Dear Readers,
If you have checkout out my post on the religiously-inspired homophobic comments on Steve Wells' blog post from Dwindling in Unbelief about the "pray the gay away" thing, you'd notice that many of the Christians in those 28 comments, including some atheists seem to take delight in being homophobic bigots, like how the Ku Klux Klan are more than pleased to promote and recruit others into adopting ideas based on hatred of and the view that colored people are inherently inferior and do not deserve to live on this planet. Many of these Christians "salute" each other in these comments with their prejudice towards romantically and sexually-active gay, bisexual or lesbian persons who are in same-sex relationships. Reminds me of Nazism. They say a lot of hateful things like, why should they waste their time trying to "save" gay people from burning forever in hell? Umm.... not all Christians believe that hell is lake of fire. Orthodox Mormons ( The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which I am a former member of) believe in three levels of heaven, the Celestial Kingdom, the Terrestrial Kingdom and the Telestial Kingdom, with the Celestial Kingdom being the highest level of the heavens with different degrees of glory. The Orthodox Mormons view Hell as a place of outer darkness where you live with Satan and his demons and are forever tormented by thoughts of all the bad things that you ever did during your mortal existence on earth. These are usually people who died as ex-Mormons. They are called the Sons of Perdition. Some fundamentalist Christian groups don't believe in the concept of hell such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Seventh-day Adventists, the Christadelphians, the Bible Students and the Two-by-Two's. I am an ex-Jehovah's Witness as well as an ex-Seventh-day Adventist.
Gays, lesbians and bisexuals are presented with only two options in fundamentalist Christianity or other fundamentalist religious groups, either they must enter a mixed-orientation "marriage" with a heterosexual person of the opposite-sex or they have to lead a life of romantic and sexual repression until death. Neither option is acceptable or realistic to me. Transgendered people are required to lead a life of gender dysphoria until death and can never undergo a sex-change operation. This is also unfair. Fundamentalist Christians and other religious fundamentalists only view homosexuality as just being a bunch of sexual acts, which is how they also view heterosexuality pretty much. Heterosexuality in their eyes is only really for procreational purposes between a monogamous, married couple. Even heterosexuals who cannot or don't want to procreate are sometimes viewed as "abnormal". Who is the act of gay sex hurting when it is done between CONSENTING ADULTS? That is the real question and it hasn't gotten an answer, at least not one based in reason or rationality.
The Bible, the Torah, the Quran and other religious texts are simply wrong about same-sex relationships. Plain and simple. Heck, heterosexual women are not treated with dignity or respect in these religions, at least not by the fundamentalists, moderates or extremists. Maybe by the liberals, but definitely not by many moderates, the fundamentalists or the extremists. The comments made by those fundamentalist Christians on that Dwindling in Unbelief blog posts showed me that these people are in fact homophobic bigots are suffering from I call "gaysexophobia" They are "gaysexophobes". They have an irrational fear and hatred of gay sexual acts, which by the way they are not required to participate in. Regardless of what is written in the Book of Leviticus, the Book of Deuteronomy, the Book of Genesis, the Book of Judges, the Book of Kings, the 1st Book of the Romans, the 1st Book of Timothy, the1st Book of the Corinthians, the Book of Jude , the Book of Revelations or any other passages in other Books of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, the authors views on same-sex relationships are entirely wrong, mistaken, bigoted and even misguided to say the least. Homosexuals are not descendants of the ancient temple prostitutes for one thing as the JW's have once suggested. Gay people today are not temple prostitutes who have sex with pagan priests so that the gods and goddesses will bless their crops and their women with healthy fertility.
The Biblical authors don't seem to have any accurate understanding of sexuality in general. Especially not homosexuality. Heterosexuality barely qualifies. I'm a heterosexual, monogamous, married woman and I think the Bible's views on heterosexual are equally as screwed up and just as wrong as they are about gay male relationships. Lesbianism is never mentioned in the Bible. Many people think that the author in the Book of Romans in the Christian scriptures refers to lesbianism, although the text does not make it clear as to whom the women were having "unnatural" relationships with. Those chicks were probably screwing animals I imagine, because the Book of Leviticus mentions that if a woman has sex with an animal that she and the animal that she has had sex with must both be put to death. Homosexuality is not the same as bestiality. Animals cannot consent to having sex with humans.
