Could mainstream christianity ever make peace with gay people?

The definition of "mainstream" is constantly changing with the general mores of society.Realistically, it wasn't all that long ago that interracial marriage, divorce, interfaith marriage, equal treatment for minorities, equal rights for women, and a whole host of other issues were outside what was then the "mainstream" of Christianity. As the general consensus of morality has changed, so too has the majority opinion of Christianity.The Old Testament goes into great detail about how the Hebrews were not to inter-marry with non-Jews. That commandment has been overlooked by both Christians and Jews in recent times.We all know of the large number of Bible passages used in the past to justify slavery, racial discrimination, and the general restriction of the rights of women, but in recent years those passages have been ignored by what is the current mainstream as well.It's pretty clear at this point that the morals of religious institutions are not, in fact, written in stone, and that the moral teachings of these institutions change gradually over time. As more and more Christians personally change their beliefs away from what mainstream Christianity teaches regarding homosexuality, the teachings will be changed over generations as well. There are always stragglers who wish it was still 1950, or 1850, or 1050, but the mainstream does tend to change over time.I think that as society as a whole continues to "get used to" the idea of homosexuality being okay, and the law continues to change to treat gays equally, we'll see changes in what mainstream religion teaches, as well. Unfortunately, that doesn't do much to help gays today.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

The Bible is also explicitly anti-interracial mingling, anti-interfaith marriage, anti-women, and anti-shellfish.Oh...and anti-geology, anti-biology, anti-physics, and generally anti-science.Current mainstream Christianity ignores at least most of this (I don't think literalist Creationists are quite mainstream any longer). The written laws from the Bible are conveniently ignored when it is no longer socially acceptable to obey them verbatim.To take an example from a recent thread: the Bible explicitly states that women are to remain silent in church. 200 years ago or so, this may have been obeyed, but would even the most looney fringes of Christianity try to push that one any longer? Society's morals have changed, and so have the teachings of the mainstream church.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

Rahvin writesquote:The Bible is also explicitly anti-interracial mingling, anti-interfaith marriage, anti-women, and anti-shellfish.Oh...and anti-geology, anti-biology, anti-physics, and generally anti-science. That's exactly what I'm saying. Early potential Christian converts want to eat shellfish and pork, and dont want to be circumcised? Here comes Paul to have a vision and reinterpret everything to get rid of those pesky rules.Women want equal treatment and want to be able to speak up in Church? Clearly, that passage must have been about speaking in tongues, not in general (amusingly, this is still extremely sexist, and fundamentalist women who believe in "speaking in tongues" do so all the time, like in the Jesus Camp documentary).Can't have slaves any more? Obviously, Jesus coming broke all bonds and established a new Covenent.Gays are normal people, and homosexuality isnt really evil?I'm eagerly waiting to see how they'll eventually rationalize that one. Same horrific justification used for the COnquistadors and other mass murder of Native Americans and other non-Christians. Hell, it's also closely related to the justification of the Inquisition. Fortunately, most people no longer accept such nonsense.Though it's interesting...I read of a study not too long ago where subjects were asked whether an act of genocide was justified. They took one of the stories from the Bible (there are several technical genocides - it may have been Canaan, or perhaps one of the others), and changed enough words to make it look like a modern occurance. They gave the original, Biblical version to one group, and the altered version to another. Unsurprisingly, the group with the Biblical version found the genocide to be compeltely justified, while the group with the modern version of the same story found it to be abhorrent. It seems the Bible gets a free pass. I'll do some searching and see if I can find an article on it, maybe start another cognitive dissonance thread. That's be the one, and I'm watching for it as well.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

Have you read the Bible?

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Exoldus 21:2-24 If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself

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1Tim. 6:1-5 Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be blasphemed. Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful to them on the ground that they are members of the church; rather they must serve them all the more, since those who benefit by their service are believers and beloved. Teach and urge these duties. Whoever teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that is in accordance with godliness, is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words. From these come envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.

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Eph. 6:5-6 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.

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Slavery is clearly a-okay in the Bible.

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racial discrimination,

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This can go all over the place, from commandments to the Hebrews that they should not intermarry with non-Jews, to passages that have at various times in the past been used to justify more general racism.

