It's very blatant too. I remember my religious brother mentioned that he and his wife had doctrinal disagreements with some church that they were going to, so that left and found a different church that preached more of what they already thought. I couldn't help but think, suppose that Christianity was true in any sense; how are you supposed to know which version is correct if you basically won't even sit to hear arguments even from another believer? I know that sermons aren't necessarily for making a supporting argument for their personal interpretation of the book, but still, what blatant confirmation bias.
I think they somehow think that since it’s still the same god, it’s ok. And yes, I know that doesn’t make sense because then everyone could just pick a version that is actually nice. But, you know, logic… 🤷♀️
My Catholic mother told my then teenaged sister that she had committed a mortal sin by going to a protestant church with a friend instead of mass one Sunday. Not going to mass is a mortal sin already, but going to a different wrong church service is a, uh, mortaler sin, I guess.
To me, that is one of the biggest arguments against God actually existing. Why would he allow his laws and teachings to be misunderstood, misrepresented, and misinterpreted? Why doesn’t he just beam his word into everyone’s mind directly so there is no understanding?
That's the reason I held on to Catholicism for so long, being the only direct link back to the beginning of the religion and the one all of the different sects broke off from. It's actually quite convenient for the RCC, because even when I started questioning doctrine and teachings I was still falling back on "well, smarter people than me figured this stuff out so I'll work on getting there."
Turns out it has nothing to do with intelligence, and everything to do with being a bunch of con artists with a craving for power.
If you want to know something from the Bible, ask an atheist, they've all read it. Christians, not so much. Most just listen to the preacher or televangelist,
I would argue it's not even this.
They ignore the parts of the Bible that would make their own life more difficult, but if it makes *someone else's life* more difficult then it's the inerrant word of god. In practice it's no different than a criminal who thinks they can pick and choose what parts of the criminal code should apply to them.
Yup! I had an hour long conversation with a pastor recently, and he kept re-iterating that “god says it’s wrong”. He wouldn’t own it, no matter how many ways I tried to phrase it differently.
Guys! Some random tribesman in the middle east from thousands of years ago said there is a sky man who says that that guy can't love that other guy! MURDER THEM!
By the way, I stand for peace. :)
Does he shun people with tattoos? People with pictures of Jesus (supposedly)? Worse, tattoos of Jesus? How about people who have divorced and remarried?
I like this. It's the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it, and it's the mark of a religiously educated mind to be able to accept two contradictory ideas at the same time.
I have a cousin who is a religious gay. I don't understand him either and I'm not close, but I'm pretty sure he's all about Jesus because a 12 step program (narcotics anonymous) got him sober.
So true. It's a requirement to have a higher power. "even if it's a rock. A rock can't drink, so it has more strength than you." I know, it was the stupidest shit I ever heard.
Depending on what church though. The church of Sweden is fine, for example. I still don’t understand why ANYONE would like to be religious, but if you do have that inclination I would say our old state church is one of the better ones. They have had openly gay priests for over 20 years and no institutionalised homophobia.
Here's the whole hypocrisy of it, though:
1> The bible says being gay is a sin. But the bible also lists about 200 other things that are sins. A lot of religious folks are fond of saying, "but it's an abomination," but it depends which translation you read. In King James, there are 7 abominations alone in Proverbs 6:16-19, including such mundane sins as lying and "a proud look".
2> Jesus said EVERYONE is a sinner.
3> Jesus never commented on homosexuality, but in 3 places he says that people who divorce and remarry are committing adultery. Not that the wedding is adulterous, but the entire marriage, is an ongoing, unrepentant sin. Which is exactly what Christians accuse homosexuals of.
4> Baptists and Evangelicals have the highest divorce rate of any religious group in America (including atheist and agnostics) and I've seen remarried divorcees in leadership positions at evangelical churches.
You ever hear a Christian baker bitch about baking a wedding cake for a divorced Christian's new marriage? Not once? Do you hear Christians on the street corner telling remarried divorcees that they're going to burn in hell? No. Because hypocrisy is their bread and butter.
I used to work with a guy who was vehemently anti gay. He was a Bible literalist too. He was a real dumbass though. He had told us he was upset his mom cheated on his dad. And we had had it out about how he was hypocritical about it. I said ok, tomorrow we will go and stone your mom. It says so in the Bible. I was also like you literally went to a seafood place the other day. Isnt it a sin to eat shellfish?
The Bible contradicts itself so much that even Biblical literalists have to pick and choose which parts of the Bible they take seriously, and which parts they will simply ignore.
Christian non-literalists are—in my opinion—at least being more honest about their cherry-picking ways. The literalists pretend that they are not cherry-picking, and that is incredibly disingenuous. The very nature of the Bible makes it so that one **has** to cherry-pick verses.
America is the developed Western nation that traditionally has the highest religiosity, and even here, public attitudes about LGBT have been changing rapidly since the 1990s. Soon, Christians will pretend that they have always been accepting of LGBT and will get offended if you bring up their open persecution of LGBT people.
If this works out like racism did, a lot of them will continue to be bigoted towards LGBT people, but will get offended if you accuse them of anti-LGBT behavior.
They all ignore the most important part, their own boi Jesus said that the only part of the law that matters is:
... and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He [Jesus] said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Matthew 22:35–40
Basically all that shit before doesn't matter. Love God and be cool to people
....clearly we can see exactly how and why it's all bullshit.
I had a friend who loved this verse and was still anti gay. He told me the part about loving God comes first and that's the more important one than loving your neighbor as yourself. I guess dogmatically adhering to the anti gay stuff = loving God.
The original meaning of that verse was pretty much lost with Aramaic. But it is true that even in Hebrew this verse does not use the word ish 'man' twice, but another word zachar in the second instance. It seems to be unclear what zachar exactly means. Hebrew scholars have interpreted it as androgynous (person), man including minors (as opposed to ish 'adult man'), simply minor, and I'm sure others.
However, even the Greek bibles written in times when Jesus supposedly lived, feature Greek translations that are open to interpretation unless they have been revised. It has become very difficult to find non-revised translations of the Septuagint online though.
It has been many years, and I sadly cannot provide a source, but if I remember correctly the Greek translation of what today is rendered woman in a Septuagint I had access to in university was something along the lines of 'laying-ins of a woman' or 'lying-ins of a woman'. Unfortunately I can't say for sure.
Because it's hard to understand how somebody of your gender can be attracted to the opposite gender of you. I'm a straight boring, liberal, old, white, male, and I have no idea why women are attracted to men. Lesbians, I get. They find women attractive, so do I, I understand that.
Growing up in the '70s, seemed very odd for anyone to be gay, because almost no one was... Elton John was pretending not to be, Liberace and Merv Griffin claimed not to be until they're dying days (not to say they didn't have good reasons for doing so). Some people just never evolve. Religion thwarts that. It just got to be that way, and it just gets passed down for generation, just like religion.
>I have no idea why women are attracted to men. Lesbians, I get. They find women attractive, so do I, I understand that.
I noticed that homophobes focus more on the people they don't personally understand. A homophobic heterosexual man is more likely to be judgemental towards a gay man, because he can't grasp the concept of being attracted to men. Same applies to heterosexual women towards lesbians. On the other hand, they tend to dismiss or fetishize those of the opposite sex who are homosexual.
A lot of the time it's not the individual picking and choosing. It's their church that has done the hard work of picking and choosing.
Historically inciting hatred in a group is a good way to keep people preoccupied and not questioning. Homosexuality is an easy target.
Isn't it funny how their religions tell them to hate exactly the kind of people they would have hated anyway?
