The Church is compromising! (dress codes, tradition, birth control, homosexuality, elders)

[SarahBeara]

I agree with you on the dress issue. That kind of dress would be an issue, but something like casual versus forumal at church is not.

As for Soddom, Gomorahh, and AIDS, they do not "shed light" on a single thing. I have read the story about Soddom and Gomorahh and there is nothing in there that says homosexuality is a sin. As for AIDS, what about lesbians? Between gay men, heterosexuals, and lesbians, lesbians have the lowest rate of AIDS.

[Prima]

Now teenagers who decide to dress like britney spears, can lead to many problems. When a young female looks at it, she see's conformity attempting to control and destroy. Though when you see if from my angle, we see nearly 100 rapists a month in prison come in. They target young women with tight clothing looking just like britney spears...Also it leads to other things, since I'm a guy, in high-school and junior high, girls who dressed like that were considered loose and a easy target to get into there pants. Yes, I belonged to the disgusting realization of manhood.

I'm not sure you should be telling me, a teenage girl, what I'm thinking. Telling others what they think is usually incorrect...and irritating.

Furthermore, blame cannot and will not ever be placed on the victim of a violent crime. Barring indecent exposure laws, I should be able to walk down the street naked and not be touched.

However, your comments were directed not towards society, but towards the Church, so your points for this arguement are invalid.

Though now being saved it is my attempt to help others and help them see what i've seen.

Is it now? and the most important thing for you to do is to tell teenagers not to dress in tight clothing?

Now homosexuality? I'm sure Soddom, Gomorahh, and perhaps AIDS may shead the light on a few things. Some will be up in arms at me for being presumptous on the AIDS topic. For they'll say its not just aids people that have it, and also that is prejudice.

No, actually, they don't shed any light at all. However, the wrong or right of homosexuality is a different debate, but seeing as how you have no proof whatsoever, this point is again invalid.

By the way, only 'aids people' have AIDS. But perhaps you meant homosexuals? In that case, please check your facts. AIDS is the biggest problem in Africa among heterosexuals.

When your in prison you dont have females to keep you happy, but transvestites.

I'm not sure how this applies.

I have seen some horrible things in prison, between two non-aids victims, yet after a few years of there homosexuality behavior, somehow they contracted it.

This is a scientific impossibility. One of them had to have had contracted it from elsewhere. And just because they did not have AIDS does not mean they did not have HIV. Learning basic knowledge about AIDS/HIV is advisable before attempting to debate it.

However, this again has little to do with the church compromising.

Though again, to save me from an uproar, AIDS was not created as some sort of government conspiracy to lower the prices in milk, nor the coincident accourance of a monkey the world has never seen before.

I don't see how this applies.

The way it kills and baffles the smartest and most brightest scientists in the world, is just one way it is a heavenly curse for those who disobey God.

What, the same way cancer, which 'kills and baffles the smartest and most brightest scientists in the world' does? We understand both, but can cure neither. Perhaps more help from those who complacently call it a heavenly curse from God would speed up the process and save lives? Yet again, this does not apply to your arguement about whether the church is compromising.

Now, if you can prove to me where AIDS comes from, perhaps I'll listen, if the source is valid and not the enquierer.

Again, please research.

Besides that, this is not a thread debating homosexuality. There are several threads discussing that however, feel free to be involved in them.



By the way, I still don't see why you believe that compromising is the same as giving in. Didn't Christ want unity and love?

[fromthe heart]

Originally Posted by SarahBeara

I agree with you on the dress issue. That kind of dress would be an issue, but something like casual versus forumal at church is not.

As for Soddom, Gomorahh, and AIDS, they do not "shed light" on a single thing. I have read the story about Soddom and Gomorahh and there is nothing in there that says homosexuality is a sin. As for AIDS, what about lesbians? Between gay men, heterosexuals, and lesbians, lesbians have the lowest rate of AIDS.

I think the topic of unnatural acts between men or women in sexual conduct are addressed in scripture and that it's wrong in the eyes of God and therefore is unacceptable behavior. HOWEVER, I will not abide hate towards these individuals either. I do not judge them in any way because that's God's job...I see it as sin but sin is sin and not one preson here is without sin in their life I don't care who they are. Striving to be sin free is admirable though but to be on a higher plane as God is I feel is unacheivable and we humans WILL screw up...but the good news is God loves us anyway so if God can love the sinner why shouldn't we??? For All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God! Thank you Jesus for the gift of salvation by which we at least have a chance for something better in life hereafter.

[Green Gaia]

Originally Posted by phernduke

Now homosexuality? I'm sure Soddom, Gomorahh, and perhaps AIDS may shead the light on a few things.

Perhaps you could explain this because the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing to do with homosexuals in general.

The Story of Sodom - Genesis 19:1-25
Many people carelessly proclaim that God destroyed the city of Sodom because of homosexuality. A careful look however, reveals that this is unlikely.

Two angels were sent to Sodom by God, where Lot, Abraham's nephew, persuades the divine travelers to stay in his home. It is important to note that travelers depended on the kindness of strangers. Ancient hospitality codes required people to offer food, shelter and protection to people who were traveling. Without these codes travel would have been difficult, if not impossible.

After the Angels ate and were preparing for bed, all of the people of Sodom converged on Lots home, demanding that the angels come out so that the towns people might know(rape) them. In an effort to protect his guests, Lot denies the angry mob access to the angels, but offers his two virgin daughters instead. This suggests Lot knew his neighbors to be heterosexual. The townspeople refuse, and charge at Lot in an attempt to gain access to the angels. At this point the angels pull Lot back inside the house, and render the angry crowd blind so they can not find the door. The angels then warn Lot to gather his family and leave the city because it will soon be destroyed.

