I'm terrified of going to hell

For example I had a roommate in college who was extremely homophobic and christian. He would play the good christian card to his family and church but at college he took advantage of a vulnerable adult a girl and technically raped her because she was vulnerable. He thought it was ok to take advantage of girls and touch them and do anything with them but condemned homosexuals to hell. He would make any girl look bad to his family and that the blame is all on her. He was also the most cocky insecure person I ever meet. The opposite of what a christian should be. This guy drove me insane to the point where I felt suicidal. Just saying.

 

I hear the "God doesn't give us more than we can handle" a lot. That's easy to say, if you're still around to recite that. But what about those who couldn't handle it, and they took their own lives? How do you explain children born with crippling diseases, and whom die moments to a few days after being birthed? Why should a parent have to go through with that? It's such a horrific tease!

While I understand suffering can bring appreciation, there is a point where it goes from a lesson to just flat out cruel. Wouldn't a loving God be more, well, loving?

God is either a sadist, or he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. How can you see everything, and know everything, yet allow Satan's creation? Better yet, why not correct that mistake and get rid of him? I've heard people say, "Well, like all of God's creations, he loves Satan, and wants to give him a chance to repent."

Okay, I could accept that if, again, God wasn't portrayed as omniscient. But since he is, this makes no sense. Now, if he wasn't a flawless God, this could make sense, but then a problem arises. This possibility is dependent on a chance of Satan actually repenting, which would make the justification acceptable, and dare I say it, a more compelling narrative, but...

... if Satan was shown as being capable of repenting, he isn't the epitome of evil that the faiths perceive him to be, need him to be. But more importantly, this would negate the Bible's later prophecies, which would make the Bible flawed, which-- do you see where I'm going with this? Satan won't repent, God knows this, the Bible states it, and most God-following religions accept this, which is why it would be better to just smite him.

If I had a child that went out and punched your child, wouldn't you want me to do something about it? Or would you be fine with thinking, "Gee, Kaiser's kid is really giving my kid a black eye, but that's okay, because Kaiser knows what they're doing."?

No. I obviously wouldn't know what I was doing, because if I did, I'd discipline my kid and not let them run around, causing problems for others.

You'd think feeding the hungry, getting rid of these bigoted assholes, and allowing folks to live happily, would be a top priority, but no. I shall let the descendents of Adam and Eve suffer, all because they were tricked into doing something I told them not to. Okay, I could buy this, but then we run into a problem:

God put that tree there. What purpose did it serve? Why did it have to be there? How can you, again, see and know everything, and not know your own creation, Satan, would cause some trouble? You only made it easier, by putting that temptation there, for Satan to use. It isn't difficult to tempt somebody, if you put a temptation in front of them. To be honest, I believe by the tree being there, it actually benefited Satan. It seems like a dick move to do that, similar to me putting a 12-pack of beer in front of a recovering alcoholic and telling them, don't drink this.

God seems to relish in the fact, with Satan around, he has somebody to blame things on -- but we run into another problem. Satan isn't on par with God, according to the Bible and some other texts, so it isn't like he cannot do this, which is why he should use his awesome power to, once more I stress, smite Satan. God obviously isn't against the idea of throwing Satan into a Lake of Fire, but only after letting him run wild for a while, for whatever reason, so why does h--- I've said enough.

I'm not so sure whether Hell is where the sinful go, or if this very planet we inhabit now, is Hell and we just don't know it.

Point is. There are enough fallacies and issues with the Bible, and this is only the tip of the iceberg, for why I say, pursue your faith how you see fit, and not in such a literal sense. Personally, I do like the positive aspects of the Bible, but if you're going to embrace them, and incorporate them into your endeavors, you need to take the bad and the questionable too. To only focus on the good, is not too far off from the bigots who cherry pick their ignorant-backing verses, who focus on the assertive.

Just something to think about...

 

I hate these threads devolving into theology, but since someone went there...

This is a verse taken out of context by the health and wealth charlatans just as many take the verses on homosexuality out of context. What God said is that he would never leave you without grace and strength during difficult circumstances. His ways are greater than our ways.

