If We're Born Gay or Gender Uncertain, Did God Make a Mistake
There is a place or two in the Bible where people born disfigured are condemned. Then there are places where Jesus heals or raises people from the dead. Contemporary thinking is that if, for example, someone is born without legs it was not the person's fault. People born with same sex attraction, however, have themselves to blame. Only once in a while does a Christian columnist try to tackle this dilemma.
I kept on reading the link wondering if ultimately the author would admit the Christain faith should drop its opposition to gay/trans. Perhaps, I thought, here might be an old school Christian who would see that most of the faith made a mistake by claiming God only made male and female and the gay/trans population should be encouraged to live a full and happy life.
But, alas he did not. Instead, he sort of admits God made gays/trans people. But, these people should not live out their lives with the gender category they were born with or find themselves. Instead, they should suppress and hide their gender in deference to their parents, friends and others. Other people may be unhappy knowing of homosexuality, bi or trans. It is most important, he believes, to keep these others from being unhappy. This is the old conclusion the gay/trans person have something wrong with him/herself, those who disapprove do not.
Parts of Christianity have always been self serving. Men have, in recent centuries, held power and used it to help themselves. Clergy have been men and done the same. The Bible writers approved slavery and admonished salves to obey their owners. I doubt there were any slaves whose writing made it into the Bible.
All of this brings us back to whether God made only man and woman and then made mistakes or never have anything to do with gender. Certainly, way back in time someone wrote that God made Adam and then made eve. But such story telling long predated the authors of the Bible. And, in other cultures the individuals without gender are and still are revered because of their mysterious category. It was merely by chance the stories that made it into the Bible were those of Adam and Eve. As wise pundits have said, "Every story in the Bible is there to make some specific point with some specific ancient audience.
Your premise is wrong. People aren't necessarily born homosexual. Sexual expression is a chosen behavior. Sexual desires are not chosen, usually. Regardless, people don't have to sin.
ReplyDeleteTwo people having sex may or may not be sinning.
Only sex inside marriage is not inherently sinful. Sex outside marriage is sinful.
Matt, "Regardless, people don't have to sin."
DeleteYou are relentless in your passion for controlling other people. I don't recall you ever admitting same sex is a born trait of anyone. Now you are admitting it may occur. That does not stop you from wanting to dictate the behavior of others you dislike. There is no universal agreement across cultures that same sex relationships are "sin." That is something made up by Judaism and Christianity. It was made up because part of Western culture has disliked gays and gay relationships. When you have some reason the rest of us should agree with you please share it. In the meantime, we'll just call it, "Matt's project to control everyone else."
Sin is defined by God, not me.
DeleteHave you heard of His Ten Commandments? Bible? Church He left to His disciples? Do you study the thing and Spirit you despise and ridicule?
Matt "Sin is defined by God, not me."
DeleteAnyone who approaches the topic of "sin" logically would conclude it is you who is making up rules about sin. Let's start with the "God" thing. There are and have been thousands of gods. Not one of them has ever been seen or its existence proven. But, that's just problem number one. The next is that the Bible contains the views of a non existent god. Where is the rational evidence some god "wrote the Bible?" It was written by human beings to better the status of those who wrote it.
Then there is the Ten Commandments. Are you saying "sex outside of marriage is sin" is somewhere in the Ten Commandments? The non existent god and the Bible written by humans and the many and arbitrary way biased people interpret what is in the Bible leave us with but one conclusion, your definition of sin is your personal opinion. All "sin" is the opinion of someone, contemporary of ancient. There is behavior harmful to humans and our laws try to address these. But "sin" is used, not to benefit society, but to exercise control over disliked groups of people.
God has been seen countless times.
DeleteAnonymous -- "God has been seen countless times."
DeleteAre you referring to images in pieces of toast? Or, cracked windows? I know Mary and Jesus show up there all the time, but I've never heard miracle God pictures like those.. Maybe you can tell us where we can see the pictures.
Jon, read your Bible and you will see that God and Jesus have been seen many, many times. Christ is physically present in every Mass in the form of the Eucharistic. God is in every person created, even you and even me. He is in every unborn child. He has been seen as a burning bush in the Bible. He was present to Adam and Eve, to Noah, to Moses, to the Israelites, to Herod, to Pilate, etc.
DeleteMatt -- "read your Bibe...God and Jesus have been seen many many times."
DeleteIt is not true that in the Bible there is a claim anyone "saw" God or Jesus. Nowhere is there a sentence, "I saw Jesus in person." There are claims of seeing God/Jesus in visions and dreams but not in person. There are claims in the Bible that people saw the corpses of the long dead right after Jesus was killed. These are creations of the mind, imaginations. There is a doctored video of Big Foot. Did you know you can buy a toaster that makes Jesus appear for breakfast every morning? Probably there is a God model. It's a miracle!
“If We're Born Gay or Gender Uncertain, Did God Make a Mistake?”
ReplyDelete— It’s a cinch there is a mix of genetic and pre-natal conditions driving sexual preference.¹ So did your God miss the mark? Hell no. It’s a bullseye — else He’s a sinner. I guess you can still hate the sin and love the sinner God. But there’s all kinds of folks out there. Lovers will love. Haters will hate. Sadly facts don’t trump bigotry; relationships do. That’s your love thy neighbor cue.
— Studies show the perception of moral decline is easily produced and unfounded.² What a great tool for politicians, corporations, and preachers.
— Medical research using synthetic embryo “models” created from stem cells, not from the union of egg and sperm, present unique challenges to the ethnics of human reproduction. The road to synthetic fetuses and engineered human beings is in view. Interesting stuff for the anti-abortion zealots of the future to ponder.³
¹ “While there is no single “gay gene,” there is overwhelming evidence of a biological basis for sexual orientation that is programmed into the brain before birth based on a mix of genetics and prenatal conditions, none of which the fetus chooses.”, https://theconversation.com/stop-calling-it-a-choice-biological-factors-drive-homosexuality-122764
² “The illusion of moral decline”, Mastroianni, A.M., Gilbert, D.T. *Nature* (2023). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06137-x
³https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/14/health/human-model-embryo/index.html
Ardy B "none of which the fetus chooses.."
DeleteThanks for posting that. One of the best titles for a while is "The Illusion of Moral Decline" you sited in your post. I wish I had written down during my long life how many times "moral decay" was declared and preached about and the issues that were claimed as evidence. A real question is, could Christianity have survived this long without preaching the illusion of moral decay? It may well have gone broke long ago. In both sports and religion, it's stick with a winner.