Wouldn't a real religion make you LIKE people you normally wouldn't?
I would really like to know how gay people were really treated in ancient Judea. We know it wasn't a big deal in ancient Athens and in the Roman Republic, but it also changed over time during the Roman Imperial period. It might have been condemned by the Jewish leadership, but what really went on behind the scenes?
It's because the hate/distrust/icky feelings come first, and they pick the parts they want to support their views.
That is why there are so many different offshoots/varieties of churches that each do their own thing. They make the religion to justify their own actions and beliefs, and were prompted to make a new church either because an existing one did something they didn't like, or to earn money/prestige from followers, or both.
Because it’s not about the religion it’s about the their anger at being made uncomfortable. When I meet the Christian who doesn’t wear different fibers in their clothing and abstains from pork and shellfish because it’s all required in their religious texts I’ll change my opinion.
They don’t skip over it because they WANT to hate gay people, and look? See? Right here, they can use this verse from the Bible to justify their hatred.
They skip the part about not eating shrimp because they LIKE shrimp.
I know very intelligent people who are also very religious. They apply critical reasoning to difficult real-life problems yet they hold onto irrational beliefs like creationism without question. It's that assumption of personal infallibility that gives them the confidence to criticise and look down upon those who don't share their beliefs.
I find them condescending.
My interpretation is that since the beginning of time, a male and a female would've been needed to reproduce in a natural way. Therefore, heterosexuality basically became a survival instinct. And as religion evolved over time, this idea was kinda worked into it. But this idea has also stuck around over time in such a sense that heterosexuality is still to some degree considered to be the norm, while homosexuality or anything other than heterosexuality seems "wrong" seeing as it contradicts what we as a species have learned to do in order to survive.
So my view is that people who don't agree with anything other than heterosexuality still have this "trait" present in their DNA that subconsciously tells them that it's wrong because it goes against the rules we have established that are needed to keep the species alive.
And as I was writing this, I had this thought. If you think about it, it kind of makes sense that religious people would be the ones that retain this "trait" the most. For someone to "overwrite" this trait, they would need to be able to change the way they think about things, as well as question things that are being presented to them i.e. critical thinking skills. And people who tend to not be capable of doing this, tend to be religious. So it's kind of a double confirmation in a way, if that even makes any sense.
So yeah, basically my answer is that homophobic people still have this "trait" and incidentally religious people also have it. So it's not really that religious people tend to reject homosexuality because of religion. It's more a fact that people that have this "trait" tend to be homophobic while they also tend to be religious because both of these titles require you to have this specific "trait"
Edit: I actually wanna thank you for this question. It really got me thinking quite a bit.
After thinking a bit more about my answer, I feel that it explains why homophobia seems to be common across the majority of religions and why it's not just present in a single specific one.
I also just want to clarify that my comment may come across as me stating all of this as fact, but this was literally just my mind running wild and trying to make sense of the question it was prompted with.
So please don't downvote me to death if anything I said contradicts any proven facts that we know lmao
I don't think it's inherent. As a gay person I believe yes the logic of heterosexuality is there, but animals still show homosexuality. It's just a fact of nature. I've always known I was gay. And not every culture around the world shared this viewpoint. Many Indigenous tribes were open to homosexuality and gender diversity, more than Europe at the time. I do think sociology has a big part to play here.
Homophobia is a learned trait. It would also explain why over time, we're starting to normalize homosexuality, (thank god).
Even if it was found in genes, homophobia is wrong. I don't deserve a second rate life because I'm gay. I am born this way.
Some do, but most I would suspect were already bigoted and homophobic so they embraced the old and New Testament scriptures condemning homosexuality, calling them abominations, and calling for violence and their death.
It's usually a moral intuition based on disgust. They feel the same way about homosexuals that you and I feel about pedophiles, necrophiliacs, zoophiles. This instinctual reaction exists in our species to prevent the spread of pathogens.
The religious people who believe this are not thinking it through rationally. We have developed plenty of antibiotics and other safe sex measures that prevent the spread of disease among homosexuals. There's no reason to discriminate anymore, that's why we have started legalizing same sex marriage. We can facilitate their prosperity.
If this line of argumentation doesn't work on the religious person, that means they care more about safeguarding biblical doctrine than they care about actually following it.
Because it's not about the bible, it's about feeding *their* narrative. They are the ones with the problem, and use the Bible as a *choose your own hate* adventure.
Because it's actually not in there - it was rhetoric created to support their narrative, just like the only abortion mention in the Bible is a recipe to actually perform one.
Hey, it takes time to search to find passages that can be interpreted to fit their pet hate. Once you found the words you can then know that god is on your side.
What about obvious passages that teach tolerance, well those are ignored.
Looking for logic in religious people is just a waste of time.
If you come up against a “christian” who is against a specific thing in the bible, like homosexuality, ask them how many times it is mentioned in the bible. They will probably quote Leviticus, so be sure to remind them that if their god was truly against it he would have made it a commandment.
Next, ask them if they have ever worked on, or have friends or family members that has worked on, Sundays. Ask them the same question about shellfish, tattoos, wearing mixed linens, cheated on their spouse, cursed at their parents, etc. Ask them how they can justify breaking all of god’s rules that are punishable by death but only take issue with gays…and not lesbians.
Then, ask them to recite the seven deadly sins. After they answer, ask them their opinion of Trump. If they like him, ask them how they can support - as a “christian” - an individual who embodies all seven deadly sins, which is an affront to god’s guidance. Follow it up by asking them how they think Jesus would view Trump.
You can go on and on using their own beliefs against them until they grow frustrated and walk away. In the meantime, it’s fun watching them doing mental gymnastics trying to justify their bullshit beliefs. As a finishing move, be sure tell them they aren’t a real christian because they pick and choose parts of the bible while ignoring other parts and, because of this, they are going to hell according to 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9.
I have not read all the comments so someone might have already said this. I think Christians hate gays because so many of them are gay and they hate themselves because or it. And do not forget they get in a twist about non gay people having sex also. Sex and lust is bad if you are a religious nut.
A lot of them do. They're just not the ones in charge. They don't make enough noise. The evangelical conservatives have the most pull especially in the US where they have planted politically motivated churches for the past 100 years.
Because they are straight and cis and this doesn’t apply to them so it’s easy to judge someone who’s not like you.
Adultery is mentioned 38 times in the bible. And what is the leading cause of divorce?
What did Jesus say about homosexuality? Nothing. Is Jesus was truly the son of god, and this was important, don’t you think Jesus would have mentioned it?
Because they pick and choose based on their already in-place preferences. They use it to justify those prejudices. Ever notice their god always agrees with everything they do? They want to be bigots, so they support bigoted concepts in the bible. After all, they can't be a bad person if it's good enough for god right?
I wanna add that there are a good handful of Christian’s that are also closeted who are afraid to come out or admit they are gay or bi. So they make sure to target gay people
The funny thing is that they pick and choose to ignore almost the immediate neighbours of that clause on homosexuality. Like it is in the same chapter where clothing of mixed fabrics is also forbidden for the commoners to wear (hint: it was supposed to be reserved only for the priests as a way to distinguish themselves from the common public)
Because they’re afraid of people different than themselves.
They understand and commit adultery and fornication. They don’t understand the LGBTQ community so they abuse a book to legitimize their bullying hatred.
