And here I have to wonder why people are so godawfully obsessed and upset over what other people do with their winkies and swatches.

Why is it anybody's business who does what to whose hole with their pleasure twig?

You can argue "God's against it" you can argue "It destroys the integrity of the family!" and all you are doing is arguing a justification for your position of being an invasive, persnickity hoe-bag who cannot SETTLE unless everyone believes butt-secks is da debble.

Originally posted by TheColdDragon
[quoteAnd here I have to wonder why people are so godawfully obsessed and upset over what other people do with their winkies and swatches.

whos upset?

Why is it anybody's business who does what to whose hole with their pleasure twig?

its not anyone business.

You can argue "God's against it" you can argue "It destroys the integrity of the family!" and all you are doing is arguing a justification for your position of being an invasive, persnickity hoe-bag who cannot SETTLE unless everyone believes butt-secks is da debble.

what is your view, why are you breaking down everyones view into this. whats your point?

hate the stain, not the garment. Respect to all ways always.

panda319
Say, you like what morality the Bible has to offer, but the metaphysical claims are quite unprovable and somewhat ignorant. Then I would hold a bit more respect for you. I am not saying that I do not respect you, I am just not a fan of fence-sitters.

I get what you're saying, but I say semi-Christian because it's a pain to explain exactly where I agree and don't. Not that my view is so unique but it's easier to say I believe in some and some I don't think needs to be believed in. If that makes sense.

Demandred
lastly i feel if 2 people of the same sex generally do love each other in that way thats fine, what they do in their own homes is their business, but trying to force acceptance of such behaviour on the rest of the community is wrong and in time its going to be something they will have to accept.

They aren't trying to force your (the 'your' i refer to is a generalization) acceptance, they're trying to gain acknowledgment. You need only to accept that others can do as they please, and that we shouldn't deny someone the right to do something because we don't agree with it.

Blueracer
The title is misleading. Christians do not/should not hate gays. Like God, hate the sin. Not the sinner. Agree or not, I'm just pointing that out.

You're right, though people tend to associate 'crimes' to 'criminals'. That's nothing against Christians, that's just people in general. But yes, the doctrine you noted is correct.

dooper
Moses, even after all his effort, for all those years in leading his people to the Promised Land, was prohibited entry. His offense? Disobedience.

In fact, it would appear to me that the entire Old Testament could be summed up in one word: obedience.

I thought the old testament was 'replaced', in a sense, by the new testament. Do you not feel that men may have influenced the Bible for their own gain? Do you believe they could have, but ignore the chance and assume the message still gets through? Or do you believe that God intervened enough to stop that from happening? (For the record, when I ask questions like this I'm 100% genuine, I say that because I realize that if read sarcastically it sounds like I'm mocking the opposing viewpoint.)

I think we disagree a lot on our interpretation or the purity of the entire scripture, but I'm honestly interested in understanding your point of view.

"Homosexuality is genetic."

You will find scientists on both sides.

That being said...

Way to completely dismiss the premise of my argument by generalizing it away, while still giving it a 50/50 chance.

Here's a way to look at it. Do you think that a bunch of them got together and said, "hey, lets all talk in high pitched voices and pretend to be like girls because other guys like girls. Cool, see ya next meeting."

During development, if you are not given the 'normal' amounts of key male hormones like testosterone, many of the stereotypically male traits will not develop either. The effects of sexual hormones is what create the idea of a strong man. Muscular development, increase in height/weight, hair, deep voice, aggression, and many other typically male associated indicators. This affects the kind of person you are, the activities you enjoy, the people you feel comfortable with, it's human nature. As someone else said, you 'chose' to be heterosexual because your hormones lead your brain in that direction. Those male chemicals motivate you to procreate, and to find anything related to procreation attractive (body parts, eyes, smiles, etc.). If you start messing with these hormones it influences what attracts you. Attraction is merely a mechanism in place to guide our behavior from the genetic level. The instructions in our DNA are carried out through this process.

So yes, not wanting to copy your DNA is odd. The motivation may be lacking to make more copies of DNA. Ha, and is there not something egotistical about doing so much to ensure you copy yourself? (I don't know, just saying ) If a male is created who is not motivated to breed, to copy himself, then what need for attraction to females does he have? There really wouldn't be a point. Now why he may start liking guys, I don't know.

Christians are not any more monolthic then the African-Americans or any other "group." Stop with your veiled accusations of "Christians."

You're right that I have generalized Christians in my OP. I only intended to address those who are strongly opposed to gays or gay rights. This is definitely not all Christians and I should have been more specific.

If you believe that being Gay is genetic then your arguement is true. God does not make people born o be damned.

Oops...slight flaw in your theory. Hitler/Pol Pot/ Dahmer. Are they genteically designed to be "bad?"

