My Position on Homosexuality

[Gnosis]

There is indeed no gender in God, God himself has no gender in any sense of the idea. In the most profound perspective of our existence (that is our unity in God) gender is then meaningless to us as well. My biological hardware, or psychological if you prefer, draws me to the male sex, where I find a unity and a spiritual bond that can meet my physical needs as well. The physical, emotional, mental and spiritual are all met together then in this relationship. Relationship is the fundamental human need, in fact, it defines our humanity. We need people, for we are nothing except in the light of others. When we find someone to whom we can fully commit ourselves, and therefore, fully complete ourselves, then we have brought forth Life. Yes, before it we were alive in the physical sense, but I believe a relationship with another person has the ability to make us Alive. The physical leads us to the spiritual. My body leads me to men, but beyond the scope of our sexual union, there is no concept of gender. So perhaps we can see the physical as a bridge, as absolutely necessary to the rest of this equation. I do not have sexual feelings for a female, our relationship can be united in the spiritual and emotional but the physical, a vital link, is missing.

Ask yourself, what about the homosexual relationship offends God? Does it affect him in some way? Does the happiness of his creation hurt him? How is it that God can be offended? I believe that this notion of ‘offending God’ is simply the obvious result of projecting the human mind into the divine realm. We imagine God to be human in every sense besides the physical, a super human if you will. Yet remove a being from time and place and most of our human conceptions are destroyed.

Sin is not to disobey the command of some divine presence, especially in which the purpose of that command is not evident, but rather sin is this: To ignore the existence of the divine presence within each other. When we act with ignorance and do not see the divine spark in life, then we have sinned against that person…and we have closed our eyes to God.

For sixteen or seventeen years of my life I believed in God the ‘being’, primarily because that was the way I was raised. With observation, an analysis of my own experience, I realized that I could not believe in such a being. So in that sense, I am a skeptic.

But in every other sense I am mystic. I see that there are two levels of religion. There is the first level, the symbology, the metaphors, the structures through which we can pull through the Divine into human concepts that can find a place in our intellect. Religion then is the raft, or the sign, that brings us to a higher experience and the higher level of spirituality. Above this then we can find the ineffable realm of indescribable experience, it eludes the intellect, it fails to be captured by language and conceptualization. It is here that ‘God’ can be known, that we ourselves can be known, that the true nature of all things can be revealed. It is the God beyond God, the Ultimate Reality and the realization of the interconnectedness of us all. It is what the lower level of religion exists for, as a bridge for those who need it. Yet I believe that a vast portion of Western religion has trapped itself in the structures and symbols originally developed to take us to that higher experience. Thats why, when in Christianity, I could always sense some kind of higher possiblity, yet I could never find it. The religion left me longing for something more. Then I learned to surpass the idea of ‘religion’ as in a uniform and comformable series of doctrines and ideas and then find, in its wake, the living experience of the Living God.

 

[YinYangMom]

Gnosis:

When we act with ignorance and do not see the divine spark in life, then we have sinned against that person…and we have closed our eyes to God.

Yes. Your ignorance of the True God blinds you from seeing that your actions produce no spark of life when carried out with another man, as no life can come from such a union.

And yes, you have sinned against the person to whom you have joined yourself in such a manner not only to his body, but to his person, and his would-have-been descendents by prohibiting him from creating life with a woman. You snuff out his spark of life as well as your own.

And, yes, you have closed your eyes to God.

You may have just reasons for rejecting the faith, but always remember **you **rejected Her. She is true and faithful and ever present, awaiting your return. She did not reject you.

Your “divine” mysticism is all about you, your needs, your wants. Rationalize it all you want, but that is not Divine.

What I don’t understand is how one who gives in to their SSA physically can honestly believe that rejecting God is the better choice over rejecting their own SSA. They would rather live with sexual gratification on earth for how ever many years they may be here, than live with God in eternity.

But perhaps you don’t believe in life everlasting with God? Have you rejected that as well?

