2017-04-21 06:14:10

Andy93 wrote:

no living creature in this plannet was created homosexual. I reppeat, not a single creature in this planet was created homosexual; or tell me, why is there male and female in all species?

That has been completely debunked by research, my friend. That is a mith.
There is male and female in *most* species, because that is the manner in which they multiply. but there is sexual variation in every species that's been studied, and there are species (organisms) in which gender is not a factor (they multiply without a partner). Everywhere you find gender, you find variation in sexuality. and if a researcher films two cats, or dogs, or bugs of some kind engaging in same sex behaviour, that's some pretty damning evidence against homosexuality being unnatural.

Andy93 wrote:

why not sertain groups of creatures were created as only male or only female? the simple answer is, because the creation has an order and a natural purpoce.

There are species which are created neither male nor female, as I stated above. Of course you need a majority heterosexual orientation in order for a sexual species to survive. but that doesn't change the proven fact that sexual variation exists everywhere, right down to lifeforms that fit in the pom of our hands.

Andy93 wrote:

Therefore, friend, being homosexual is a choice you make, not something you are born with. This is the same as if you decide to become a killer, a thief, a worshipper of darkness, or a person whose completely not doing wickedness but instead going in the way of life and justice.

This too has been debunked. If this were the case, why do we see these people struggle so much with things like depression and suicide? because they can't do a thing about who they are, and people like you tell them to. Imagine being on the receiving end of that.
There is evidence to suggest that these individuals' brains were built differently. There is evidence to suggest that some aspects of their bodies were built differently. There is evidence to suggest that some homosexuals are that way because of prenatal exposure to hormones.
These people cannot just wake up one day and decide to be straight, anymore than you or I could wake up tomorrow and decide to be gay. but religion is a choice; one that should be respected, but doesn't give those who choose it more rights than anyone else.
In closing:
You have every right to believe what you believe, including that someone being born gay, black, blind or with three heads somehow is their falt and that it makes them worthy of divine condemnation.
but the reason you're getting into trouble is because you're coming in here and proclaiming this knowing full well that you're broadcasting to people of all walks of life. In a worst case scenario, you could be contributing to an LGBT person's choice to commit suicide because they feel unwelcomed by the hole world.
Furthermore, among a community of almost exclusively minorities (blindness among possibly other things, sexual variation included) promoting prejudice won't win you any sympathy, because we've all had to deel with prejudice in some form or another due to our disabilities.
I'm also sure that the bible says many things that you yourself don't agree with or follow, which doesn't make you any better than a homosexual according to your own rules. Would you be okay with a man keeping slaves and citing the bible as justification? or punishing adultery by death? or a host of other things that were okay in ancient times but are now considered revolting? probably not. So you're not doing yourself any favours by putting yourself on a petistal.
It was written by people. People who may very well have been well-meaning but couldn't possibly predict how the human race would evolve.

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2017-04-21 07:27:07

brillaient post Trajectory.

and one question I have to ask andy:

have you ever heard of living in denial?

Who's that trip trapping over My bridge? Come find out.

2017-04-21 08:10:57

Moderation!

Andy93, Trajectory put it perfectly well in the conclusion of his post. making unqualified and negative statements against gay people is insulting and unreasonable.
Feel free to believe as you like, or to disregard the science or whatever, but currently your beliefs very much in danger of harming others.

If you want to stay on this forum you are quite free to express your beliefs in a less categorical manner.
if you want to get yourself banned, ---- as indeed it actually sounds as if you do, continue as you have been, though I will ask the question as to why, if you cannot bare the idea of those who think differently and are so antagonistic to anyone who challenges your beliefs you are on a discussion forum at all.

Okay, moderation hat coming off now.

@Trajectory, the question of sin and punishment and why if god is omniscient he creates people just to punish only exists if you maintain the punitive justice model, which as I've said I disagree with on a basic level.

One thing I will say is that it has some historical context. The idea of the elect, ie that god knows who will be saved before the world started actually comes from the theologian (and rather all round git), john Calvin who formulated it as a direct response to a lot of the dodgy things which rather corrupt sections of the catholic church were doing at the time such as quite literally believing they could buy their way out of going to hell, or going off and doing some pretty nasty stuff (apparently one cardinal had a child by his own daughter), and then paying god off.

So, as is usual when someone comes up with a counter argument to an excess, Mr. Calvin went rather too far the other way.

