Quote from: tekla on September 18, 2012, 11:06:32 AM
You are assuming that the LGBT people would accept the debate on the Christian terms, when in fact most of the LGBT people I know don't accept the basic premise.  If you reject that centeral premise - indeed reject the entire notion of any Bronze Age morality/religion based on having some invisible sky god - then why would you want to go head to head,toe to toe,line upon line,precept upon precept?  The growing notion in modern Western society (that big 'secular' deal you've been hearing so much about), is that none of that is real, provable or can be sustained.  While its' possible to do that line upon line thing, it's like people quoting Dead or Dylan lyrics to each other, it means nothing if you're not into the band.

So I'm not going to debate Xians based on their bizarrely translated (several times) stories, myths and legends because like many people I'm (obviously) not buying into the original premise.  I would want to debate them in a framework of reason and rationality, and as House has wisely pointed out: Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise there would be no religious people.  Any debate based on reason and done in a scientific framework is still-born because there is no reasonable scientific proof that can be offered.

To that end then 99% of the problems are one way, coming from religion at LGBT.  I don't see LTBT people (or any other non-believers) trying to 'rationalize the religion away' or trying to scientifically eliminate religious thoughts and actions, or ganging up on someone and trying to 'reason the lord out of him'.  Indeed the only real advocacy on the part of the secularists that could be considered as 'hostile' to religion is the growing notion that churches should be taxed like everything else.  Other than that they are simply doing their best to ignore the entire religion/church spectrum and really only pays attention when the religious types attempt to force their beliefs into law and codify them into the social order.

That's not what I said. What  I said is that a transgendered fundamentalist Christian could go head to head with a fundamentalist Christian because both are coming from the same common ground and understand the lingo. If their is no common ground to begin with it is a futile attempt.

To debate fundamentalists may not be what you are to do,but it is what I am to do. It is far easier for someone coming from the inside as opposed to those from the outside.

Quote from: tekla on September 18, 2012, 11:06:32 AM

And I regularly see groups (always from out of town) go and have prayer stuff in gay neighborhoods, but I've yet to see a bunch of gays show up in a religious setting and try to convert everyone to fabulous. 

Touched on above.

Quote from: tekla on September 18, 2012, 11:06:32 AM
  Simply put activitivities like the one below where forced prayed to drive the "gay" out of him are one way, there is no mirror other.

Been there,done that.

Quote from: tekla on September 18, 2012, 11:06:32 AM

So I'm not going to debate Xians based on their bizarrely translated (several times) stories, myths and legends because like many people I'm (obviously) not buying into the original premise.

I know a TG woman who used that term Xian. I asked her what that was all about and she told me that she had given up on Christianity and had given her heart to Satan and that is how satanists refer to Christians as a means of avoiding using the word Christ while denigrating the beliefs of people of faith. 

Quote from: tekla on September 18, 2012, 11:06:32 AM

Indeed the only real advocacy on the part of the secularists that could be considered as 'hostile' to religion is the growing notion that churches should be taxed like everything else.  Other than that they are simply doing their best to ignore the entire religion/church spectrum and really only pays attention when the religious types attempt to force their beliefs into law and codify them into the social order.

And I regularly see groups (always from out of town) go and have prayer stuff in gay neighborhoods, but I've yet to see a bunch of gays show up in a religious setting and try to convert everyone to fabulous.  Simply put activitivities like the one below where forced prayed to drive the "gay" out of him are one way, there is no mirror other.

I've honestly never cared to fight religion. It is too deeply ingrained into modern culture to counteract it. However, it is funny when church leaders complain that they're being discriminated against because the government wants to fund contraceptives. They aren't taxed and they place a huge influence on civil law, despite a so-called "separation of church and state". You know what, if that's discrimination, let me have some of that. Sounds like a good deal.

Alas, none of this matters. I follow a philosophy similar to that of Martin Luther King Jr.'s. I don't hate the religion or any of its members; I hate their pitiful actions.

Hasn't there been enough violence against us? I for sure don't like it. But if the root cause is because of of what is being taught and then turned around to justify it,it will not change unless someone stands in the gap. It cannot change unless someone points out the errors in their thinking and it can bring about a change of heart.

