whay has the Christian myth got such a magnetic pull on some people?

[ludolfo]

I am quite intrigued how come the gay online community forum here to do with religion and spirituality seems to be mainly obsessed with the Christian myth, as if to suggest that Christianity invented religion and spirituality.

I would just like to explore why. Of course we in the western world are permeated with this myth since being little, and we ALL have 'Christian' names, so even though generally there is an acceptance we have moved on away from this age of religion and now exist in the 'real' world of scientific materialism that willy-nilly all the Christian principles and values remain, some unconsciously.

It's quite strange how the book the Bible can have had so much influence over so many over the generations isn't it. EVEN though for many gay people we have had to suffer great abuse from believers in this book for a long long time YET the threads in this section seem devoted to this religion as though it has a patent on religion, spirituality, and philosophy.

What are gay people here feeling about this is my question?

 

[palbert]

Christianity as a religion is a function of the extent of the Roman Empire. Beyond that extent it is marginalized or corrupted into obscuring local religious beliefs.

It is an enduring myth because it is all you're taught.

 

[Gros Morne Guy]

Palbert,
Christianity's bounds, from its beginnings, far exceeded those of the Roman Empire. India has had a vibrant Christian church since the first century. Armenia was the first nation to make Christianity its official religion. After Constantine legalized Christianity in the Empire, there were vibrant non-imperial churches in Ethiopia, Nubia, Assyria (modern Iraq), Georgia, Persia, and China (which, along with the Coptic Church in Egypt, broke communion with the imperial church in 451), as well as the Aryan church which was the dominant religion of the Goths and Vandals threatening the Empire from the north. While some of these churches fell to politics and the rise of Islam, the Armenian, Coptic (over 15% of the population of Egypt) and Ethiopian churches are quite strong. And since the final fall of the Roman Empire to the Ottomans in 1453, minority churches have survived in the Muslim lands of the East, as did suppressed churches in the Soviet empire and communist China.

Why has the Jewish "myth" endured so long? Except for the short period of Solomon's reign, it was never the religion of a great and powerful nation. Indeed, the Jewish nation suffered repeated destruction and dispersal. The gods of Israel's more powerful neighbors, Ra of Egypt, Marduk of Babylon, Dagon of the Philistines, Zeus of ancient Greece, are consigned to the history books, but the praise of YHWH still resounds. I think Judaism has endured because it has given the Jewish people (and others) hope, a sense of identity, and a way of life for 3 millenia, and continues to do so.

So too with Christianity. It would not have endured, even with the support of kings and emporers, unless people found in it meaning, sustenance, and hope.

As to gay Christians, I think you will find most of us have a deeper and more real faith than the nominal Christians who use a few out-of-context biblical passages to support their own prejudice, hatred and insecurity.

 

[Mariatenebre]

It is all due to the fact that Christianity is not a myth. Look under all the bad that has happened through-out History and you will come to see all the Good that Christianity has brought into the world. It is also due to God coming to us in the form of Jesus Christ, who is the WORD of God. Read the Lives of the Saints through History. Read deep into the why and how the Church stood the test of time.

Christianity is a myth. The Bible is not a historical document and Christianity for the most part has brought more evil then good. It has brough scientific ignorance, sexism, racism, homophobia, barbarity, inherited guilt and denial of human dignity. Christianity and Islam have higher body counts then any other religion out there.

As to why gays tend to obsess over Christianity it is simple. It is because they were indoctrinated into this tripe and instead of growing a pair and leaving this cult they choose to wallow in a cult that hates them. [Text: Removed]

Much of what I know, I had to learn and study on my own because of serious discrepancies in the teachings in CCD since I was a kid in the 1970's (I was born 1968), as in too many errors were being taught. I studied on my own as an adult, and what I learned was very different from what I was taught in CCD while in Elementary School. So, with experiences in Catholicism since....I can say that it isn't a Myth at all.

Personal experience does not qualify as evidence. Plus all of the mainstream scientists, psychologists, historians and anthropologists would disagree with you about Christianity not being a myth.

Palbert,
Christianity's bounds, from its beginnings, far exceeded those of the Roman Empire. India has had a vibrant Christian church since the first century. Armenia was the first nation to make Christianity its official religion. After Constantine legalized Christianity in the Empire, there were vibrant non-imperial churches in Ethiopia, Nubia, Assyria (modern Iraq), Georgia, Persia, and China (which, along with the Coptic Church in Egypt, broke communion with the imperial church in 451), as well as the Aryan church which was the dominant religion of the Goths and Vandals threatening the Empire from the north. While some of these churches fell to politics and the rise of Islam, the Armenian, Coptic (over 15% of the population of Egypt) and Ethiopian churches are quite strong. And since the final fall of the Roman Empire to the Ottomans in 1453, minority churches have survived in the Muslim lands of the East, as did suppressed churches in the Soviet empire and communist China.

