I had no idea you have Gay/Bisexual relatives. That is a big eye opener....I think you should talk to them more. Ask them questions....if you really want to understand Gay and Bisexual people, then talk to your relatives, because no one can educate you any better than they can.
I think you are bit confused...being Gay does not mean "acting like a girl"....a lot of Gay Men act manly, and a lot of Lesbian Women act feminine....it's a stereotype that you see on TV....
Those shows and movies that have loud obnoxious girly gay men are stereotypical and do not show the truth. It's an unfair image that people judge the rest of us by. Trust me, JM, not all gay people are like that... we don't all want attention or for people to like us....we just want to be ourselves and not be insulted for it.
I am bisexual, but i don't act like a girl.....i may be annoying, and i even used to make gay jokes and references just to be annoying, but ive stopped, because that's not really me. Just because I like other men, does not make me less of a man. I have a penis, i have muscles, I have body hair just like every other man. I also have feelings just like every other man. I simply choose to be honest about it.
Only ask when you are ready....if you ask, it will show them that you care..if you learn to accept them for who they are and what they do, your relationship with them will be stronger. Trust me...
You know deep down in your heart they are not hurting anybody by being Gay....they are just different. That's all.
Originally posted by ADarksideJedi
Yes I know gays are not huring anyone it is just like I said it is unature inleast that is my thoughts on it.Not wanting to insult anyone but it is.How can it be nature to think of liking someone of the same sex?It just sounds wrong.jm
I'm going to ask a question. For once, I'm not trying to be insulting or antagonistic. But, you clearly have issues. If you would just tell us you're handicapped or mental, we'll be a lot more understanding of the reasons why you're always wrong and pointless.
Originally posted by Devil King
I'm going to ask a question. For once, I'm not trying to be insulting or antagonistic. But, you clearly have issues. If you would just tell us you're handicapped or mental, we'll be a lot more understanding of the reasons why you're always wrong and pointless.
Also, you'd be surprised at my defense of homos in a Facebook group. One guy said that we ought to rejoice because God killed gays with Hurricane Katrina.
*Rubs his temples.*
Originally posted by FeceMan
She stated this in another thread the other day. That's why she was (is?) homeschooled.Also, you'd be surprised at my defense of homos in a Facebook group. One guy said that we ought to rejoice because God killed gays with Hurricane Katrina.
*Rubs his temples.*
Yeah, but I'm looking for specifics.
So, anyway, I just posted this huge thing on Romans 1 and Leviticus 18. I'll post it here for discussion.
During the time in which Paul was writing, there was a resurgence of goddess religions. The priests of these religions engaged in cross-gender behaviors. The galli were priests of Cybele/Attis, whose behavior is described as follows:"During their annual festival, the Day of Blood, the galli would wander around in the streets in full cross-dress: amulets, flowing robes, make-up, depilated bodies and long hair dyed blond. They would dance around in a frenzy with tambourines and flutes, often with knives or swords, with which they would cut their arms, letting blood to help them tell fortunes for the people who would give them money. In both the Greek and Roman sources, gender-variant, frenzied and orgiastic festival behaviors are described, continuing at least up to the 4th century CE. Most of the Christian invectives focus on their gender-variant sexual behaviors, as encompassed in the pagan rituals."
Firmicus, an early Christian writer, said about the galli:
"In their very temples one may see scandalous performances, accompanied by the moaning of the throng: men letting themselves be handled as women, and flaunting with boastful ostentatiousness this ignominy of their impure and unchaste bodies. They parade their misdeeds in the public eye. ... Next, being thus divorced from masculinity, they get intoxicated with the music of flutes and invoke their goddess to fill them with an unholy spirit so that they can ostensibly predict the future to fools. What sort of monstrous and unnatural thing is all this? They say they are not men, and indeed they aren't; they want to pass as women."
In addition, the activities of the galli were *not* based on sexual preference. The following quote is from Epigrams (it's quite vulgar but gets the point across:
"What concern have you, eunuch Baeticus, with the feminine abyss? This tongue of yours should be licking male middles. Why was your cock cut off with a Samian shard if you were so fond of a ****, Baeticus? Your head should be castrated. You may be a eunuch loinwise, but you cheat Cybele's rites. With your mouth you're a man."
That is to say, this man who has castrated himself desires oral intercourse with a female even though he's expected to engage in sexual intercourse with other males.
What, then, is written about the priestesses (female galli, also known as melissea)?
"And these women are carried about over the temples, sacrificing and practicing divination day by day, spending their time with fortune-tellers, and begging priests, and disreputable old women; and they keep up old wives' whisperings over their cups, learning charms and incantations from soothsayers, to the ruin of the nuptial bonds. And some men they keep; by others they are kept; and others are promised them by the diviners. They know not that they are cheating themselves, and giving up themselves as a vessel of pleasure to those that wish to indulge in wantonness; and exchanging their purity for the foulest outrage, they think what is the most shameful ruin a great stroke of business. And there are many ministers to this meretricious licentiousness. ... But these women delight in intercourse with the effeminate. And crowds of abominable creatures flow in, of unbridled tongue, filthy in body, filthy in language; men enough for lewd offices, ministers of adultery, giggling and whispering."
