Sunday, July 13, 2008

WARNING: Blunt and to the point!

Ali wrote:

Colin - I do wish you wouldn't jump to the conclusion that Christians like the woman involved in this case hate homosexuals. Her position is one of conscience, based on the teachings of her faith. I am a Christian, my brother is gay, he and his partner had a civil partnership last year, which I attended and even made the celebration cake for! I love my brother and his partner - their sexuality has no bearing on that love. I do not hate homosexuals. A Christian conscience absolutely does NOT equate with hatred (in fact that's a contradiction in terms!), and the fact that this woman has stood up and been prepared to be counted makes her very much NOT a coward. I think you might need to be careful that you're not bordering on bigotry yourself, against people (like myself) who hold with the teachings of the Bible. [The online Encarta definition of a bigot is - intolerant person: somebody with strong opinions, especially on politics, religion, or ethnicity, who refuses to accept different views.]

Oh dear, you really cannot see your own bigotry and hatred nor hypocrisy can you? Nor can you see that such an attitude of intolerance is hatred. It isn't love. Hatred does not have to be overt or even recognised within one to be hatred.

I think your attitude is appalling. It is patronizing to your brother, I certainly do not believe you love him, clearly you do not, you love your fantasy of him, not the homosexual man that he is. You cannot love him on one hand and believe he will rot in hell on the other for being who he is. That is not love. That is cowardly bigotry. Like that registrar, you do not have the courage of your convictions because you say it is your faith that gives you this attitude. Rubbish! The attitude is in you, in your soul, in your mind, if it were not it wouldn't matter what a book said, or people's interpretation of what it says, you would not accept it because it would not fit with your conscience. In other words it is you who believes your brother is evil because he is gay and that God will damn him for all eternity. Have you ever thought about that? YOUR BROTHER , the man you say you love, you are quite happy to see burn in Hell for all eternity? That he is an abomination in the eyes of the God you believe in? And therefore in yours. As you long as you can feel that someone else pays for your sins and that as long as you believe that, and spout the beliefs, including the hatred of your own brother, you will go to heaven and be in bliss for eternity. Oh as long as you believe that, you don't give a toss what happens to your brother do you? No as long as you feel safe you are quite happy that your God will damn him.

(Imagine for a moment what it might feel like to be told that your feelings of love and arousal are evil? Imagine what it might feel like to be told that your essence is an abomination? That what makes you who your are is wicked and despicable. Think about it. Did you choose not to have feelings of love and arousal for women? When did you make that choice? Explain just how you HAD a choice? No? I thought not).


Or have you never followed your thoughts thru? Your beliefs. Do you truly mean it when you say you are a devout believer in a belief system that condemns your brother for all eternity?

If you do, then I feel very sorry for you. You are a hypocrite and a coward and bigot of the worst kind. You hide behind your so called faith and put the blame there. When this evil is within you.

Think I am being too harsh? Maybe but because of people such as yourself millions of gay people have been killed, are still being, or live terrible fear filled lives. And don't you dare say you have no blood on your hands - you DO by supporting a belief system that causes this evil.

Ultimately, your conscience and belief system is utterly self centred. It is all about saving you and is based upon fear. This is not faith nor is it love. It is fear and hatred.

The God I believe in is truly one of unconditional love and I am only sorry that you don't understand the concept of unconditional love.

Love is an ACTION not a feeling. You say you love your brother but your actions say otherwise. So what that you attended his wedding and made the cake? In your heart he is an abomination to you. This makes you a coward and a hypocrite and quite wicked in my mind.

Having said that, I know that the Creator is within you too and that despite your way of thinking, you will not be condemned for it but you will be held to account. Change is painful. That is how we pay for our sins. We suffer. We are 'punished' BY our sins, not for them! Changing our thinking, the beliefs we base our lives upon, is excruciatingly painful. To see ourselves as we are and not as we think we are is suffering. To become aware of the suffering we have caused others, is suffering. We FEEL it. We will KNOW and in that knowing will be our 'punishment'.

You cannot escape this by putting the onus on someone else. No one else will take your consequences. That is so clear yet unseen by those who deny their culpability and believe that another will pay for them. If this were true, all their suffering would cease the minute they believed! There would be no consequences to their thoughts and actions. No cause and effect. That, as any one with brain knows, is not what happens.We continue to suffer.

How anyone can believe in a God who thinks their brother is evil and an abomination is beyond me. How anyone can believe in a God who demanded that a man, who he says was his son, die such an appalling death to appease his anger is beyond me. How anyone can believe in such an evil story I have no idea. Except of course I do know. They believe out of fear and because they cannot conceive of unconditional love and because they in their heart are jealous and judgemental and condemning and demanding that others be as they wish them to be. We can only believe what fits with our conscience. Or what we are too afraid not to believe because of indoctrination.