Why has the Jewish "myth" endured so long? Except for the short period of Solomon's reign, it was never the religion of a great and powerful nation. Indeed, the Jewish nation suffered repeated destruction and dispersal. The gods of Israel's more powerful neighbors, Ra of Egypt, Marduk of Babylon, Dagon of the Philistines, Zeus of ancient Greece, are consigned to the history books, but the praise of YHWH still resounds. I think Judaism has endured because it has given the Jewish people (and others) hope, a sense of identity, and a way of life for 3 millenia, and continues to do so.

So too with Christianity. It would not have endured, even with the support of kings and emporers, unless people found in it meaning, sustenance, and hope.

As to gay Christians, I think you will find most of us have a deeper and more real faith than the nominal Christians who use a few out-of-context biblical passages to support their own prejudice, hatred and insecurity.

The Abrahamic religions have survived for one reason alone. It is because they were better at killing and pillaging other people and had no problem with forced conversions. These religions have mainly spread by the sword.

 

[zoltanspawn]

I am quite intrigued how come the gay online community forum here to do with religion and spirituality seems to be mainly obsessed with the Christian myth, as if to suggest that Christianity invented religion and spirituality.

I would just like to explore why. Of course we in the western world are permeated with this myth since being little, and we ALL have 'Christian' names, so even though generally there is an acceptance we have moved on away from this age of religion and now exist in the 'real' world of scientific materialism that willy-nilly all the Christian principles and values remain, some unconsciously.

Christianity has no more a special magnetic pull on its adherents than most other religions. The membership of JUB is composed largely of people from historically Christian nations. If it were made up of people from Sri Lanka, Japan or Morocco, for instance, the community wouldn't be disposed to a majority of christian threads.

I'm very unsurprised that most people endorse, reject and interpret through the idioms they're most familiar with. It would seem much stranger to me if lots of us freely moved beyond the culture and history with which we are best acquainted.

 

[ludolfo]

I think that Christian belief is a mythology like others but has pretended to be historical, and that is the problem. Believers have been forced to literally believe there actually was a Jesus of Nazareth who was the only Son of God, and who dies for our sins and was resurrected physically and ascended to heaven to be with his Father. Now to me that sounds like a mythology and not actual history, but that is what they have forc3e fed people down the generations, and people have been jailed, tortured and murdered for questioning this myth, and even here at this forum which celebrates all forms of sexuality, I have got told off by some here for DARING to call Christianity a myth so this pressure not to is still surviving as of January 2013...!!

 

[zoltanspawn]

I don't have the sense that in the history of Christianity there has been an unchanging bias in favor of a historical understanding of Christian stories. Rather, I tend to think that in our current era we, as a whole civilization, value factuality first and foremost; Christians have become asinine literalists and partisans as a side-effect of our larger notion of truth.

 

[Rickrock]

MikeyLove, just want to say that not everyone is against you or against the Catholic Church. You're not alone. I don't have answers for most of their arguements, but I do have faith. Peace to you.

 

[zoltanspawn]

MikeyLove, just want to say that not everyone is against you or against the Catholic Church. You're not alone. I don't have answers for most of their arguements, but I do have faith. Peace to you.

MikeyLove has stated his adherence to the catholic dogma that homosexuality is 'objectively disordered.' This idea is used to deny civil rights to gay people; it renders us a sub-class of humans and its repercussions include suicide, despair and hate. Although I also wish MikeyLove happiness and fulfillment, I think it's important to condemn the official hatred the catholic church espouses.

 

[bankside]

I am quite intrigued how come the gay online community forum here to do with religion and spirituality seems to be mainly obsessed with the Christian myth, as if to suggest that Christianity invented religion and spirituality.

I would just like to explore why. Of course we in the western world are permeated with this myth since being little, and we ALL have 'Christian' names, so even though generally there is an acceptance we have moved on away from this age of religion and now exist in the 'real' world of scientific materialism that willy-nilly all the Christian principles and values remain, some unconsciously.

It's quite strange how the book the Bible can have had so much influence over so many over the generations isn't it. EVEN though for many gay people we have had to suffer great abuse from believers in this book for a long long time YET the threads in this section seem devoted to this religion as though it has a patent on religion, spirituality, and philosophy.

