I am a little confused, and hope you can clear up for me…I assume that you do not believe in God, based on the context of many of your posts. But, you then ask “why did God create same sex attractions?” Maybe I misunderstood your point. Please clarify.

I’m also not sure what you mean when you say “putting God in the equation does not add anything meaningful.” Like your statement about the bible and same sex attractions, God being added to the equation has no meaning only within your context/framework. Again, maybe I’m not clear, so please clarify that for me.

I’ll keep it short… Rodney said,

God didn’t create “same sex attraction”. The Bible makes it clear that God created male for female and female for male. Corrupt humanity imagines and acts upon same sex attraction.

The Bible only “makes it clear” in its own context/framework. There’s zero evidence that it’s making a statement about reality. I’ve covered that in previous posts.

Okay, glad to hear you don’t hear voices. Your explanation (”strong impression… acting on that, etc.”) sounds reasonable and is something we can all relate to, I think. But again, why burden it with additional concepts like God? It’s infinitely more likely that we get that kind of information or “hunches” from intuition or some other form of subconscious means (as any psychologist can tell you, we know more than we’re consciously aware of). And yeah, luck and coincidence do often come into the picture. So, again and again the point is: Putting “God” into any of these equations doesn’t help at all, it does not add anything meaningful to the process of understanding things.

Take care,
Ray

Of the 90% that I think claim to hear from God, I would guess nearly 100% of them would NOT admit if it weren’t (if I understood your question correctly).

How do I know if God is speaking? I don’t upfront. For me, it starts with a strong impression, or an idea of something that I should do or say. If I act on that, somewhere down the road I find that there was a benefit in what I did or said, or it makes a positive impact. I admit there’s a possibility that I’ll never see the benefit, but I’ll still follow the strong impression to do or say what I think God is impressing me to do or say. I attribute that benefit or positive outcome to God. Should I? I don’t know…but I don’t know who else or what else to attribute the positive result to. Luck? Coincidence?

Let me be clear…I DO NOT HEAR VOICES. I think anyone claiming to hear voices on a regular basis should be locked up.

But just to respond to what you wrote Rodney about the 90% of people who claim to hear God… I wonder, of those 90% how many do you suppose actually say that it might not be God who is speaking to them?

So I wonder… how do you know it’s God?

Maybe you’ve inspired me to write a new post around this question. Watch this space

Rodney: God didn’t create “same sex attraction”. The Bible makes it clear that God created male for female and female for male. Corrupt humanity imagines and acts upon same sex attraction.

Simon, I’ll attempt to answer your question this way:

God speaks to me through His word. When I read the Bible, I understand what it is saying, and it goes into the “core,” the “essence (spirit),” the “heart” and changes me, so that those sinful things I once did, I now have no desire to do them. The corrupt essence of humanity is not capable of “listening” to God, and it has no desire to.

I can’t speak to how God “spoke” in the Old Testament, and I don’t believe that 90% of the people who claim that God spoke to them are really “hearing” God.

Then why the f–k did God create “same sex attraction”?

Sorry Simon, but it’s condescending shit like this that gets me. And the oh so meek and mild Christians ask why some atheists are so angry..

Who in their right mind would want to belong to a community of anti-humane bigots like that?

Calming your mind and “allowing an answer to come” is nothing new under the sun. Look at any contemplative tradition that precedes Christianity by up to 3 millennia. That’s one thing. It’s quite another thing, however, to claim that any “answer”, hunch, intuition or inspiration is Yahweh or his son talking to you. That’s an absolutely unjustified inference. My patience with this type of dishonesty is at Level Nada. Frankly, people who hear audible voices in their mother tongue in their heads should see a psychiatrist, presto.

From the very fist comment to this post (proof of the Resurrection):
“One interesting thing to see is that Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 17, that there were over 500 witnesses at once, and most of them were still alive at the time of that writing. This would be pretty silly to write if the apostles were making this up.”

Typical circular argumentation: Claim X is made in the Bible which is supposed to validate claim Y. Therefore, claim Y must be true. Because claim X must also be true. You know, because the Bible says so.

Using that, one can talk one’s way out of a paper bag the size of the Milky Way. Again, any sane person should have no more patience with these games.

The Bible neither says that shellfish are an abomination to Him nor does it say that people with a same sex attraction are an abomination to Him. God created shellfish and he created people. He looked at the shellfish (as well as all his other creation) and said it was good. He looked at man and said it was very good.