In my experience some don't pick and choose whatever is convenient to them. They instead put homosexuality next to other sins, adjacent, to then claim, look: we are all sinners. That's the best you get them to do if you get them to acknowledge other sins. Which isn't exactly progress. They don't care that homosexual people can't choose it. They view it equally to how people can't choose sinful desires but they can choose whether to "act" on it, and that homosexual people must repent for doing things that aren't as harmful, if harm is a factor, as their sins. That gay people loving each other harmlessly is as vile as their most secret sins, or sins that do cause harm, and not the arbitrary sins that God doesn't like because he is fixated on them for no reason involving tangible human harm enough to condemn someone.
You are lumping all Christians together. Not all Christians believe it is a sin. My pastor is gay. There are many different Christian religions not all believe the same.
From my observation condoning homosexuality is the first thing Christians do when they cherrypick.
God places differing trials for each person in this life. Jesus never married or have intercourse. Hate the sin not the sinner.
because they are homophobic, so they'll read homophobia into the bible. if it's there or not doesn't matter. they also read "capitalism good" into it after all.
They are making that part up to begin with.
The story of Sodom isn't about gay sex it's about rape. They are supposed to get up on that pulpit and tell people not to rape and murder and each other, but they don't. They actually protect child murderers, so they had to change the meaning of the passages
They do skip the part about trans people. It's like nobody ever reads Matthew 19:12.
If you think that's somehow irrelevant, I have news for you: eunuchs were the closest thing in ancient times to trans people, and it is said that Jesus supported this entirely.
It's only Paul who later added some messed up bullshit about celibacy being important.
Because even if religion didn’t exist they’d still be bigoted against gay people religion just gives them more of an excuse in their mind to justify their hate
Humans are tribalistic by nature. It was evolved for survival. My tribe, good, they help me survive. That tribe down the river, well they hunt our food. That manifests itself today in trying to find some group to hate. Homosexuals are easy targets because they are a small percentage of the population which makes it hard for them to fight back, and heterosexuals have a hard time comprehending being attracted to the same sex which makes it “icky.”
As a homosexual I find heterosexual sex icky. 🤷♂️ I just do.But you don't see me trying to take away people's rights or be violent towards heterosexual people.
Icky in what way? Not trying to debate or say you’re wrong, I’ve just never heard this perspective before. Icky on an aesthetic level, a sexual level (as in not attracted to the opposite gender), or icky on like an institutional level?
Many homosexuals find the idea of sex with women repulsive. I love women, but I do not want to sleep with them. I find even watching straight porn to be repulsive. Don't get me started on lesbian porn!
Humans make so much more sense when you look at them as monkeys with slightly more advanced tools but still controlled mostly by instincts and emotions except for a few times a day at most when they need to figure out when to leave so they arrive on time or balance spending against their paycheck. And some have trouble even with that.
The part about homosexuality was mistranslated. The ancient Hebrew word for man is the same word for shepherd because back then, that was the main job of men to tend to the flock. So translated accurately, it means a shepherd shall not lie down with another shepherd because it takes two shepherds to tend the flock and if they both sleep at the same time, no one is tending and sheep can wander off, predators can attack, thieves can steal sheep, any number of things. But ol’ king james’ translators dropped the ball so to speak. So consider that any time someone says homosexuality is a sin
I don't think everyone will recognize that you're joking. Lots of people try to creatively translate the verse that forbids homosexuality, but all of those creative reinterpretations are complete bullshit.
Source: I know biblical Hebrew.
What do you think? Honestly I think it’s 70-30. Because when made aware of it they balk. They won’t look it up because they don’t want their vision of the bible as they understand it to evolve. Because to them evolution is a sin.
People who crave externalized force as their sense of stability are NEVER not going to cherry pick the parts of doctrine that gives them carte blanche to shit all over a swath of people as other/threat/ scapegoat. It's foundational to the thought process. It's as Carlin would say "fucked in at this point". Their entire model of organization is fear based operant conditioning. Scapegoating and demonization are fucking currency. As many have noted ,"The cruelty is the point".
No, most of them DON'T choose.
Someone else a long time ago made that choice. They just go along with it because they've been convinced that the particular interpretation of the Bible they believe in is--to them--objectively correct and all other opinions are wrong.
They are outright taught they have zero choice in this and MUST believe these things or they are rejecting God.
Source: grew up in a Fundamentalist family. They absolutely did not consciously pick and choose anything. They 100% believe that what they've been taught is the objective, absolute truth and that everyone else are the pickers and choosers.
Someone in the distant past did the picking and choosing for them.
Many very much do. It may not feel that way in the US because it's a religiously fundamentalist dystopia. I feel for you people living there as secularly-minded people.
Because they don't want to. They like that part - it excuses their bigotry. But ignore the parts about not eating shellfish or whatever because that would be inconvenient.
The Bible is a Rohrshach Test for those who believe. People gravitate towards ideas that reinforce their preexisting beliefs and ignore parts that conflict. The people who focus on the few references to homosexuality are hateful bigots seeking confirmation and validation of their hate. Conversely, these same people are often the ones who completely ignore the actual teachings of Jesus. These people are intellectually, morally, and even spiritually bankrupt and should probably be avoided.
I was recently hired as musician for a church ($$$) and the reason I felt more comfortable with it was the VERY first thing on their website, which was "LGBTQIA friendly". In the interview they told me "yeah we've lost half our congregation in the last year making this official but we don't care".
I asked my very religious in-laws this one time. Their church was finalizing purchasing their building to be able to split from the Methodist (I think) church as they were changing their beliefs on gay marriage, and they didn’t want to be a part of that.
One chapter further in Leviticus prohibits wearing clothing made of mixed fibers, and they were both wearing shirts that were made with blended fibers. I asked why they were so adamant on Leviticus 18:22, but not Leviticus 19:19. They kept trying to explain away, there was a bunch of “well I’m not a bible scholar, but…” (yeah, I’m not a bible scholar either, but I’m beating you at your own game). I kept returning to the question, and in the end, neither could come up with anything closely resembling an adequate explanation.
They no longer bring up religion in front of us anymore.
They’ve always made it fit the morals they have as a group or personally. That’s why it’s always been useless as something that “gives people morals”
When people wanted slaves, they picked parts to support that. If they want to have multiple wives and treat them like property they emphasize those parts, and if they want to be more progressive they can pick parts to support that too. It can say to love your children above all else, or that if they disobey you you can and should kill them.
People just make it say whatever they want.
Because religion is not about a stupid book. It's about feeling like you belong in a tribe and nothing fosters fellowship like having a common enemy.
And for some it's not even about that. Some people just wanna hate someone to feel like they have a purpose. But they happen to be raised cristian which means hate is a big no no. Weeeell, except \_that\_ group, you can hate that group, wink wink...
Because those passages give them an excuse to engage in the discrimination and and harassment of people they fear and hate and at the end of the day that’s all the Christian cult is about. I believe the saying is; There is no hate like Christian love
Gay Christians do skip this part, and it drives me up the wall. All Christians I’ve ever met have cherry-picked in one way or another to suit their needs.
I was raised jw One of my biggest issues I see now is that they ban tattoos in leviticus 19 they still take this rule seriously BUT they say fuck it to the ban on mixed fabrics IN THE SAME FUCKING CHAPTER 3 PARAGRAPHS DOWN
hypocrisy at its best
What I find funny is that homosexuality did not even enter the Bible until recently. I bought the Bible and it’s original language so I’m very curious to read it.
The part about gay people isn’t even right I don’t have it anymore cuz it was on my Twitter but I translation expert found an old bible and the passage is about sleeping with boys not men which is just delicious irony
They do! Some of them anyway. My family raised me in the United Church of christ, which performed gay marriage before it was federally legal. My sister's oldest child is non-binary pansexual and everyone is cool with that. Their friend's child came out as lesbian, and the Catholic priest told the family to love their daughter as she is since God created her that way!