The actions of Hitler/Pol Pot/Dahmer greatly harmed others, gay people do not. Part of my argument or position, is that God really wants us to get along and find peace and love with each other. People like those killers are going against that, gays practicing their lifestyle are not. And if you feel their presence or 'fruity' behavior is keeping everyone from being happy or relaxed realized that they aren't any more against it than a random annoying person. Yeah, I don't want some guy in cutoff shorts dancing a foot away from me, but I also don't want some guy telling me stories about how fast the grass grew at his childhood home from a foot away either.

Anyways, I think using God to negatively treat or communicate with someone is not what He'd like us to do. I'm not saying people in here are, I know nothing about your personal lives, but only those who would choose to do so.

cont.

The Cold Dragon

First of all, the OP approaches this conversation with a FALSE ASSUMPTION which he needs to do more research on (Don't worry, it's easy research to do).

There is a vast proportion of Religious Sects of Christianity which ascribe to "ORIGINAL SIN".

You're right, I wasn't taking that into account. While I won't get entirely into it, I will say that I don't quite understand original sin entirely.

First God tells the first two people not to eat from a tree. Then He lets the snake trick them, something we all would have fallen for. Come on, do they even know if snakes can talk? What minimal concept of reality and hallucinations could they have? How are they not falling for the trick? Moving on, then God finds out and says everything is changing now with original sin. This goes on for awhile and finally God is so upset (?) that Jesus comes to Earth to cleanse our sin. So now God sees us after we have been cleansed by Jesus. Is that generally the correct story? If so, it seems odd that God would go about telling the message using this as the story. From a purely psychological standpoint it makes sense in that people can easily move towards self destruction. Sort of like the entropy of the universe, you have to put work in or disorder will grow. So from the Christian perspective is this human tendency the experience of original sin, in that it is difficult, or takes more effort, to be 'good' (however you want to define that).

A note on the above: This is the kind of stuff I'm not sure how to approach. I don't believe God would justify the difficulty of life using the single mistake of Eve. If that is what the standard (again, however you want to define that) belief is then I just disagree. I ask questions like the above paragraph because I can't disagree with a viewpoint that I don't entirely understand. For all I know I've been interpreting a general belief wrong and it agrees with me, or visa versa. I just want to make it clear that I'm not angry or against Christians, there were merely things I didn't understand and wanted to learn more. If I say I don't believe or agree with anyone it holds no personal bearing, if anything it means 'cool, we understand each other, we don't agree, there's nothing to discuss or argue then' and everybodys happy.

If you don't believe in the Bibles divine authorship, and you are not a Christian why do you care what we think? If there's no God you have nothing to worry about, get over it. Why justify yourself to others? Why do you care what others think or do you just get off shoving your lifestyle in the faces of those that find it wrong or sinful. You are just causing problems so you can play victim wahhhhh!!!! The Christians hate me WAAAAHHHH!!!!!

Is that serious? If so, is that really what you consider a 'Christian' response? Read the paragraph above and you'll see why I want to know what other viewpoints and people think. Your assumption that I don't believe in God because I don't share your exact beliefs is rather narrow. I'm not trying to justify my opinion, I'm trying to understand the other side. How am I shoving my lifestyle in your face? You chose to read this. The rest is just childish, come on man.

Originally posted by Clearskies
I may have had gay relation further on, but, I knew they were wrong.
I'm not a girly-girl, though!

It seems to me that you found you are capable of swinging either way, but chose a heterosexual lifestyle and now think, because you made that choice, that everyone has the choice.

I hope that is working out well for you, but not everyone is bi
I believe women are naturally more flexible in this regard, while men tend to be made to be straight, gay or bi right from the start. The gays guys I grew up with were always gay, they didn't suddenly change and choose to be gay. I've known gay guys who have married girls, determined to deny their real nature and change, but the longer they stayed married the more miserable they got. And it was frightful for their wives, who loved men who could never find them desirable.

I knew a beautiful boy who was super intelligent, talented, funny, sweet and gentle, and always more at home with girls for friends, and you could see from long before he realised it that he was attracted to males. However his family couldn't handle that, and took him to "healers" who could "help him get better." At 19 he believed he was a failure for still loving another man, and he couldn't live with his parents' rejection. So one night he got up and went out to the garage, attached the rubber hose he'd bought specially to his exhaust, put the other end in through the window, and sat there lonely and miserable in the cold.

His family removed all photos of him because he'd committed the sin of suicide.

I believe that he went straight to heaven, into the arms of a God who loves him exactly as he is and who will one day call to task the people who believe they have the right to sit in judgement of others over who they love.

In my viewpoint, as a bisexual who deals with a lot of gay/lesbian/bisexual issues since I am very involved in that community, I personally don't have a problem with anybody 'hatin' on the gays.
The fundamentalist Christians who think it's wrong can think that all they want.
I am entitled to my opinion that being gay is perfectly normal so they're entitled to their opinion that it's wrong.
So it doesn't honestly matter to me what their OPINION on it is.