I think it's less ingrained in modern culture than it seems.  Much of the mainstream (and fundamentalism is not mainstream, but, rather, extreme and fringe) religious participation is social based more than it's faith based, with lots of lip-service and not much underlying conviction.  It's trending older, poorer and rural with fewer and fewer people under 35 believing than at any time in our history.  In other Western nations religions have drastically reduced numbers over the last 50 years, and ever so slowly the US follows.  One very telling statistic is that of vocations/callings, as seminaries experience 'graying' as their students get older (finding fewer and fewer young people willing to attend), and in the case of the Catholic Church you see that they don't even have enough priests to put one in every parish (and those they do have are increasingly foreign born), and Catholic Schools which once (like when I went to them) were overwhelmingly run by nuns and other clergy, now are pretty much lay run.

Quote from: tekla on September 18, 2012, 01:02:22 PM
I think it's less ingrained in modern culture than it seems.  Much of the mainstream (and fundamentalism is not mainstream, but, rather, extreme and fringe) religious participation is social based more than it's faith based, with lots of lip-service and not much underlying conviction.  It's trending older, poorer and rural with fewer and fewer people under 35 believing than at any time in our history.  In other Western nations religions have drastically reduced numbers over the last 50 years, and ever so slowly the US follows.  One very telling statistic is that of vocations/callings, as seminaries experience 'graying' as their students get older (finding fewer and fewer young people willing to attend), and in the case of the Catholic Church you see that they don't even have enough priests to put one in every parish (and those they do have are increasingly foreign born), and Catholic Schools which once (like when I went to them) were overwhelmingly run by nuns and other clergy, now are pretty much lay run.

My age is showing. Some of what I saw as a kid growing up was much different then it is now. (Part of the over 50 group) I know I am not alone in that group to have seen first hand the total and complete hatred of us,and people getting violent towards us. Maybe then it was far more common and in some ways it has colored my thinking a bit too much.

Pretty much anti-gay notions/values are age related and highly generational.  The older you are the more likely you are anti-gay, as you move to younger and younger samples the "Meh, whatever..." reaction becomes more common.

The hard part is dealing with the memories. You just can't get rid of them. The rest can be dealt with but the memories remain even after all the time past.

 "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Mahatma Gandhi (The Prince of Peace)

Quote from: peky on September 18, 2012, 03:36:57 PM
"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Mahatma Gandhi (The Prince of Peace)

I love that!

Quote from: SarahM777 on September 18, 2012, 12:23:37 PM
Hasn't there been enough violence against us? I for sure don't like it. But if the root cause is because of of what is being taught and then turned around to justify it,it will not change unless someone stands in the gap. It cannot change unless someone points out the errors in their thinking and it can bring about a change of heart.

How many Christians have been murdered by pagans? Including Rome, Persia, and India, the number is somewhere around 300,000

How many women did the christian kill by burning them in a stake? The most realistic number is 100,000, this is the "Women Holocaust" http://www.holocaust-history.org/~rjg/witches.shtml

Killed by the Crusader's Christians 3,500,000

and so on and so forth, you get the idea

Quote from: Keaira on August 27, 2012, 07:56:50 AM
In general, I don't like Christianity. Too many bad apples in there who are hypocrites. Like the many many Catholic Priests who molest the Choir Boys  that think it's okay to do so as long as they confess on Sunday. There's too many denominations too and each with their own views and perpetration of the Bible. Nor do I enjoy the mindless bigoted sheeple who believe they are pure believers and tell every person who fits the GLBT spectrum that they are going to hell, etc....

You get the idea.

However....

I met a pastor who has healed a wound in my family. My Brother-in-Law, as I have talked about before, said some very hurtful things when I began transition. We didn't talk for over a year because he felt like I had slighted him by transitioning.
My Mother-in-Law passed away a few weeks ago. For the sake of Family, my Brother-in-law and I set aside our differences to come together in support of our wives family. 
After the Memorial, I thanked the pastor for his moving words. (I cried as hard as my wife and her sisters despite trying not to). He then asked my Brother-in-Law, "Who is the woman with the black hair?"

He explained to the pastor who I was, my transition, etc. The pastor told him, "Your job, is not to judge her. Yours is to simply love her."

Afterwards, my Brother-in-law told me what he had said and and that even his Dad, whom I have known for years, asked "Who is that woman with black hair ?" So I was definitely passing. He also said that I was welcome back into his life again. He invited me to go to church on Sunday with him, to see why my Mother-in-Law liked it so much.

On one hand, I was not interested. On the other, the pastors words were still ringing in my ears. So, I went. And I kind of enjoyed it. Afterwards my Brother-in-Law asked how I like it. I gave him my opinion and that I was still unsure I could go again. Having to explain,'why I look like a woman' would get awkward if people asked him. My Brother-in-Law said that, if it got me to come to church, he would use female pronouns so that we didn't have to explain.

