Do Christians Think

Some do, some don't. Just like everyone else.

In response to your actual post, firstly, not all christians think that. Many, probably most, are lovely people who think nothing of the sort. But true, some do think we're all sinners and abominations, and lots more besides that. I don't think that is motivated by faith, though. Usually indoctrinated hatred, or fear of their own sexuality, and they use the bible as a justification. And yes, occasionally I suppose an opposition to homosexuality is purely motivated by the bible, but that tends to be less insidious and vitriolic in my experience.

In itself, the fact that someone is a sinner themselves (not that I believe in the concept) does not mean they shouldn't act to prevent sin. Somehow, they do what they believe is right, and it fucking sucks that that happens to be opposing our rights and happiness. But as I say, religion is usually just used as an excuse.

 

You're right bro :eusa_clap

 

I think some of them see it like how a lot of people would see a pedophile being driven to suicide by people telling him his desires are bad. I know they're totally different, but a lot of homophobes kind of lump the two together.

 

What Hex said, religion is used as an excuse for hate most of the time.

 

Wow...just...wow...

I'm going to go against my gut and just answer your question as best I can, I'll let someone else deal with the title and content...


So here's the thing about sin. Sin is bad. If you sin, you are bad. If you're bad you go to hell. Remove the word sin and replace it with 'commit a crime' and you have a secular version of the same thing.

The basic train of though is if you're BAD then you must not be 'good'. If you're not good, then you serve no purpose among good people. So who cares if you die? Now the reason I mentioned above that if you replace the word 'sin' with 'commit a crime' is because there are plenty of people out there who aren't religious but think if you commit a crime you may as well die. Hell the death penalty exists for exactly this reason.

It's not limited to christians, or even religious people. It's just a thought progression.

 

Does it?

 

As a Christian I do not think this way. I think that we are all God's Children and we are created the way that we are for a reason, hence if some one is part of GSM, then it is by God's design and there is no way that, that can be a bad thing.

The Christian who judge, harass, and are all around rude and mean to people of the GSM community are sins yes. They are going against the teachings of Jesus, which is to love everyone, not to judge and to spread his Good Will, by being a good person. One is not actively trying to make the world a more loving and accepting place then they're sinners. WE are taught and commanded to love our neighbor, and that includes are neighbors who have different beliefs, different morals, it doesn't matter if they are part of the GSM or not, or if they are from a different race or not. They do everything that one can disagree with, but we are still commanded to love.

It really bothers me when some tries to use the Bible as a Weapon. It was never meant to be used as such. It was meant to be used a guide to raise someone up, not to beat them down.

 

Hmm. I'd have to disagree with this.
Lets do a survey. n=30 (aka, my class at college, and affiliated students in my other classes, because I'm a loser without a life.)

There are about five known christians. Not a negative word. I'm close friends with one, kinda friends with another, and out to both. No problem. There are about ten muslims. I heard some homophobic remarks from a couple, but I'm out to many others, and they're fine with it. Two specifically used to be homophobic, but have changed a lot in the last few months. No problem from the atheists.

 

In my experience, it's non-Christians, who are actually more hateful. The thing that makes Christian homophobia stand out is because it's supposedly 'justified' by quoting a few dubious passages from The Bible. Interestingly, you will never find a line of scripture that mentions Jesus criticising same sex relationships.

I think the majority of Christians are actually quite moderate people and not nearly as outspoken as some of the Church leaders. For those Christians that have caused so much distress and suffering to LGB people... shame on them!

 

Hi, as a christian I'd like to offer my perspective. I was watching Al Jazeera news a couple of days ago and this topic was being debated. One guy made a great point - which was that christians should be known by the "fruit" they bore. In other words - if their actions have positive outcomes, it is a good christian thing. If the outcomes are bad - hounding, shame, prejudice, suicide, closeted, unsatisfied lives - then the actions causing this can't really be christian.

Personally I think that God made some people gay and that's just fine by me! The (very) few references in the bible that have been interpreted to be anti gay can be easily explained and shouldn't be used to bear bad fruit.

I understand that some people have a different opinion and read some things far more literally. If they are open to the true spirit of christianity they should treat not only individuals with love but think how their actions set up a culture that bears bad fruit.

I think God has all the right answers but "he" wants us to think more openly and deeply about what they might be ourselves. If someone is so absolutely sure they are right that they hurt other people then maybe they aren't right.....
cheers

 

Um...good thing that you put "no offense" otherwise, I'd be offended. Oh wait...I'm offended to some extent. To answer the title: Yes, Christians think and they do acknowledge the fact that we're all sinners in God's eyes. It just, with all other things, how level-headed the other person is. The Christians that actually think and process stuff the best way are those who actually read bible for context and try to understand. Than there are those that do not read the bible and just go off spouting what they heard despite there being verses that demonstrate God's love for all of us and just "cherry-pick" verses.

