Being gay and god

Hey Cade,

Those are pretty involved questions.

Why don't you check out this thread and this one to start getting some answers that you are seeking.

 

Basically, if God is worth believing in you will not burn in hell for being gay. If God would sentence you to eternal punishment for being in love he isn't worth believing in.

 

I've never understood it either. Personally, I think religion is a great thing but it is also a horrible thing. Religion can be used for good, to bring people together with a common belief. On the other hand, religion can discriminate people for no reason.
If you still want to attend church, do some online research for gay-accepting churches.

How I look at the whole Christians versus Gays argument: Christians believe that God makes everyone in his image. Christians believe that God just wants you to believe in God and then you will get to heaven. You need to spread the word of God to others in your life. So, if God makes everyone in his image, is God gay? Is God a woman? Is God lying? Is God great?

 

The Bible doesn't exactly condemn homosexuality, just homosexual activities. We are pretty much expected to remain celibate for the rest of our lives.

However, there are worse things than being gay in the Bible, i.e: adultery, murder, theft, etc. that don't seem to get as much attention from the religious communities because some of these issues would be hypocritical coming from some people who claim to be super religious.

If you are a good, and penitent, person then God won't have anything against you. He made us in his own image, so as GayIsTheWay mentioned, how do you know God isn't gay himself?

 

It depends if you take the bible literally, or interpret the bible. The bible was written many many years after Jesus lived so you could say there are some or many inaccuracies (or that it's all rubbish) and that what was written were stories passed from ear to ear and opinions of people, not God. Also, think about that the things in the bible that Christians ignore, women speak in church, we eat shell fish, we shave the hair at the side of our head. The majority of Christians, at least who I've met and debated with, don't seem to have a problem with homosexuality so I'm sure God (if they're real) won't have a problem with homosexuals because they love everyone and they are fine with much worse things

 

I never understood why people needed Religion in order to do some thing good or come together.

 

A book I read recently could help with some of understanding religion in general. Some of it could apply here, though. It's called Love Wins for Teens. I can't think of the author's name at the moment, but it MIGHT be able to help a bit. Specifically when he talks about how the bible was meant to be read.

 

I think it's over when you die. I don't see there being an afterlife.

 

It's because of issues like this that I have become disillusioned with Christianity as is. It makes no sense for anything about the LGBTQ community to be sinful because we can't control who we are as people.

 

If you believe in the bible the following is true. God died on the cross to forgive the sins of mankind. The bible also states that no sin is greater then another. So even if being gay is a sin its no worse then when you ate a extra cookie after your mother told you not to when you were 5. Thou i've come to the conclusion that most churchs wont accept homosexuality, just my 2 cents

 

I think the churches that accept LGBT people are the ones that have it right, at least on that issue. Nothing in the Bible refers to gay people and relationships as we're discussing today. It refers to instances of power/rape, lust and idol worship rituals. I see sin as something that hurts others in some way such as theft, rape, adultery, assault, murder, etc. Being gay and loving another human doesn't hurt anyone and brings more good into the world. The way some churches and people treat LGBT people leads to depression, self harm, hate, assault, murder and suicide so that is obviously not the right way. They also use lies, distorted facts and bear false witness to work against us. If you have to do those things to support your mission it must be wrong. We can see what is good by the results produced. Welcoming and supporting LGBT people results in more love and peace.

 

As a Catholic bisexual, I worry about this sort of thing all the time. I'm glad to have found very insightful opinions in this thread. It makes me a little less worried about my fate after death.

 

I used to believe all that. I felt pretty brainwashed into shame by religion and, as a result, I didn't come out or accept my sexuality until I was 23. What helped was realizing that those passages in the Bible are essentially metaphorical and can't be taken out of context or interpreted literally. After I came out, however, I basically just let go of religion altogether because I came to the realization that religion did unfathomable damage to my well being and that it was basically a way for humans to control other humans. What better way to subdue the masses than to threaten them with a hell that can never be proven nor disproven, right? Now, I'd say that I'm beginning to rediscover spirituality outside of religion, and it's actually a beautiful thing.

Whatever you feel about religion is OK. Just remember that it's ok to be gay, and have gay relationships no matter what anyone else says.

 

I'm a lapsed catholic and my religion believes it's okay to be gay as long as you don't act on it. So basically be alone all your life. I stopped going to church years ago because I decided Catholicism is an outdated idea of gender roles also highly homophobic and thinks men are better than women.my mother still goes regularly but she's not homophobic. I don't believe in hell.

 

Religion is literally pointless. It doesn't matter. There are "Christian" pastors that are rapists, and no religious people in radical Islamic countries that sleep on the streets too pay for poor children's food. It's the people and their morals that ultimately make a decision and religion just gets in the way of making real, logic and moral correct decisions. Religious rules shouldn't matter because the only thing that is truly important is whether or not you, on your own, believe you are making the best decision you can.

 

From my point of view, as a bisexual Christian:

God wants us to obey His 10 commandments. In none of those does the topic of homosexuality come up. For those not familiar with it, a quick Google search should give you what you're looking for. I don't want to post it here and possibly upset other readers. I'm by no means perfect. I have sinned a lot of times in my life. I was told as a child by a teacher who taught Biblical stuff that all we need to get into Heaven is to believe in God and all He has done for us. It seems simple enough so

 

There are fewer than a dozen passages in the entire Bible that make any kind of reference to same sex activities or relationships and even then it is necessary to examine them carefully, in the historical context in which they were written. It's not sufficient to quote these ancient passages and put a literal spin on them to undergird our own prejudices (which is precisely what some churches, priests and pastors do).

Even if we accept all of that, we also need to understand that the Bible (as we know it today) is the result of copies, of copies of copies, written by hand and translated by persons unknown over thousands of years. It was only the advent of mechanical printing that brought any degree of uniformity to what we now read and accept (?) as the true and authoritative word of God. But is it really?

When we place too great an emphasis on the precise meaning of any passage, or use the Bible as the final arbiter of God's attitude towards gay people, we enter a no man's land where there are no winners. For as much as I respect the Bible, I'm not ignorant to it's many flaws and contradictions and nor should any of us be. We really cannot use the briefest of references in Genesis, Leviticus and Romans to assert that God "hates" gays, especially when there are multiple passages throughout the entire Bible that specifically warn against pious and hostile judgement, many of which are attributed to Jesus himself.

Don't tie yourself up in knots about this. Nobody knows the mind of God on any issue.

 

Hi again Cade,

I've found this on the internet some time ago and I've stumbled on it again recently. I'm not sure if you've seen it or not, but it's an interesting read in response to your questions:
http://godmademegay.blogspot.co.uk/p/letter-to-louise.html

Hope this helps, take care.

 

this may help also. Not a catholic article, but close. https://mormonandgay.lds.org/articles/frequently-asked-questions