So, what can I say? I still find the people who cast stones with a bible in one hand and a bottle of Jack Daniels in the other to be evil little turds. But I think I have found a church that I could be a part of. A small part of Christianity that seems to be untouched by the flawed hatred of closet case Ministers and bigots with crosses.

See? I'm not entirely hateful, I just simply dont like the turds in the punch bowl. Like Westboro Baptist Church.

That was a beautiful story

Quote from: SarahM777 on September 18, 2012, 01:58:39 PM
The hard part is dealing with the memories. You just can't get rid of them. The rest can be dealt with but the memories remain even after all the time past.

Yes. and the dreams too. I had the same night mirrors for years. Always sitting in the pew and saying  "I have to leave".

Probably one of the saddest things religious or otherwise is when you checkmate someone with a point of logic and they say "Thats your truth..."
Theres not much hope for the willfully ignorant. The effort would be better spent forging politics and laws to protect ourselves from radicals of all kinds.
But they will fight back. They insisted in "In god we trust" on currency, changed the pledge of allegiance, gave us the KKK ect but damm us for marrying who we love, adopting children, obtaining medical insurance ect.
Its pathetic...

Quote from: peky on September 18, 2012, 03:36:57 PM
"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Mahatma Gandhi (The Prince of Peace)

While that may be the case for what so many see,does that mean I should reject Christ because of what others have said and done or do I accept Him for what He said and did? If they are opposed to each other
then one is true and the other false. They can not both be true.

Quote from: peky on September 18, 2012, 04:31:43 PM
How many Christians have been murdered by pagans? Including Rome, Persia, and India, the number is somewhere around 300,000

How many women did the christian kill by burning them in a stake? The most realistic number is 100,000, this is the "Women Holocaust" http://www.holocaust-history.org/~rjg/witches.shtml

Killed by the Crusader's Christians 3,500,000

and so on and so forth, you get the idea

I do apologize I did not catch that I was not clear when I said us. I meant those that are GLBT.

Were those that committed the atrocities really Christians or Christians in name only? If they were Christians in name only,they were false. And if the organized,franchised church were to show that they have changed their ways,they should sell the gold,silver and land,then do as Jesus told us to do feed the hungry,cloth the needy,shelter the homeless etc etc. and get back to the type of Church that the apostles laid down. Not the dead,lifeless,full of lists of dos and don't,loveless,egotistical,greedy,that comes across as just a total stench of vomit in the nostrils of God. I have no love for it at all and it should be torn down from it's very foundations because the foundation that they built it on was their own greed,lusts,and need for power,it was not built on love for God above everything else and love for the people around us. It's as simple as LOVE FOR ALL is to be the evidence of a True Christian.

Take it one step further than you can see how it was set up for someone at the top to be able to do what they did. First set the ground work that so one man is in total control. Give him a fancy title (Pope) Give him complete authority. (God's voice on earth and what ever the Pope says is as if it's from God ) Take away all checks and balances (all services in Latin no way to double check if what the Pope says is really what Jesus said,all scriptures written in Latin and the common man is not allowed to have them) Then use excommunication,the threat of purgatory,etc etc etc,and what do you end up with? A dictatorship. The more evil a dictator the more evil that comes out of that system. What's do they say about people who have power? "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Lord Acton

Now what did the rest of the denominations really do? Almost all of them have come out of that same system.All they ever did was reform parts of it along the way,they never really got rid of that system. If the system is corrupt to begin with reforming it does no good because the foundations are still corrupt.


The only way to get rid of the corruption is to go back to a time before that corruption was put in place. Which means jumping over the formation of the Roman Catholic Church,which is the main foundation of most of the modern day denominations.

A point to ponder. Is it possible that your transgendered fundamentalists Christian brothers and sisters have a unique perspective from which can be drawn insight and strength? Is it possible that they have strength and fortitude in near impossible odds against them? Perhaps in those impossible odds they have grown very strong and have much to offer that can not come from a different perspective. But if it were to be lost can it truly be regained?

You say you love me
And you're thinkin' of me
But you know you could be wrong
You say you told me
That you wanna hold me
But you know you're not that strong
I just can't do what I done before
I just can't beg you anymore
I'm gonna let you pass
And I'll go last
Then time will tell just who fell
And who's been left behind
When you go your way and I go mine

bob

I guess this is suppose to let me know where I stand here.