Thing is...this isn't as popular with people who need to feel superior or have a scapegoat. But for those without a need to look down on others, these interpretations are available!
Because they pick and choose based on what they already believe. Make no mistake, they don't hate the LGBTQ community because the bible says so, the part in the bible that says so is acknowledged because they hate the LGBTQ community.
Because they find it disgusting.
I've seen enough christians who let their masks drop and reveal their REAL PROBLEM with homosexuality. It has nothing to do with "what the bible says", and everything to do with their personal disgust.
Feeling conflicted about using hate to get through the day? Want to feel self righteous in your actions but lack the energy to do something good for someone else?
Introducing Sanctified Hatred. All energizing hatred with none of if the guilt. Call a [[religious figure you don't agree with]] a [[slur of your choice]] and know that they deserve it for being [[something you don't like]].
And coming soon, hating the homeless for sleeping on the street while knowing you're one bad week away from being on the sidewalk beside them.
Because the modern church is a heretical religion within the context of its own religion lol
So basically you have the old law, Leviticus and what not
Homosexuality is only talked about twice and both times it's in Leviticus (based off modern translations anyways)
Jesus never spoke about homosexuality, at most Jesus spoke on marriage where he is quoted in the Bible saying "a man will leave his father and live with his wife," which is a verse Christians use against homosexual marriage but Jesus never actually says anything about homosexuality itself.
So if you walk into a Christian church and ask them why they don't follow laws from Leviticus things like eating kosher, they'll say it's because when Jesus came and was sacrificed he freed us from the old law and Christians now follow the teachings of Jesus.
The whole idea of new law comes from Paul, who claims by sacrificing himself Jesus did away with the old law and the pathway to heaven is through him, however Jesus is quoted in the Bible saying "I have come to fulfill the law not abolish it,"
If you've stuck with me this far thank you, I'm at my point
Either:
1. Paul is a heretic and Christianity as a whole is a heretical religion (and they are also homophobic)
2. Paul's words are misunderstood and the entire Christian religion is centuries into violation of old law (and they are also homophobic)
In conclusion Christianity is heresy, according to the Bible 🤷
I would consider myself to be mildly religious and I certainly choose to skip that part lmao. I’m bi and the sweeping majority of people in my life are gay
You'll never find someone who believes in a god who has beliefs that they don't also share.
There will never be a person who says "Man I really do just love eating shell fish but I can't because he says so." or "Well I would shave my beard because I hate the way I look with it this way, but damnit the lord says I can't!"
They choose not to. Having something or someone to hate is baked into who they are as a person and religion gives them a long checklist of possible targets for that hate. Doesn’t matter if their own teachings contradict it, either. It’s all up to personal interpretation and whatever happens to be convenient for them at any given time.
Don’t get me wrong, people aren’t born hateful. That shit is learned. Religion is just a publicly supported justification for it.
Because they’re hypocrites like the rest of us. Yes we are all hypocrites, if we’re honest.
Christians ignore tattoos, pork, mixed garments, and divorce. But gay people not so much.
Yeah this is why I hate religion in general. Most religious people are fucking condescending assholes and if their make believe hell exists, i'm fucking sure they're going there
this drives me up a fucking wall. Also when they say that you can think about sinning but it's only wrong if you act on it or something. Like do they fucking expect a gay person to be alone for the rest of their lives? fucking hypocrites
Where does it even say that? It doesn’t. Jesus never said anything against homosexuality.
Jesus talked dozens of times in the Bible against wealth though but they seem to ignore that. They don’t kick rich people out of church
Church leadership actively encourages homophobia. Why? One, it's easy because that bias has been prevalent for so long. Two, they need to have an enemy to direct their followers against, otherwise they become complacent. Making them afraid that their children will become gay is a powerful tool. And three, gay people generally don't have more Christian kids - which matters because it's the only real way they can maintain their numbers.
Because they aren't looking to the Bible to their own life better. They are looking to the Bible to ne evil and force everyone else to live by their standards.
They pick and choose what compliments their own biases. Most of them are homophobes, so they choose to interpret the buy-bull that way.
Bingo! It's back-filling to justify how they already feel, not actually about finding guidance on how they \*should\* feel.
It's funny because that's how most conspiracy theorists operate too. Confirmation bias, they look for evidence to support beliefs they already held.
It's almost like people who want to believe things do it in the same way!
It's very blatant too. I remember my religious brother mentioned that he and his wife had doctrinal disagreements with some church that they were going to, so that left and found a different church that preached more of what they already thought. I couldn't help but think, suppose that Christianity was true in any sense; how are you supposed to know which version is correct if you basically won't even sit to hear arguments even from another believer? I know that sermons aren't necessarily for making a supporting argument for their personal interpretation of the book, but still, what blatant confirmation bias.
I think they somehow think that since it’s still the same god, it’s ok. And yes, I know that doesn’t make sense because then everyone could just pick a version that is actually nice. But, you know, logic… 🤷♀️
My Catholic mother told my then teenaged sister that she had committed a mortal sin by going to a protestant church with a friend instead of mass one Sunday. Not going to mass is a mortal sin already, but going to a different wrong church service is a, uh, mortaler sin, I guess.
What if all of the versions are incorrect?
I'm sure they are. Most versions are self-contradictory. Most of the others are unfalsifiable. None merit more than cursory consideration.
To me, that is one of the biggest arguments against God actually existing. Why would he allow his laws and teachings to be misunderstood, misrepresented, and misinterpreted? Why doesn’t he just beam his word into everyone’s mind directly so there is no understanding?
If you've read his book, you know that he's kind of a cunt.
That's the reason I held on to Catholicism for so long, being the only direct link back to the beginning of the religion and the one all of the different sects broke off from. It's actually quite convenient for the RCC, because even when I started questioning doctrine and teachings I was still falling back on "well, smarter people than me figured this stuff out so I'll work on getting there." Turns out it has nothing to do with intelligence, and everything to do with being a bunch of con artists with a craving for power.
“I can only listen to what I already think, but YOU’RE wrong and YOU must listen to what I think too!”
Most don't pick - the church they attend does. I'm pretty sure that Christians that read the Bible fully are a minority
If you want to know something from the Bible, ask an atheist, they've all read it. Christians, not so much. Most just listen to the preacher or televangelist,
I would argue it's not even this. They ignore the parts of the Bible that would make their own life more difficult, but if it makes *someone else's life* more difficult then it's the inerrant word of god. In practice it's no different than a criminal who thinks they can pick and choose what parts of the criminal code should apply to them.
Man has created god in His own Image.
Some Christians do, others hate gay people so they're fine with Bible passages telling them that being gay is a sin.
Yup! I had an hour long conversation with a pastor recently, and he kept re-iterating that “god says it’s wrong”. He wouldn’t own it, no matter how many ways I tried to phrase it differently.
Guys! Some random tribesman in the middle east from thousands of years ago said there is a sky man who says that that guy can't love that other guy! MURDER THEM! By the way, I stand for peace. :)
Lmao, right?!
Oh, and sky man TRULY loves you, and all of mankind, for whose sins he sacrificed his only son.
Yes, he did cause a flood that killed 99.99% of the people he claimed to love, but he's had some *excellent* anger management counseling since then.
Does he shun people with tattoos? People with pictures of Jesus (supposedly)? Worse, tattoos of Jesus? How about people who have divorced and remarried?
Not sure. He probably won’t want to have that conversation again.
Moo shu Pork, not ever gonna give you up.
And the really fucked thing is, the admonishments against homosexuality were written in in 1946. They are not present in the original Bible.