What are gay people here feeling about this is my question?

Ludolfo, so many posters here are American and even though I live next to the states, until the internet and until this forum I rarely had the opportunity to interact with them. I have enjoyed getting to know my neighbours, but I too am astonished by the salience of Christianity to Americans, including the gay ones. It just doesn't figure into the everyday lives of people elsewhere to nearly the same degree. I don't think you're discovering a gay phenomenon, but a gay American phenomenon.

 

[Mariatenebre]

MikeyLove, just want to say that not everyone is against you or against the Catholic Church. You're not alone. I don't have answers for most of their arguements, but I do have faith. Peace to you.

MikeyLove has said that homosexulity is "objectively disordered" and caused by original sin aka inherited guilt when science shows it is caused by nature. He has also said that gays should be celibate and in order to be good Catholics must hate their sexuality and fight against it.

Do you believe in this self hating Abrahamic claptrap as well?

 

[Laufey]

Well two main reasons:

1. Christianity is the biggest religion in the world and in the western world majority of the people are Christians.

2. No one thing has killed as many people as Christianity. Most countries didn't choose to adopt it they were forced to.

It's ridiculous that a third of the world population worships a magician who died 2000 years ago.

 

[bankside]

Fighting against normal healthy homosexual traits is not an example of loving yourself, which is what the Catholic Church preaches. It tells people that to love themselves they must try to overcome and suppress their natural healthy homosexuality and allow their sexuality to wither into hollow catholic chasteness. That is not a theology of self love, it is a cruel and futile barbaric hateful doctrine, and the Catholic Church should be condemned for it. A person who recognises a same sex attraction should be free to explore it with another adult without any shame, guilt or interference imposed by the church. But the church does not know its place and it just shoves pain and lost opportunity down the throats of people who are often too afraid to break their dependency on the church and reject such monstrous nonsense. Gay is good. Being gay with someone is also good. No disorder, no sin, no shame.

 

[Rickrock]

Mariatenebre, thank you for your question. I am not sure what "objectively disordered" means, but I believe that homosexuality is most likely caused by nature and not chosen by those individuals. I am willing to believe that sexual activity outside of marriage is usually wrong, but homosexual activity is no worse than heterosexual activity. Even if sexual activity is usually wrong outside of marriage, in our culture it is difficult to believe that it is a serious error between consenting adults, but more of a lesser sin. Humankind has many human tendancies which we must learn to control, such as greed and sex among many others, and we must learn to direct these tendancies in constructive directions. Greed is probably a worse problem than sex. I believe in God and believe that the basic beliefs and ideaology of the Catholic Church is the closest to God's will, but humankind sometimes is misguided in carrying it out and I have some disagreements with some Catholic policies. I do believe that abortion is murder, but we do allow murder in wartime and do execute criminals. If we do stop abortions, it would be wrong to do that without providing economic and emotional support support to mothers and children, such as, and including, starting with free healthcare to children from pre-birth through the age of 19 as well as financial support.

 

[FirmaFan]

Maria, stick your nose in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and read #2357-2359. FYI, I am not self-hating, as everyone around me knows all about me, and understands where I am coming from. [Quoted Text: Removed] I will put you on my prayer list.

Going around saying that every single human being, yourself included, is guilty of original sin is self-hating.

 

[CowboyBob]

OMG, do I even want to get into this?

People adhere to this ancient religion which worships virgin births, resurrections and a blood sacrifice because they're been indoctrinated from an early age. They've been promised a glorious afterlife if they blindly follow what they've been told. Threatened with "eternal damnation" if you don't.

Religion is nothing more than a tool to control thoughts, feelings, desires and emotions. It's more powerful that political control. It's mind control.

It's funny how those who calls themselves a "christian" sees the folly of other religions but not their own. Mind control again.

I don't condemn anyone who wants to go along with this, but they better not condemn me for not.

 

[CowboyBob]

You can not control desires, emotions and feelings. You can only control how you react to them.

Same difference.

 

[Mariatenebre]

Maria, stick your nose in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and read #2357-2359. FYI, I am not self-hating, as everyone around me knows all about me, and understands where I am coming from. [Quoted Text: Removed] I will put you on my prayer list.

I know what the Catechism says that dosen't change the fact that it is wrong. It is shown that homosexuality is caused by nature and not some curse caused by inherited guilt. You believe in being celibate and hating your sexuality even though psychology says the opposite.