@quanin and slender the idea that "well we don't know so forget all this speculation about god anyway since nobody really knows" does have a miner flaw, namely that there are! people who have experienced god.
I don't mean  lights in the sky or heard heavenly voices, I mean people who have literally felt and exist with the presence of divinity.
I have met such people, interestingly enough from a variety of different religious traditions, and one thing they all have in common is a quality of, ---- well holiness.
A peace, a warmth, something both of bennifit to them and those around them, indeed it often strikes me as rather ironic that the people who I have met who seem most in touch with divinity are the people least likely to ram religious dogma down other's throats.

One thing I have learned in my life is that being in touch with god is good for me generally, which hasn't stopped me getting pretty pissed at god on occasion.

@Nocturnus, I could write a very long answer to your post, and were karma working I'd give a thumbs up, but just to take a couple of points, I suspect there is an area where we might disagree. the persistance of a belief system isn't to me a validity for that system, even when  acknowledging that the object of that system is one more of experience than information, indeed partly because! of that acknowledgement.
People believed in the bad air theory of disease for a very long time, that doesn't necessarily mean it is true.

This isn't to say that Christianity is irrelevant or unscientific or any such thing, just that what importance  and the life of jesus has cannot be derived simply from the fact that lots of people have thought about, believed in and written it in the past, indeed this is one reason I respect efforts like Bishop Spong who attempt to tease out divine revelation and truth from  the Bible and what we know of the life and death of jesus which can help people understand god in the 21st century, while removing the 1st century assumptions and calcified bits of church dogma that are no longer relevant to people's experience of divinity now.

As regards your two stories, I am at a point now where I can find those stories beautiful, since I have experience my own divine grace. However I confess in my agnostic phase such stories seriously pissed me off, after all if someone recieves some wonderful divine set of circumstances or impression, well bully for them, but that doesn't do much for me, or for the millions of people who haven't had such. Was god just unfair? or playing favourites or similar?

I still do not actually have an answer to this questionn, but I am beginning to consider the shape of an answer, which I will illustrate with a story  of my own, also regarding the shoa (holocaust).

This is from the memoires of Corrie ten Boom, a dutch woman who helped hide jews during the shoa.
She and her sister betsy were eventually caught by the nazis. when they were transported to the Ravensbrück women's labour camp, they were absolutely appauled at the conditions in the sleeping quarters, since the crowded bunks were stuffed with straw matresses which were full of flees. Corie, tired, starving and understandably very upset had a total melt down, claiming she couldn't ever sleep there.

Her sister betsy said to Corie "no! look Corie, God wanted these flees to be here, they are gods flees! I don't know why, but we will thank god for the flees"

A few months later when Betsy got pneumonia and became very ill she was changed from her usual labour roster of sorting engine parts and given a task of sewing army uniforms in the sleeping quarters.
Corie noticed that Betsy was getting better and betsy revealed that she was actually spending most of the day sleeping herself well. When Corie asked how Betsy was able to do this and avoid getting in trouble with the guards for not working, betsy revealed that the guards never came into the sleeping quarters, --- guess why? yes, the flees! and sure enough, Corie thanked god for the flees big_smile.


So why do some recieve divine miracles and some don't. I'm not sure, but one thing which does occur to me is that at least part of the answer is to do with what your looking for in  the first place, or at least what you are receptive to.
Of course this isn't to say if you don't get a divine miracle it's your fault, only that I have noticed that there is as much a matter of active perception involved as of passivity, it is an interaction between god and humans not a static process either of humans going out and making things happen or of god simply dropping favours on people from above.


I'm also reminded here of what I heard one shoa surviver once say in a talk she was giving with a fellow surviver.
the chap absolutely had lost all faith in god because of what he'd gone through, he became very angry and challenged her directly, saying loudly  "where was god in the camps!" she responded with
"That is the wrong question. The problem wasn't where was god, I knew where god was, that wasn't an issue. The real question is "where was man"

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-04-21 13:57:07

I wrote a point-by-point reply to Andy's last post, then decided it was a bad idea.
Let's debate theology, instead:

Rom. 8:20-22 wrote:

"For the creature was MADE subject to VANITY NOT WILLINGLY, but by reason of Him [that's God] Who HATH SUBJECTED the same in hope. Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the BONDAGE OF CORRUPTION into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the WHOLE CREATION groans and travails IN PAIN until NOW"

As much as Paul's "I'm right, and it is obvious, and if you disagree you are evil" attitude is utterly contemptable, he said the above in the very same book.
So, which is it? Is Paul right, or is everything wrong with the world the result of Free Will?