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Genesis 9:25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

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The Curse of Ham as this came to be called was eventually interpreted to mean that Ham and his descendants carried the mark of their curse with dark skin. This was used to justify African slavery.I'll admit, I find it to be a stretch myself, but it was used for a few hundred years to justify African slavery. This one is easy. Paul really, really didn't like women:

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Romans 1:27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

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The natural use of women?

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1 Corinth. 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.

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Men are in charge of women.

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1 Corinth. 11:5 But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.

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Shave a woman's head if she dares enter a church with her head uncovered.

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1 Corinth. 14:34-35 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

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Women should shut up in church and take their direction from men.We wont even mention the general unimportance of women throughout the Bible (only men are mentioned in the genealogies, for instance, and ALL of the sons, but no women, ever, except for notable wives), of that they were often treated as sex slaves and taken as forced brides after various genocidal campaigns (that would be called rape, btw, and was apparently supported by God).Is that enough, Lemkin, or should I continue? Note that I've spanned both the Old and New Testaments. Forgive me for assuming that Christians would actually read the book they profess to be literally true.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

Well, this is the clincher, right here, isn't it.Are certain actions "good" becasue god defines them as good, or does god like those actions because they are good?In the first case, abhorrent acts like rape, genocide, and torture are all completely justified and become "good" if god orders them or commits them himself (as happened multiple times in the OT).In the second case, those abhorrent acts are evil, no matter how you swing it, even if god were to do them himself.Obviously, to any non-Christian, the first scenario is frighteningly horrific. Even to most Christians the first option should be scary simply because of the ease with which the Bible can be interpreted to justify atrocities (Hitler used religion to justify the Holocaust, for example, and of course we always have the Inquisition).So then here's the question: if god himself stepped down and told you to go to a hospital and set a bunch of newborns on fire, would you do it, and would it be "good?"If so, your brand of Christianity will never make peace with homosexuals, but will also be met with horror and disgust by mainstream Christians and anyone with secular (or even slightly rational) ethics.The idea that actions are "good" because god defines them as "good" is simply the bully's philosophy - might makes right, literally. Because god is more powerful than you, he gets to tell you what's right and wrong, even if all rational thought shows a specific action to be inherently immoral.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

So God likes it because it's good, and it's good because God likes it. No circular logic there. Nope, none at all.Rather than specifically reply to each of your statements, I think it's clear that youve chosen the "whatever God says is good, period, even if I were to do it it would be compeltely evil" route.I think that says all that's necessary. Of course morality is subjective - it always has been. Determining ethics is a rational process that does not (and should not) involve a supernatural father figure saying, to quote the movie Dogma, "Do it and I'll fucking spank you."If you were to create sentient life, I would absolutely say that you have no right to kill or torture or otherwise treat that new life inhumanely. Likewise with god.Aside from that...I'm not prepared to accept a fictional entity as "sovereign" over anything, so I suppose your analasys of me is at least somewhat correct.But so long as Christianity insists that homosexuality is a sin regardless of a lack of any moral reason beyond "this book says so," or "I think it's icky," Christianity and gays will never make peace whether you see it as a "war" or not.Only generations of continually changing social moral values will eventually change the moral views of mainstream Christianity and allow gays and Christians to get along...but those who cling to your sort of moral framework will continue to exist on the fringes, like Phelps and his crew.Let's face it, iano, "hate the sin, not the sinner" is not an acceptable perspective from a homosexual persons point of view - it tells them that a part of who and what they are is inherently evil, and they need to beg forgiveness for simply existing that way. That kind of offensiveness creates friction, at the least.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

All of this speaks of the Bible approving of slavery, as I said. God could have added an 11th Commandment saying "thou shalt not own men as animals," or could have gone further with the 6-years rule and made slavery illegal, but specifically did not while making rules around the practice. I said I found it to be a stretch, but it was historically used as a justification for a few hundred years. All of which involves treating women different from men, making them unequal.Seriously, you just repeated my point.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

