In Reply to: There is a difference posted by Jo on September 21, 2006 at 14:22:09:
Hi, Jo.
I had more than one intention for the joke. I first intended it as a conversation starter; for which I thank you for obliging me. I admit that I was intentionally “testing the waters”, and you immediately proved to me the validity of a private presumption.
I do hope to proceed in the manner in which I have seen someone of my own position on most beliefs and belief systems do so.
That would be “Farmer”. He is both very well-studied and intelligent, and very respectful and courteous. He also has demonstrated the ability to disagree without being disagreeable, which I hope to emulate. Both of us, as well as probably the majority in this country, do not take the [usually, almost always, actually] angrily defended Politically Correct view on homosexuality, though we are used to, and quite familiar with, its arguments.
I unapologetically take the position of sympathizing with the temptations of those who habitually engage in homosexual acts, both men and women. My own “sex sin list”, both pre- and post-TF ( I left as soon as the sex doctrines began in ’74), although extensive and varied, doesn’t happen to include homosexuality, however, despite famous homosexual Allen Ginsberg’s allegations that “everybody is a little gay”.
And, as a TF exer, I also understand consequences of conformity to a closed community based on a so-called lifestyle, based on what my Biblically-based Christianity classifies as a brokenness of identity, self-loathing and self-rejection, anger at recruitment/seduction and violation of trust, manipulability and susceptibility to older seducers, and on and on.
I have friends in the life that readily admit those things, because I have earned their trust as someone who does NOT condemn. You have unfairly misjudged me based on your own prejudice.
I worked a short while with a ministry here in Houston called His Touch, which has the respect of the gay community here, because of how it teaches Christians to treat people involved in homosexuality, in various levels of that community. My wife and I also worked with homosexual men in their last stages of AIDS, in a hospice capacity.
I’m not saying that susie’s joke wasn’t funny. It was. However, I question your sense of humor, and your over-sensitivity which apparently caused your over-reaction to my little joke. As Farmer said, “Indeed it is very funny...but jokes & irony, as I got explained 30 years ago, have mainly their reason & root in doublemeaning, twisting & bending.”
He definitely has a point. At times, humor is not actually humor, but an intentionally oblique way of saying something else. susie’s little joke did that; of course; that’s her established pattern.
However, you fail to convincingly make a point that anything other than homophilia should necessarily be viewed as so-called homophobia, which is a weak “Politically Correct” assumption foisted on the majority of the American population, who have been polled to show that they believe otherwise.
To not accept that there are kind and normal heterosexual people, like myself and my wife, and several people very active in what we have done to demonstrate what we actually believe (versus the typical nearly 100% inactivity of the PC crowd), is merely another form of prejudice currently popular among a decided minority of the world.
Why should it be assumed that real, Bible-believing and Bible-obeying Christians, unlike the TFI opposite and counterpart criminal community, do not have an answer, or even THE answer, to the needs of homosexual exers visiting this website?
Why, indeed, should “ people that are homosexual who read and hear hate every day from people that cannot tolerate a minority NORMAL variation of sexuality” only hear the PC point-of-view here? What gives you the right to reject another point of view, or any other attempt to help them? And, why the condemnation of Bible-believing Christians, as homophobes, in particular?
I am categorically not a homophobe, nor is my wife, and we have actively proven that. What have you actually done, besides directly insinuating that we are?
We are also educated enough (me, my wife, and others engaged in helping gays from a Christian point of view (not TFI-related) to realize that the people who began to dominate the American Psychological Association, two or three decades ago, to the point of overturning the then-current scientific diagnosis of the results of choosing to habitually practice homosexual acts, and to exclusively affiliate with the GLBT communities, and only hear one side of the argument continuously were people with their own pro-homosexual agenda; way back into the 40s, even, with the LaVey studies (a homosexual activist “researcher” applied the 10% incidence of homosexual men in one American penitentiary across the major population, without any data, contrary to other studies showing 1 to 2% Gen. Pop. incidence), plus The Kinsey study of late movie fame (all sorts of perversions assumed a priori to be “normal” and solely genetically driven, versus learned and freely chosen behavior—this included “researchers” willing todo such things as almost endlessly manually masturbating infants of both sexes to the point of emotional trauma and physical exhaustion, under the guise of “science”), and so on—all readily available facts.
Another thing to consider within the realm of both science and atheism: If atheism’s nonlinear belief system is true, and its subset, the never-observed corollary of “evolution” is such an irresistible fact and a force, and all behaviors are to be assumed to be completely and absolutely predetermined by genetic considerations alone, how is it that homosexual behavior is even possible?
Wouldn’t everything, from the molecular level up, be irresistibly pre-programmed and deterministically locked into preserving the genetic package of each individual of any species, and thus prohibiting any possibility of arousal facilitating anti-genetic behaviors, such as homosexual oro-genital, non-fitting genital-genital, genital-anal, sex toy-genital and/or -anal, and such behaviors?