As far as the Satan aspect, you cannot know what light is without darkness. People would have no reason for following God if they could say a little prayer and live a life free of problems or a dark force and on their own terms. God presents these tough challenges to us in order for us to run to Him and cry out.

I think the Bible shows quite clearly what happens when people live without the presence of God. People were doing some very sinful things(not talking about homosexuality) in the early Old Testament, and God had to wipe them out. Noah warned them, yet the society continued to mock God. As a result, they were wiped from the earth.

If people cannot acknowledge God and have many things they take for granted that are given by God, how can He honor them?

 

I agree, Biguy. The reality is that God is holy, and that word is somewhat taboo in our anything goes society right now. Holiness demands a stance against what is considered unholy. If such a stance were not involved, a holy God would be compromised and cease to be holy. God takes Sin very seriously, and He does punish it because He is absolutely worthy to do so. There is a point where His gracious patience becomes exhausted, and He is spurred into action. We do not serve a weak God who continually allows himself to be steamrolled by Sin and allow the Grace He died an excruciating death on the cross to offer us be taken advantage of. There is Grace in abundance for those who ask for it, but there is also righteous judgment on unrepentant Sin as well.

 

I agree God is a very strong loving god and no matter what we believe we all try our best to serve him and love him. We may not agree on everything but what we can agree on is we all have a strong faith in him. So we should unite together celibate or not and show people that they are worthy of God's love especially since there is a lot of hurt and pain in our community when it comes to religion and churches.

 

Amen, brother. I agree completely. When Christians allow themselves to be divided, it is Satan who is greatly satisfied. We need to stand together more in Christ, despite whatever minor doctrinal differences could get in the way.

 

Everybody sins though, but the difference(from my faith p.o.v.) is that those who have a personal relationship with Christ will enter eternity with Him. That doesn't mean that we sin so that grace increases.

On the other hand, there are differences in theology that every Christian has. I once met a great old Baptist preacher(don't laugh) that said Scripture allows for certain leeway on different issues among believers. I personally believe one of those issues is same sex attraction due to the context in which all of the "clobber" passages were written. Others may disagree, but that is how I feel. If Christ is the center of our faith and he healed a eunuch without mention of his likely homosexual relationship with his master, then I don't feel the need to beat myself up over it.

 

You won't go to hell for being yourself. Have you thought about going to a Metropolitan Community Church. They ARE accepting, and Jesus is their Lord & Saviour.

Try this link: Metropolitan Community Churches - The Inclusive Church - All are welcome

 

Sorry to come in when the thread is hopefully winding down to a close, but I've got a question for any Christians who believe that it is wrong to practise homosexuality, and this is good an audience as any to ask it. This isn't meant as any sort of trap, or to expose an inconsistency in Christianity. The question may come across as facetious, but I don't mean it to be. I just want to know what you think.

I am occasionally struck by how lucky gay men are that sex between men seems to work so well. If you consider the following:

• Men's bodies have an opening at more or less the most convenient place that they could have for sex, given that the space occupied by the penis is already taken.

• That opening is wide enough to accommodate, in most cases, a penis.

• It leads to a cavity that is deep enough to accommodate a penis.

• That cavity is empty most of the time.

• There are a lot of erotic nerve endings around the anus.

• The prostate gland feels great when it is massaged.

• The prostate gland can be massaged through the wall of the rectum by anal sex.

Essentially, the only thing missing is that the anus does not (unlike the vagina) produce its own lubricant. However humans have had access to such products as vegetable oil to get over that problem for thousands of years.

Now, it didn't necessarily have to be the case that any of the above would be true. To take one example, the female homologue to the prostate gland, called Skene's gland , does not react in the same way to being massaged (although sometimes it is near or part of the G-spot), and also it is on the far side of the vagina from the rectum, so couldn't be stimulated by anal sex even if it did feel good.

I've seen some articles by Christians online saying "obviously God did not intend people to be homosexual, because men's bodies are not anatomically complimentary to each other". Faced with the above list of coincidences, I'm not sure that that's really valid. I'll grant that anal sex between men serves no functional role beyond (a) feeling good and (b) helping to form stronger emotional and loving ties between partners, but the same could be said for the clitoris, which serves no functional role beyond those two purposes either.

