The past few days I've been in some heated debates. I got some stuff on my mind I need to rant on and get out. First off please take a second and step out of your own views and just please listen to what I am about to say. Second if you guys don't want me on here anymore I will leave. You'll have to tell me how to delete my account but I won't come back. With that said let's begin.
I think people see me lately as some hateful Christian. Or some anti gay person. Which is not true in all counts. In fact I am for equal rights. I don't believe in pushing my views on people. I just don't care having people do the same on me.
But lately I feel like that is kind of what been happing. I have battle with many non Christians on message boards since my teens years when I was on AOL teen boards all the way to when I was in my mid twenties and I left that board finally when it was closing down to join with AOL Christian Singles board and then a non Religion board where I met Jo at I believe. I went on to a friend board where I spent a few years on there until I finally left and started debating on Facebook groups for a few months before stumbling on to this place in my tablet one day when I missed message boards.
I remember one thing my grandpa told me when I was a teenager. Never debate two things with people: Politics and Religion. Both brings out the nasty in everyone. He is very right on that. God knows it bring out the nasty out of me a lot of times. It's funny I try so hard to run away from message boards and fighting. My wife never could understand why I enjoy debating on message boards. I think it's a guy thing personally for me. I can't fight off line. I don't have a health body and never had one growing up. So I think when I am on message boards or Facebook groups I let out the nasty side of myself I keep buried deep inside. I think a lot of people do that. When you are on a message board you don't know the person on the other side so when you insult the person it does not effect you cause hey you don't know them. You often forget that the person on the other side is still another human being with emotions.
As a Christian I often keep hearing about respecting their views and ideas. I don't mind respecting others I just ask for the same thing back. I ask that people respect mine and see I am not some heartless anti gay basher or anything like that. In fact if I was I would not be for equal rights, hello lol. But I am a Christian and here is where it get's really hard. You see as a Christian I am supposed to hold close to what the word of God says. That is my guide book to all things Christ 101. If God says something is a sin I need to view it as sin also. I often battle real bad off line with the idea of sin. I hate sin. I see how sin has destroy so many lifes including my dad who died just a few years after I met him as a teenager. I see how it can do so much damage to people that is why I believe it does lead to death. One way or another it leads to death.
As a Christian it is not easy to stand up for what God says. That is why he wants us to have our spiritual armor on IMO. He knew it would not be easy at all for us. That we would struggle in this world since we do not belong in this world but just passing through until we get back home when we die.
It is not easy for me ether to stand there and tell gay people they are sinning. It is not easy for me to stand there and say in God's eyes you are wrong. I got people I love dearly who are gay. I have never said that to their faces just yet cause I love them so much. But I want people to know it is not easy for us Christians to do that. You guys ever stop to think that you guys are the lucky ones right now. Before I became a born again I never felt guilt or anything. After I became a born again I begin to hear God's voice speaking to me and when ever I made a mistake I would hear him leading me down a different path after picking me up. In some area it is not real hard to be a Christian but in others like the gay issue it is hard as hell cause I know what God says but still I have another side that loves people. But I also love God so much that it hurts. So I want you guys to know it is not easy for me to stand on what God says in this issues but as a Christian I have to do that.
Now I want to talk about one more thing before ending this. I have often heard people call God a monster and all kinds of mean names. That effects me deeply cause on a personally note Christ is the only father I have ever had. Unless you are a born again I am sure you won't ever understand what I mean by that.
When I came to know him personally it was not an Atheist, or a Muslim or any other Faith based person that came into my broken world in 2000 when I was sitting on the steps in my old high school. It was a girl name Holly. A born again who just wanted me to know God loved me. I remember sitting with my headphones on slipknot wait and bleed playing and dress in black and baggie sweets on (like I still do). She saw a lonely teenager who was close to death and God lead her into my broken world.
You see my world has been a broken world. Broken promises from so many people. I battle fibromyalgia every day. I worked for 13 years as a bag boy from August of 01 until August of last year. I was just four days from 13 years when my body finally said screw you I am done. I have not been the same since. I have battle real bad pain. I can't even sleep unless I take pain pills. We are trying to get me back on SS. I was on it as a teenager. Until they said I was normal. Then they threw me in the system. The system still saw me as handicap and I went through 13 years of really bad hell. Stuff I can't even talk about. When I met my wife I was living on my own. been doing that since 02. I met her in 2011. we we're married 11 months later. now it has been three years. I've learned so much in those three years. But I still am a broken man. We are battling with money issues and my health. I often do think about turning my back on God complete and humanity and just stay in my world of depression. Depression can be so comfortable at times but it can also hurt so much that damage can be unfixed if you don't watch out.
Of course no matter how much I want to turn my back on God at times I never will. Cause I keep feeling him telling me to keep going. That soon that desert will be gone. You see I am a broken man who need salvation and found in the cross. Most Christians will tell you the same thing. They are broken people who need the cross. I hope you guys see how personally this way for me to talk about. I hope you guys can show some kind of respect in this thread and see this all came from my heart. I am not that different from you guys. I bleed red just like you. I love horror movies and super hero movies and I enjoy video games and rock and pop and rap. Both secular and Christian. I am just Ben. A broken man who's only hope in this world is Christ. Thank you for taking the time to read this thread. Sorry it is long I just had to get this all off my chest. Thanks
Two things for your consideration with regard to your problems with the gay debate and your struggle with loving them and feeling as if you must see them as sin:
1) Carl Jung said that "The extent we love others, is the extent to which we love ourselves." When you say that you love your gay friends so much that you would never say to their face that they are sin, why does it appear that you love gay people who are
not your friends less, by saying the same thing here? If you love people, you don't hurt them. That's why you don't say those things to your friends. It would hurt them. But saying those things to people who are not in your circle, also hurts
them. Perhaps your circle of love needs to be expanded to include the whole of humanity, and not just your own known circle? Perhaps, in order to come to a position in which you fully love yourself, not only in spite of your problems, but
because of your problems (remember: your problems are partly responsible for your being who you are), you need to dial into -- not only your own pain, but the pain of others (because your pain is, in part, their pain, too). Then you can more fully love them, which means you can more fully love yourself.
2) The root meaning of "sin" is "to sunder," or "to divide." When thinking of homosexuality, what do you think it is that homosexuality "divides?" If it really divides nothing, how can it rightly be called "sin?" From
my perspective, homosexuality is one method for people to express their own wholeness in context with others, so it's
not a "divider." Ultimately, it's a
unifier. I think the writers got it wrong, based upon the misperceptions of what these actions are
supposed to entail, according to
their culture and religious and moral sensibilities, and that misperception has gotten passed down as an implacable and absolute "Thus saith the Lord." Just because it's "in the bible." But consider other things that are, likewise, "in the bible," that we
don't consider "Thus saith the Lords." The bible says to stone adulterers, but we don't do it, because it doesn't make sense to do so in our culture. The bible says that the rape victim has to marry the rapist. But we don't require it, because that doesn't make sense in our system of community, justice, and morality. Why, then,
must homosexuality be such a "Thus saith the Lord?" It doesn't really make sense, in light of what medical science now tells us about homosexuality as a normal and healthy sexual identity and expression of one's wholeness, does it? Consider that before you begin to throw others under the bus in order to preserve something just because it's "in the bible." The conflict that action causes within you isn't worth it.