Strange how people are afraid of their God of Unconditional Love!

So Ali far from being loving and accepting of your brother, far from being the person you pretend to be, the one you'd like us to see, you are in fact a cowardly bigot who would rather think she is saving her own skin and hang what happens to her brother (according to the belief system you ascribe to).

And as for me thinking what I think about Xtians (and Muslims and Judaism and any belief system that holds faith in a God of conditional love, which is an oxymoron ), well of course I do! They ascribe to a belief system that condemns me! Would I condone that? Do you think I am insane? And apart from that, this belief system sanctions child abuse, the subjugation of women, it supports slavery, gives succour to those who judge others because of their race. It has been the cause of the death of millions.

Now, if I were a Nazi and got uptight with you because you automatically assume that means I hate Jews, you would think I was a fool right? How could I support a belief system that includes hating Jews and not be a Jew hater myself? If I expected you to believe my protestation that I do not hate Jews but love them, despite my being a Nazi, well...actually this is what you expect me to believe of you so maybe you would believe me!

Let me be clear - I don't hate you, I don't condemn you. I do condemn your thinking, your belief system, because to me it is evil. You have a CHOICE to believe what you believe or not. Your brother does not have a choice to be someone else.(yes he did not choose to homosexual-he just is just the same as heterosexuals did not choose to be, it isn't a virtue, it's a matter of nature) It goes very much against my conscience, my belief that we are all a part of God and as such are in essence Divine and therefore cannot ever be destroyed or ever be cast out from that of which we are a part. Unlike your belief system, I truly believe that we all survive physical death, that we will all eventually be at peace. That we progress for all eternity to become Divine expressions of love. This is a painful process. Be that person you, me, Ghandi, Hitler, or Florence Nightingale. We are all a part of God and as such are Divine and cannot ever be apart form God nor destroyed. We are raindrops to God's ocean.

We truly are loved UNCONDITIONALLY , a concept most people seem to not understand.


10 comments:

Yarnhog said...

Colin, this particular disagreement is your fight, and not one I want to butt into. But I do want to say two things: to those who cite the Bible as a source for what God says, please remember that the Bible was not written by God, but by men--flawed, imperfect men, with their own agendas--hundreds of years after the events they purport to record. And in fact, no one disputes that what we call the Bible is a collection of writings heavily redacted by later "Christian" authorities to control their own people. To take it as the literal word of God is beyond foolish.

Second, it seems indisputable to me that homosexuality is not a choice, but an inborn trait--akin to having blue eyes or curly hair. For Pete's sake, considering the way homosexuals have been ostracized and abused for centuries, who would make such a choice? And to all those who believe we are all children of God, I ask: Do you think God makes mistakes?

Unknown said...

Butt in all you want, Yarnhog. Need I say I agree with you?

Anonymous said...

Colin, I can't disagree with you, nor can I agree with you. I believe that reality lies somewhere in the middle. The religion I was raised with taught that God loved all her children unconditionally and forgave each of them for the sins that mortals commit.

Most people cannot stand away from themselves and see what they do objectively. Therefore they cannot see that the love they profess for another may be conditional. That does make them vulnerable to be labeled by others as bigoted or biased or other such labels. Some feel they must say they are not biased because... and just the fact they have to explain why they are not biased causes them to appear to be just what they say they are not.

This situation will probably continue beyond your lifetime and mine. Maybe our children will improve things more and their children even more until, sometime in the future, all people will truly be treated with the dignity and respect regardless of those differences that offend so many now.

Anonymous said...

When someone can tell me he or she just woke up one morning and said, "I think I shall, from this day forward, CHOOSE to love and be aroused only by members of the opposite sex," then, and only then, will I believe homosexuality is, somehow, aberrant. I never chose to be heterosexual. It just is. Folks who believe God doesn't make mistakes should realize that it just might not BE a mistake that some human beings are homosexual. Just because someone who, surely, let their own personal beliefs enter into the mix wrote that it was an abomination for a man to lie with another man, doesn't make it so.

Yarnhog is absolutely right in everything she says. Whatever our personal beliefs, anyway, God says vengeance is His/Hers, so all folks good of religion should be going about their ways and letting God take care of any repercussions.

I'll never, ever believe a good and benevolent God will condemn any of his/her children to eternal flames for doing what is good, pure and natural to their natures.