Isaiah 45:6-7 wrote:

"That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside Me, I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, AND CREATE EVIL: I the LORD do ALL THESE THINGS"

... What with God explicitly taking credit for it, and all.

John 8:44-45 wrote:

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not"

Notice the "from the beginning" part.

Job 2:6 wrote:

"And the Lord said unto SATAN, Behold, he [Job] is in your hand; but save his life"

Sounds like Satan is still doing God's dirtywork.

Gen. 1:31 wrote:

"And God saw EVERY THING that He had made, and, behold, it was VERY GOOD..."

Including Satan, who we just read was a murder from the beginning.

Do people "choose" to disbelieve? To send themselves to Hell based on perfect knowledge? Let's ask:

II Cor. 4:4 wrote:

"In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, LEST the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, SHOULD SHINE UNTO THEM"


Wait, what about that whole Lucifer thing?
Luckily, everyone cites the exact chapter and verse on that one. Not-so-luckily, no one actually reads it.
Let's:

Isaiah 14 wrote:

14 
The Lord will have compassion on Jacob;
    once again he will choose Israel
    and will settle them in their own land.
Foreigners will join them
    and unite with the descendants of Jacob.

Nations will take them
    and bring them to their own place.
And Israel will take possession of the nations
    and make them male and female servants in the Lord’s land.
They will make captives of their captors
    and rule over their oppressors.
3 On the day the Lord gives you relief from your suffering and turmoil and from the harsh labor forced on you, 4 you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon:
How the oppressor has come to an end!
    How his fury[a] has ended!

The Lord has broken the rod of the wicked,
    the scepter of the rulers,

which in anger struck down peoples
    with unceasing blows,
and in fury subdued nations
    with relentless aggression.

All the lands are at rest and at peace;
    they break into singing.

Even the junipers and the cedars of Lebanon
    gloat over you and say,
“Now that you have been laid low,
    no one comes to cut us down.”

The realm of the dead below is all astir
    to meet you at your coming;
it rouses the spirits of the departed to greet you—
    all those who were leaders in the world;
it makes them rise from their thrones—
    all those who were kings over the nations.
10 
They will all respond,
    they will say to you,
“You also have become weak, as we are;
    you have become like us.”
11 
All your pomp has been brought down to the grave,
    along with the noise of your harps;
maggots are spread out beneath you
    and worms cover you.
12 
How you have fallen from heaven,
    morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
    you who once laid low the nations!
13 
You said in your heart,
    “I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
    above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
    on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.
14 
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
    I will make myself like the Most High.”
15 
But you are brought down to the realm of the dead,
    to the depths of the pit.
16 
Those who see you stare at you,
    they ponder your fate:
“Is this the man who shook the earth
    and made kingdoms tremble,
17 
the man who made the world a wilderness,
    who overthrew its cities
    and would not let his captives go home?”
18 
All the kings of the nations lie in state,
    each in his own tomb.
19 
But you are cast out of your tomb
    like a rejected branch;
you are covered with the slain,
    with those pierced by the sword,
    those who descend to the stones of the pit.
Like a corpse trampled underfoot,
20 
    you will not join them in burial,
for you have destroyed your land
    and killed your people.
Let the offspring of the wicked
    never be mentioned again.
21 
Prepare a place to slaughter his children
    for the sins of their ancestors;
they are not to rise to inherit the land
    and cover the earth with their cities.
22 
“I will rise up against them,”
    declares the Lord Almighty.
“I will wipe out Babylon’s name and survivors,
    her offspring and descendants,”
declares the Lord.
23 
“I will turn her into a place for owls
    and into swampland;
I will sweep her with the broom of destruction,”
    declares the Lord Almighty.
24 The Lord Almighty has sworn,
“Surely, as I have planned, so it will be,
    and as I have purposed, so it will happen.
25 
I will crush the Assyrian in my land;
    on my mountains I will trample him down.
His yoke will be taken from my people,
    and his burden removed from their shoulders.”
26 
This is the plan determined for the whole world;
    this is the hand stretched out over all nations.
27 
For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him?
    His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?

Emphasis on those last two sentences, after you've noticed the subject of the rest of it.
(For bonus points, consider the kaballistic implications.)


