Lots of bashing for the belief of God....

[Scoobes]

DélioPT said:

 

When you're blackmailed, you still have the choice to ignore the blackmailer, however, they'll punish you for it, so it's exactly like blackmail. You have the choice to ignore god and his/her apparent "rules", but if you do you'll be punished. Furthermore, if god is all powerful, why does any god require recognition for reward? Why should any god be that egotistical? You also imply that you can be immoral, but if you believe in god then he will accept and reward you but a moral person can be punished just for not believing? You don't see how this is egotistical and how a bully/dictator functions?

God doesn`t recognition for His ego. That`s how humans work and think. Recognition is the same as saying: “Ok, I see what You are and what You mean”. And because God is absolute and that means that it`s either Him or not.
Believing in God is as good as nothing. What`s the point of believing in Him if you don`t believe in what He is? You can`t separate both notions of belief. So no, you can`t be immoral.
What faith means is that you believe not just His existance but in what He is and what He wants for us and of us.
If you associate the concept of blackmail to this, it shows - no offense - that you don`t really understand what faith is and it`s implications. It`s a lot more deep that just my explanation.
Although men and God aren`t the same, there`s a mutual love there.

 

Anyway, their is a significant body of literature that shows a significant genetic and hormonal link to homosexuality. Their are contributing environmental factors, but I'll take the current scientific literature to the observations of any single person in their everyday life. Also, if it's not in the bible, why are you aginast it?
Honestly, i don`t know a lot about that so i can`t really comment.
As for me being against it, i`ll try to be as neutral as possible.
The act of homosexuality is something that`s against human nature, against the way God made us and seen as corruption of man.
Every sin is an offense to God who is absolute. Homosexuality is no different than prostitution, for example. If it goes on a different path than God, than it`s a sin.
But you see, still, Jesus died for our sins so we could find a place next to God. Does that seem like a whim of someone vengeful or a dictator? Has any dictator cared it`s own people to the point of serving a servant?

 

Again, I have difficulty understanding this view. In my view, you can follow religious rules all you want but it doesn't actually equate to faith or spirituality. All it shows is that you can follow rules laid out by a book written by humans thousands of years ago. All my spiritual experiences have had nothing to do with a belief in any god.

I can honestly understand with faith isn`t easy to understand because it`s essence is found in it`s experience, not in rational arguments - as it happens with God. It`s by living it that you feel it`s meaning and how that changes you. Faith is not reading a book.
If you search the Web i bet there are a lot of testimonies from people that really just didn`t care or even despises religion and then went through something that completely changed their lives and brought them closer to God. Maybe they can explain better than i can.

We're going to have to agree to disagree (as always happens in these debates, lol).

What I will say though, is like Vlad pointed out earlier, you seem to use a circular logic to describe god and the viewpoints of followers. Everything you know of god comes from what you're taught by your religion (people in positions of power). Yet you can't truly "know" anything about god, yet you make claims that he deems x,y,z based on teaching given to you by humans.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that faith and spirituality isn't and shouldn't be about following rules set by religion X, but is entirely personal to each individual. I think it's odd and somewhat arrogant (no offence to you intended- this is a general view of people preaching/lecturing) for anyone to make claims as to what a higher power says you should do or think. Finding what works for you in terms of spirituality should be a personal journey of discovery.