Yes, that is exactly what that statement says.Just because blacks were treated differently under the Jim Crow laws, does that mean they were treated unequally?YES! Women are not fundamentally different from men outside of their sex organs, Lemkin. Women are perfectly able to make decisions all on their own without a man to guide them, and can voice their opinions without a man to tell them what their opinions are. This would be called a "contradiction" in the Bible, where it says in one section that slavery is just fine, but gives a moral rule in another part that logically leads to saying slavery is wrong. Kind of like the whole "god loves everyone" vs "god will kill you all and send you to hell forever if you don't believe in his son" contradiction.It's a lot like the contradiction made when "hate the sin but not the sinner" meets "a basic part of who you are as a person is considered a sin." Christians like iano manage to find some sort of a difference to say they don't hate homosexuals, only the act of gay sex. The vast majority of gays, however, equate it to saying "showing blue eyes is a sin. You'd better keep your eyes closed, and ask god for forgiveness."I'm sure you can see why that creates friction, and why the horrific "gay-fixing" camps tend to produce psychological problems and repression rather than "curing" something that isn't a disease.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

I'm glad you grew up in such an environment. Nobody should ever have to live hating themselves. Thankfully not all of them are...but yes, quite a few are filled with hate while talking about love. Funny how they don't realize that heterosexuals can get HIV as well...I know one, personally. You have my sympathies. I haven't told my family that I'm an Atheist yet...I'm pretty certain my parents would disown me. Yeah, that's about it. Possibly more - according to some, you're blaspheming right now, so that's triple.Did you know there's actually a computer game based on the "Left Behind" book series where the player gets 2 points for converting a heathen, and 1 point for killing them? The bigotry is that popular. I dont think there is a way to understand it. Bigotry and hatred can run deep, and there are many rabid racists who's "best friend is black" or what have you. The individual is always considered the "exception" to the hated group, but such friendships are built on a sham. I'm sorry to hear about your "friend," and can only say you're better off without her hatred in your life.This is the crux of the matter - Christians honestly don't think they're being bigots when they speak against homosexuality, and they honestly believe that "hate the sin, not the sinner" somehow makes everything okay. I've never met a gay/lesbian/transgender person who agrees with them. Until Christians can see their bigotry and hatred for what it is, I don't think there will ever be real acceptance and understanding.* note - when I say "Christian," I typically mean the fundamentalist conservative fire-and-brimstone Creationist type, and their more moderate but still bigoted cousins. I fully realize that many Christians have no problem at all with homosexuality, I just wish they were in the majority.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

It's the mere act of telling a homosexual that part of who they are is a sin, and that loving who they love is a sin, that is so offensive, iano.I know you honestly believe what you're saying, but despite your best intentions, from the perspective of a gay person, you're spouting hate speech.It's one thing to say "non-Christians are damned," or "those who do evil like murder and rape have sinned." You can choose your religion to some degree, and certainly nobody has to kill or rape.It's another thing entirely to say "falling in romantic love with a member of the same sex is sinful and evil, and you'll go to hell for it." I know I've never chosen who I fall in love with or who I'm attracted to. There was never a moment in my life where I got to decide to be attracted to either males or females or both. I'm sure you never had a choice along those lines, either.So let's take something else you could never choose - blood type. Let's say some imaginary group has the belief that a specific blood type is sinful, and that blood type happens to be yours. They say "we don't hate you, we only want you to stop having that blood type, because it is sinful." Let's say that this group not only shuns you for your "unwillingness" to change your blood type, but some more extreme members of the group have killed people with your blood type for no other reason. Every day you hear on the news about people with your blood type being discriminated against, and in you own town you know that if anyone finds out about your blood type, you could be beaten, raped, or worse. Your rights are restricted - you are only allowed to marry people of the same blood type, and this is called "fair" because the rules apply to everyone - you simply have a specific set of people you are allowed to marry. never mind if you fall in love with someone with a different blood type. You keep your blood type secret, hoping to avoid all of the unfair treatment, and secretly ashamed of the fact that you can't change your blood type - it's part of who and what you are.How would you feel? Afraid? Ashamed, but at the same time angry becasue you should never have to be ashamed of something like a blood type? Cut off, and isolated? Opressed?This is how gay people feel when Christians start talking about homosexuality being a sin. They remember all of the violence and hatred. Even the Christians with the best intentions, like I assume you to be, are in essence teling them that they are sinners because they were born with a certain skin color, or blood type, something they had no choice in and cannot actually change.The Christian groups who dismiss the anti-homosexual parts of the Bible along with the other bad parts tend to et along with gays just fine, and count many homosexuals in their congregations.For those Christian sects who insist on calling love a sin, just becasue it's expressed to a mamber of the same sex, there is no amont of "we don't hate you, we just think your love is evil" that will reconcile you. It only makes it worse.Christians have the right to beleive however they wish, just like everyone else. But nobody should expect gays to get along with the Christians who believe homosexuality is a sin, any more than blacks will get along with white supremacists who say "we don't hate blacks, it's not their fault they weren't born white, we just believe whites are better than they are."