Show me the verse where God gives humans and angels free will, and I will do the other part where we have to figure out how it does not contradict all of the above.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2017-04-21 15:35:38

Trajectory wrote:

Just out of curiosity, what is your theory on why one person (such as Bela) was granted such a profound miracle by the hand of god, but just a few short years prier Hitler was permitted to exterminate approx. six million jews, none of whom were shown even a fragment of the kindness shown to this one man and his wife?
While it's true that he faced more than enough calamity to be more than deserving of some divine compensation, what made his parents and so many millions of other people less deserving than he was? and what about all the children who either died or were orphaned during that period, perhaps too young to understand God or what was going on in the world to cause there to be no one to hold them when they cried?
Are we perhaps just puppets and it's all a game?

I'm thankful and humbled to have been asked a variant of a centuries old question: if God is good, why does he allow evil?  I won't pretend I can honestly do it justice, but I'm sincerely going to try.
First, you are allowing that there is such things as good and evil.  You compare the greatness and goodness of what happened to Bela and Marya to the atrocities commited by Hitler and the suffering of countless men, women and children.  The one you see as good, the other as evil.  the numbers would still be countless even if we shrank them down, because I'm sure, that to you and I, any suffering is vile, and any sudden and violent and tragic death is a loss of a life that has no price but massive value.  This is the basis and such a wonderful starting point for what may or may not be transcendent and objective morality.  If you don't wish to accept that as true, then you're left with subjective morality, which means that Hitler was only doing what he thought was best for him and his people, which is fine because as long as they get their way... I'm sure you can see where I'm heading with that.  The point is that as long as morality can be subjected to our claims one can use it for what we call good, while another will use it to justify their evil.  Only by allowing morality to revolve around a perfect, pure and flawless, central reference point, can we honestly make sense of it, lest it be left up to human fallacy and imperfect judgment.
Second, as I'm sure we can both agree neither of us is perfect, I'd like to know, with all do respect to you and anyone else who might be reading this, what you propose God, who is supposed to be perfect, do about such a situation?  Every single one of us who has an ounce of decency and a shred of morality wants to eliminate all suffering, but where does it come from?  Who causes it?  Why is it here?  Is it an act of some unknown source or are we all to blame collectively?  Do we not all, each and every single one of us, have some sort of trait that hurts someone else?  Are not some of us liars?  Cheaters?  Thieves?  Swindlers?  Adulterers?  Greedy individuals willing to do anything and everything to get precisely what we want when we want it?  Even with the best of intentions, I still hurt people!  I was just recently reported to the moderation panel for being hateful, when my purpose was anything but!  If you can say that you have never in your life caused an ounce of suffering, then I declare that you are righteous enough to both ask of God such a question and bestow upon him the answer, because you will be equall to, if not better than he.
To conclude, I strongly believe we suffer because we must, because free will runs its course as an act of godly mercy, because of love, grace and compassion greater than anything we ourselves have the capacity of understanding.  To get rid of suffering, God would have to get rid of all of us.  why do people like Bela and Marya Paskin seem to receive what we deem miraculous intervention while thousands of children are left to die daily of hunger and starvation and any other number of ordeals?  I don't really know the answer, and am left with the fragility of my faith to push me forward in life, believing that God is just and good and righteous and knows far more than my limited self is able to comprehend, aware that he has promised to use all things for good for those who love him and who do according to his purpose.  If christ is truly the son of God, I can rest peacefully to some degree knowing that he said Children would inherit the kingdom of heaven.  I cannot fathom why they had to suffer first and wish it otherwise, but since they too are products of free will I can see how it came to be and accept it as such with a heavy heart that crys out for an end to all of this. 
”God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

-C. S. Lewis (1898-1963). Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at the University of Cambridge; The Problem of Pain,

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2017-04-21 15:49:07

@CAE_Jones,
If God created humanity in his likeness or his image, then it follows by simple logic that God, who has free will to do as he pleases, would create humankind with free will as well.  Still not convinced?  consider Deuteronomy 30. 
19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.
Who, without free will, has the capacity of choice, and who would be idiotic enough to expect someone to choose if he knew the subject in question had no free will to do so?  I cannot show you evidence for angelic beings having free will anywhere in the bible, because there is no evidence to suggest that God created them in his image.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2017-04-21 17:17:03

There is a difference between "choose" and "choose freely".
And, well, let's be more direct:

Phil. 2:13 wrote:

"...it is God which works in you BOTH TO WILL and TO DO of His good pleasure"

Or, if you'd rather the bit which sounds more like human experience:

James 4:13-15 wrote:

"Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, which appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. For that ye ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that"

This one is kinda relevant to the whole question the thread has come around to:

Jeremiah 13:23 wrote:

"Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil."

