Gay and Atheist?

[Smoke]

So it does sound like a cause and effect kind of thing. You (God) don't like my choice of sexual partners, so I'm not going to believe in you anymore. Is that right? I can understand why it could be difficult for someone to be homosexual, sexually active, and a devout Christian. That makes perfect sense to me. What I don't get is the relationship between sexual orientation and lack of belief in God.

Molly Ivins said that all Southern liberals start with race: once you realize they're lying to you about race, you start to question everything. I think a similar process leads a lot of homosexuals to atheism: once you realize they're lying to you about sexuality, you start to question everything.

 

[doppelganger]

I apologize, Kat. I came across too harsh. I know you've heard dozens of members of this forum explain that they do not choose to be attracted to members of the same sex, so I was taken aback by the casual way in which you seemed to suggest, despite what everyone tells you, that they choose their sexual orientation and then choose not to believe because they obstinately want to reject God.

I think the more likely scenario is that the treatment they typically receive from religious people makes them doubt the reality of the transformative power or "God" and the love that the Church is supposed to be representing in the Gospel. That leads to questions, which lead to more questions . . . Bigotry has a way of bursting the illusions of cognitive dissonance.

 

[Katzpur]

For me, sexuality is not something that should be discriminated against so even considering it to be a sin is unacceptable as far as I am concerned.

That makes sense. In thinking about the Christian LGBTs, they seem to have decided, "Well the Church is wrong. My lifestyle is not. People may discriminate against me, but since God doesn't, I'm going to stick with the Church and let God be my judge." I've got to say that that would be a hard decision, but I admire someone who has enough integrity and a close enough relationship with God to be able to do it.

 

[doppelganger]

Molly Ivins said that all Southern liberals start with race: once you realize they're lying to you about race, you start to question everything. I think a similar process leads a lot of homosexuals to atheism: once you realize they're lying to you about sexuality, you start to question everything.

What he said. This is precisely what I was trying to get at in my last post, but Bill says it better.

 

[Fluffy]

That makes sense. In thinking about the Christian LGBTs, they seem to have decided, "Well the Church is wrong. My lifestyle is not. People may discriminate against me, but since God doesn't, I'm going to stick with the Church and let God be my judge." I've got to say that that would be a hard decision, but I admire someone who has enough integrity and a close enough relationship with God to be able to do it.

I think that would indeed be very difficult in an environment where others did not accept you. We have had posts on this forum before from people, both Christians and LGBT supporters, who charge LGBT Christians with hypocrisy. Luckily there are plenty of pro-gay churches in the UK and although they are definitely the minority, you will always be able to find somewhere to go and commune with others who will accept you for who you are.

 

[Katzpur]

I apologize, Kat. I came across too harsh.

No problem. :hug:

I know you've heard dozens of members of this forum explain that they do not choose to be attracted to members of the same sex, so I was taken aback by the casual way in which you seemed to suggest, despite what everyone tells you, that they choose their sexual orientation and then choose not to believe because they obstinately want to reject God.

Actually, you misunderstood me -- completely. I have actually stated on many occasions that I do not believe same sex attraction to be a choice. What I was asking, in the context of the role that sexual orientation plays in one's beliefs, was "Is belief in God a choice?"

 

[Smoke]

And why do you think Catholic LGBTs remain in the Church? I would think that the Catholic view of homosexuality would be rather conservative, but maybe I just don't understand it correctly.

I don't understand it myself. I've had several friends who converted to Catholicism after they'd been out for years, and see no conflict at all between being Catholic and being a sexually active homosexual. I know of several Catholic parishes that have a lot of active gay members.

I'm more of a by-the-book kind of person. I knew I was gay when I converted to Orthodoxy, but at that time I wasn't sexually active and didn't intend to be. When I started having sex with men, I stopped receiving Holy Communion. Every now and then I would decide I loved the Church enough to be celibate, and then I'd be an active communicant again for a while, but it never lasted. Eventually, I realized I just couldn't keep doing that to myself, and that I was going to have to give up the idea of being Orthodox. There's still a lot about the Church that I love, and I envy (a little bit) the people who can be gay in an anti-gay Church and feel no pangs of conscience. But I'm just not one of those people.

Very interesting. Do you believe you are fairly typical of LGBT atheists or would that be too subjective a question to try to answer?

I think my experience is probably not unusual, but I think it would be presumptuous to say it's typical.

 

[robtex]

That's probably true on these forums, but I don't think it's true generally. Most of the LGBTs I know are theists

From my understanding with my friends in Austin I would echo the same that most gays I know have a belief in God. I think of the two dozen I know only one is an atheist. Many of them go to church in Austin and Austin even has a church with a lesbian minister. As a footnote to this paragraph, my gay atheist friend gets some serious grief from his gay friends for denying the existence of God at times.

