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By being gay do I compromise my religious beliefs?

Anonymous #1

Leviticus states "if a man lie with a man like he were a woman, he should be put to death, their blood is on their heads" - a haunting qoute, i am a devout christian, as is the overwhelming majority of my family. Does homosexuality jeapordise or become contridictive of my religious beliefs? would i have to eliminate one or the other to retain loyalty to who i am?. I believe in repenting to my sins, and essentially, within the set context proposed by the bible - homosexuality i presume is a sin. However, contrasting to such, i feel emotionally attached to men and not women - the attraction is entirely natural from the age of six.. i mean could a child of six be a spawn of evil and harbour something so grotesque as implied by the bible? Its a mix of contridiction and confusion and i'm not sure what to do.

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Reply 1

thegreatstupendo

Only you can answer this, if you feel that it contravenes your faith and religion is more important to you than sex, then celibacy is the way to go. If not, be young, free and gay!

Reply 2

mike_J

"By being gay do i compromise my religious beliefs?"

Apparently so. According to the very quote you just mentioned, then yes.

I personally feel to tell you to not listen to what a 2000 year old book tells you, but it's pretty obvious you're fairly religous, so i wont. :biggrin:

Reply 3

Jonny M

Would you feel more comfortable hiding your true feelings / actions from your family for the rest of your life (well, their lives), or betraying the word of a being who hasn't physically shown himself to you to be real?

Reply 4

thegreatstupendo

MisterJ

Would you feel more comfortable hiding your true feelings / actions from your family for the rest of your life (well, their lives)

Could he not confront his family with his true feelings and actions?

Reply 5

Ras

Anonymous

I'm sure one of the pillars of the religion is that individuals should be loved regardless of their preferences. Christians as devout as you claim should be prepared to adopt a loving, respectful view rather than resorting to vilification which is often the result of sheer ignorance. Naturally, piety does not mean fundamentalism so it's unlikely that the bible'll be used against you.

By the way, would it kill you to use a spellchecker before you post if you're not too confident on your spelling, it's jeopardise, contradictive and quote.

Reply 6

Jonny M

thegreatstupendo

Could he not confront his family with his true feelings and actions?

Yeah sorry I forgot their easy-going attitude to life, they'll probably be all "ok, whatever you want son" and turn back to the TV.

Reply 7

Talon

Even if it is a sin being a sinner doesnt make you evil. They are totally different things. Also if any other Christians start taking offence and sayings its sick I believe the Bible also says "Judge not lest ye be judged"...Im not sure where but its probably in there somewhere.

I wouldnt worry about it. You cant change who you are.

Reply 8

thegreatstupendo

MisterJ

Yeah sorry I forgot their easy-going attitude to life, they'll probably be all "ok, whatever you want son" and turn back to the TV.

I never said that would happen, but surely it's better to be open about these things even if it does mean enstranging yourself from your family. If they aren't prepared to accept him for who he is, are they really worth having?

Reply 9

lskdgjsj

Anonymous

Does homosexuality jeapordise or become contridictive of my religious beliefs?

I shan't try to get you to renounce your religious beliefs, but I will say that this very issue has, especially in the last century, been subject to rather a lot of controversy. It's especially complicated in your case because you have to deal not only with Hebraic scripture and its interpretation, but the retroactive superimposition of Christianity on that substructure.

