I have a few serious questions about religion:

[wholetruth00]

If, as Christians and most religious people say, "God created all life" did he not create gays also? If homosexuality was so terrible, why didn't it make to the top ten sins? Who, besides Paul, in accepted scripture labeld homsexuality as an abomination before God?

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. I have some resources about this that might interest you

http://www.hostdiva.com/liberalchristians/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=109&Itemid=31&limit=1&limitstart=3

[MelissaB]

2. Well, I always thought Paul was gay...his "thorn in the flesh".

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. That's Bishop Spong's belief

outlined in Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism.

[Kerrytravelers]

3. Ah, the ago old question.

A friend in college, who later became a Priest, posed the same question and decided that everything God made is beautiful- including gay people.

Yep, there are reasonable Christians out there.

[Kagemusha]

4. While your timing is odd...

(Is this really the time for a religion flamewar on GD?...)

Even so, I'll point out one thing for your benefit. Christians who argue about this issue tend to see gays as CHOOSING homosexuality. As in, God did not make them gays - they chose to be gays, against God's intended purpose, because they're sinful. God didn't choose it for them; they succumbed to temptation to do evil all on their own, and God is blameless.

Put shorter, there's a belief out there that all men were created equal - and straight.

[raysr]

5. All religion is insanity on it's face.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

17. Which face?

Whose face?

[spag68]

6. My comment is

I consider myself a religious man not a religion man. I think we should live our lives according to moral precepts, but religions distort those moral values for their own self interests.

[Donnachaidh]

7. thank you!

Your statement needs to be shouted from the rooftops!

[spag68]

9. I'm 64

ostensibly a Catholic, but have too much BS in my time. Thank you for supporting my concept, although i'm sure it's not original.

[The Deacon]

8. Please, Please

Don't associate ALL of us with the rightwing nutjobs who profess to being Christians...they would be more correctly called "Pharisee." Throughout the Gospels (where we hear Jesus speak, as opposed to others interpreting what they think He stood for) the overwhelming message is one of forgiveness, inclusion, and love. Protect the weak, cure the lame, feed the hungry - THIS is Christ's message to the world. And it is a message even those who don't believe can profit from.
Can anyone who calls themselves a Christian really believe that God, who sent His Only Begotten Son to die for us, would ever countenance condemning any of His People? "Judge not, lest you be Judged."

[JerseygirlCT]

10. I agree with you

God obviously created gays as well. There's a reason for them in God's creation, and we're wrong to say differently.

Leviticus has scads of rules, and a few also address homosexuality. But few people actually follow all of those rules, and you really can't seriously just pick and choose.

Paul's statements are also quite open to interpretation. Those who wish to satisfy their urge to discriminate read it one way -- some of us read it another.

[Danger Mouse]

30. Noone follows all of them.

Noone. Show me someone who follows EVERY rule in Leviticus and Deutoronomy, and I will show you a cat that speaks French backwards.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

11. I'll go one farther than that

as a Christian who believes in evolution, and believes it is way more miraculous than Adam and Eve just showing up one day...I think there must be an evolutionary reason for homosexuality. And therefore, it is neither good nor bad. It just is.

[Random_Australian]

12. Sure, but don't expect to find the reason in terms of more fitness to

survive directly from bieng gay or anything.

The way evolution works, these things are more likely to be something we get when we also get some other characteristic that really helps us as a species. :)

[TallahasseeGrannie]

13. No, it is way more nuanced than that

maybe something like back in the hunter-gatherer days we needed non-breeders to perform specific tasts.

Who knows? But if it IS, there has to be a reason for it. Otherwise it just doesn't make sense. And everything makes sense eventually.

[Random_Australian]

14. Even more nuanced than that.

I would guess something like stronger social bonds made for a better society, but this increased the rate at which (something else happened) that affected (something else) that meant when we got to a society like this it made the chances of bieng gay go to about 10% or whatever it is that we observe.

The reason for an explanation like this is that back in the primitive societies (and until VERY recently and still sometimes in the redder homes) gay people married and had kids with people of the opposite gender because there was little choice in the matter. :)

Thus the difference is too small to be likely to be something direct.

[Evoman]

15. But that doesn't really make sense.

Even if we did need non-breeders to perform specific tasks, how do those non-breeder, who aren't breeding, pass their non-breediness to the next generation? The only mechanism I can see for it is if having The Gay (tm) was the result of two recessive genes.