Sometimes it is easy to get trapped in seeing the culture of forum as a reflection of society as a whole. To give a more glaring example, most Christians on this forum are well educated on their religion and have read the Bible but locally, here in Austin finding a Christian who actually knows about Christianity or have read the Bible is much more challenging.

I keep saying Austin because that is where I live. In Seattle it may be similar or it may be different. In the New England it may be similar and it may be different . I just have a small view of one area.

However it may be neat to see if we can find sociological studies, polls and the like that could get a broader demographic and polled enough people and mull over that.

 

[Katzpur]

Okay, I've been thinking about it, and have come to the following conclusion. Maybe I'm wrong; it wouldn't be the first time. But here's an analogy that makes sense to me:

Sexual orientation (i.e. sexual preference) seems to me to be inborn. We don't choose who we're sexually attracted to. Sexual behavior is clearly a choice. We either choose to act on our feelings of sexual desire or we don't. And obviously, this goes for everyone, homosexual or heterosexual.

I kind of equate belief in God with sexual orientation. It seems to be something you can't talk yourself into or out of. I don't choose to believe in God, I just do. I couldn't stop believing no matter what happened in my life. I could get frustrated wondering why He does some of the things He does, but no matter what, I'll always believe. There is just something inside of me that says He's there. I have known atheists who would really like to be able to believe in a God, but just can't will themselves to do so. No matter what happened in their lives, they could not attribute any of it -- good or bad -- to the existance of a Higher Being.

On the other hand, I have more or less chosen which religion to follow. It was a conscious decision, based on the teachings of the various religions there are to choose from. While I doubt I will ever leave Mormonism, it is conceivable that something in my life could convince me otherwise. Who knows, I may die a Buddhist. I see sexual behavior in much the same way. We choose to be sexually active or to remain celibate. Homosexuals don't, in my opinion, choose to be attracted to people of the same sex, but they choose whether or not to act on their feelings.

Here's where it gets back to the OP. I can understand why a homosexual Christian would choose to reject Christianity. I don't understand how a homosexual Christian could choose to reject God. Anyway, I don't know if that makes any sense at all. It's just something that has been on my mind.

 

[robtex]

Here's where it gets back to the OP. I can understand why a homosexual Christian would choose to reject Christianity. I don't understand how a homosexual Christian could choose to reject God. Anyway, I don't know if that makes any sense at all. It's just something that has been on my mind.

It is possible that more often than they reject the existence of God for the same reason heterosexual atheists do. I am not aware any sexual orientation argument against the existence of God. Maybe someone could list one(s) so we have a model to work with.

 

[Katzpur]

It is possible that more often than they reject the existence of God for the same reason heterosexual atheists do.

Obviously, that's possible. I was only basing my premise upon what I have seen here on RF, and I only know the sexual orientation of those individuals who have openly stated it. But I know that there seems to be a lot of hetersexual athests, a lot of homosexual atheists, a lot of heterosexual theists and very, very few homosexual theists. It would have probably been more interesting to have a poll with the following choices:

1. I am straight and a theist.
2. I am gay or bisexual and a theist.
3. I am straight and an atheist.
4. I am gay or bisexual and an atheist.

After voting, people who voted for #4 could explain whether they are atheist by nature or by choice. (I never manage to get my OPs to say what I really want them to say. )

 

[Nanda]

So it does sound like a cause and effect kind of thing. You (God) don't like my choice of sexual partners, so I'm not going to believe in you anymore. Is that right?

I don't think it's as defiant and spiteful as all that. Being bisexual, and having my best friend come out as a lesbian in HS caused me to question and ultimately reject Christianity, but I didn't stop believing in God. I just couldn't believe that any loving God would send one of the most sweet, caring, special women I've ever known to hell for loving another woman. It's LOVE. I couldn't see a loving God punishing someone for love, and so it seemed to me that any religion that thought homosexuality was a sin had to be wrong; I knew this in my heart. It wasn't until years later that I began to question the very existance of god at all, and by that point it had nothing to do with homosexuality.

 

[Katzpur]

I don't think it's as defiant and spiteful as all that.

No, I'm sure it's not. I put that way to make my point, but I can see why it might have been offensive.

Being bisexual, and having my best friend come out as a lesbian in HS caused me to question and ultimately reject Christianity, but I didn't stop believing in God. I just couldn't believe that any loving God would send one of the most sweet, caring, special women I've ever known to hell for loving another woman. It's LOVE. I couldn't see a loving God punishing someone for love, and so it seemed to me that any religion that thought homosexuality was a sin had to be wrong; I knew this in my heart.