(And as a sidenote I don't know to what extent a gay man's body can be called complimentary to a woman's. If a man's brain does not give him the capacity to be aroused by women, I'm not sure that he can be said to be anatomically complimentary to them.)

So my question for Christians who think that homosexuality is wrong is this: Given all of the above, does it seem to you to be the case that men's bodies were particularly designed by God to have the facility to have sex with other men? And, if you think that that's the case, how would you interpret that? Is it similar to the move he made when he put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil right in the middle of the garden, rather than miles away and on a mountain?

Thanks.

Actually, I might have had to take a lot of that back if humans had been like cats. I actually spend more time than I probably should worrying about the tribulations of gay, male housecats. I don't know if they are actually capable of penetrative anal sex, but if they are, cats have barbed penises, like fishhooks. The thought of anal sex with a barbed, unlubricated penis doesn't bear thinking about.

 

I am on the Pro side of Gay-Christians, but to somewhat play devil's advocate: your question could be indirectly translated to "God created the materials and gave us the knowledge to create guns, therefore it's okay to use them for murder." I don't think anyone would argue that God would accept murder because of that (aside from defense, military, etc. which I don't want to get into). Because something is convenient, pleasurable, etc., doesn't mean God is giving permission to ignore what he said. (I just don't think he ever said homosexuality in the context of a loving relationship is a sin).

 

Maybe I can clarify CuriousLiason's question as "what exactly is the definition of a homosexual practice that is explicitly forbidden in the bible?"

The reason why I'm asking this is because what was seen as homosexual sex back in those days would definitely be seen as either rape or sexual abuse in our modern society.

 

Didn't people themselves figure out how to make guns? And the prostate is a part of a man's body that they didn't choose while murder isn't something that's essentially a part of us and it's also a choice. If you weren't supposed to stimulate your prostate why would it feel good to do so? I know barely anything about the prostate but I've seen people discuss this topic before saying that just because the prostate has sensitive nerves doesn't mean that it's supposed to be used for sex.

 

Fair point. I don't want to get in an argument over this, I just wanted to hear viewpoints. However, I would say that there is a difference because it seems difficult to imagine how Creation could be altered so as not to allow guns without also changing a lot of chemistry, and that leaves all manner of other ways of committing the same sin.

Here it almost seems like he was setting out to give people a way of sinning, for example with the nerve endings, and there doesn't seem to be an obvious non-sinful purpose for that, except in that it gives gay men something to abstain from. That is assuming that you think gay sex is a sin. I don't know if there are many other examples of that sort of thing.

 

God created this world, and people have always excelled at finding new ways to use that Creation in sinful ways. Just because people have the capability to sin and just because it feels good does not necessarily mean that it is God's will. Morality isn't just an anatomical or physical concept. It is also and perhaps most primarily a spiritual one.

 

I agree with the last 3 posts. The point is, there is nothing you can point to and say "look right here, God said this is bad" nor "...God said this was okay". That is almost never the case. It's a living book that requires regular communication with God to understand. I don't think it's fair for critics to say "I read the book, it said silly, contradictory stuff, so I don't believe" as much as it is for Christians to say "all of you who practice gay sex are going to hell, because, see, it says so right here."

 

This is great that you are happy! That's all that matters!! To me, it sounds like you are a 1 or 2 on the Kinsey Scale (0 being Exclusively Heterosexual).

But, do the LGBT community a favor, and don't start preaching to people that "homosexuality is a curable disease because I occasionally have some same-sex attractions". Or, "all you have to do is fight it and you can love the opposite-sex!". I'm not trying to insult you, but wanted to point out that people *DO* say things like that when they can squelch their own same-sex attractions. All it does is fuel the hate-monster of society.

 

google reasons of why it isn't a sin. this helped me. you cannot deny it and it is bad for your mental health to do so

 

being an atheist is so much simpler. Nothing wrong if you belong to a religion, I'm just saying.