Besides, what specific tasks would there be in a hunter-gatherer society that would require a gay man or women?

[Finder]

16. Shamans were sometimes said to be...

hermaphrodites or non-breeders.

I personally think nature, including human nature, is bisexual.

As stated on another post, being gay does not mean one cannot breed...most have and do. I think the concept of love marriage most adhere to today is different than the days of arranged marriages where the goal was to create heirs and grow wealth.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. There were some cultures, including some Native American tribes, who

had an accepted role for male to female transgendered people. A man could choose to live as a woman and even marry another man.

This is played for laughs in the movie Little Big Man, but it's based on a real cultural pattern.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

18. Well, if we assume that some of the homosexual folks did

not breed... perhaps a society is stronger when not everyone is invested with children?

But then, is there really such a thing as a society (rather than a species) evolving? Or is that oversimplification?

[immoderate]

20. The tendency to socialize is evolved.

Basic traits like kindness, altruism, food-sharing, loyalty are instinctive in many species. They are related to love. Homosexual love appears in many species as well. Nor sure what it all means, but you could be on to something.

--IMM

[cyborg_jim]

22. Ancient Greeks

Athenian males liked to have homosex but also took wives for breeding and matters of heirdom.

People have very limited and narrow views of sexual systems despite being convinced they live in enlightened times.

[salvorhardin]

24. I think there is

But right now the study of sociology is approximately back where psychology was at the start of the 20th Century. And it's likely to progress as a discipline a lot slower than psychology did for the simple reason that we can't easily run experiments on societies. We don't even have the functional equivalent of lesion studies to help us reverse-engineer how societies work like we do with the brain.

But the idea that societies evolve is intuitively appealing and on a casual level seems to make sense. We have the same mix of complex interactions that we see with biological evolution, constant change (much of it fueled by technological innovation in the 19th, 20th and early 21st centuries) so why not? I do know that sociologists tend to not like to talk about sociological evolution because it's a topic that can very easily and quickly degrade into social darwinism ("my society is better than your society"). Of course, that's a classic erroneous assumption about biological evolution too, that evolution is arrayed on a continuum. There's just no such beast as "more evolved". Besides, sociologists are trying very hard to build a solid foundation for their discipline on the scientific method and at this point in time any talk of evolution of societies is just so much speculation not easily amenable to scientific study.

[hunter]

23. There's a really simple evolutionary explanation...

... and some research to back it up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3735668.stm

The same (whatever) that increases the likelyhood of homosexuality also increases female fertility. Women with more homosexual relatives tend to have more kids.

It could be something really simple, like a non-sex linked "extra" attraction to men or women, or it could be something more subtle.

Complex social explanations are not really neccessary.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

25. Then would it be a built in population control?

[Jamastiene]

21. Right wingers like to take obscure references in the Old Testament mostly

and harp on them like crazy. In the same area of the Old Testament where they mention homosexuality as an abomination, it also says something about eating shellfish being an abomination. They don't like to look at the big picture and take things in context. I would think that any God that is all knowing and all powerful and is a creator created gay people as well. God is supposed to be the creator and Lucifer is supposed to be the destroyer. I'm thinking Jesus came down to Earth to enlighten those people when they were harping on the wrong things and not concentrating on the basics. That's why homosexuality was not mentioned.

Maybe He (Jesus) came to say those other top 10 things are the real deal, not homosexuality. I know a preacher at MCC of Charlotte who says that it is a disputed notion that homosexuality is a sin at all. He sent me some literature about it. Maybe homosexuality is not really a sin. :shrug:

[Sola Scriptura]

26. Fallen World

God did not create homosexuality. It entered the world with lust, murder, etc. as a result of Adam's disobedience. After that man inherited a sinful nature as a result of the fall. As a result we can only be reconciled to holy God through the the rigtheousness of Jesus Christ given freely by grace through faith.

[Evoman]

27. I think heterosexuality entered the world with lust, murder, etc.

I mean, without lust, you can't really be sexually attracted to anybody...men and women alike. Seeing as how ol' adam and eve didn't know about sex before they ate the apple, sex itself is evil. So heteros are as guilty of devient behaviour as homos. I wonder if they had genitals?

Or maybe the bible and Christianity is complete and utter bullshit with absolutely no relevance to our world, and has nothing important to say about sexuality.

Hmmmmmm...

