedicate themselves 100% to God. I include, understand, and even, for some of them, respect their viewpoint, I just don't agree with it.

Note: I don't respect the viewpoint of all gays, because some are genuinely forceful about it. Some genuinely want everyone who doesn't agree with them to change their minds and agree with them. Some want to force change onto society. I have trouble respecting those viewpoints, but that doesn't mean I hate the people, just wanted to make that clear.

@Harbourboy:
God doesn't tempt us, but He does allow Satan to tempt us. He also makes sure each temptation is something we can handle, if we choose to. There is always a way to escape or beat it, and it doesn't even take a clever mind or a lot of looking, you just have to decide you aren't giving in.

@Rotku:
Interesting that you assume it is the older generation that has been brainwashed and not this one. I'll give you a little tip, people thought for themselves a lot more fifty years ago than they do now. People critically considered what was going on in their world and political candidates actually had to talk about issues to een be considered for office. Nowadays most political elections are popularity contests. It even seems like the candidates are intentionally trying to confuse the issues and hide their stances, maybe because they aren't popular, probably because they don't want to be locked into a position should it fail to get the support they were hoping it would. 'Man of the Year' is looking more and more like a real possibility, that's the movie where a talk-show host gets elected President for those not familiar with it.

On polygamy, good point on the marches and such. And just as long as you're consistent with your stance, I can find some respect for your position.

@Abomination:
Considering ages here, not being celebate until senior year (for most) would mean breaking the law. On top of that, early pregnancies (i.e. beginning of puberty to 15-17 depending on the woman) can be very dangerous for both the child and the mother.

@ChickenisGood:
God isn't perfect? I'm sorry, but I wouldn't worship and dedicate my life to something that wasn't. As for your rock example, there are 2 possibilities.
1.) God is limited by logic, so no, He, being otherwise allpowerful, couldn't make a rock so big He couldn't lift it, that's an oxymoron and thus illogical.
2.) God isn't limited by logic and, as such, could make such a rock, and proceed to lift it. It's big enough that God can't lift it, but God can lift it. Doesn't make logical sense, but that was part of the above condition.

@Abomination:

Wow, what school did you go to? By the time I had gotten to 'sex ed.' they had already changed it to 'family life' and taken all reference to sex out of it. Biology was more of a sex ed. course than that, and it was molecular biology.

And who says it's hogwash? What if I claim you're just spewing a bunch of liberal brainwashing when you say it's ok to have sex at those ages? What if I say you're commiting lies of ommission when you minimize the risks to children who already have trouble processing things like that. There's a reason there are age of consent laws, the human brain simply doesn't think very critically at those ages. It's rare that a child can critically consider the potential consequences and what may happen to their lives at ages like 15 and 16 years old. By the way, I'll never lie to my kids. I may simplify things for them when they're young, like 'It's a sin.' which it is, but I won't lie to them.

Equester:
We've adressed the laws that were changed and ignored. First off, they were national laws, not moral commandments. It was never a sin to eat pork, it just wasn't healty, that's why God didn't demand sacrifices for it. Second of all, there were reasons for them to be in place and reasons they were changed. If you can give me one rational reason we should change the law, something that is different now than it was then, something that has significant impact on the topic, like a reason why it was banned, in no uncertain terms, multiple times, and one that no longer applies, THEN I'll start to re-think it.

And when you start trusting whole-heartedly in admittedly incomplete and frequently assumed or absent 'facts', I worry about human folly as well. Let's face it, your scientific evidence doesn't lead to any more compelling arguement to embrace homosexuality than 'God said it' does to an atheist.

Aldeth:
Even with a condom, and especially in the hands of excited teens, there's no guarantee it'll prevent the spread of disease or sperm.

Abomination:

Only if you've found a 100% reliable contraceptive. Otherwise any chance of pregnancy in an infinite set (as much as they want will be infinite) means 100% chance that it will occur somewhere.

@HB:
Sorry, it only works if you resist the temptation in your mind. Oogling them or day-dreaming about them blows it.

 

That's always been politics, as far as I'm aware. But even if it isn't getting worse, it's certainly not getting any better, so I'll give you that point.

How Americans have managed to make the term liberal an insult will never cease to amazes me. But I drift off topic...

 

Abomination: In regards to the celebacy until High School, It's not a moral arguement, but the fact that sex that young can be unsafe even with a condom or whatever. That however is in another thread.

Because it would be telling them that their prideful rejection of God's plan is okay.

But the commandments regarding Sexual purity have not, nor will they ever change.

 

It Stands black on white its a sin to eat the following animals, which includes the pig. if your going to try to sneak by such clear rules, by saying its not really a sin, it just wasn't healthfull, which it by the way was. then i can not see the point in argumenting with you, as you clearly choose to ignore does rules that your god as set up, that you know you cant really follow today, while you at the same time choose to strictly enforce the more easier ones.

The Bible says, and it has allready been proved by several direct qoutes in this or other ongoing threads, that:

Slavery is okay, allthough you have to let your slave go after 7 years if he is hebrew.

Women er under man, its the man who makes the final desition in all cases

Certain animals includding schrimps, mollusc and pigs are sinfull to eat.

and so forth, hell i could dig out the places where it says its sinfull to wear cloth made of different kind of lined, but i wont, for as far as i can see you choose to say that all these rules, dosn't really apply or arent really rules.
yet you keep on saying that an age old discrimination versus homosexuals is. Im sorry to say it, but all your church stands for these days is Hyprocrasy, you dont have the guts to either renounce all the silly old rules or follow them all.