To begin with, the 'Bible' never addresses the question of homosexuality; that is a modern phenomenon. There are various examples of love between two men in the Bible: the love between Jonathan and Saul for instance. The possibility of intense Platonic affection is never dismissed. What it does say quite clearly is that buggery is an abomination; only a few acts are called abominations, such as the eating of shellfish. Saint Paul lifted the dietary restrictions in the New Testament, but said nothing about buggery; and he railed quite extensively against effeminacy (but that in itself is a controversial word). As far as I know, nowhere in the Bible is the injunction against buggery removed; that does not mean however that it is it absolutely proscribed. There's a very active debate in Orthodox and Conservative Judaism about the acceptability of homosexuality: as you probably know, Jews are subject not merely to the so-called 'Ten Commandments' or Decalogue, but to the totality of God's laws, all 612 mitzvot. It is virtually inevitable that you will break some of these laws, and from this some Jewish theologians have tried to construct an argument for homosexual sex: the essence of which is that to deny one's sexuality itself involves inherently sinful behaviour, and that the best one can do is choose which of these sins is the lesser evil: whether to be true to oneself, or to lie, &c. If you google it I'm sure you'll find lots of discussion on the issue. The position of most Christian churches, except perhaps the more evangelical branches, is that the homosexual act is still itself sinful, but homosexual attraction is not; and that homosexuals should be supported in their abstinence from homosexuality. Some go further and say that even those who do commit buggery should not on that account be ostracized, but accepted as sinners, as we all are. But here we enter into the complex realm of omission, commission, and responsibility.

I suggest you do more research on the subject; try not to draw too much out of one single quotation from one single book in the Bible. It has to be understand in context, in terms of the totality of the work. Seek out the works of theologians favorable to the homosexual position.

Reply 10

Fleece

Watch the film 'Saved!'

Reply 11

WaW™

Does homosexuality jeapordise or become contridictive of my religious beliefs?

i am afraid so! sorry

Reply 12

Skeve

Yes. It does. According to the bible you should be killed now, you can just thank God for man creating law. It is up to you now if you want to go with your biological instinct and end up not where you want to be after death, or follow your religion and ignore these instincts, and have a chance at forgiveness for thinking in this way.

Reply 13

cheesecakebobby

Do you eat seafood? Leveticus basically says that is also a sin on the next page, so doing so would also 'compromise your beliefs'. Christians just decided at some point that they would get rid of some of the pointless laws but keep the others.

Yes.

to your faith no
to your religion yes.

being gay to the christian is about as bad as being a jew to a nazi. Your family if they are devout then they wll probably freak. If your god is as loving as the christians say he is then he will not care what you are but christianity dictates that god loves you providing that you are this this and this and not that that and that.
Your god loves you for you are.
Your religion tell it to like it or lump it. Being gay does not make you a bad person but you cant deny to yourself or hate yourself based on some book and some wizened 90 yr old virgin sitting on his throne in a world of his own.

Reply 16

Fluent in Lies

I'd invest in some asbesdos undergarments if I were you.

Reply 17

Blue!

As far as I am aware, anal sex is not the preffered way of laying with a woman so to speak.

But anyway, it depends on how you see your faith, if it is guided by a book written thousands of years ago, translated by people who were most likely homophobes (it is only this century that homosexuals have truely been tolerated, ignoring the ancient greeks). Or do you follow your heart on matters of faith. If you truely believe that God will punish you for simply being what you are, what he made you to be, then perhaps you have even deeper problems with your faith.

I don't think being gay angers God in any way. :smile:

Reply 18

Blue!

Oh, and the following are also taken from the bible, but how seriously do you take these?

Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations.
Exodus 21:7 sanctions the selling of daughters into slavery
I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24.
When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord - Lev.1:9
Exodus 35:2 clearly states that people breaking the Sabbath should be put to death
Eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10
Trimming the hair around their temples is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27
Lev. 11:6-8 says that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean

I think you can see that not everything in the bible is taken literally these days. People forget that things from the old testement were social rules for that era

Reply 19

life_rockz

Christianity (in it's many denominations) has varied responses to that question. I'm Catholic, so here's the Catholic stand: it is not a sin to be a homosexual; it is a sin to practice homosexuality. So, like what one of the first replies to the thread said (before it became a: see? this is why Christianity is wrong thread), chastity's the way to go.

Just like there's nothing wrong with being sexually attracted to someone of the opposite sex before you're married...but it is a sin (Catholic-wise) to have sex before marriage. Again, chastity's the way to go.