And let us not forget how God hardened Pharaoh's heart, even when Pharaoh was starting to relent otherwise. And how it sounds an awful lot like Jesus' Disciples were trying to choose loyalty, yet Peter denied him anyway, as Jesus predicted.

Why would God ... Eh, let's let Paul take the counterargument:

Rom. 9:19 wrote:

"You will say then unto me, Why does He yet find fault? For who has resisted His will?"

Ah, and does it say that God has Free Will anywhere, either?
AFAIK, this is the closest it gets:

Eph. 1:11 wrote:

"In Whom [GOD] also we have obtained an inheritance, being PREDESTINATED according to the PURPOSE OF HIM Who WORKS ALL THINGS AFTER THE COUNSEL OF HIS OWN WILL"

Whether "the counsel of his own will" is equivalent to "free will" dpends entirely on what you mean by "free will".
The strongest definition of free will is impossible, else we would definitely not have it and God would be effective Chaos. There is causality, and even people with sufficient agency to make choices like that commanded in Deuteronomy do so for reasons--yea, reasons like "God said to in Deuteronomy", which is about as far from God not interfering with choices as you can get without stepping in more directly (as he did with Pharaoh).
God created the world, knowing everything that would happen, and what he could do to change it without being especially direct--what drops of water to put in what position to determine who would be hit by rain, who would go thirsty, who would see a beam of light piercing the clouds and falling on the person struggling in the otherwise cloud-darkened water...
So it is kinda incoherent to suggest that God could give us freedom. He knows what's going to happen, doesn't he? What kind of God can be defeated by a snake tricking someone into eating a fruit, when he created the snake and the human and the tree?
Actually, that brings us back to the whole "created in his image" thing.
Ignoring the matter of translating verb tenses (is the "created" in that line in the past tense in the original Hebrew? It'd mean something rather different if it says "God is creating man in his image", wouldn't it?), we have God making this comment after Adam and Eve eat the Fruit of Knowledge:

Gen. 3:22 wrote:

"And the LORD God said, Behold the man is BECOME AS ONE OF US TO KNOW GOOD AND EVIL..."

I'm surprised how little this particular bit comes up! It's usually just "God created us in his image in chapter 1, end of story." In which case, why do we even go through the rest of history? This verse clearly indicates that something changed to make man more like God, which suggests that "created in his image" is not quite the same as "created in exact replica". But we knew that last bit; otherwise, Adam could just create his own food. So what's going on, here?
Furthermore, if man did not know good from evil before eating the fruit, how can the choice be equally free before and after?
Also, remember that, when Eve told God that the serpent beguiled her, instead of scolding Eve for trying to pass the blame for her decision onto someone else, God went on a tyrade cursing the snake.

It can't be denied that some people do seem to exhibit personal agency. (These people tend to refuse to believe that anyone with less agency is telling the truth. I think it's likely that one of those high-agency people invented the phrase "check your privilege", which would be ironic.)
But if God is omniscient and omnipotent, then by definition, there is no human agency independent of his will.
Really, the whole Free Will idea seems like something invented to get God off the hook for evil. Even though Isaiah bites the bullet and quotes God as taking credit for evil directly.
"But for the grace of God go I!"

And, if humans can choose contrary to God's plan, then would that not invalidate this:

Isa. 55:11 wrote:

"So shall My word be that goes forth out of My mouth: it shall NOT RETURN UNTO ME VOID, but it SHALL ACCOMPLISH that which I please, and IT SHALL PROSPER in the thing whereto I sent it"

Yet, let us consider what this means:

(John 8:36 wrote:

"If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed"