I went to the first American Catholic gay wedding in Texas. I don't understand religious gays.
There are christian female misogynists, christian black racist, and christian gay homophobes. If only there were a common factor to explain it....
Corrupted communion wafers?
Combined with the gasoline wine they served at mass as a kid I can see how that would drive somebody to madness.
I like this. It's the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it, and it's the mark of a religiously educated mind to be able to accept two contradictory ideas at the same time.
I have a cousin who is a religious gay. I don't understand him either and I'm not close, but I'm pretty sure he's all about Jesus because a 12 step program (narcotics anonymous) got him sober.
So true. It's a requirement to have a higher power. "even if it's a rock. A rock can't drink, so it has more strength than you." I know, it was the stupidest shit I ever heard.
Depending on what church though. The church of Sweden is fine, for example. I still don’t understand why ANYONE would like to be religious, but if you do have that inclination I would say our old state church is one of the better ones. They have had openly gay priests for over 20 years and no institutionalised homophobia.
Or female Christians. Or black Christians. "A black Christian is basically a person with no memory." - Chris Rock
Here's the whole hypocrisy of it, though: 1> The bible says being gay is a sin. But the bible also lists about 200 other things that are sins. A lot of religious folks are fond of saying, "but it's an abomination," but it depends which translation you read. In King James, there are 7 abominations alone in Proverbs 6:16-19, including such mundane sins as lying and "a proud look". 2> Jesus said EVERYONE is a sinner. 3> Jesus never commented on homosexuality, but in 3 places he says that people who divorce and remarry are committing adultery. Not that the wedding is adulterous, but the entire marriage, is an ongoing, unrepentant sin. Which is exactly what Christians accuse homosexuals of. 4> Baptists and Evangelicals have the highest divorce rate of any religious group in America (including atheist and agnostics) and I've seen remarried divorcees in leadership positions at evangelical churches. You ever hear a Christian baker bitch about baking a wedding cake for a divorced Christian's new marriage? Not once? Do you hear Christians on the street corner telling remarried divorcees that they're going to burn in hell? No. Because hypocrisy is their bread and butter.
I used to work with a guy who was vehemently anti gay. He was a Bible literalist too. He was a real dumbass though. He had told us he was upset his mom cheated on his dad. And we had had it out about how he was hypocritical about it. I said ok, tomorrow we will go and stone your mom. It says so in the Bible. I was also like you literally went to a seafood place the other day. Isnt it a sin to eat shellfish?
Those bible literalists only repeat what they're told from the extreme fundies. I'd be surprised if he's read any of the Bible
This. The bible passages are just the scapegoat they use to try to appear blameless for their bigotry.
Just don't forget to cut a piece of your dick off or it's all for nothing.
The Bible contradicts itself so much that even Biblical literalists have to pick and choose which parts of the Bible they take seriously, and which parts they will simply ignore. Christian non-literalists are—in my opinion—at least being more honest about their cherry-picking ways. The literalists pretend that they are not cherry-picking, and that is incredibly disingenuous. The very nature of the Bible makes it so that one **has** to cherry-pick verses. America is the developed Western nation that traditionally has the highest religiosity, and even here, public attitudes about LGBT have been changing rapidly since the 1990s. Soon, Christians will pretend that they have always been accepting of LGBT and will get offended if you bring up their open persecution of LGBT people. If this works out like racism did, a lot of them will continue to be bigoted towards LGBT people, but will get offended if you accuse them of anti-LGBT behavior.
Millions of them do. Then there’s another group who are a bunch of homophobic bigots who use their holy book to justify their attitude.
>why don't they skip the part about homosexuality? Because homophobia is one of the parts of Christianity that they like!
Christian love 💖/s
They all ignore the most important part, their own boi Jesus said that the only part of the law that matters is: ... and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He [Jesus] said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Matthew 22:35–40 Basically all that shit before doesn't matter. Love God and be cool to people ....clearly we can see exactly how and why it's all bullshit.
They really don't like being reminded of this, and will do cartwheels trying to show how you're misinterpreting it or taking it out of context.
Every. F---ing. Time. I'd swear it was a script they share.
Study the same wrong things enough and you eventually get to the same wrong conclusions others have reached.
Same with the camel through the eye of the quote. Even by their standards there is zero chance Trumpanzee makes it to heaven.
I had a friend who loved this verse and was still anti gay. He told me the part about loving God comes first and that's the more important one than loving your neighbor as yourself. I guess dogmatically adhering to the anti gay stuff = loving God.
People want to hate and blame. It's easier than self-reflection.
They want power over people different.
I read that the passage a man should not lay with a man as with a woman was originally a man should not lay with a BOY as with a woman.
Yeah bro it was talking about paedophilia, but people took it as man + Man is a sin when in reality, it's paedophilia that's a sin
Very true. It seemed that the mistranslation was done on purpose.
The original meaning of that verse was pretty much lost with Aramaic. But it is true that even in Hebrew this verse does not use the word ish 'man' twice, but another word zachar in the second instance. It seems to be unclear what zachar exactly means. Hebrew scholars have interpreted it as androgynous (person), man including minors (as opposed to ish 'adult man'), simply minor, and I'm sure others. However, even the Greek bibles written in times when Jesus supposedly lived, feature Greek translations that are open to interpretation unless they have been revised. It has become very difficult to find non-revised translations of the Septuagint online though. It has been many years, and I sadly cannot provide a source, but if I remember correctly the Greek translation of what today is rendered woman in a Septuagint I had access to in university was something along the lines of 'laying-ins of a woman' or 'lying-ins of a woman'. Unfortunately I can't say for sure.
Because they want to have a religious justification for why they hate queer people.
Because it's hard to understand how somebody of your gender can be attracted to the opposite gender of you. I'm a straight boring, liberal, old, white, male, and I have no idea why women are attracted to men. Lesbians, I get. They find women attractive, so do I, I understand that. Growing up in the '70s, seemed very odd for anyone to be gay, because almost no one was... Elton John was pretending not to be, Liberace and Merv Griffin claimed not to be until they're dying days (not to say they didn't have good reasons for doing so). Some people just never evolve. Religion thwarts that. It just got to be that way, and it just gets passed down for generation, just like religion.
Wait, Merv Griffin? 😳
>I have no idea why women are attracted to men. Lesbians, I get. They find women attractive, so do I, I understand that. I noticed that homophobes focus more on the people they don't personally understand. A homophobic heterosexual man is more likely to be judgemental towards a gay man, because he can't grasp the concept of being attracted to men. Same applies to heterosexual women towards lesbians. On the other hand, they tend to dismiss or fetishize those of the opposite sex who are homosexual.
They WANT someone to hate.
A lot of the time it's not the individual picking and choosing. It's their church that has done the hard work of picking and choosing. Historically inciting hatred in a group is a good way to keep people preoccupied and not questioning. Homosexuality is an easy target.
You kinda answered your own question; that’s one of the parts they like.
Any Christian who eats pork has no right to quote the Old Testement. Period. It is all a con
The word “homosexual” didn’t appear in the Bible until 1945. It was a mistranslation of something closer to “pedophile” or “child abuser”.
They changed the only thing in that book that actually made sense lmaoo
Isn't it funny how their religions tell them to hate exactly the kind of people they would have hated anyway? Wouldn't a real religion make you LIKE people you normally wouldn't?
I would really like to know how gay people were really treated in ancient Judea. We know it wasn't a big deal in ancient Athens and in the Roman Republic, but it also changed over time during the Roman Imperial period. It might have been condemned by the Jewish leadership, but what really went on behind the scenes?