 

I think it is very dangerous to lump all christians into one basket and label 'christians' as bible thumping homophobes when the reality is homophobes are independant of religious beliefs.

A homophobe is a homophobe.

Labelling Christians as homophobic is the same as labelling homosexuals as paedophiles, they are 2 differant things which just do not go together like oil and water.

 

We never want to put Christians all in one bigoted category. Of course there is a a lot of homophobic in the christian community and as a born again christian I am very embarassed about it. God never condemned homosexuality and the bible was misinterpreted by men and the original language never condemned homosexuality either. These lies have been made up by ministers and they brainwash their parishioners to believe in the false gospel.

The true way to be a good christian is too believe in God and by becoming born again you believe you are saved by grace meaning although we are all sinners are true belief in God and not religion is what gets in you in the heaven. Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps and so on are not what defines a true christian period. They are the people christ actually railed against in the bible.

The Son of God was a great movie and really showed this message of grace and being saved by what Jesus did for us on the cross. Jesus would of never of gone through that if he wanted us to go to hell for our sins. We are not judged by our sins but by our faith in hm.

 

Oooh, wait, wait, Ellia!

The thing is that we're also told that *humans* are neither the judges of sin nor the arbiters of justice with respect to sin (crime yes, not sin). God has reserved those as his job. It is actually quite presumptuous of humans to judge one another as sinners.

The idea is that we're each to look after our own relationship with god. I don't think he'd be ok with any of our historical persecutions or declarations of hatred in his name.

 

I'm a Christian grappling with this issue now. I am straight, so maybe I can provide a little different perspective. I became a very devout Christian when I was 17. I changed my life and had dreams of becoming a youth pastor. I attended a very conservative Christian college. But I just never understood the churches position on homosexuality. I believed it was a sin only because "that's what the Bible says" and that's all I knew but something didn't sit right in my heart.

Fast forward a lot of years and I went through an internal battle with my faith. I was almost ready to give up and become an atheist. I was struggling because I couldn't understand why I couldn't live up to the crazy standard of sexual purity of my mind. No matter how hard I tried, I continued to "sin" and it seemed the harder I tried the worse it got.

One day I just sort of have up feeling guilty about it and realized this us how god made me. I have sexual thoughts all the time. Many involve BDSM. Some even involve Tranny or even men. I wouldn't say I'm bi though because I think the fantasy is more about BDSM than being attracted to men. But a funny thing happened. When I finally stopped fighting these god given, natural likes and dislikes and just did whatever I wanted, it lost its control over me. I actually watch less porn now than I did before I gave up trying. And before I would binge and purge and then feel guilty all over again.

I finally came to the realization that maybe these concepts in the Bible about sexuality and lust aren't what we think they are? My life is a living testimony of the freedom it brought me to finally admit that I fantasize a lot. I'm a very sexual person. Sometimes it's BDSM in nature. I also came to realize I'm more non-monogamous by nature. And I no longer believe that adultery is a sin unless people are being dishonest (I should add my wife does not share that belief so i am currently a non practicing non-monogamist) I do believe in moderation and making sure that life doesn't take the place of God, and self control, but my views have significantly changed. Just recently I've been open and honest with my wife about who I am and even though its been hard for her she is trying.

Having said all that, I have a lot of pent up anger about Christianity and sometimes it shows. But altogether I do think most of them have good intentions. The biggest problem with Christianity is they are really not allowed to decide for themselves what they believe. For the most part you either toe the line and believe whatever your denomination believes or you are a list wayward souls who needs to pray more and repent.

I've recently come out and told all my friends and family that I no longer see homosexuality as a sin. Some have totally understood. Some have rebuked me. Some probably wont be my friend anymore. Some are probably praying for me to come back to Jesus daily. But it's hard to blame them because that's how they have been taught. Anything that is unbiblical is heresy. And to them that means, anything that doesn't line up with their understanding of the Bible us heresy. I struggle to understand this line of thinking. This was a book written 2,000 years ago in a completely different language and even the history behind how it was all put together is crazy. But most Christians don't even know where their Bible came from. To me their approach to Christian Thought doesn't make any sense but I still try to respect their process.

It just makes my skin crawl when they want to be able to refuse service to gay people or not allow them to get married and have equal rights.

Hope this helps.

 

Oh, I know, sorry I must have not said what I meant very clearly! What I meant was that regardless of what is actually taught in the bible, it's a state of mind a lot of people have anyway, that if you are bad, you're not worth the consideration!

Still not sure that's any clearer!

 

Yup, perfectly clear, but still not Christian...'cause we're supposed to respect and love *everyone* (Sodom and Gomorrah was actually destroyed because of insufficient respect consistently being shown to visitors there...nothing specific to anal sex, sheesh).