100 years ago The Church spoke harshly against women getting equel rights, today its the more safe homosexuality they speak against.
The only place the churhc opholds its discremination versus women is in the priesthood, where a woman cant get as high an office as a man, which the church has no explanation for.

and gnarff your still ignorign does rules that havent changed. and i wonder how your god at some point can say something is sinfull then change is mind, that seems more human then divine

 

@Rotku:
Liberal is an insult in America because of modern American liberals. I am fully prepared to believe that liberals in New Zealand are different, but the ones here seem to believe they have the right to claim anything they want to forward their causes (they out-and-out lie quite frequently) and no one else has the right to say anything. It's really their fault, not yours.

@Equester:
Saying 'you should not eat this because it is unclean and anyone that does will be unclean for X days' is not saying it is a sin. And eating uncooked pork is not healthful, nor is drinking blood of these animals, nor eating spoiled shellfish. If you're going to totally ignore everything I've said so far on a topic, then ignore the topic as a whole, don't make up your own stuff about it.

-True, but only by their definition of slavery
-False, this is not applied to all cases or situations, only specific ones
-False all together. Unclean does not equate sinful, get that out of your head.

Umm, here I think you're talking about God telling the priests what they should wear. Since I'm not a priest, and I'm not going into the Holy of Holies, I don't really think that applies to me.

Seems to me you're mainly talking about Catholics here, which I won't even get into. They've got some weird beliefs, but those are people that came up with them, just like the religious authorities in Jesus's time that had screwed up all of God's laws.

 

Oh, OK then. Yes, it's true that if they were both disease free when they started having sex, and had no other sexual partners other than each other, they won't catch an STD. I further agree that there are methods of birth control out there that reduce the risk of pregnancy to under 1%, so they probably won't get pregnant either if they are smart about it.

Where do you live? In the United States many individual states have laws against adults having sex with minors, but I'm not aware of any state that has a law preventing sex between people of the same age. A 20-year old man can't bang a 14-year old girl, but that 14-year old girl can have sex with her 14-year old boyfriend as much as she wants. It's ridiculous to think that all sex ivolving minors could possibly be illegal. If they are the same age, who would you prosecute?

True, but I have yet to meet anyone who was had sex an infinite number of times - not even in the Pharonic harems of ancient Egypt.

[ October 11, 2006, 18:43: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

Bah. I see my post got approved of by the wrong side. Something I very much resent.

In a way my point was to tolerate the religious crowd, as much as an "advice" to ignore them. Nothing else can be done about them. No one will ever break through with sound arguments, be it homosexuality or whatever.
Making such a fuzz about something recognized as absurd, outdated, unethical, ripe with contradictions and misinterpretations is giving it a stage it simply does not deserve. Although I imagine that to ignore and, even more, tolerate those people is easy here on our rock, and far more difficult in the US/North America, I guess, where extremists polarize and force conflict.

A reason, I would think, why life in old Europe is a bid more relaxed. For the time being at least fanatics of that sort are being marginalized. I wouldnt welcome a developement where I was to share the neighborhood with people as Nog and Gnarf in larger quantities. Scary.

The best way. Some Christians certainly sport a supremacist streak. Blech.

 

Both, actually. But the parents can decline in this case, I believe.

 

@Aldeth:
Actually, it is illegal. The children are both prossecuted, and the parents may be as well if they blatently allowed it, but the kids are treated as minors which mitigates things a lot. Usually they get community service hours or probation or the like. Also, the parents can give permission, but it has to be beforehand and I think there's a process to make it legally official. Because of these things and the morally declining society in America today, they rarely get prosecuted.

@Dendri:

I'm sorry to see such blatant bias from anyone on this board, though not surprised. We've been talking about this a lot in here and all your assumptions about the Bible or religion in general have been fairly handily defeated. On top of that, I have yet to hear a truely sound arguement on the topic from anyone. They always seem to ammount to 'Everyone knows the Bible is out of date/irrelevant, so we shouldn't follow it.' or making massive and blatant assumptions themselves.

Meaning? Are you bothered by our claim that we're right? In that case, you had better be prepared to be bothered by just about everyone you ever meet of any belief system, even atheism. It's pretty intollerant to object to someone believing they are right when you have no valid arguement against them.

 

AND

Then the law must be very different state to state. In my home state of Maryland, anyone of 14 years of age or older may consent to sex with anyone else who is within 4 years of their age (who is also at least 14 of course). So a 14 year old can legally have sex with someone who is 18, but not 19.

 

NOg i think you should reread the bible, cause in the laws unclean dosn't mean that the meat aint cleansed, it says the animal in it self is considered unclean and its a sin to eat it

1And the LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying unto them,

2Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.

3Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.

4Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

5And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

6And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

7And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.


GOd quite clearly says that the pig is not an animal you should eat, he even stats that even though it has the cleaved hoof it is not tobe eaten, for it is unclean to you. if you NOG can interpetate it any other way, then something is wron with one of us english skill

infact Nog you have clearly chosen to ignore all bible qoutes that dosn't fit your believe, sorry mate but you cant pick and chose what part of the bible you want to follow, its an all or nothing pack. else you arguments versus homosexuality cant apply

[ October 11, 2006, 23:21: Message edited by: Equester ]

 

This is just the same page of arguments over and over again. One side is saying that homosexuality is immoral because the Bible says so, and the other side is saying that the Bible's outdated/misinterpreted/wrong. The opposition disagrees. Ad infinitum.

I've been wondering, though: how do you actually know God is the Great Almighty? You've only got his word for it.