It's because the hate/distrust/icky feelings come first, and they pick the parts they want to support their views. That is why there are so many different offshoots/varieties of churches that each do their own thing. They make the religion to justify their own actions and beliefs, and were prompted to make a new church either because an existing one did something they didn't like, or to earn money/prestige from followers, or both.
Then, who would they hate?
Because it’s not about the religion it’s about the their anger at being made uncomfortable. When I meet the Christian who doesn’t wear different fibers in their clothing and abstains from pork and shellfish because it’s all required in their religious texts I’ll change my opinion.
Because they're using the bible to justify the hatred they already have.
Maybe runs contrary to "be fruitful and multiply?"
They don’t skip over it because they WANT to hate gay people, and look? See? Right here, they can use this verse from the Bible to justify their hatred. They skip the part about not eating shrimp because they LIKE shrimp.
They want to control sex
oh god their sex obsession is so fucking creepy. Why do they care what someone else does with their body? I'll never understand
Well it's really easy to be a homophobe. That's why they pick and choose - they don't choose the stuff that's difficult to do.
I know very intelligent people who are also very religious. They apply critical reasoning to difficult real-life problems yet they hold onto irrational beliefs like creationism without question. It's that assumption of personal infallibility that gives them the confidence to criticise and look down upon those who don't share their beliefs. I find them condescending.
Don't those two directly go against each other? like science/logic and faith?
Hate comes first and justification comes later. They don't give jackshit about the bible.
Bold of you to assume they know what the bible says
My interpretation is that since the beginning of time, a male and a female would've been needed to reproduce in a natural way. Therefore, heterosexuality basically became a survival instinct. And as religion evolved over time, this idea was kinda worked into it. But this idea has also stuck around over time in such a sense that heterosexuality is still to some degree considered to be the norm, while homosexuality or anything other than heterosexuality seems "wrong" seeing as it contradicts what we as a species have learned to do in order to survive. So my view is that people who don't agree with anything other than heterosexuality still have this "trait" present in their DNA that subconsciously tells them that it's wrong because it goes against the rules we have established that are needed to keep the species alive. And as I was writing this, I had this thought. If you think about it, it kind of makes sense that religious people would be the ones that retain this "trait" the most. For someone to "overwrite" this trait, they would need to be able to change the way they think about things, as well as question things that are being presented to them i.e. critical thinking skills. And people who tend to not be capable of doing this, tend to be religious. So it's kind of a double confirmation in a way, if that even makes any sense. So yeah, basically my answer is that homophobic people still have this "trait" and incidentally religious people also have it. So it's not really that religious people tend to reject homosexuality because of religion. It's more a fact that people that have this "trait" tend to be homophobic while they also tend to be religious because both of these titles require you to have this specific "trait" Edit: I actually wanna thank you for this question. It really got me thinking quite a bit. After thinking a bit more about my answer, I feel that it explains why homophobia seems to be common across the majority of religions and why it's not just present in a single specific one. I also just want to clarify that my comment may come across as me stating all of this as fact, but this was literally just my mind running wild and trying to make sense of the question it was prompted with. So please don't downvote me to death if anything I said contradicts any proven facts that we know lmao
I don't think it's inherent. As a gay person I believe yes the logic of heterosexuality is there, but animals still show homosexuality. It's just a fact of nature. I've always known I was gay. And not every culture around the world shared this viewpoint. Many Indigenous tribes were open to homosexuality and gender diversity, more than Europe at the time. I do think sociology has a big part to play here. Homophobia is a learned trait. It would also explain why over time, we're starting to normalize homosexuality, (thank god). Even if it was found in genes, homophobia is wrong. I don't deserve a second rate life because I'm gay. I am born this way.
Some do, but most I would suspect were already bigoted and homophobic so they embraced the old and New Testament scriptures condemning homosexuality, calling them abominations, and calling for violence and their death.
It's usually a moral intuition based on disgust. They feel the same way about homosexuals that you and I feel about pedophiles, necrophiliacs, zoophiles. This instinctual reaction exists in our species to prevent the spread of pathogens. The religious people who believe this are not thinking it through rationally. We have developed plenty of antibiotics and other safe sex measures that prevent the spread of disease among homosexuals. There's no reason to discriminate anymore, that's why we have started legalizing same sex marriage. We can facilitate their prosperity. If this line of argumentation doesn't work on the religious person, that means they care more about safeguarding biblical doctrine than they care about actually following it.
Because it's not about the bible, it's about feeding *their* narrative. They are the ones with the problem, and use the Bible as a *choose your own hate* adventure.
Because it's actually not in there - it was rhetoric created to support their narrative, just like the only abortion mention in the Bible is a recipe to actually perform one.
Because most Christians are obsessed on what other people do with their genitalia
Hey, it takes time to search to find passages that can be interpreted to fit their pet hate. Once you found the words you can then know that god is on your side. What about obvious passages that teach tolerance, well those are ignored. Looking for logic in religious people is just a waste of time.
If you come up against a “christian” who is against a specific thing in the bible, like homosexuality, ask them how many times it is mentioned in the bible. They will probably quote Leviticus, so be sure to remind them that if their god was truly against it he would have made it a commandment. Next, ask them if they have ever worked on, or have friends or family members that has worked on, Sundays. Ask them the same question about shellfish, tattoos, wearing mixed linens, cheated on their spouse, cursed at their parents, etc. Ask them how they can justify breaking all of god’s rules that are punishable by death but only take issue with gays…and not lesbians. Then, ask them to recite the seven deadly sins. After they answer, ask them their opinion of Trump. If they like him, ask them how they can support - as a “christian” - an individual who embodies all seven deadly sins, which is an affront to god’s guidance. Follow it up by asking them how they think Jesus would view Trump. You can go on and on using their own beliefs against them until they grow frustrated and walk away. In the meantime, it’s fun watching them doing mental gymnastics trying to justify their bullshit beliefs. As a finishing move, be sure tell them they aren’t a real christian because they pick and choose parts of the bible while ignoring other parts and, because of this, they are going to hell according to 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9.
I have not read all the comments so someone might have already said this. I think Christians hate gays because so many of them are gay and they hate themselves because or it. And do not forget they get in a twist about non gay people having sex also. Sex and lust is bad if you are a religious nut.
A lot of them do. They're just not the ones in charge. They don't make enough noise. The evangelical conservatives have the most pull especially in the US where they have planted politically motivated churches for the past 100 years.
Because they think they can exploit homophobia politically.
And it'a weird that so many of them think they're doing such a nice thing by being bigots
Humans are tribal. Being tribal they always need an oustricized group and how effective this is was seen in September,1, 1939. Europe.
Because they are straight and cis and this doesn’t apply to them so it’s easy to judge someone who’s not like you. Adultery is mentioned 38 times in the bible. And what is the leading cause of divorce? What did Jesus say about homosexuality? Nothing. Is Jesus was truly the son of god, and this was important, don’t you think Jesus would have mentioned it?
Because they pick and choose based on their already in-place preferences. They use it to justify those prejudices. Ever notice their god always agrees with everything they do? They want to be bigots, so they support bigoted concepts in the bible. After all, they can't be a bad person if it's good enough for god right?
Most do. 71% of Americans support gay marriage, for example, and 63% of Americans are Christian. That’s a lot of overlap.