[TRYPHO]

28. God created EVERYTHING or...

As Fallen World believes:
1.God did not create homosexuality.
2.It entered the world with lust, murder, etc. as a result of Adam's disobedience.
3.After that man inherited a sinful nature as a result of the fall.
4.As a result we can only be reconciled to holy God through the the rigtheousness of Jesus Christ given freely by grace through faith.
--
1. OK. So you're denying Gods awesome power over the human mind, and therefore saying humans have free will - good.
2. OK. So, we have lust, murder and homosexuality as your ways of showing free will. So all acts of lust, murder and homosexuality become defining proof of Gods lack of control over the universe and His inability to control humans - more freewill - excellent.
3. OK. So, we're all sinful now, so we might as well ALL be lustful homosexual murderers as far as you're concerned :-)
4. OK. So, we can only make GOD happy by accepting >HIM< (as His own son), showing off our divinely given free will that GOD let us have as his gift in the first place. So, to restate what your are saying:

God gave us free will, doesn't like it, and wants us to say we're sorry for being given it (HIS mistake therefore, not ours) by accepting Jesus died for OUR MISTAKES?

To precis that:

God FUCKED UP and now we have to say we're sorry?

Nice try and welcome to DU :-)

:sarcasm:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

34. Missouri Synod or Wisconsin Synod?

:-)

You've got to be one or the other. I'd say Wisconsin.

[Danger Mouse]

29. Serious answer.

Well, in accepted scripture it tells us to stone our disobedient sons, or to kill a woman that has been raped if she didn't scream for help.
So yeah. I think faith is what you make of it...and the bible has some lovely parts, some beautiful passages, and some good advice on a variety of subjects...but you can't take it literally. You just can't. Noone lives their life according to a literal interpretation of the Bible. And if someone did, I'd stay far, far away from them...because the Old Testament has about 535 different handy reasons why he could kill me dead just as soon as look at me.
If you are Christian (as I am), you believe that God created all life.
Also, you are SUPPOSED to believe that God loves ALL his children. Including non-Christians. Including homosexuals.
Paul wrote a beautiful passage about love that is just about my favorite thing in the whole bible, but a lot of his other stuff I'm not as much of a fan of.
To make it a bottom line:
Jesus preached love and tolerance of ALL people. End of story. The 'God hates fags' crowd is NOT following the teachings of Jesus...and I often wonder if they've ever even bothered to read them. Le sigh.

[TRYPHO]

33. Forgive me, I'm in a pedantic mood...

Elrond Hubbard wrote:
Paul wrote a beautiful passage about love that is just about my favorite thing in the whole bible, but a lot of his other stuff I'm not as much of a fan of.
---
Technically you are supposed to say "The book which claims to be written by Paul" or "The book which Pauline Christians wrote", but it is fairly certain that none of the original disciples actually wrote ACTUALLY WROTE THEMSELVES any of the new testament.

As I say, I'm in a pedantic mood for some reason so please forgive me :grouphug:, I'll be back to normal tomorrow

TRYPHO

[Danger Mouse]

35. Well, yes. I know.

...but for the sake of simplicity, I said 'Paul wrote.'

[Lydia Leftcoast]

32. Why is this a big deal now?

I'll tell you. It's a tactic used by the fundies to rile up people who are upset and confused by the gay rights movement.

When I was growing up as a preacher's kid, my dad, who was not himself a fundie, was on all sorts of fundie mailing lists, simply on account of the "Reverend" in front of his name. As a voracious reader, I read a lot of fundie magazines as a kid, both magazines for children and magazines for adults, and there was little discussion of homosexuality, perhaps because it was considered too terrible to even talk about. Fundies in those days (the 1960s) were much more concerned with heterosexual sex outside of marriage, alcohol, drugs, dancing, and "dirty" movies.

But now we have a couple of decades of gays and lesbians being more open about their identities and as the years go by, finding more public acceptance. This is upsetting to people who grew up thinking that homosexuality was too terrible to talk about, and at the same time, many of these people are suffering economic losses and social dislocations that they don't fully understand.

Enter the fundies, first of all to provide the only sense of community in the typical suburban environment. Second, they tap in to the free-floating anxiety and insecurity that most non-wealthy Americans feel but think they're powerless against and redirect it to sexuality, an area of life that both appears to be controllable and touches a person's irrational core, especially if the person's upbringing was warped.

When I see someone who is rabidly anti-gay or rabidly anti-choice, I see fear in their eyes, even as they themselves are scary in their irrationality. For a lot of the anti-gay fanatics, I think it's fear of their own impulses.