 

[YinYangMom]

Gnosis:

Ask yourself, what about the homosexual relationship offends God?
It insults His design for humanity. He did not make male reproductive parts to go into male excretive parts. He did not make women’s hands to go into women’s reproductive parts. He just didn’t.

Does it affect him in some way?
It breaks the cycle of life, the gift He gave to humans by allowing us to participate as co-creators. God is all loving and all giving. He cannot give life if we humans don’t do our part in that.

Does the happiness of his creation hurt him?
When such ‘happiness’ is rooted in lies and deception, of course it hurts Him. He wants us to be genuinely happy in His love and mercy. He does not want us to settle for false happiness from greed, power, lust. Money, social position and the flesh can and do provide happiness, but it’s only temporary. He offers everlasting peace and happiness.

How is it that God can be offended? I believe that this notion of ‘offending God’ is simply the obvious result of projecting the human mind into the divine realm.
It is no notion at all. It is revelation. Divine revelation, at that. We didn’t make up the 10 commandments. We didn’t make up Jesus Christ. We didn’t make up the words Jesus spoke to us while He was here. If anyone did the projecting it was God in the Old Covenant, and Jesus in the New Covenant. He revealed Himself to us in ways our minds could comprehend and he blessed us with the Holy Spirit so that we could recognize the fullness of His Truth.

We imagine God to be human in every sense besides the physical, a super human if you will. Yet remove a being from time and place and most of our human conceptions are destroyed.
The thing is, we can’t remove God from time or place. He** is** time and place, He’s everywhere, in everything, most specifically in each person. This very person you wish to use for your sexual satisfaction is God. After all that Jesus revealed to us about who He is you would honestly be comfortable in approaching Him about hooking up with you and expect Him to say, “Sure, my Father would approve of our union”???

In the very depth of your soul - regardless of whether or not you choose to recognize it - you know that would not be the case and you know this on all levels in your heart because it is Truth.

Perhaps you don’t believe in Jesus, though. Perhaps you’ve convinced yourself history isn’t real, that people did not die for professing faith in a person named Jesus, even though Roman writings recorded that they did. I don’t understand how much reality you’ve actually dismissed in order to come up with the reality in which you live, believing everything’s find so long as your spirit, your flesh, your mind are satisfied regardless of what your satisfaction does to your partner’s spirit, flesh and mind.

 

[dennisknapp]

Yes. Your ignorance of the True God blinds you from seeing that your actions produce no spark of life when carried out with another man, as no life can come from such a union.

And yes, you have sinned against the person to whom you have joined yourself in such a manner not only to his body, but to his person, and his would-have-been descendents by prohibiting him from creating life with a woman. You snuff out his spark of life as well as your own.

And, yes, you have closed your eyes to God.

You may have just reasons for rejecting the faith, but always remember **you **rejected Her. She is true and faithful and ever present, awaiting your return. She did not reject you.

Your “divine” mysticism is all about you, your needs, your wants. Rationalize it all you want, but that is not Divine.

What I don’t understand is how one who gives in to their SSA physically can honestly believe that rejecting God is the better choice over rejecting their own SSA. They would rather live with sexual gratification on earth for how ever many years they may be here, than live with God in eternity.

But perhaps you don’t believe in life everlasting with God? Have you rejected that as well?

Did you just refer to God as “She?”

Peace

 

[YinYangMom]

dennisknapp:

Did you just refer to God as “She?”

Peace

No, I was referring to the Church, the Bride of Christ.
I was talking about Gnosis’ rejection of the Faith.
Sorry for any confusion.

