please explain - i dont understand much -- Sexuality etc.

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 01:01:20 08/02/00 Wed
Author: me
Subject: please explain - i dont understand much
In reply to: Rev. Fred Phelps 's message, "Gender Indentity Disorder" on 00:44:54 05/24/00 Wed

i hope no one minds that this is more generally about god than homosexuality. im just up kinda late, and got bored, and was looking around, and figured id write to kill time. also, sorry its so long; i guess ive just got a lot of stuff kicking around my head at the moment. most of this is just kinda rambling anyway, i guess. not terribly well thought out. also, sorry about the poor punctuation. i think punctuation really sucks unless its necessary for emphasis, or greater understanding in any sense. any extraneous puctuation, formalities, etc (Capitalization; periods after etc; apostrophes; etc) were omitted.

personal feelings about religion:
Agnostic (and frankly, i dont give a damn) actually, i consider the problem of "gods" existence to be fundamentally unsolvable, but since i actively reject any conceptions of god, regardless of their fundamental "truth" (whatever that means), i guess it could be said that i in fact do not BELIEVE IN god, and so neither the term atheist or agnostic is really appropriate. regarding what is written below, however, i apologize if anyone feels i have trivialized god through the use of gender specific terms such as "he", "him", "himself", etc. it was just easier than figuring out how to use all necessary variations of the more general "it."

personal feelings about homosexuality:
i think genitalia is a trivial standard for love. though personally im largely heterosexual, i find that i dont particularly care about who or what others find sexually attractive. i find attempts to suppress homosexuality ridiculous. on a social basis, homosexuals pose no threat to the fabric of our society; parents who consider homosexuality deviant can raise their children to hate and fear it. Their family shouldnt be threatened by a homosexual coupling somewhere, because parents have final control over their own families. On a religious basis, attempts to suppress through lawmaking etc homosexuality amounts to little more than trying to save the souls of individuals according to creeds and doctrines to which they may very well not subscribe. and if they continue to harbor homosexual thoughts and lusts, then they really havent changed and probably still wont be saved. in short, maybe homophobes need to grow up a little.

NARTHA!?!:
i suspect any organization which includes among its prime objectives the "prevention of homosexuality," and which was founded by a man who seemed to be already firmly convinced that homosexuality is behaviorally abnormal (he even spoke of the inclusion of gays as though it were a favor), is not building any given research from an objective or even scientific foundation. but maybe ive misinterpreted it, dont understand it.

Subjectivity, independence, limits, etc:
Jesus? wants to save homosexuals? save them from what? as near as i can tell, it is according to the purely subjective laws decreed by jesus, god, etc (however (or whether) you choose to believe in the trinity, the being of "the alpha and the omega") that homosexuals, behaving in a manner which is in no way threatening or dangerous or harmful to others or to society in general, will be damned.

if god is indeed eternal, the omniscient and omnipotent and omnipresent ruler of the universe, then there are really no immutable objective laws or standards which could exist outside of god. god loves us? wants to save us? from what? his own wrath, his own laws, his own arbitrary standards of right and wrong, god and evil, a dualism created entirely by and through an individual who then creates others and attempts to control and subjugate? does the ability to create carry with it the natural rights of destruction? not when the being created is an autonomous existent entirely capable of consciousness, free will, and independence. once created, i exist independently of god, and apparently with a fairly similar conciousness. I AM MY OWN BEING! I DEFINE MY OWN EXISTENCE!

if on the basis of threats of eternal punishment and promises of grand rewards i should choose to relinquish my own personal freedom, opting instead to obey the will of another, then i will never fully realize my potential as a human being entirely capable of my own decisions. Of course, and i think this is what appeals to most christians, in fact most people in general, i will never have to take any level of personal responsibility for my own actions as an autonomous human being. should i choose to obey the will of god instead of my own will, then i will never have to justify my actions according to any personal moral code, developed through increased personal awareness and personal strength.

Religion is nice that way; it tells you what youre supposed to do, so you dont have to figure that out, and it tells you what your not supposed to do, so you dont have to determine that either. Christianity makes it especially clear cut, through the use (quite literally) of a stern father figure, from whom we never have to, and in fact never may, part. the ultimate security blanket. in fact, according to "christ," it seems that all that is really ultimately required is love for him, his father (im not sure what to put there - the whole trinitarian v. unitarian, nature of god thing again). because apparently if we dont make ourselves love him, then he will make us suffer.

really, its funny, you see, theres is no "agape". its a nice idyllic concept, but not possible. even if it wasnt based of fear and hope, your love for god would still be fundamentally selfish. if god, the creator and ruler of existence found delight in cruelty, if loving him was painful instead of pleasant, if it bore the promise of eternal suffering instead of eternal happiness, would you love him as well as you do now? ultimately, you only love god because of 1. what he has done for you, and 2. what he promises to do for you. if god, eternal creator, were "evil" instead of "good," odds are you wouldnt love him. but he cant be evil, because all standards of good and evil stem from god himself. HE define HIMSELF as good, and that which is separate from him as evil. if he promised to reward you for hate, then youd likely begin to hate and preach against love. its all entirely subjective.
?*thought in progress* perhaps the only way to truly partake of a sense of agape would be through the complete sacrifice of ones own personal identity, through the complete submergence of your "I" in the others (in this case gods) very existence. but that would seem to require complete annhilation of the self. i havent really thought this through, it just occurred to me, so im gonna stop****?

god must be very sad and lonely. maybe if he created an equal companion . . . or is god incapable of something, namely, creating an equal counterpart? after all, god apparently created man that man could act as a suitable companion, no? but is any "flawed" creature truly an appropriate companion for a "flawless" one? why not create an equal, truly capable of choosing god without threats of punishment or temptation of paradise? is god too proud, or merely incapable of creating another omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent being? but according to the gospel (lazarus and the rich man) there isnt even any way that the chasm between heaven and hell can be breached? if god so aches over every lost soul, why lose any souls? why not restructure his laws? how could a soul be irretrevable after corporeal death? is not god, by definition, unlimited in scope of power and love? but apparently even god is limited, by the confines created by himself, of death, and of heaven and hell. all things do not seem to be possible for god.

But maybe ive completely misinterpreted god, christianity, religion in general (it should be noted in all fairness that buddhism does call for a remarkable level of personal responsibility, and for that, it perhaps deserves more respect than some other religions) if you really feel theres anything i havent really understood, i would really really appreciate elucidation.
anyway, ive personally got lots more to say (who doesnt), and i feel that ive only scratched the tip of the iceberg of my thoughts on the subject (id like to discuss, for instance, why paul (on whose teachings christianity is based more than on Jesus') was necessary to (as monty python once put it) "subedit" christ), but ive written too much, and im tired, so im going to bed. but to sum it up let me just write this one last, nearly encapsulating statement:

By what ties are God's hands bound?

Thank you

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

clarification -- me again, 01:19:19 08/02/00 Wed