Technically, the Roman Christians according to the author of the Book of Romans ( probably Paul) were resorting back to pagan practices and glorifying idols representing pagan gods. Yahweh didn't like that, so since they were rebelling against the Christian beliefs that they had been taught, Yahweh gave them over to "shameful lust", the men left the "natural use" of their women and became inflamed with "lust" for other men and they were eventually punished by Yahweh for this "error" and they then started engaging in other "evil" acts, some of which I would agree are wrong, except for the consensual act of gay sex between consenting adults, except if those dudes were straight guys cheating on their wives. I'm presuming those men were probably heterosexual to begin with, if they were banging chicks before they started humping other guys. Although there is nothing wrong with sexual experimentation. Gay guys sometimes sexually experiment with women. Lesbians will sometimes experiment sexually with men. Some heterosexual women will experiment with other women and yes, even heterosexual men will sexually experiment with other men. A gay man having sex with a woman does not make him "straight", anymore than a heterosexual man having sex with another guy makes him "gay". Your either born heterosexual or homosexual. Even if being gay was a "choice", so what? People have the right to make choices that aren't hurting anyone. Including the "choice" to be LGBT. Not everyone would make that choice. You cannot force yourself to fall in love with someone.
Homosexuality isn't just about sex. Gay people fall in love too. Sex is a part of homosexuality, let's all be honest about that, please. However, sexual activity is only one part of being gay. Being a Christian is a choice, your not born a Christian, unless humans decide to one day classify Christianity as an ethnicity. One thing that separates Judaism from Christianity or Islam is that Judaism is a culture and an ethnicity, it is not just a religion. Jewish people come from diverse cultures and have different beliefs. There are Jewish atheists. I am a Jewish atheist by choice. My SDA dad has a lot of Jewish blood though his family did mingle with Gentiles at one point, but his family have tried to keep the ethnic Jewish bloodline going in our family. Judaism is a different from Christianity and Islam in quite a few ways. Did you know that in ancient times, Jewish men could have sex with more than one woman, provided she wasn't already married? It's true. Women could not do that back then. Talk about double-standards. The Bible is not a good moral guideline for people living in the 21st Century. It has some good advice, but it has even more bad examples.
As I have said before, most Christians in my opinion would be greatly upset, disappointed and distraught if they knew more about the historical Jesus, then the biblical Jesus. I was more of a liberal cultural Christian at best, for most of my life before exploring non-Abrahamic religious groups. I can say that the historical Jesus was quite an unusual man and a very exclusivist religious fanatic who was heavily into Jewish eschatology (end-of-the-world theology).
Well, I will say again that the Christians and atheists who commented on that particular posts on Steve Wells' blog are homophobic , transphobic and anti-sexual bigots, whether they view themselves such or not. They aren't any better than the Ku Klux Klan or the Neo-Nazis in their dehumanizing beliefs about minority groups whom they do not understand. Atheists should know better than to be homophobic, considering how much of a hated minority we are. LGBT people are still going to exist , LGBT people are still going to form and enter same-sex relationships or undergo sex-change operations, gay folk are still going to have sex with other people of the same-gender and pro-homosexual "lobbyists" who are actually called heterosexual allies, and the LGBT community despite how "funny" they are to bigots, are still going to fight for equal civil rights under the law and fight to be treated with dignity and respect by society and will still fight to have homophobic, transphobic and anti-sexual bigots keep their noses out of their love and sex lives. I bet you a good number of those religious, spiritual-but-not-religious and non-religious homophobes are either closeted LGBT persons themselves or are even jealous because gay people are probably having way better sex than they are. Just like unmarried straight couples are probably having awesome sex with each other. Married couples, whether straight, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered or gay, we really need to find a way to discuss and promote healthy sex-education.
By the way, to that one poster on that Steve Wells blog post, Steve Wells is not a devil-worshipper. Atheists do not believe in the existence of nor worship the devil. Neither do Laveyan Satanists for that matter. Diabolists and devil worshippers, their the ones who worship Satan and commit evil actions in his name, their the ones you need to worry about. Keep in mind, devil worshippers and Diabolists are a minority and the Laveyan Satanists who not worship or believe in Satan, Yahweh or any other supernatural concepts, they condemn the actions of the diabolists and the devil worshippers. Think about what I have said.
Sincerely,
B.W.
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