 

[dennisknapp]

Gnosis:

There is indeed no gender in God, God himself has no gender in any sense of the idea. In the most profound perspective of our existence (that is our unity in God) gender is then meaningless to us as well. My biological hardware, or psychological if you prefer, draws me to the male sex, where I find a unity and a spiritual bond that can meet my physical needs as well. The physical, emotional, mental and spiritual are all met together then in this relationship. Relationship is the fundamental human need, in fact, it defines our humanity. We need people, for we are nothing except in the light of others. When we find someone to whom we can fully commit ourselves, and therefore, fully complete ourselves, then we have brought forth Life. Yes, before it we were alive in the physical sense, but I believe a relationship with another person has the ability to make us Alive. The physical leads us to the spiritual. My body leads me to men, but beyond the scope of our sexual union, there is no concept of gender. So perhaps we can see the physical as a bridge, as absolutely necessary to the rest of this equation. I do not have sexual feelings for a female, our relationship can be united in the spiritual and emotional but the physical, a vital link, is missing.

This is a huge assumption… God is genderless, but He created us male and female. Our identity as such is greater than just our body parts, it is who we are.

Gnosis:

Ask yourself, what about the homosexual relationship offends God? Does it affect him in some way? Does the happiness of his creation hurt him? How is it that God can be offended? I believe that this notion of ‘offending God’ is simply the obvious result of projecting the human mind into the divine realm. We imagine God to be human in every sense besides the physical, a super human if you will. Yet remove a being from time and place and most of our human conceptions are destroyed.

It offends God because all that destroys life offends God. Is God offended by the genocide going on in Africa, yes. Question, let’s say the whole human race were wiped out with the exception of all homosexuals. The survival of the entire species is totally dependant on them. How long do you think humanity would last? Now don’t say, “well we would use artifical means to procreate.” This is not an option. The human race would die.

Gnosis:

Sin is not to disobey the command of some divine presence, especially in which the purpose of that command is not evident, but rather sin is this: To ignore the existence of the divine presence within each other. When we act with ignorance and do not see the divine spark in life, then we have sinned against that person…and we have closed our eyes to God.

Purpose of the command not evident? Try the survival of mankind. To use someone as means to an end is to truely not seeing the divine spark in that person.

Gnosis:

For sixteen or seventeen years of my life I believed in God the ‘being’, primarily because that was the way I was raised. With observation, an analysis of my own experience, I realized that I could not believe in such a being. So in that sense, I am a skeptic.

How do you know what you believe is true?

Gnosis:

But in every other sense I am mystic. I see that there are two levels of religion. There is the first level, the symbology, the metaphors, the structures through which we can pull through the Divine into human concepts that can find a place in our intellect. Religion then is the raft, or the sign, that brings us to a higher experience and the higher level of spirituality. Above this then we can find the ineffable realm of indescribable experience, it eludes the intellect, it fails to be captured by language and conceptualization. It is here that ‘God’ can be known, that we ourselves can be known, that the true nature of all things can be revealed. It is the God beyond God, the Ultimate Reality and the realization of the interconnectedness of us all. It is what the lower level of religion exists for, as a bridge for those who need it. Yet I believe that a vast portion of Western religion has trapped itself in the structures and symbols originally developed to take us to that higher experience. Thats why, when in Christianity, I could always sense some kind of higher possiblity, yet I could never find it. The religion left me longing for something more. Then I learned to surpass the idea of ‘religion’ as in a uniform and comformable series of doctrines and ideas and then find, in its wake, the living experience of the Living God.

It seems to me you have found a belief system that allows for your lifestyle and so it is true.

Peace

 

[tcay584]

777:

All the heart does is pump blood. And besides, I once was molested years ago between the late 60’s and the early 70’s, by a male, no less–a DREADFUL moment to say the least; it took me years after that to recover. Also, in the schools I went to, some of the teachers there were gay, and they were mean…

777, This thread is not about gay bashing, it’s not about past events, it’s not about throwing people out of the Church, and it’s been really interesting so far. Please, if you can’t manage to be civil and constructive, be quiet.

 

[Genesis315]

Gnosis:

The Church, in my opinion, has a seriously distorted perspective on sex. It acts as though sex is some kind of barrier to our relationship with God, that the farther we are from sex, the more holy and pure we are. This is evident in the abstinence of priests, the Church’s position on the “ever virginity of Mary” and the outrage at the suggestion that Jesus himself may have had intercourse. What is it about sex that the Church is so afraid of?