In Leviticus 11:10 God tells the Israelites that shellfish shall be an abomination to _them_ – meaning that they shall not eat shellfish. Not that shellfish are an abomination to God.

Likewise, God says that _the homosexual act_ is an abomination. He does not say that the people themselves are an abomination, but that the acts are an abomination, just like all sin is condemned. The sin of committing a homosexual act is no worse than the sin of having sex with someone that is not your spouse (called fornication or adulery).

There have been people brainwashed into thinking that it is their responsibility to stop homosexuality, but really if they were truly Christian they would treat all sinners the same, loving them and helping them learn what is sin and how to resist sinning. The problem is that people get very attached to sin and they don’t want to stop. No one said that obeying God was easy.

Same sex attraction is definitely a difficult thing to have when God is saying that it is a sin to act out on that, and that is quite a burden. But if they truly rely on God to help them do it, God will give them the grace sufficient to succeed. And they are definitely not an abomination before him. He loves those with same sex attraction exactly the same as those without.

Ralph

Me: I don’t know of any religions that claim exclusivity to God, including my own. I think that this is a misconception that any religion claims exclusivity to God, as if God wasn’t transcendent enough to speak to any of his creation.

Simon: In a world full of mixed messages and misinformation how do you listen to God?

Me: I would say that in order for one to really know how to listen to God, they have to understand the truth about God, about what God would say and what he wouldn’t say. I know that seems nebulous, but there is the problem that God may not be the one talking to you – it could be demons, or even your own self. But when you listen for God to speak you have to be ready for him to convict you and to challenge you. I know this – he does not condemn you, he is not prideful. If you hear a condemning or prideful message, something shameful, something to minimize you, that is not God.

Simon: The world is more connected now than at any other point in history, so wouldn’t it be more helpful if the almighty could perhaps speak up a little?

Me: That is the amazing thing about faith. God never comes and proves his existence. The people who crucified Jesus taunted him from the cross, demanding that he come down from there, and they would believe. If he had done that, they might have believed, but they would have done so out of fear. That is not what God wants. He wants us to believe out of love.

Simon: But then if this is the case, then how is one supposed to hear from God if his preferred method of communication is so perilously prone to failure?

Me: He expects us to be weak. He wants us to reach out in faith to him, to try to know his will. If we fail, we try again. God is a God of second chances. He doesn’t rely on us to be perfect for his will to be done on Earth. He mostly just wants us to try. And he has spoken to us through the Bible. The Bible is his word directly to each of us. Its really important for the believer to know the Bible well, for as St. Jerome said, ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ.

Simon: If you pray then wait upon God to ’speak’ to you, how do you know if what you ‘hear’ is actually from God, and not simply from your subconscious?

Me: Its a good question. You just can’t know if the words in your hand are from God or from ourselves, or whatever. But often God will work in more ways than talking to us in our heads. If we stay attentive, we will see him working in our lives and recognize him working. Prayers are heard, and are always answered. We stay attentive and we see his work.

Simon: Some people have told me that they actually hear the voice of God in their heads, audible and clear speaking beyond any doubt or uncertainty. But if this is the case, then how come God doesn’t speak as clearly to everyone who speaks to him?

Me: He actually, in a way, speaks more clearly. But words can be misinterpreted just as well as events. If God wants us to do something, he knows how to make us understand, and he will give us what we need to know in one way or another.

Simon: Should I be concerned that I’m not hearing God’s actual voice, or should I be more concerned about the people who are?

Me: Neither. I think your first step is what you are doing right now, and that is learning as much about God as you can.

If you are attentive, you will hear God speak to you even through answers to your blog posts. He uses real people to speak just as much or more as speaking to us directly. Its best to pray about everything you read though, and you will realize what is truth and what is not. God made humans to be ordered toward recognizing truth. We can be deceived, but nothing stands like the truth.

God Bless,

Ralph

I want you all to know that I appreciate the time you take to ponder and engage with my questions. This is an ongoing conversation that I hope you will continue to have with me.

I don’t really like hearing people saying stuff like we should ‘reject this’ or ‘renounce that’, it just doesn’t sound very much like the practice of “love one another” to me, but I guess this is a religious forum so I need to expect to encounter and be open to religious talk.