That makes TOTAL sense to me. Even though I'm coming from a different perspective, your statement "I knew this in my heart" really struck a chord. It seems to me that belief in God is something that theists know in their hearts, not in their minds.

It wasn't until years later that I began to question the very existance of god at all, and by that point it had nothing to do with homosexuality.

Thank you, Nanda. That sounds a little bit like what Midnight Blue had to say. It's an explanation I makes sense to me.

 

[Fluffy]

As a #4, I would consider my atheism to not be a choice.

Is it possible that group 2 is smaller than it should be because it is harder to be openly gay and a theist? Perhaps many people in group 2 claim to be in group 1 or even convince themselves that they really are in group 1 due to the extreme emotional conflict that they might feel.

Also you might want to consider that many people who claim to be theists aren't really theists. For example, tons of people who go to church in the UK don't really believe in God. For them it is a cultural, community based tradition. This is especially true for teenagers who are brought up in a theistic family but perhaps don't actually believe, themselves. Therefore, when a LGBT Christian leaves the church, it might seems as if they left God but, really, they were never with God in the first place.

Obviously, neither of these would apply to everybody but I do agree with you that our religion and sexuality, whilst definitely being mutable, are not our choice.

Perhaps some theist's faith is entirely based on emotion and so an extremely negative emotional association with God can cause them to lose their faith. Perhaps the mistake is to assume that the theist has their faith because of reason.

 

[Katzpur]

Being bisexual, and having my best friend come out as a lesbian in HS caused me to question and ultimately reject Christianity, but I didn't stop believing in God... It wasn't until years later that I began to question the very existance of god at all, and by that point it had nothing to do with homosexuality.

Nanda, I'm wondering what led to you go from believing in God to questioning His existance to being convinced that He doesn't exist. If you don't mind, I'm really interested in how that happened.

Midnight Blue and Fluffy... I would also be interested in hearing your experience. What led you from belief to non-belief?

 

[Shell-Shocked]

Homosexuals not believing in God seems pretty straightforward to me. If someone tells you your entire life that this powerful person will hate you if you are a certain way, and you discover you are that way, would it not make sense for you to lose interest in the powerful person everyone warned you about? Even if the people telling you this information are wrong?

As far as I know the entire basis any theist group has on making judgemets is because "it's against god's will". So if all anyone ever told you was that god's will say no gays, wouldn't that naturally turn you off to god? Atheism is as much a choice as Theism. You choose to believe or choose not to believe. Or at the very least, you choose to follow the paths of those beliefs.

 

[kai]

Okay, this is not a debate. Got that? I don't care what you believe or don't believe. I don't care who you want to sleep with. I've just made an observation and would like to get your comments.

I have noticed that there seem to be more homosexuals who profess to be atheists than there are homosexuals who profess to be theists. If this is the case, do you see a cause and effect thing at work here? It strikes me that people "decide" not to believe in God when the religion they may have been raised with (I'm thinking primarily Christianity) tells them that their affection for a loved-one of the same sex is sinful. Some seem to be able to continue to believe in God, even if they no longer consider themselves to be religious, but it seems to me that most address the conflict by deciding not to believe in God at all. If you are gay or lesbian and are also an atheist, did what you may have been told about your sexual preference in church influence your decision not to believe in God? Or was the "decision" no more of a decision than your sexual orientation?

how do you know who is gay and who is not?

 

[Francine]

how do you know who is gay and who is not?

If he's male and he remarks that one of the church hymns is set to the tune to "Only You" from Andrew Lloyd Webers' Starlight Express, he's gay. If she's female and she offers to fix the church boiler and gets a tool box from her Harley, she's gay.

 

[Katzpur]

how do you know who is gay and who is not?

A lot of people are quite candid about their sexual orientation.

 

[Katzpur]

Homosexuals not believing in God seems pretty straightforward to me. If someone tells you your entire life that this powerful person will hate you if you are a certain way, and you discover you are that way, would it not make sense for you to lose interest in the powerful person everyone warned you about? Even if the people telling you this information are wrong?

To me, "losing interest" in trying to please God would make sense. I guess I just see a "belief" in God as being something different entirely -- as I've tried to explain throughout this thread.

Atheism is as much a choice as Theism. You choose to believe or choose not to believe. Or at the very least, you choose to follow the paths of those beliefs.

Well, you may be right, but I can't remember ever having chosen to believe in God any more than I can remember having chosen my sexual orientation (which is heterosexual, in case you hadn't figured that out).