The Church is afraid of nothing. Your argument totally falls apart because you have absolutely no knowledge of the Church’s stance on sex. Marriage is a Sacrament. The Sacraments are where God becomes closest to us. I hate to break it to you, but the Sacrament of marriage isn’t valid unless it’s consummated. This means sex is necessary in order to find the closeness to God that is found in the Sacrament of Marriage. You also need to read John Paul II’ Theology of the Body.

Mary’s and Jesus’ virginity have nothing to do with sex, and all to do with Truth and theological possibility. The Church didn’t make these things up.

 

[tcay584]

Gnosis:

There is indeed no gender in God, God himself has no gender in any sense of the idea. In the most profound perspective of our existence (that is our unity in God) gender is then meaningless to us as well. My biological hardware, or psychological if you prefer, draws me to the male sex, where I find a unity and a spiritual bond that can meet my physical needs as well. The physical, emotional, mental and spiritual are all met together then in this relationship. Relationship is the fundamental human need, in fact, it defines our humanity. We need people, for we are nothing except in the light of others.

One problem I see, and correct me if I’m misinterpreting, is your assertion that only in relationship with another human, are we humans fulfilled.
The light of others (even the best of us) you speak of is exceedingly dim when compared to the light of God.
I would prefer to say We need God, for we are nothing except in the light of our Creator. I would be quite happy on earth with no other humans around if I were able to enjoy the communion with God that Adam had at first.
Notice how you describe all the things you obtain in this relationship “I find a unity and spiritual bond” “My physical needs”. What about the thing you lose? Communion with the true God, not your rationalized god.
You seem to be trying to rationalize yourself out of a pickle of a situation because you can’t accept the fact that a behaviour you so enjoy is fundamentally incompatible with God’s design.
However, the argument is still that of a child (you) defying the rules of his parent (God) and no amount of lofty ruminations on the meaning of love, and relationships, and spirituality can change that.
You are arguing against God, and even if you convince some of us humans that your ideas regarding homosexuality are correct, you still have to deal with God in the end.
P.S. Are you familiar with the Church’s teaching on homosexuality? Are you going on heresay, or do you have a working knowledge of catholicism beyond CCD? Do you understand the reasoning behind the doctrine? I only ask to gain perspective on your POV, not to be rude.

 

[Petertherock]

Gnosis:

Its intersting how most people here have assumed that I am confused about my spirituality, or that I don’t know God.

Though I am not Catholic nor Christian, I tell you, in this last year I have never been closer to God in my life. I have truly found a spirituality that quenches my thirst for God. So please don’t assume that, because I am a homosexual, I am somehow distant from God and confused about my positions on the divine.

The fact of the matter is, homosexuality, like all sins separates one from God. Homosexuality, like most sexual sins is a mortal sin which completely separates one from God unless you repent and receive the sacrament of reconciliation (confession.) The Church’s position on homosexuality is quite clear. Homosexuality is intrinsically (sp?) evil. You can defend it all you want. I have tried to defend my sins that I have dificult time with but the fact is it is not God that I am close to when I do this. I can make all kinds of excuses how my sin is normal and how “everyone does it” but that doesn’t make it not a sin. It’s still evil and it still separates me from God. It’s the same thing with homosexuality.

 

[Topher]

Gnosis:

There is indeed no gender in God, God himself has no gender in any sense of the idea. In the most profound perspective of our existence (that is our unity in God) gender is then meaningless to us as well. My biological hardware, or psychological if you prefer, draws me to the male sex, where I find a unity and a spiritual bond that can meet my physical needs as well. The physical, emotional, mental and spiritual are all met together then in this relationship.

Rather, I would say that the developmental issues that you disscussed in earlier posts lead you to homosexual desires, not your body. Your body is very specifically designed for heterosexual intercourse.

