StrangerThan
Posts: 1515
Joined: 4/25/2008 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyPact I was going to throw this in during the thread about the county clerk, but I'm not entirely sure that it's related. It's more about My personal struggle as a person of faith. This is going to be a terribly touchy subject and I'm trying very hard to put this out there without offending anybody. I think it's just plain beyond My scope to deal with what amounts to a very few lines in the bible. That whole "a man shouldn't lie with a man as he would a woman" somehow is more than I can believe. That's coming from someone who a good number of people think is ridiculous for believing in a God in the first place. Somebody who can and does believe in a superior being, miracles, and all that other stuff, but there's that one sticking point that I just can't get behind. The thing is, I don't want to believe it. I just plain flipping don't even want to try. I'm actually pretty darn content with saying to Myself that the words on the paper really were written by the hands of men, and ya know, they might have just messed that part up. Maybe it was their own personal thing against non straights that got in the way. Maybe it was an honest mistake. Maybe we've just translated the dang book too many times and that guy didn't do that great of a job. I don't know. For that matter, I don't even think I care. Any damn excuse is preferable to Me than actually believing that was what was said, meant, intended, and that's the way it ought to be. I know I'm not the only one who thinks this way. (Yes, I know there are some other folks who feel completely the opposite.) I guess I'm just asking if anybody else actually struggles with it. The Bible is pretty clear on how it views the issue. It is also fairly clear on a number of other ideas. Thomas Jefferson, who most view as a deist, wrote that in the words of Jesus were "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man". In my view, when you read the Bible, especially for understanding, there are cards like the normal suits, and trump cards. Those trumps come from the actual teachings of Jesus. Not once did he address the issue of homosexuality. What he did do was lay out a framework for your personal behavior, for people, not for governments or for laws in things like Judge not lest you be judged" (Matthew 7:1). "Do not take the mote from your brother's eye until you have removed the beam from your own" (Matthew 7:3). "Let the one without sin among you cast the first stone" (John 8:7). "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31). "I was naked and you clothed me, hungry and you gave me to eat... Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of these the least my brethren, you have done it onto me" (Matthew 25). What he also did was solidify the idea of religion and belief being a personal choice. I think of it in terms of, given the power he had, the only reason we're not all devout Christians is that he left it to us to make the choice ourselves. Those personal choices are what you stand for on judgment day. In making my own choices, the intent isn't to address how you live or anyone else lives, nor to establish law to make you live the way I live or think or believe. It is to be able to stand there when the item is read and say yes, that was my choice. It means I don't have to agree or disagree with how anyone else lives. They choose the options in life for them. It's not my place to judge unless their choices affect my life. Think too about the thief on the cross. That is, perhaps, one of the greatest lessons in the Bible, in that what matters is that you believe, that you know beyond doubt who is your God and savior, that what you bring to him is acceptance and acknowledgement of your failures, and your sins. It's not the judgement of others over what you think is a sin or not. Just me.
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--'Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform' - Mark Twain
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