The only issue I ever have with it is them getting in the way of gays rights because of an OPINION.
Like with Prop 8. Opinions about a book that, although there is no proof either way, might not even be about REAL EVENTS and might all just be stuff made up by man (although no one knows either way) should NOT be involved in politics and should not get in the way of gays being allowed, as American citizens (or I guess any other citizen of a free country) to have the same rights to marriage as anyone else.
It doesn't hurt anybody.
It's not like pedophilia or rape or whatever, because even though those are urges those are urges that HURT others.
It's not going to hurt the name of marriage.
That argument is just pointless because marriage has been redefined many times, just as sex has.
Marriage isn't about upholding family names or making babies anymore.
It's about love.
And if you don't want to see gays getting married, well... I personally think you should just suck it up, because it won't infringe on ANYTHING but your internal desire to make everyone see everything your way.
I am not here to make you believe gay is okay, because obviously no one is ever going to believe that.
But that doesn't mean that your opinion holds more weight than mine when it comes to politics and civil rights.
So.
Yeah.
That's all I have to say about this currently, but I could go on for hours lol
I am passionate about civil rights.

Originally posted by Demandred
i dont hate gays, also i dont believe homosexuality is predeturmined or genetic they choose to be gay, i choose to be hetrosexual,

Are you saying that you find men sexually attractive? (Or women if you're female?)

evolution wise and in terms of continuity of the speices homosexuality is a dead end street.

So homosexuality is related to evolution, i.e. It's genetic?

i cant remember where in the bible i read it, but i saw a passage that stated that "God Hates homosexual activity"

The bible also says that disobedient children should be taken to the city gates and stoned to death. Do you adhere to that too, or do you only follow the verses you choose?

sex is supposed to be for procreation to continue the species,

How many more of our species do you think can fit onto this planet?

so in essence what the gay community are trying to get everyone to accept is a corruption of whats supposed to be a beautiful moment where a man and a women create life to some perverse act.

Ah, I understand. Sex is only beautiful if there is a girl involved who gets pregnant. Should I go and tell a pair of adoring and still randy 90 year olds I know of, who still put up a "do not disturb" sign on her door in their old folks home, that they are corrupt and perverse?

now looking at it from a purely phisical standpoint the rectum wasnt designed to be penetrated in such a way if homosexuality was supposed to be normal it would have been designed as such to accomodate such activities.

Is that why, for some people, it's a perfect fit?

It is important however, to note that even in such studies with identical twins, that heritability is not to be confused as inevitability.

So the doctor believes that homosexuality can be inherited, but you don't have to get it if you don't want it.
I'd suggest the doctor can't acknowledge the implications of his own research. Religion can do that to a person.

indicating that sexual orientation is genetically influenced but not hardwired by DNA, and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations."

His statement would only be provable if identical twins developed in exactly the same way in the womb. However no two people are ever exactly the same, not even new-born identical twins. The differences are subtle, but they are there.

I'm told I was pregnant with identical twins. One is now a second liver inside the other.
- And I'd always wondered why this kid argues with himself in two totally distinct voices.

I have to say - even if you believe the Bible was translated correctly - - you need to remember who did the translations.

Translations were done by novice monks if memory serves me. These monks already had a religious/god bias disposition.

Therefore they are going to see ALL ancient script from a religious/god perspective.

What if an atheist translated ancient script? Took it word for word. It is my perception the outcome would not be the same.

Translating ancient text requires knowledge and social understanding of the era it came from.

Have you ever tried to transcribe Ebonic writings? I'm serious. Modern Ebonic writings would require you to be immersed in the culture before you could understand it.

For me - logic and common sense out weigh any translated ancient script. People are their Heart - - not a label.

If I understand the premise of some folks, that would be that there is a genetic propensity toward a certain aberrant behavior, but since this characteristic is genetic, it is thus excused and to be accepted.

A genetic behavior characteristic excuses the aberrant behavior. We can't help who we are, and we can't help what we like, and we can't help what we do. OK. I understand the logic.

Due to millennia of ingrained predatory behavior, maybe I dislike certain types of people, especially sexual deviants who historically, did nothing to propagate our tribes through the ages. I therefore can't help how I feel, can't help my tendency to eliminate those I find deviate.

Just for the sake of discussion, we'll assume there is no God, no hard rules, and nothing is my personal fault. I am to be accepted just the way I am.

Now, is my homicidal behavior acceptable? Will I find tolerance in society? Does my behavior really hurt society?

I would argue that from my viewpoint, my behavior is acceptable and anyone who disagrees is simply intolerant. I would argue that since single sex couples do nothing to propagate the species, I am not doing society any harm.

You tell me.

Why should my aberrant behavior not be just as accepted?

Do you find such selective homicidal behavior disgusting? Strange? Selfish? Self-promoting?

Now throw God into the mix, complete with certain levels of moral acceptance. Will this God also love and approve me? In spite of me violating his commands?

Why is my selective homicidal aberrant behavior unacceptable, and another aberrant sexual behavior now acceptable?

Homicidal tendency does not fit the criteria of Consent.

Adult Consent. Those of legal age - those involved must consent.

Which also eliminates animals - - because animals can not give consent.

Christians can not use arguments that do not fit the criteria of adult consent.