Gnosis:

Relationship is the fundamental human need, in fact, it defines our humanity. We need people, for we are nothing except in the light of others. When we find someone to whom we can fully commit ourselves, and therefore, fully complete ourselves, then we have brought forth Life. Yes, before it we were alive in the physical sense, but I believe a relationship with another person has the ability to make us Alive.

Actually, you are a complete human being whether or not you find romantic ‘love’. To believe otherwise is very dangerous because it leads to parasitic relationships in which the to persons involved, suck the life out of eachother. They expect the other person to fulfill a position that only God can.

Gnosis:

The physical leads us to the spiritual. My body leads me to men, but beyond the scope of our sexual union, there is no concept of gender. So perhaps we can see the physical as a bridge, as absolutely necessary to the rest of this equation. I do not have sexual feelings for a female, our relationship can be united in the spiritual and emotional but the physical, a vital link, is missing.

Perhaps the reason that you cannot have romantic feelings about women is because of the developmental issues that you mentioned in an earlier post.

 

[Topher]

Gnosis:

Ask yourself, what about the homosexual relationship offends God? Does it affect him in some way? Does the happiness of his creation hurt him? How is it that God can be offended? I believe that this notion of ‘offending God’ is simply the obvious result of projecting the human mind into the divine realm. We imagine God to be human in every sense besides the physical, a super human if you will. Yet remove a being from time and place and most of our human conceptions are destroyed.

The problem with homosexuality is that it goes against the natural order that God created. The purposes of sex are procreation and union. Homosexuality willfully takes the possiblity of procreation out of the equation of sexual intimacy. By doing so, responsibility is removed and sex can easily decay into nothing more than physical pleasure on demand. When this happens sexual partners cease to respect eachother and begin using eachother for physical pleasure and nothing else. It is the objectification of humanity. This natural decay can be seen as the evil consequence of not following natural order. Since God always wills the Good, he does not will for us to fall into these consequences; therefore, he does not want us to go against the natural order. God does want us to be happy, and knows that in the end, homosexual activities or any other sinful activities will not make us happy.

 

[Topher]

Gnosis:

Sin is not to disobey the command of some divine presence, especially in which the purpose of that command is not evident, but rather sin is this: To ignore the existence of the divine presence within each other. When we act with ignorance and do not see the divine spark in life, then we have sinned against that person…and we have closed our eyes to God.

Of course to sin is to disobey the command of God who is more than a presence but very existence itself.
Why? Because we belong to the Almighty because he is the source of our very being. He has a right to demand this or that from us and justice demands that we submit to him. Why do you think it is a sin to not recognize the image of God in anyone person? You have no reason because you do not believe God’s commands are absolute. I know why I believe that it is sinful not to see the image of God in others. It is because to not do so goes against the commands of God.

Gnosis:

For sixteen or seventeen years of my life I believed in God the ‘being’, primarily because that was the way I was raised. With observation, an analysis of my own experience, I realized that I could not believe in such a being. So in that sense, I am a skeptic.

You are not really a skeptic. Your statements seem to be more fiedistic than skeptical. You have developed a whole theology that has not an ounce of proof. You accept your theology based on blind faith or experience. If I am wrong please correct me but I do not see how you can prove the faith that you have. I can prove that the God I believe in exists. Furthermore, if you do not believe that God is a being, then you do not believe that God exists because a thing that exists is by definiton a being. That is what the word being means. Non-being is non-existence. Therefore the idea of there BEING a God who is not a BEING is absurd.

Gnosis:

But in every other sense I am mystic. I see that there are two levels of religion. There is the first level, the symbology, the metaphors, the structures through which we can pull through the Divine into human concepts that can find a place in our intellect. Religion then is the raft, or the sign, that brings us to a higher experience and the higher level of spirituality. Above this then we can find the ineffable realm of indescribable experience, it eludes the intellect, it fails to be captured by language and conceptualization. It is here that ‘God’ can be known, that we ourselves can be known, that the true nature of all things can be revealed. It is the God beyond God, the Ultimate Reality and the realization of the interconnectedness of us all. It is what the lower level of religion exists for, as a bridge for those who need it. Yet I believe that a vast portion of Western religion has trapped itself in the structures and symbols originally developed to take us to that higher experience. Thats why, when in Christianity, I could always sense some kind of higher possiblity, yet I could never find it. The religion left me longing for something more. Then I learned to surpass the idea of ‘religion’ as in a uniform and comformable series of doctrines and ideas and then find, in its wake, the living experience of the Living God.