Much confusion over this passage has to do with the phrase to know them. The Hebrew word yadha (to know) has several different meanings throughout the Bible. In most cases it means to "have thorough knowledge of." In many cases it means "to check the credentials of", and in some cases may mean to "have sex with". In this case, however, it is clear that the townspeople wanted to harm the strangers, and because of ancient hospitality codes, Lot felt compelled to protect his guests. The townspeople wanted to perform an act of violence by raping the angels, a grave violation of ancient hospitality codes.

Homosexual rape was not uncommon. Kings of conquered tribes were sometimes raped by the invading army as the ultimate symbol of defeat and humiliation. The men in these armies were not homosexual, they were heterosexuals performing an act of violence. Never in any culture has more than a minority of the population been homosexual, and it is unlikely that all of the men in these armies or all the men of Sodom were gay.

Unfortunately, some people have focused on rape as a sexual act, rather than an act of violence, and have missed the point completely. The reason for Sodom's destruction is made clear in Ezekiel 16:48-50. According to Ezekiel, the sins of Sodom were pride, laziness, being inhospitable, neglecting the needs of the poor, greed, and idolatry (the worshipping of idols). Nothing about homosexuality is mentioned, nor is it mentioned in any other passage of Scripture which refers to the account of Sodom.

http://web.archive.org/web/200306090...net/bible.html

When your in prison you dont have females to keep you happy, but transvestites.

Those men are not transvestites. A transvestite is a person who dresses and acts in a style or manner traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Most of those men in prison are not even homosexual, IMO, they are men having sex with other men. A homosexual is someone who has a sexual orientation to persons of the same sex. None of those (or very few) would claim to be homosexual, they are not attracted to other the men, they just want to have sex and that they only way for them to do so. The actual homosexuals in prison are terrorized and raped by the other heterosexual men, because they are looked upon as weak.

I have seen some horrible things in prison, between two non-aids victims, yet after a few years of there homosexuality behavior, somehow they contracted it.

Then they had sex with someone who had HIV/AIDS. You don't magically contract it.

The way it kills and baffles the smartest and most brightest scientists in the world, is just one way it is a heavenly curse for those who disobey God.

What happens to the heterosexual who disobey your vengeful god or does he just hate homosexuals?

So I will welcome a homosexual to church, and show him where it says its wrong.

Why do you think any homosexual would want to come to your church with how you and your god feels about them?

[SarahBeara]

Originally Posted by fromthe heart

I think the topic of unnatural acts between men or women in sexual conduct are addressed in scripture and that it's wrong in the eyes of God and therefore is unacceptable behavior. HOWEVER, I will not abide hate towards these individuals either. I do not judge them in any way because that's God's job...I see it as sin but sin is sin and not one preson here is without sin in their life I don't care who they are. Striving to be sin free is admirable though but to be on a higher plane as God is I feel is unacheivable and we humans WILL screw up...but the good news is God loves us anyway so if God can love the sinner why shouldn't we??? For All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God! Thank you Jesus for the gift of salvation by which we at least have a chance for something better in life hereafter.

I completely respect that oppinion, but I have a little less respect for the oppion that not only is homosexuality as a sin, but we should also treat people who are gay, differently than people who are heterosexual. However, there is nothing in the bible that says a loving, monogamous, homosexual relationship is a bad thing.

[Jayhawker Soule]

Originally Posted by phernduke

The way it kills and baffles the smartest and most brightest scientists in the world, is just one way it is a heavenly curse for those who disobey God.

AIDs as a heavenly curse. Let's see ...

AIDS in Africa: Dying by the numbers

By John Christensen - CNN Interactive

(CNN) -- In coming to grips with AIDS, the worst health calamity since the Middle Ages and one likely to be the worst ever, consideration inevitably turns to the numbers.

According to estimates from UNAIDS, an umbrella group for five U.N. agencies, the World Bank and the World Health Organization, 34.3 million people in the world have AIDS -- 24.5 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa. Nearly 19 million have died from AIDS, 3.8 million of them children under the age of 15.

Among the other statistics:

• 5.4 million new AIDS infections in 1999, 4 million of them in Africa.
• 2.8 million dead of AIDS in 1999, 85 percent of them in Africa.
• 13.2 million children orphaned by AIDS, 12.1 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Reduced life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa from 59 years to 45 between 2005 and 2010, and in Zimbabwe from 61 to 33.
• More than 500,000 babies infected in 1999 by their mothers -- most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

Finally, this: The bubonic plague is reckoned to have killed about 30 million people in medieval Europe. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that AIDS deaths and the loss of future population from the deaths of women of child-bearing age means that by 2010, sub-Saharan Africa will have 71 million fewer people than it would otherwise.

- see CNN

What a despicably grotesque, racist, and vindictive piece of excrement this God must be. And then there's it's apologists whose ugly faith can do no less that proclaim that those deemed guilty by this disgusting monster, including the 3.8 million children, deserve their fate. How very spiritual!

[Mister Emu]

baptist churches allowing segregation

huh??

[Original Freak]

Churches have always compramised and always will. As science learns more and society becomes more accepting and educated churches will and do change to meet and match these conditions bit by bit, why do you think there are so many forms of Christianity.

[Green Gaia]

Originally Posted by Original Freak

Churches have always compramised and always will. As science learns more and society becomes more accepting and educated churches will and do change to meet and match these conditions bit by bit, why do you think there are so many forms of Christianity.

I think that's what he's railing against: change. I suppose some think it would be better to live in 1st century mentality rather than accept modern science facts and thought.