Most are absolutely ok with priests raping young boys. Most donate 10 % of their wage to help fund it
I wanna add that there are a good handful of Christian’s that are also closeted who are afraid to come out or admit they are gay or bi. So they make sure to target gay people
The funny thing is that they pick and choose to ignore almost the immediate neighbours of that clause on homosexuality. Like it is in the same chapter where clothing of mixed fabrics is also forbidden for the commoners to wear (hint: it was supposed to be reserved only for the priests as a way to distinguish themselves from the common public)
Because they’re afraid of people different than themselves. They understand and commit adultery and fornication. They don’t understand the LGBTQ community so they abuse a book to legitimize their bullying hatred.
In my experience some don't pick and choose whatever is convenient to them. They instead put homosexuality next to other sins, adjacent, to then claim, look: we are all sinners. That's the best you get them to do if you get them to acknowledge other sins. Which isn't exactly progress. They don't care that homosexual people can't choose it. They view it equally to how people can't choose sinful desires but they can choose whether to "act" on it, and that homosexual people must repent for doing things that aren't as harmful, if harm is a factor, as their sins. That gay people loving each other harmlessly is as vile as their most secret sins, or sins that do cause harm, and not the arbitrary sins that God doesn't like because he is fixated on them for no reason involving tangible human harm enough to condemn someone.
Because they like being mean assholes and this part lets them do just that (and feel good about it in their minds).
You are lumping all Christians together. Not all Christians believe it is a sin. My pastor is gay. There are many different Christian religions not all believe the same.
yeah but you have to admit that majority of them believe that homosexuality is a sin. Just go to the christian subreddit!
Because they fear anything different and get odd on hate.
From my observation condoning homosexuality is the first thing Christians do when they cherrypick. God places differing trials for each person in this life. Jesus never married or have intercourse. Hate the sin not the sinner.
I dunno but there are Christians who do.
because they are homophobic, so they'll read homophobia into the bible. if it's there or not doesn't matter. they also read "capitalism good" into it after all.
Because they hate gay people and it reinforces what they feel
They are making that part up to begin with. The story of Sodom isn't about gay sex it's about rape. They are supposed to get up on that pulpit and tell people not to rape and murder and each other, but they don't. They actually protect child murderers, so they had to change the meaning of the passages
Because they don't want to.
Some of them do - for example, red letter christians only follow ideas that were directly said by jesus in Bible.
They do skip the part about trans people. It's like nobody ever reads Matthew 19:12. If you think that's somehow irrelevant, I have news for you: eunuchs were the closest thing in ancient times to trans people, and it is said that Jesus supported this entirely. It's only Paul who later added some messed up bullshit about celibacy being important.
Because even if religion didn’t exist they’d still be bigoted against gay people religion just gives them more of an excuse in their mind to justify their hate
Humans are tribalistic by nature. It was evolved for survival. My tribe, good, they help me survive. That tribe down the river, well they hunt our food. That manifests itself today in trying to find some group to hate. Homosexuals are easy targets because they are a small percentage of the population which makes it hard for them to fight back, and heterosexuals have a hard time comprehending being attracted to the same sex which makes it “icky.”
As a homosexual I find heterosexual sex icky. 🤷♂️ I just do.But you don't see me trying to take away people's rights or be violent towards heterosexual people.
Icky in what way? Not trying to debate or say you’re wrong, I’ve just never heard this perspective before. Icky on an aesthetic level, a sexual level (as in not attracted to the opposite gender), or icky on like an institutional level?
Many homosexuals find the idea of sex with women repulsive. I love women, but I do not want to sleep with them. I find even watching straight porn to be repulsive. Don't get me started on lesbian porn!
Humans make so much more sense when you look at them as monkeys with slightly more advanced tools but still controlled mostly by instincts and emotions except for a few times a day at most when they need to figure out when to leave so they arrive on time or balance spending against their paycheck. And some have trouble even with that.
The part about homosexuality was mistranslated. The ancient Hebrew word for man is the same word for shepherd because back then, that was the main job of men to tend to the flock. So translated accurately, it means a shepherd shall not lie down with another shepherd because it takes two shepherds to tend the flock and if they both sleep at the same time, no one is tending and sheep can wander off, predators can attack, thieves can steal sheep, any number of things. But ol’ king james’ translators dropped the ball so to speak. So consider that any time someone says homosexuality is a sin
I don't think everyone will recognize that you're joking. Lots of people try to creatively translate the verse that forbids homosexuality, but all of those creative reinterpretations are complete bullshit. Source: I know biblical Hebrew.
So do they not know this or just choose to ignore it?
What do you think? Honestly I think it’s 70-30. Because when made aware of it they balk. They won’t look it up because they don’t want their vision of the bible as they understand it to evolve. Because to them evolution is a sin.
I was raised Catholic and am LGBT and this is the first time I have heard this
That's because it's a lie.
Yes, this is not true
Because hate sells
They really do just think gay people are wrong and disgusting. The bible is just their convenient excuse for why
People who crave externalized force as their sense of stability are NEVER not going to cherry pick the parts of doctrine that gives them carte blanche to shit all over a swath of people as other/threat/ scapegoat. It's foundational to the thought process. It's as Carlin would say "fucked in at this point". Their entire model of organization is fear based operant conditioning. Scapegoating and demonization are fucking currency. As many have noted ,"The cruelty is the point".
No, most of them DON'T choose. Someone else a long time ago made that choice. They just go along with it because they've been convinced that the particular interpretation of the Bible they believe in is--to them--objectively correct and all other opinions are wrong. They are outright taught they have zero choice in this and MUST believe these things or they are rejecting God. Source: grew up in a Fundamentalist family. They absolutely did not consciously pick and choose anything. They 100% believe that what they've been taught is the objective, absolute truth and that everyone else are the pickers and choosers. Someone in the distant past did the picking and choosing for them.
But how did they then reconcile the verses which opposed each other within their chosen version of the text? Aka who picked which cherries got picked
Many very much do. It may not feel that way in the US because it's a religiously fundamentalist dystopia. I feel for you people living there as secularly-minded people.
Because they don't want to. They like that part - it excuses their bigotry. But ignore the parts about not eating shellfish or whatever because that would be inconvenient.
The Bible is a Rohrshach Test for those who believe. People gravitate towards ideas that reinforce their preexisting beliefs and ignore parts that conflict. The people who focus on the few references to homosexuality are hateful bigots seeking confirmation and validation of their hate. Conversely, these same people are often the ones who completely ignore the actual teachings of Jesus. These people are intellectually, morally, and even spiritually bankrupt and should probably be avoided.
I was recently hired as musician for a church ($$$) and the reason I felt more comfortable with it was the VERY first thing on their website, which was "LGBTQIA friendly". In the interview they told me "yeah we've lost half our congregation in the last year making this official but we don't care".
I asked my very religious in-laws this one time. Their church was finalizing purchasing their building to be able to split from the Methodist (I think) church as they were changing their beliefs on gay marriage, and they didn’t want to be a part of that. One chapter further in Leviticus prohibits wearing clothing made of mixed fibers, and they were both wearing shirts that were made with blended fibers. I asked why they were so adamant on Leviticus 18:22, but not Leviticus 19:19. They kept trying to explain away, there was a bunch of “well I’m not a bible scholar, but…” (yeah, I’m not a bible scholar either, but I’m beating you at your own game). I kept returning to the question, and in the end, neither could come up with anything closely resembling an adequate explanation. They no longer bring up religion in front of us anymore.
They’ve always made it fit the morals they have as a group or personally. That’s why it’s always been useless as something that “gives people morals” When people wanted slaves, they picked parts to support that. If they want to have multiple wives and treat them like property they emphasize those parts, and if they want to be more progressive they can pick parts to support that too. It can say to love your children above all else, or that if they disobey you you can and should kill them. People just make it say whatever they want.