By rejecting religion, you reject any rational approach to God. In other words, rather than having a faith supported by reason, then you have a faith supported by feelings. My feelings and ‘experience’ cannot tell me who God is. Truth must be found by rational testing a set of proposition (i.e. like the Catholic Church does) and not by feelings.

 

[Brad]

Gnosis:

There is indeed no gender in God, God himself has no gender in any sense of the idea. In the most profound perspective of our existence (that is our unity in God) gender is then meaningless to us as well.

I’m afraid that is incorrect. What you are suggesting is body-soul dualism which is a heresy. Our body and soul are completely unified here on earth. As such, when God created us in His image, He did it exactly BY creating us male and female. As God is familial (The love of the Father and the Son, in effecting creating a third person - the Holy Spirit), our imitation of him is through marriage and family - be it mystical marriage to Christ (as in a Sister), mystical marriage to the Bridegroom of Christ, His Church(as in a Priest), or the sacrament of marriage (Man and Woman). I suggest studying Theology of the Body, starting with Christopher West. Our bodies do not make sense in and of themselves. God would not create us to be so confused. He also would not create us to be slaves to our impulses and desires. If we are angry at our neighbor, we are to resist the impulse to do harm to him. We are to do an about face against original sin, choose Christ, and love our neighbor instead. The same can be done with sexual desires.

Gnosis:

My biological hardware, or psychological if you prefer, draws me to the male sex, where I find a unity and a spiritual bond that can meet my physical needs as well.

You are getting really close to explaining yourself out of your situation. This can be good. If it is biological, then God would have created natural law differently. But He did not. He created natural law to be exactly what is it - where violations against that natural law ultimately result in negative consequences. So God would not create a biological mistake. However, you hit the nail on the head with the “psychological”. Now you and I both know that psychological thoughts are not “hardware”. They are part of our emotional, spiritual, and mental character. They can be programmed to prefer certain behaviors. You may have been programmed (possibly through faults not of your own) to believe your spirtual and mental satisfaction can only be with a male. You may indeed have a spiritual bond. But not all spirits are from God. You need to be extremely careful in where you find your spirituality. It needs to be in Christ - and He did not create us the way you are explaining. I suggest seeking re-programming. We all need it at one time or another. Blanket acceptance or refusal to resist base desires will not lead you to God. You were created for greatness - to image God Himself.

Gnosis:

The physical, emotional, mental and spiritual are all met together then in this relationship. Relationship is the fundamental human need, in fact, it defines our humanity. We need people, for we are nothing except in the light of others. When we find someone to whom we can fully commit ourselves, and therefore, fully complete ourselves, then we have brought forth Life. Yes, before it we were alive in the physical sense, but I believe a relationship with another person has the ability to make us Alive.

This is all based on feeling and not objective truth. This is your opinion and feeling that “you are alive”. But if you are not in Christ, St. Paul clearly teaches otherwise.

Gnosis:

The physical leads us to the spiritual.

It sure does. That is why the physical needs to be properly ordered. The physical needs to be submissive to the spritual truth of God. The spritual comes first. This is serious matter and it is worth heavy effort to work on your physical to submit it to Jesus.

Gnosis:

My body leads me to men,

No it doesn’t. Your mind does.

Gnosis:

but beyond the scope of our sexual union, there is no concept of gender. So perhaps we can see the physical as a bridge, as absolutely necessary to the rest of this equation. I do not have sexual feelings for a female, our relationship can be united in the spiritual and emotional but the physical, a vital link, is missing.