Also, I do think, Colin, that despite what was said by the writer in this post, you DO entertain other views and I have seen you be kind and generous to people with other views.

An interesting point of many religions is the fact that all sins are put in the same basket. To me, at least, it isn't the same to be a murderer, a blasphemer, a thief, a person who covets, a person who forgets (or doesn't want) to go to church.

I believe in a supreme force. I don't believe in a supreme prison warden or gallowsman or torturer. Few Earthly parents will willingly send their children to burn in a fire. Surely a benevolent God would not, either.

People may want to look at Richard Dawkins writings.

Anonymous said...

Oh - I forgot to say I have no problem butting in, as you know.

Anonymous said...

Hi Colin-powerful stuff, brother!
I agree totally with all that you have said-well I would, of course being a gay woman and non-religious, but whose spiritual life is vitally important!
Just trying to have a reasoned discussion with bigots is totally pointless-I've tried and it was like banging my head against a brick wall.
When I stopped it was lovely!

BammerKT said...

I don't know if I'm butting or adding, but I was raised by a Catholic father and a Baptist minister Mother. Since my mom went to a seminary and has her master in divinity, i always had lots of questions for her.

Her answer to the items in the bible that may seem to address homosexuality was that many bible scholars believe they were a gross misrepresentation or mistranslation and that one opinion is that they were meant to address a person in power taking advantage of anyone with less power (such as a teacher/student parent/child adult/vulnerable child relationship) and not even having anything to do with same sex. Also that in the old testament of the bible, it was perfectly acceptable to sell your children or hand over your virgin daughters to a mob in order to protect a guest in your home. Those are not acceptable principles in today's world (at least not where we live) and not everything in the old testament is to be taken literally. I'm not preaching here, but saying how I personally was taught.

We were also raised (my two sister and me) with a background of inclusion which is supposed to be compared to that of the New testament. We do not believe that Jesus discrimated period and aim to never do so ourselves.

Not all christians believe that you are sinning, that you chose (to be honest I have no idea, but I suspect based on my stepson's experience that some or all homosexuals are born that way). I do love him, I know he makes mistakes just like every one or our straight kids, but the fact that he has a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend is not one of them.

Not every Christian is even taking it upon him or herself to judge you. I can't believe I'm the only one in the world who calls herself a christian but does not have the slightest problem with homosexuals. It is a very sad fact and the main reason that I do not belong to an organized church that many Christians use the bible and their (so called) faith to exclude, put down, and hurt anyone who doesn't believe as they do.

I guess I just hope you won't hold it against all of us. The whole "it says in the Bible" is really just an excuse for hate in my opinion, but i'm no bible scholar.

Anonymous said...

Let's take Yarnhog's question of "Do you think God makes mistake's?" a step further---if God does not (cannot) make mistakes, He must make homosexuals as they are on purpose. So does that mean God makes some people in such a way that he will revile them for being who and what he made them?

Of course, these are the same folks who brought us "Saint" Paul, and centuries of untold suffering for women. And the Inquisition. And...oh, never mind.

As to the translations of the Bible...I agree wholeheartedly with Yarnhog. Not only do I believe the writings we today collectively call "the Bible" were heavily edited, redacted, and revised through the centuries, but I would also add that many gospels, maybe hundreds of them, were discarded by the Nicene Council, who cherry-picked the writings of Jesus' contemporaries and followers to put together the collection that best served their ends. I can't help but suspect they discarded the majority of the truth, or certainly some very important revelations, in favor of their own political and social agendas.

Anonymous said...

Let's take Yarnhog's question of "Do you think God makes mistake's?" a step further---if God does not (cannot) make mistakes, He must make homosexuals as they are on purpose. So does that mean God makes some people in such a way that he will revile them for being who and what he made them?

Of course, these are the same folks who brought us "Saint" Paul, and centuries of untold suffering for women. And the Inquisition. And...oh, never mind.

As to the translations of the Bible...I agree wholeheartedly with Yarnhog. Not only do I believe the writings we today collectively call "the Bible" were heavily edited, redacted, and revised through the centuries, but I would also add that many gospels, maybe hundreds of them, were discarded by the Nicene Council, who cherry-picked the writings of Jesus' contemporaries and followers to put together the collection that best served their ends. I can't help but suspect they discarded the majority of the truth, or certainly some very important revelations, in favor of their own political and social agendas.

Ali the Artist said...

Colin - I'm honestly not at all sure how to respond to your post. Will you listen if I dispute with you? Or would you be happier to condemn me as a hypocrite, a liar and a coward and have the last word? It is your blog after all! :-)