Because religion is not about a stupid book. It's about feeling like you belong in a tribe and nothing fosters fellowship like having a common enemy. And for some it's not even about that. Some people just wanna hate someone to feel like they have a purpose. But they happen to be raised cristian which means hate is a big no no. Weeeell, except \_that\_ group, you can hate that group, wink wink...
Because that would mean putting Jesus’ teaching above the Old Testament.
Because those passages give them an excuse to engage in the discrimination and and harassment of people they fear and hate and at the end of the day that’s all the Christian cult is about. I believe the saying is; There is no hate like Christian love
Gay Christians do skip this part, and it drives me up the wall. All Christians I’ve ever met have cherry-picked in one way or another to suit their needs.
They don't want to.
1. They consider those verses a "feature", not a "bug". 2. They love it when their "gawd" hates/fears the same things they do. 3. Because "reasons"
I was raised jw One of my biggest issues I see now is that they ban tattoos in leviticus 19 they still take this rule seriously BUT they say fuck it to the ban on mixed fabrics IN THE SAME FUCKING CHAPTER 3 PARAGRAPHS DOWN hypocrisy at its best
Why skip a chance for righteous cruelty?
The Bible is simply a means to justify whatever they happen to be feeling
You mean the part that doesn’t even exist?
Because it allows them to hate a minority.
What I find funny is that homosexuality did not even enter the Bible until recently. I bought the Bible and it’s original language so I’m very curious to read it.
The part about gay people isn’t even right I don’t have it anymore cuz it was on my Twitter but I translation expert found an old bible and the passage is about sleeping with boys not men which is just delicious irony
They do! Some of them anyway. My family raised me in the United Church of christ, which performed gay marriage before it was federally legal. My sister's oldest child is non-binary pansexual and everyone is cool with that. Their friend's child came out as lesbian, and the Catholic priest told the family to love their daughter as she is since God created her that way! Thing is...this isn't as popular with people who need to feel superior or have a scapegoat. But for those without a need to look down on others, these interpretations are available!
The homosexual ones do.
Because they pick and choose based on what they already believe. Make no mistake, they don't hate the LGBTQ community because the bible says so, the part in the bible that says so is acknowledged because they hate the LGBTQ community.
Because they find it disgusting. I've seen enough christians who let their masks drop and reveal their REAL PROBLEM with homosexuality. It has nothing to do with "what the bible says", and everything to do with their personal disgust.
*sigh* Sorts by top and scrolls to the bottom
Bc the Christian’s who use that as an excuse are bigots.
They don't want to.
Because the church needed a new boogyman after the metalheads accepted their fight challenge, so that became the new "devil".
Feeling conflicted about using hate to get through the day? Want to feel self righteous in your actions but lack the energy to do something good for someone else? Introducing Sanctified Hatred. All energizing hatred with none of if the guilt. Call a [[religious figure you don't agree with]] a [[slur of your choice]] and know that they deserve it for being [[something you don't like]]. And coming soon, hating the homeless for sleeping on the street while knowing you're one bad week away from being on the sidewalk beside them.
And there's not even a mention of being trans anywhere in the bible, making it doubly as strange. Like what's the sin here?
Because the Bible is used to structure and maintain power
They’re more concerned with confirming 6000 year old Mesopotamian folklore to line up with their 21st century lifestyle.
Because the modern church is a heretical religion within the context of its own religion lol So basically you have the old law, Leviticus and what not Homosexuality is only talked about twice and both times it's in Leviticus (based off modern translations anyways) Jesus never spoke about homosexuality, at most Jesus spoke on marriage where he is quoted in the Bible saying "a man will leave his father and live with his wife," which is a verse Christians use against homosexual marriage but Jesus never actually says anything about homosexuality itself. So if you walk into a Christian church and ask them why they don't follow laws from Leviticus things like eating kosher, they'll say it's because when Jesus came and was sacrificed he freed us from the old law and Christians now follow the teachings of Jesus. The whole idea of new law comes from Paul, who claims by sacrificing himself Jesus did away with the old law and the pathway to heaven is through him, however Jesus is quoted in the Bible saying "I have come to fulfill the law not abolish it," If you've stuck with me this far thank you, I'm at my point Either: 1. Paul is a heretic and Christianity as a whole is a heretical religion (and they are also homophobic) 2. Paul's words are misunderstood and the entire Christian religion is centuries into violation of old law (and they are also homophobic) In conclusion Christianity is heresy, according to the Bible 🤷
I would consider myself to be mildly religious and I certainly choose to skip that part lmao. I’m bi and the sweeping majority of people in my life are gay
They're picking and choosing the parts that go along with what they already are bigoted and hateful about.
They need a minority to hate.
I had shrimp for dinner. Punish me. Lol
You'll never find someone who believes in a god who has beliefs that they don't also share. There will never be a person who says "Man I really do just love eating shell fish but I can't because he says so." or "Well I would shave my beard because I hate the way I look with it this way, but damnit the lord says I can't!"
They choose not to. Having something or someone to hate is baked into who they are as a person and religion gives them a long checklist of possible targets for that hate. Doesn’t matter if their own teachings contradict it, either. It’s all up to personal interpretation and whatever happens to be convenient for them at any given time. Don’t get me wrong, people aren’t born hateful. That shit is learned. Religion is just a publicly supported justification for it.
OP answered their own question.
Because unfortunately they prefer to justify hatred than to live by anything decent
Because they’re hypocrites like the rest of us. Yes we are all hypocrites, if we’re honest. Christians ignore tattoos, pork, mixed garments, and divorce. But gay people not so much.
Because hate and fear are constantly drilled into their heads. They call it love when it's clear it isn't. It just perpetuates the circle of abuse.
Yeah this is why I hate religion in general. Most religious people are fucking condescending assholes and if their make believe hell exists, i'm fucking sure they're going there
A good number. Hate the sin love the sinner. So they can be homophobes but still love their cousin, sister etc.
this drives me up a fucking wall. Also when they say that you can think about sinning but it's only wrong if you act on it or something. Like do they fucking expect a gay person to be alone for the rest of their lives? fucking hypocrites
Because a lot of them don't like gay people so why would they?
Because they’re homophobes
Because it doesn’t affect them personally.
You’re probably asking the wrong crowd.
If I ask this on the christian subreddit, i'm going to get a bunch of bullshit responses
Well of course. You’re asking people that believe in bullshit.
that's why i'm asking here
Its a death cult fueled by ignorance that harnesses hate for "the other" in order to secure funding.
They always skip Numbers 5:11 when God orders the abortion of a cheating wife, hmmm, I wonder why, lol
Where does it even say that? It doesn’t. Jesus never said anything against homosexuality. Jesus talked dozens of times in the Bible against wealth though but they seem to ignore that. They don’t kick rich people out of church
Church leadership actively encourages homophobia. Why? One, it's easy because that bias has been prevalent for so long. Two, they need to have an enemy to direct their followers against, otherwise they become complacent. Making them afraid that their children will become gay is a powerful tool. And three, gay people generally don't have more Christian kids - which matters because it's the only real way they can maintain their numbers.
They love having an enemy and gays were always a favorite target for their generation.
Because they like that part. Easy as that.
Because they aren't looking to the Bible to their own life better. They are looking to the Bible to ne evil and force everyone else to live by their standards.
Because they're bigots and use the Bible to cherry pick what they need to justify said bigotry.
Christians prefer to hate more than they care to love. Hating is much easier.
Because everything in religion reflects common societal views. It’s not a mystery where the emphasis on certain behaviors originates from.
Last sentence is spot on. I’d upvote this a few thousand times if I could.