Perhaps God is leading your spiritual into service for him through prayer and helping others. Where you are now mentallly is not necessarily where you will be in 5 or 10 years. You have to give God and His Church a chance if you want to honestly deal with your life choices, deisres, and feelings.

.

 

[Brad]

Gnosis:

Ask yourself, what about the homosexual relationship offends God?

Like all sin, it is a choice against God. It is not bad for God as much as bad for us.

Gnosis:

Does it affect him in some way? Does the happiness of his creation hurt him? How is it that God can be offended? I believe that this notion of ‘offending God’ is simply the obvious result of projecting the human mind into the divine realm. We imagine God to be human in every sense besides the physical, a super human if you will. Yet remove a being from time and place and most of our human conceptions are destroyed.

We are not worried about God being offended. We are worried about people losing their bodies and their souls (and ultimately adversly affecting society) by attempting to normalize the abnormal. We are not trying to protect God’s emotions. We are tyring to work with him in the salvation of souls.

Gnosis:

Sin is not to disobey the command of some divine presence, especially in which the purpose of that command is not evident, but rather sin is this: To ignore the existence of the divine presence within each other. When we act with ignorance and do not see the divine spark in life, then we have sinned against that person…and we have closed our eyes to God.

This is New-Age mumbo jumbo. I suggest you find alternate spiritual direction and quick. Someone is leading you astray. Sin is violating the commandments of God. If you treat someone harshly because you do not recognize they were made in the image and likeness of God then you sin but if you treat someone kindly even though you do not understand they were made in His image and likeness, then you do not sin. Acting in ignorance is not sin. And those that see homosexual actions as sinful are not ignorant. They are submissive to the truth of Christ’s Church.

Gnosis:

For sixteen or seventeen years of my life I believed in God the ‘being’, primarily because that was the way I was raised. With observation, an analysis of my own experience, I realized that I could not believe in such a being. So in that sense, I am a skeptic.

I’d say it was not so much analysis of your experience but the experience that you willfully chose that made you skeptical. Again, seek proper and orthodox spiritual guidance.

Gnosis:

But in every other sense I am mystic. I see that there are two levels of religion. There is the first level, the symbology, the metaphors, the structures through which we can pull through the Divine into human concepts that can find a place in our intellect. Religion then is the raft, or the sign, that brings us to a higher experience and the higher level of spirituality. Above this then we can find the ineffable realm of indescribable experience, it eludes the intellect, it fails to be captured by language and conceptualization. It is here that ‘God’ can be known, that we ourselves can be known, that the true nature of all things can be revealed. It is the God beyond God, the Ultimate Reality and the realization of the interconnectedness of us all. It is what the lower level of religion exists for, as a bridge for those who need it. Yet I believe that a vast portion of Western religion has trapped itself in the structures and symbols originally developed to take us to that higher experience. Thats why, when in Christianity, I could always sense some kind of higher possiblity, yet I could never find it. The religion left me longing for something more. Then I learned to surpass the idea of ‘religion’ as in a uniform and comformable series of doctrines and ideas and then find, in its wake, the living experience of the Living God.

Yes. More New Age. This is of alternate spirits, not Christ. Jesus Christ is God. Go with Him. Seek Him in the Eucharist and in His Church.

 

[Riley259]

Topher:

The problem with homosexuality is that it goes against the natural order that God created. The purposes of sex are procreation and union. Homosexuality willfully takes the possiblity of procreation out of the equation of sexual intimacy. By doing so, responsibility is removed and sex can easily decay into nothing more than physical pleasure on demand. When this happens sexual partners cease to respect eachother and begin using eachother for physical pleasure and nothing else. It is the objectification of humanity. This natural decay can be seen as the evil consequence of not following natural order. Since God always wills the Good, he does not will for us to fall into these consequences; therefore, he does not want us to go against the natural order. God does want us to be happy, and knows that in the end, homosexual activities or any other sinful activities will not make us happy.