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2017-04-21 18:49:04

Free indeed.  The part you're forgetting, whether conveniently or otherwise, is that while all things are free to us, not all things are lawful, or just, or righteous, or productive, or constructive, 1 Corinthians 10:23-24.  Omniscience and omnipotence can and do take free will into consideration.  You know the sun continues on a daily basis on its orbit; were you given the capability to stop it, you could choose to let it continue or impeed and hault its progress altogether.  One is freedom from your restraint while the other is manipulation.  You are free to choose that sin is an abstraction, a creation made by man to keep man in check and anything else you might choose to believe, but if God exists as those of us who have outlined above claim he does, he is independently existing outside of your belief system, letting you choose out of love, mercy and respect and giving you the desires of your heart as he did for Pharaoh, whom he knew was only relenting because of the mighty plagues he saw and the conveniences he perceived as the result of his relenting rather than out of a desire to know God personally.  Even I can't know what Pharaoh's thoughts were; I'm not all knowing, so it boils down to the bible being the inspired word of God without any fault, or not, which brings us full circle through the topic all over again.  :d

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2017-04-21 21:53:24

Wow, this got really religious really fast.
But I think I'll address the question posed at the very beginning of this thread.
My thinking is, that this person, is exploring new things.
If you are a true friend to them, you should allow them to explore new things, to question their beliefs, and to find out who they are.
After all, that's what college is for.
To find your way in life, and to figure out who you really are, and who you want to become.
We all have different beliefs, and the fact that he or she is open enough to explore them, is a good thing, and should be encouraged rather than something you should be frightened of.
People change in life, it is an absolutely normal and natural thing to have occur.

"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches with in the soul, that sings the tune without the words and never stops at all."
Emily Dickenson

2017-04-21 21:56:35

This thread was religious from the beginning.

While I found reading through the religious moral/ethics stuff interesting, it still doesn't really address the homosexuality thing. Honestly, I don't get why so many people are curious about if men are screwing other men. It honestly sounds like insecurity sometimes. LOL

In biology, homosexuality is frequently reported, for example many species of bird exhibit homosexual behaviour. It's important to note that while sexuality is a consequence of needing to reproduce, it functions on its own system, so its likely that homosexual behaviour evolved as a form of population control - not all males (or females) are breeders, which allows homosexuals to contribute more towards other things in social stability.

you like those kinds of gays because they're gays made for straights

2017-04-22 01:03:58

I'm not only not curious and or not interested about it, but wonder why it needs to be paraded by either side, homosexual or heterosexual, like some trophy, as it were.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2017-04-22 02:06:24

I'm back here now that I know what I'm talking about again. smile
I don't get why sexuality is such a big issue either. I don't get why it is a political issue at all, and I only somewhat get why it's a religious one, but only on a personal level: are you Christian or any other religion and it says don't be gay? You yourself don't be gay then, let the God of that religion you believe in (in my case Christianity) judge the others. My comment regarding disallowing them to teach in churches earlier does not contradict the above statement, as I understand that because in being homosexual, they would be teaching that church the opposite of what it follows. But I completely agree with the fact that no human, government or otherwise, should give even the slightest ounce of crap about another person's sexuality. I mean, I try to understand political and sociological matters, but I simply cannot wrap my head around why someone's personal lifestyle choices, be that sexual or otherwise, matter to anyone else, (that is if it does not concern them).

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2017-04-22 05:36:11

K back from work, its answering time.
@dark: I don't think I am being antagonistic about others challenging my christian beliefs, all I am doing is opening up the scriptures and discussing everything to its light, even putting up each verse word by word as it is written. So you might say: plus, you are giving your own interpretation; There is a law in hermeneutics that says that the bible interprets by itself, and that's absolutely what I've always tried to do in each of my posts, letting the bible speak by itself. If at any time I am expressing a personal concept or way of thinking, you'll make me hear saying I think that this and that, or I believe that this and that instead of saying God's word says.
That is why, my friend, I cannot express my beliefs in a less categorlicly manner because God's words speaks categoricly against, and in favor of. Do not expect me trying to be softy, wishy washy, lovy dovy or   liberal, we have enough with today's contemporary christian music  singers and prosperity teleevanhelists that are always wanting to please everybody saying beautyful things about everything and not speaking about other things that are controvercial, just so that no one gets insulted by their message. oh BTW I wrote it right, teleevanhellists, because these false masters are citisents of hell, servants of Satan that do not care about people but their  money, and since in spanish the letter G sounds like an H that tern describes perfectly what they're doing.
So, going back to my answer, and as I said before: If making unqualified and negative statements against gay people is insulting and unreasonable, well that's what the bible, God's word, says about it. I'm not calling them names like Fa***, I'm not going like crazy treating them despectively, I'm just speaking according to God's standards. Is that wrong and insulting? then sorry, but again God himself has lifted up his voice and spoken through his word and his sun, but yet everyone is so blind that cannot see, yet everyone has closed so much their ears to him that they cannot hear what he has tried to say during this time of grace, mercy and dispensation. Yet I am being really not too hard, the prophets of Israel spoke so loud and so behemently against sin that most of them, if not all, were killed by their own brothers and were not tolerated too much.
In my last post I quoted the gospel of  Jonh in a specific passage, and here you have it; Jonh chapter 6,beginning from verse 60 says: Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? 61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? 62 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? 63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
If all what I'm saying here is a hard saying, so much that most likely's gonna get me banned permanently of a discussion forum,  what about if Jesus was still today among us? or Steven? or the first christians? I'm a hundredd percent sure that it would be most of you who'd be the first ones to throw stones at them. I'm sure that most of you would be the first ones in starting a tremendous persecution against those of us who are outside in the streets preaching the gospel, if we were in Jesus times.
Finally, @trajectory: since honestly I'm not really sure on how to quote other's posts, I'm just going twards yours reading to it, and answering based in what I read as well as coppy pasting what you said for a reference. I'd like to say that honestly, not only I do not believe in those

Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. he gives to the human being complete joy and happyness. Why don't you receive him today?

2017-04-22 05:47:56 (edited by Andy93 2017-04-22 05:49:50)

One final thing, cuzz I think that answer to trajectory was making my post quite long: @Cae jones, This time I am agreeing with Nocturnus in most things he said, in fact he took my words off my mouth. I was also gonna quote deutoronomy as an evidence that God indeed gave us free will, but I'd like to add something to his idea: Here is the clear evidence that God gave free will to angels, Judas 1 6 says: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day".
Here Judas is clearly speaking about the fallen angels, and reading the passage  we can clearly see that if Judas is using the words  "left their own habitation", is because if they left it, that means they had to make a choice first; I cannot go to new york if I do not decide to leave my country first. BTW, the passage is literal and here Judas is referring about the angels leaving their heavenly place revealing against God and following Satan

Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. he gives to the human being complete joy and happyness. Why don't you receive him today?

2017-04-22 05:56:06

Now give me a sec! my answer to Trajectory was really long, I do not! understand why my post appears so shortened, that I even could not really answer to him as expected. This is really weird, I think I myself took enough time to write it

Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. he gives to the human being complete joy and happyness. Why don't you receive him today?

2017-04-22 08:59:03

Andy,

If we know the love of Jesus, then how could we want anything for our fellow man, but for him to know that same love?
So if we look at ways that people communicate with one another, how are most people persuaded to hear another person's point of view?
It certainly isn't with a stance like yours, where you are so determined that you are in the right, you have lost sight of the reason for any public discussion, which is to learn from others, and to connect with them and help them understand your perspective.

I am not saying you have to accept, or agree with, any opinion that differs from you.
What I am saying is that the way in which you communicate your beliefs has a drastic effect on whether people will listen to you, consider your words, and respect you, or not.

We have a lot of agnostic or atheist people here, people who question whether God even exists. They certainly aren't going to be inclined to learn more about Jesus if one of his most vocal representatives on this forum is so harsh. Maybe they would even think that's how Jesus acts.

I am not writing this to argue with you, because you have made your opinion on the subject very clear.
I just hope that you will think on my words, because if you have such a strong passion to tell people about the Lord, you could be hugely influential in many lives.

Peace and blessings to you.

2017-04-22 10:31:44

Maybe they would even think that's how Jesus acts.

To be fair, Jesus is pretty harsh in Matthew23.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2017-04-22 10:34:45

A few days ago I found a interesting website and I want to share it here. Keep in mind that this website isn't managed by me and its opinions do not always match my own. Because it is trying to disprove god's existence, it might be offensive to some of you, so read at your own risk. But if your faith is strong, it can't be shaken by a few words, can it? smile
https://godisimaginary.com/

Yes, I definitely left the forum. Mhm. Why would you have any doubt?
Code 7 tips: https://forum.audiogames.net/topic/4010 … or-code-7/
Don't forget to be awesome!