Why is it that, among all observed so-called “animalia”, only mankind even attempts sexual anal assault? Genetic packages have never thrived in anuses, and never will.
Why could not the Biblical model of free will and sin be more accurately descriptive; here? The existence of homosexuality does seem to argue for it, and not against it, versus the atheist/evolution “model”, which remains philosophically inconsistent, at most levels of analysis.
Personally, I think that the so-called “Dr.” Laura is a fraud as a psychoanalyst, and is a self-righteous religious jerk. That made the joke funny to me on one level; that she was religiously ignorant, and was unable to answer a very simple question, while she pretends philosophical certainty of areas in which she is decidedly not any kind of expert.
I enjoyed the lampoon of her lack of erudition, here. So, apparently, did Farmer.
She certainly had nothing to offer homosexuals, at all; IMO.
I do, as a Christian, and I am not ashamed of it, nor am I cowed by the PC-ers. To characterize me right off the bat, and certainly a priori, thus, as someone who is “jabbing at atheists” is unfair on your part, and evidence of your own prejudices.
Why? Because the joke was an absurdity, and conveys the opinion of a hypothetical child existing only in a joke, for crying out loud; not my own opinion. I can both quote a joke I do not agree with, and simultaneously see some humor in it; can’t you?
The humor of the joke I quoted was directed at both ignorant religious folk teaching their children a mistaken self-righteousneess, and the mistaken “right” to call people morons, as well as towards those embracing a-theism as unequivocally true, among “all other belief systems”.
Hardcore militant atheism, a position I once thoroughly occupied, clearly does make those claims. I do see both positions as mistaken. I didn’t call anyone a moron; you simply read that in.
One of the levels of susie’s joke was a direct assault on Jews’ most common belief system, as well as the mockery of those who believe in the Bible as God’s Word, as Christians, as Farmer was politely suggesting.
Neither she nor you has the right under the posting rules to do so, or to indicate that any opinion other than yours is immoral because of the current acceptability of political correctness (literally and provably a religion of its own), and a greater number of offenses probably occurred within the minds of “those kind of people” as a result of what you wrote, than would hypothetically occur within the minds and emotions of those currently embracing the persuasion of a-theistic/anti-theistic positions.
Berg is established to have felated at least a “Timothy Concerned”. He endorsed homosexuality at that time. He later “un-endorsed” it; not so with lesbianism, because he was able to manipulate Keda, and others through her.
I would assume that there were less male homosexuals to manipulate than he had assumed, before choosing to suck on Timothy’s penis in full view of others, and then bragging about it in a Mo’ Letter.
I agree that he did not care who he harmed. I still possess bound volumes of MLs, and am quite familiar with all of them, even to the degree of the “other” Oldtimer; practically photographically/eidetically.
We will have to agree to disagree about the godlessness of both homosexuality itself, as well as the godlessness of the promotion of it as godly, in the first place.
I would be glad to engage in a debate of it as godly based on Scripture; it is not, unless you already accept liberal interpretation of Scripture, which I do not. Why should I?
It is also absurd for you to equate my position on homosexuality to beating people for left-handedness, which I would never do. The insinuation is spurious and illogical, as well as insulting.
You’re simply begging the question for a data-free opinion regarding the idea of homosexuality being based on genetics, instead of being a freely chosen and learned behavior.
Prove that first; please do not assume that it is a true data-based scientific fact, when it is not. My back ground is advanced human physiology; by the way.
I personally know many Christian ex-gays; whether that offends anyone or not, or whether those who choose to frequent the gay and/or lesbian bars like that fact, or not.
Paul said, about homosexuals of both genders, from among a list of several kinds of sin which would cause people to not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal 6, 1Cor 9, etc.), regardless of who told them differently, that “such were some of you”.
That’s past tense on the homosexuality, if you missed that from Scripture. Paul said that it was the result of a forgiveness and a cleansing by God, Himself. That is a forgiveness based on being given the grace to turn away from past behaviors.
No preaching; just plain facts. You brought up the subject, by way of you own “preaching”, IMO. I’d welcome discussion by private email, or right here in Journeys; it’s up to you.
You attacked my position from a post to someone else (Farmer); not the other way around.
I agree with you that it is a very painful subject, and that disagreements do cause terrible family problems; which is true about a lot more things than homosexuality.
It is an insult to Christians for you to allege that true historic Christian counseling, along with the necessary love, humility and compassion required to minister in any area, is not friendly to homosexuals.
That opinion is just currently popular; nothing else, but has no actual basis in fact. Your argument is circular.
What are the actual data for your opinion regarding homosexuality, Jo?
How do you actually know it is not just the opinion of others, which you’ve chosen to believe in as true; for whatever reasonor motive of your own?
I say that it is a pair of weak hypotheses, both purely scientifically, as well as Scripturally. I believe that someone ELSE has deceived you, in a manner very similar to that of Berg’s “persuasion”.
Gal 5: 5-8 says (ESV) “For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you”
Respectfully,
OT2 (OldtimerToo)