But, how do we know that Romans 1 refers to the galli? Well, let us break the verse down.
1. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,"
They paraded about as fortune-tellers and diviners, but Christians thought they were foolish--not only in the morally wayward sense, but in the "lacking sanity" sense.
2. "And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things... Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen."
Animals were intimately tied to Cybele/Attis: lions and other big cats, deer, doves, roosters, ravens, and serpents and other reptiles. Birds? Check. Fourfooted beasts? Check? "Creeping things"? That'd be snakes and reptiles, so check.
"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet."
I'd say attempting to remove gender barriers by making men into women and women into men counts as pretty unnatural, and being a pagan whore just heaps a little more on.
But, wait, there's more: let's take a look at what happens in verses 29-30.
"Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents."
Well, let's see. If I'm not mistaken, there are plenty of homosexuals who aren't unrighteous fornicators who are wicked, covetous, malicious, envious, murderous, deceitful backbiters who hate God. And, I'm not really sure what "debaters" means, and I'm guessing that "whisperers" refers to soothsaying...are homosexuals fortune tellers? Well, some might be. Are all homosexuals proud (and not in the gay pride way, but the arrogant way)? No. Are they all boasters? No. Are they all "inventors of evil things"? Well, no. And are they all disobedient to their parents? Probably not any more so than heterosexuals.
Now that we've got that cleared up, let's move on to Leviticus.
First things first: I maintain that the writers of Leviticus were referring to the homosexual intercourse that took place in pagan rituals--kind of like the whole "passing through the fire for Molech" bit.
Secondly, as I have *already* pointed out in this thread, let us examine what, exactly, is an abomination unto the LORD.
Leviticus 11:10-23
“And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:
They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.
Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.
And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray,
And the vulture, and the kite after his kind;
Every raven after his kind;
And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind,
And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl,
And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle,
And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.
All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.
Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;
Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.
But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.”
Wow, I guess God sure doesn’t know how to make His animals very well, since so many are morally wrong and all.Deuteronomy 7:25-26
“The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therin: for it is an abomination to the LORD thy God.
Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.”
My “ritualistically unclean” sense is tingling.
Deuteronomy 17:1
“Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the LORD thy God any bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemish, or any evilfavouredness: for that is an abomination unto the LORD thy God.”
Darn. Animals with “blemishes” = morally wrong.
I’m sensing a pattern here. I’m not saying that “abomination” can’t mean morally wrong; I’m saying it doesn’t mean morally wrong *in all cases.*
And, as I’ve stated before, Leviticus gives a free pass to lesbians. They can have sex with each other all they want; only the men get into trouble. Hmm. Maybe because female homosexual intercourse wasn’t used in those rituals?
What were the replies I got?
Even if it all is just a pagan ritual, how is it showing that homosexuality among Christians can be pleasing to God, since good works only proceed from a true faith and give glory and praise to God? My emphasis is on pagan, as in devoted to other gods/goddesses. From what I see, those passages are saying, don't engage in those homosexual actions used in pagan rituals. So...if you do it randomly and not in a pagan ritual its all of a sudden alright?
This is where we will have to beg to differ. Romans 1 was not referring simply to the galli or whomever, it was referring to the gentiles throughout their history. In developing the theme of righteousness nfrom God (Rom. 1:17; 3:21-5:21), Paul sets the stage by showing that all have sinned and therefore need the righteousness that only God can provide. He shows the sin of the Gentiles (Rom. 1:18-32).You would get along with Rob Bell really well though if you could get past the save the world idea going on at that church, I think. Now you leave scripture to try to twist the truth into what you want it to be, so that you can feel better about yourself. You wanted Scriptural proof and I gave it, the problem is that you are too blind to accept the truth.
Jesus H. Christ.Oh, yeah. I just took that in vain. And I'll do it again.
There is absolutely no possible way that one can take the verses and, upon examining the cultural information that I posted, can apply it to anything BUT the galli, unless one is deliberately going to ignore factual information in order to appease doctrine. The verse describes what they did to a tee--that is a FACT. I have demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that it described the galli, not the Gentiles, but you have chosen to ignore that in favor of traditional interpretation.
But, hey, doctrine before truth, dogma before inquiry--right?
As for David:
"From what I see, those passages are saying, don't engage in those homosexual actions used in pagan rituals. So...if you do it randomly and not in a pagan ritual its all of a sudden alright?"
What if one is engaging in homosexual action out of love--the love normally shared between a man and a woman, but which, from time to time, is shared between a man and a man or a woman and a woman?
Yeah, oddly enough...
I tried looking up some of the names that Adam wrote...I consistently got the same two websites. One I posted and some guy's MySpace, like atheist815 or something. None of them had any information. Therefore, I conclude two things:
1. Either Adam copied the list, or
2. The vast expanse of the intarwebs lacks information on those religions.
Ockham's Razor says "copy-paste."