Why I believe many Gays turn away from the Church.

  • Thread starter Thread starter BroomWagon
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
B

BroomWagon

Guest
Okay, I will get right to the point, I have read and seen a number of discussions about gays ( and I actually mean the whole GLBT community I suppose) on the net. Now, let’s take an example of someone we all probably know of, Dan Savage, Gay and an Atheist.

See, this is the thing, so often we may encounter a person and so often it comes to “I’m gay and I’m an Atheist”. This sort of bothers me. To me, it seems a number of homosexuals may reject the Bible or the Church because it seems they see the Bible and the Church in general rejecting their lifestyle or what a “Gay” person thinks is a rejection of their natural makeup. And if I were in their shoes, I might think the same way.

That’s it basically, I know there are a number of Churches that raise the rainbow flag. Still, maybe I have only read “activists” opinions on this issue but I would hope they would see that Christ came for all of us. I don’t think I have seen a group with so many atheists in their numbers. It bothers me some because most “Gays” one encounters are generally amiable and very kind persons.

It’s a classic sticking point.

Discussion is welcome.
 
BroomWagon said:
Okay, I will get right to the point, I have read and seen a number of discussions about gays ( and I actually mean the whole GLBT community I suppose) on the net. Now, let’s take an example of someone we all probably know of, Dan Savage, Gay and an Atheist.

See, this is the thing, so often we may encounter a person and so often it comes to “I’m gay and I’m an Atheist”. This sort of bothers me. To me, it seems a number of homosexuals may reject the Bible or the Church because it seems they see the Bible and the Church in general rejecting their lifestyle or what a “Gay” person thinks is a rejection of their natural makeup. And if I were in their shoes, I might think the same way.

That’s it basically, I know there are a number of Churches that raise the rainbow flag. Still, maybe I have only read “activists” opinions on this issue but I would hope they would see that Christ came for all of us. I don’t think I have seen a group with so many atheists in their numbers. It bothers me some because most “Gays” one encounters are generally amiable and very kind persons.

It’s a classic sticking point.

Discussion is welcome.
Click to expand...
I don’t think you can really choose to be an atheist. I think you come to the conclusion that God likely does not exist. I don’t think you can say “I don’t agree with the Bible so I’m going to stop believing in God.” It doesn’t really work like that.
 
interestedman said:
I don’t think you can really choose to be an atheist. I think you come to the conclusion that God likely does not exist. I don’t think you can say “I don’t agree with the Bible so I’m going to stop believing in God.” It doesn’t really work like that.
Click to expand...
I have seen so many discussions on same sex marriage in various forums. In my opinion, Many gays to begin with have the notion that most people who oppose Same Sex Marriage do so because they think the Bible tells them it is wrong. However, a good number of Traditional Marriage supporters see it as say Mitt Romney has said, “I won’t argue with 3,000 years of recorded history”, meaning though you can bring in polygamy and dowries and all of that, Marriage has still been largely between a man and a woman or male and female since history has been recorded.

So, I still think that many Gays see religion as telling them that what they are is wrong or what they would do is wrong and this is a sort of rebellion they have in response to that.

Thank you for your response.
 
Thanks, I have my basic reasoning and we will see how this goes. Sometimes it’s not easy to explain.

And then there are also those Gays I have encountered who do not reject God but seem to be baffled at Christianity’s view of them. They try to be religious nonetheless.
 
BroomWagon said:
I have seen so many discussions on same sex marriage in various forums. In my opinion, Many gays to begin with have the notion that most people who oppose Same Sex Marriage do so because they think the Bible tells them it is wrong. However, a good number of Traditional Marriage supporters see it as say Mitt Romney has said, “I won’t argue with 3,000 years of recorded history”, meaning though you can bring in polygamy and dowries and all of that, Marriage has still been largely between a man and a woman or male and female since history has been recorded.

So, I still think that many Gays see religion as telling them that what they are is wrong or what they would do is wrong and this is a sort of rebellion they have in response to that.

Thank you for your response.
Click to expand...
lol @ the irony considering Mitt’s close ancestors were polygamists. And the same argument could have been made for slavery with “I won’t argue with 3,000 years of recorded history”
 
interestedman said:
lol @ the irony considering Mitt’s close ancestors were polygamists. And the same argument could have been made for slavery with “I won’t argue with 3,000 years of recorded history”
Click to expand...
And the same argument could be made for Polygamy.

But the Founding Fathers were against Polygamy in general, Jefferson drafted legislation to punish Polygamists so marriage in America as being between one man and one woman certainly has existed for over 200 years with exceptions
 
BroomWagon said:
And the same argument could be made for Polygamy.

But the Founding Fathers were against Polygamy in general, Jefferson drafted legislation to punish Polygamists so marriage in America as being between one man and one woman certainly has existed for over 200 years with exceptions
Click to expand...
History doesn’t make something right. Women have been oppressed for thousands of years too, and are still oppressed in many parts of the world. That doesn’t make it right.
 
BlueEyedLady said:
Dan Savage is actually a very proud Catholic…
Click to expand...
Wikipedia states Savage considers himself “Culturally Catholic” but nowadays a “wishy-washy agnostic” and “atheist.” I would link to the wiki article but with Dan, you don’t know what might show up.
 