2017-04-22 13:54:10

Mayana wrote:

A few days ago I found a interesting website and I want to share it here. Keep in mind that this website isn't managed by me and its opinions do not always match my own. Because it is trying to disprove god's existence, it might be offensive to some of you, so read at your own risk. But if your faith is strong, it can't be shaken by a few words, can it? smile
https://godisimaginary.com/

If you have already given yourself over to this website, you need no further argument because you have already concluded that you are universally aware and all knowing.  Kindly ask the writer to please tell us if, in all of existence, there is, without our having manufactured it, a white stone with black spots and yellow stripes?  He should know the answer to that question as well, since he knows that God is in fact, imaginary.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2017-04-22 14:27:07 (edited by daigonite 2017-04-22 14:29:52)

Nocturnus wrote:

I'm not only not curious and or not interested about it, but wonder why it needs to be paraded by either side, homosexual or heterosexual, like some trophy, as it were.

To be fair, that may be the question that I'd also like to ask LGBT myself. Who cares who you're banging? Seriously? Nobody cares, and anyone who does has way too much time to worry about what others are doing with their lives. Hell, two people of same or opposite sex could be together for a whole multitude of reasons.

It gets worse when trans people are involved because then there are medical interventions, who the hell wants to know your whole personal medical history, especially regarding your privates? WTF PEOPLE

Just one thing I'd like to add about homosexuality in animals that I forgot to mention - I own two male lovebirds and there are times that one attempted to copulate the other; this is common in species where the sexes look the same such as lovebirds. Sexual levels are determined by hormones in your body, and it's likely that they were very hormonal and were seeking a means to release their sexual tension. In other species such as Ruff, homosexual individuals serve a breeding role, which is likely to also help curb extremely testosterone driven males and their aggression/sexuality.

tbh though I think people should really just be humanists

you like those kinds of gays because they're gays made for straights

2017-04-22 14:27:19

Mayana wrote:

A few days ago I found a interesting website and I want to share it here. Keep in mind that this website isn't managed by me and its opinions do not always match my own. Because it is trying to disprove god's existence, it might be offensive to some of you, so read at your own risk. But if your faith is strong, it can't be shaken by a few words, can it? smile
https://godisimaginary.com/

And then there's this.
http://apatheticagnostic.com/articles/m … endix.html

To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.
William Blake - Auguries of Innocence, line 1 to 4

2017-04-22 14:52:43

@Nocturnus, it was not my intention to clame that this website is the only right one and everything it says is true. If I've insulted you, I'm sorry. I just see it as food for thought, and that's why I posted it here. Something does not have to be right to make you think.
@AlexN94, the link you posted looks interesting so far, thank you.

Yes, I definitely left the forum. Mhm. Why would you have any doubt?
Code 7 tips: https://forum.audiogames.net/topic/4010 … or-code-7/
Don't forget to be awesome!

2017-04-22 14:59:13

I'm in agreement for the most part with post 295.  I've never doubted that homosexuality exists as a part of nature; there is enough evidence of it watching the animal kingdom which, if we're gonna take the bible literally, doesn't even have free will or the reason or rationality of humankind.  Whether the animal is knowingly homosexual, well, again, a topic I don't think we can cover very well because I don't even know that we've studdied it extensively, but I imagine it isn't given that we can observe the behavior of many male dogs who for whatever reason feel the necessity to relieve themselves sexually with just about everything including stuffed animals and, um, human legs?  :d

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2017-04-22 18:35:03

I am not entirely convinced we really have free will on a fundamental level; it's likely our processes are just consequences of chemical reactions in our bodies. However, out consciousness is so abstracted from these processes that for all intents and purposes, we have "free will" most of the time, but that free will seems to be determined by whatever's going on in our heads.

This is probably best demonstrated by the fact that people have temptations in the first place. It makes sense that people would act in certain prescribed patterns in a general sense, since such behaviour allowed us to survive. However, all of us are randomized to some extent, and the technical details are easily influenced by our environment, so strict determinism is really not helpful in actually utilizing people imho.

you like those kinds of gays because they're gays made for straights

2017-04-22 18:38:15

Wow, lots to respond to. I've categorized by name and post for ease of reference...

Slender (#276): I don't mean this in a mean way at all, but you are probably at risk of giving incredible offense to both Muslims and Christians by suggesting that Muhammad is basically the Muslim version of Jesus. That said, the points of convergence (and divergence) between the two faiths are interesting—but way beyond the scope of this discussion.#

Draco (#269): Agreed. More harm has been done to the witness of the Christian church by