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

Here's the problem, ICANT: as long as homosexuality is even called a sin, even if you say that it doesn't matter becasue we're all sinners, you're still saying that who a person falls in love with can be defined as an evil thing.You would probably say you accept homosexuals, and would welcome a gay person in your church with open arms, and not even ask that they "stop being gay."But the moment you say "thou shalt not lie with a man as with woman, that is an abomination before the Lord," or even mention that homosexuality is a sin even if you allow for universal forgiveness and the idea that everyone is a sinner in some way...you're still saying that a gay person's love is evil.And I can very much understand why a gay person would take extreme offense to that.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

I completely agree. It's unfortunate that a very vocal group of Christians do not.Of course, then there's that little problem of wanting to physically express your love for your partner, and the whole "you can't marry someone of the same sex" thing. The church is basically saying "it's okay to love them, but you can't kiss them, get married, or have sex, because that's evil." And heterosexuals, of course, just get the standard "get married before you do it" line.That's still pretty damned insulting. I know if I was gay, I'd be telling the church to get bent, myself.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

I can certainly understand why. More of an "all Christians" thing. Eve and Adam disobeyed god, so now all of humanity are sinners becasue of the sin of our ancestors. It's the reason Christians say Jesus needed to die, to pay the price for everyone's sin. Apparently even a compeltely innocent baby who can't comprehend right and wrong let alone disobey any rules is still just as guilty as Hitler.I know. I don't get it either, and I was one of them for 25 years. None whatsoever. But it's interesting to see the mental acrobatics Christians twist themselves in while trying to rationalize it. That's good, becasue there really isn't any difference - except that the Bible is a lot more specific about homosexuality being a sin. That's why it's so much easier to talk to a Christian about racism than it is about homosexuality - the Bible has been used to justify racism, too, but it's not spelled out nearly as well as "thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, that is abomination." Biblical literalists will always have a problem with gays, regardless of their "hate the sin, love the sinner" BS. Good for you. Nobody should ever accept being told they're a sinner for simply existing, or for doing something that doesn't harm anyone. Besides, the sexual repression that they seem to love so much just results in all manner of other problems - like the molesting priests of the Catholic Church.The irony of that would be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

You just keep repeating the exact reason gay people are never going to get along with your brand of Christianity, no matter how "compassionate" you try to be. The core of your belief still says that homosexuality is an act of evil. It's irrelevant that you consider it one evil act among many, or that we are all guilty of evil activities during our lives.There is no logical, rational, or moral reason that homosexuality is "bad." The only reason is your religion. Your Bible says it is, and provides your god as the big father figure who says "don't do that, because I say so!" That's not morality, iano, and it never was - and a gay person is not going to appreciate that sentiment, period.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

But that is the topic of this thread. But they will take offense to your beliefs so long as you call a part of who and what they are sinful. So long as you say that "marriage is only between a man and a woman" and "thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, that is abomination," gays will reject your theology, and you will continue to be spouting hate speech. Morality can be based on rational determinations, iano. Everybody agrees that might does not make right, but somehow most Christians give their deity a free pass on that one. You're essentially saying that all morality is an appeal to someone's authority, and you choose "god" as yours, but that's not the case. The moral framework of atheists, for example, is not predicated on what anyone says is moral, including the individuals. It's based on subjective judgements of violations of anothers human rights and the benefit/detriment of society as a whole. Morality is subjective, but that doesn't mean it's all based on appeals to authority.Only your morality is an appeal to authority. That's called "projection." Of course there are. That's part of the reason we have those "pray the gay away" camps and such. There are also thousands of people who have accepted that being left-handed is sinful, for identical reasons. The self-hatred and sexual suppression these people are brainwashed into is harmful beyond belief, and is the real "sin."

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.