An excellent and succinct explanation of why engaging in homosexual acts is wrong and sinful.

 

[Gnosis]

Some of you here are choking on your own arguments, when you assert that practicing homosexuality equates to suicidal genocide, or that practicing homosexuality is preventing life from taking place you are becoming starkly hypocritical.

I am told that I should be chaste. There are people on this site who have said that they are attracted to the same sex and they stay chaste to ‘honor God’ in what I believe to be a kind of spiritual stockholm syndrome. And Priests themselves take a vow of chastity!

Is the Church then, by telling certain people to refrain from sex, not participating in this so called suicidal genocide? Is it not preventing life? If everyone imitated the priesthood, the human race would also be extinct. So therefore, chastity poses the same threat to survival as does homosexuality

 

[pnewton]

Gnosis:

There are people on this site who have said that they are attracted to the same sex and they stay chaste to ‘honor God’ in what I believe to be a kind of spiritual stockholm syndrome.

What do you means by this phrase. The allusion involved deals with hostage situations and I do not understand your analogy.

 

[dennisknapp]

Gnosis:

Some of you here are choking on your own arguments, when you assert that practicing homosexuality equates to suicidal genocide, or that practicing homosexuality is preventing life from taking place you are becoming starkly hypocritical.

I am told that I should be chaste. There are people on this site who have said that they are attracted to the same sex and they stay chaste to ‘honor God’ in what I believe to be a kind of spiritual stockholm syndrome. And Priests themselves take a vow of chastity!

Is the Church then, by telling certain people to refrain from sex, not participating in this so called suicidal genocide? Is it not preventing life? If everyone imitated the priesthood, the human race would also be extinct. So therefore, chastity poses the same threat to survival as does homosexuality

First off, homosexual “sex” is not sex at all, but mutual manipulation of certain body parts. Sex infers the ability (not always uses, but the ability) of procreation. You can learn this in any biology text book at any university in the world.

Chastity, as used by priest and homosexuality are really bad equivocations. The two cannot be further apart in their intent and actions. Few are called to the priesthood and therefore not all people would be priest. Also, priestly celibacy in a discipline of the Church, not a Dogma. This means the Pope could proclaim and end to it tomorrow and it would be gone (I don’t think he could do this with the other issue.) It is also a sacrifice. The priest knows what he is giving up by taking up the call. The homosexual gives up nothing.

Homosexuality as a lifestyle cannot exist on its own. It needs a soceity based in the natural order to survive. How it survives is by drawing those out of the natural order and inviting them to engage in activity that thereby renders them infertile. It is essentially a parasite.

It is true that God does call those to be priests and by doing this they will remain chaste and will not father children, but the difference is that the priest could father a child if he were to use his body as it was disigned by the creator. This can never be the case with homosexuality, they cannot procreate.

You never responded to my example of a solely homosexual society and its life expectancy. Why?

Peace

 

[kev7]

Gnosis:

But these forums paint a rather different portrayal of the sexual act. Sex here is painted as nothing more than a carnal desire, and perhaps, the easiest method in which we can earn our seat in hellfire. Discard sex, I am told, for it is a sacrifice you should be willing to make for the approval of the sexless male God, who gives us this beautiful desire, but yet denies many of us of its fulfillment, who gives us this desire, but defames it as nothing more than ‘something of the flesh’, unworthy of further consideration.

Carnal pleasure through sex is something that we chose when we fell pray to temptations of satan. While in the presence of God there is only love. There is not the carnal act.

It is not God that gives us a sexual desire. It was our choice to have this desire. That is why we live in the carnal world.

When you die you won’t have to worry about the carnal desires of the flesh. What ever is of this world is not of the next. And what ever is of the next world is not of this world. In other words, the sexual carnal desires that you hold so close (for some reason) will not be part of the next world.

As children of God we must prove to him that we are not focused on the carnal world and all its temptations. We must focus on the pure truth and pure love of God. The more we focus on the desires of this world the more we focus on this world over the next.