[Text: Removed] Next don't save a prayer for me. I would rather my name not be mentioned in a prayer to Yahweh Sabeoth the bloody war god of the Canaanites.

Mariatenebre, thank you for your question. I am not sure what "objectively disordered" means, but I believe that homosexuality is most likely caused by nature and not chosen by those individuals. I am willing to believe that sexual activity outside of marriage is usually wrong, but homosexual activity is no worse than heterosexual activity. Even if sexual activity is usually wrong outside of marriage, in our culture it is difficult to believe that it is a serious error between consenting adults, but more of a lesser sin. Humankind has many human tendancies which we must learn to control, such as greed and sex among many others, and we must learn to direct these tendancies in constructive directions. Greed is probably a worse problem than sex. I believe in God and believe that the basic beliefs and ideaology of the Catholic Church is the closest to God's will, but humankind sometimes is misguided in carrying it out and I have some disagreements with some Catholic policies. I do believe that abortion is murder, but we do allow murder in wartime and do execute criminals. If we do stop abortions, it would be wrong to do that without providing economic and emotional support support to mothers and children, such as, and including, starting with free healthcare to children from pre-birth through the age of 19 as well as financial support.

Sex outside of marriage hurts no one. In fact it is far better then choosing to marry just because you want to have sex. Also do you then believe in gay marriage since you believe in the nonsense of waiting to have sex to get married or do you believe in the celibacy nonsense.

As for abortion sorry but according to science it is not murder. A fetus/embryo/cluster of cells has no sentience, personhood or intelligence and has as much of these things as a jar of paste. Any given animal has more of these things then these pre life forms and I don't see pro lifers running out to be vegetarians.

 

[ludolfo]

Maria, stick your nose in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and read #2357-2359. FYI, I am not self-hating, as everyone around me knows all about me, and understands where I am coming from. [Quoted Text: Removed] I will put you on my prayer list.

you mean this bit?

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection. [2347]

So your saying that gay people must not have sex, right? So why do you frequent a forums that is very open about gay sexual freedom and pornography? Is your mission here to 'save' gay people from 'sin' and to call this mission and requirement religion and spirituality?

 

[ludolfo]

Prove it.
Pretty please

Well errrm the Christian conquests of the 'New World' for example? And before that was the massive suppression of the Old European Goddess religion by the same kind of oppression fostered by Judeo-Christianity.

Has anyone heard of the VICTIM/PERPETRATOR SYNDROME? This is a dyanmic that is claimed to happen to the followers and the Judeo-Christian myth. I first read it from John Lamb Lash. I don't agree with some other stuff he claim, as he comes from a Gnostic perspective which I also feel has a paranoid outlook on nature (which I see the Christian myth having) such as his view of the 'Archons' etc, but I really gell with his insights here. I will quote his summary of the syndrome:

TW: And it provides a cover and justification for dominators and abusers to maim and kill. Take us through what you call the Victim-Perpetrator Syndrome.

JLL: For some 50 years in American psychology we have developed the idea of the abuse bonding, or what I call the “victim-perpetrator syndrome”. If there is an abuser and there are people who are abused, there will be a bond formed between them. And some of the abused will then become abusers in turn. And even the abused people in the system who do not become abusers will remain faithful and loyal to those who abused them. We see it in dysfunctional families where children who are beaten to an atrocious degree will stand up and defend their parents. So I looked at the victim-perpetrator syndrome to analyze history and found that the ideology of Christian salvation is a concept that is really pathological and serves as a cover for the victim-perpetrator game to continue.

TW: If perpetrators of abuse are more often than not abused themselves –what abuse was inflicted upon the Europeans prior to the 1st Century that produced for them this drive for domination through violence?

JLL: Go back and read the Old Testament. Read how Jehovah treats his chosen children.

TW: He’s always threatening to wipe them out!

JLL: He punishes them, and then he promises to reward them more highly than any other nations. But at the same time that’s only a lure to pull them deeper into the bonding. The next thing you know they’re being punished again and told they’re not good enough. If you read the Old Testament with this victim-perpetrator syndrome as a key it’s a pretty eye-opening experience. The second historical example is when the Europeans discovered America. They systematically perpetrated genocide on the Native Americans. Why did they do that when they could have acted otherwise and made alliances with those people? My answer is that the Europeans who came to the Americas in the 15th century had already had genocide and violence enacted on them through the imposition of Christianity. They were the abused who turned into the abusers.

TW: Let’s talk about Jesus. He is considered the very best human to ever walk the earth. You are arguing that’s not the case. ff