You are right, neither history, nor nature, nor emotion can make something right. Those are all (except for history) a logical fallacy. That is why we have to turn to the Higher Law, which says Marriage is a divine Institution, for the welfare of my people, mankind. As one OP said, than you for saying that, becuase you are proving a point. To be A CHRISTIAN, Our LORD told Us “IF ANY MAN WISHES TO COME AFTER ME, LET HIM HUMBLE HIMSELF, PICK UP HIS CROSS AND FOLLOW ME”. This is what “goes against the grain” of many hedonistic homosexuals. The Bible and Christianity is against their lifestyle, so they decide for conviences sake, rather than to deny themselves, remain celibate and follow the LORD JESUS as Christians (Which in the end is far more rewarding), they choose to live “their own morality” and pretend that Our LORD doesnt exist and thus says “There is no religion” so that they dont have to deny themselves and compromise their sinful, base and mediocre lifestyle, which only has momentary and base pleasure, with virtually no satisfaction.
 
interestedman said:
History doesn’t make something right. Women have been oppressed for thousands of years too, and are still oppressed in many parts of the world. That doesn’t make it right.
Click to expand...
Right, well, we are not really exploring whether same sex attraction is right or wrong but mainly the point about why “some” Gays turn away from the Church if they do and if it might spur on an atheistic sentiment. Obviously, it does not always but I do find a number of Gays seem to question their being a divine being.

Dan Savage being one of the more prominent Gay figures in America and saying he is an atheist could be a case in point. I’ve read a number of his columns. He can be a graceful person at times though of course, many of us know of his run-ins as well such as when he spoke to those Christian Highschool students or whatever that was.
 
It seems like anyone who would defy societal convention in regards to sexuality probably wouldn’t have much problem with defying religious convention as well.
 
cornbread_r2 said:
It seems like anyone who would defy societal convention in regards to sexuality probably wouldn’t have much problem with defying religious convention as well.
Click to expand...
Homosexuality isn’t really defying societal convention anymore. Unless you live in some backwoods hick area.
 
interestedman said:
I don’t think you can really choose to be an atheist. I think you come to the conclusion that God likely does not exist. I don’t think you can say “I don’t agree with the Bible so I’m going to stop believing in God.” It doesn’t really work like that.
Click to expand...
Let me speak as an atheist: As a former Christian turned atheist, I can see it really wasn’t a choice. To a large extent (maybe entirely) I don’t think you can choose to believe anything. For some reason that baffles me, people think you can choose what you believe. They will say, “Well, you can choose to believe that if you want to blah-blah,” but you really can’t. To use a really simple example, say that you wanted to believe that 2 + 2 = 5, could you? I doubt it. Other things like belief in God aren’t so clear-cut. There are arguments on both sides. Sometimes your belief may even switch sides – and switch back. But I really doubt that you can CHOOSE to believe something. Certain things have to be in place: You have to have logic or evidence that it’s possible, for one thing.
My disbelief in God may serve as an example: I won’t go through all my reasons I gave up my belief other than to say I reached a point where I felt to retain my intellectual integrity, I had to incline toward what was most likely, which was there was no God. So many more things made sense then. The heathen, extraterrestrials, an afterlife, scores of religions, and why all the prayers said so diligently by so many people for so long remained unanswered.
I don’t know how the universe was created, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t by some supernatural entity snapping his supernatural fingers and boldly declaring: “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”
 
dchezik said:
Let me speak as an atheist: As a former Christian turned atheist, I can see it really wasn’t a choice. To a large extent (maybe entirely) I don’t think you can choose to believe anything. For some reason that baffles me, people think you can choose what you believe. They will say, “Well, you can choose to believe that if you want to blah-blah,” but you really can’t. To use a really simple example, say that you wanted to believe that 2 + 2 = 5, could you? I doubt it. Other things like belief in God aren’t so clear-cut. There are arguments on both sides. Sometimes your belief may even switch sides – and switch back. But I really doubt that you can CHOOSE to believe something. Certain things have to be in place: You have to have logic or evidence that it’s possible, for one thing.
My disbelief in God may serve as an example: I won’t go through all my reasons I gave up my belief other than to say I reached a point where I felt to retain my intellectual integrity, I had to incline toward what was most likely, which was there was no God. So many more things made sense then. The heathen, extraterrestrials, an afterlife, scores of religions, and why all the prayers said so diligently by so many people for so long remained unanswered.
I don’t know how the universe was created, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t by some supernatural entity snapping his supernatural fingers and boldly declaring: “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”
Click to expand...
I don’t think that believing something means that you have no doubt. It simply means that you are deciding to act as if something is true. If my coworker tells me that she did not take my cereal bar, I can choose to believe her. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have any doubts that she might be lying, but that I choose to continue to act as if she did not take my cereal bar because my past experience with her would indicate that she respects me enough not to take my things.
 
Gays can be assured that the Catholic Church will never bend its teachings to accommodate homosexual activity. It is up to homosexuals to change, to adopt total chastity if they want to be part of the Catholic Church. If they are obstinately unwilling to do so, then they separate themselves from God, not the converse.:highprayer::byzsoc::harp:
 
At the age of 15, I chose not to believe. At the age of 42, I chose to believe. 🙂
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top