In last Sunday's post, Jay responded by writing, "Why is it that the very people who could benefit the most from these are the very ones who use hate and bigotry under the guise of pointing out others' sins so resistance to hearing this very true message of love for one another and giving the glory to God? Perhaps an analysis of what turns people who most likely started out as Christians in the true sense of the word into hate-mongers and thoroughly despicable people might help those of us who are almost ashamed to call ourselves Christians because of them understand where the disconnect lies." So I began to do a little research about why so many so-called "Christians" hate gay people. I came across this essay by a gay man named Larry from Michigan. It makes a lot of sense, though I don't know if I agree with all of it, Larry certainly makes some valid points. I have long believed that one of the reasons for homophobia lies in the need to propagate the species. In smaller groups in which larger populations were harder to maintain, (such as Native Americans) homosexuality was seen not as an evil, but as a natural part of civilization. Without further comment, I hope you find this essay as interesting as I did.
At some point, you have no doubt wondered why so-called "Christian" churches and their members behave in the most un-Christ-like ways toward God's gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender children. The Savior they falsely claim to "follow" and "worship," Jesus Christ, commanded all of humankind to treat each other with perfect love, and to do unto others as we would like them to do unto us. Considering Jesus' commands to them, their behavior therefore presents a contradiction in terms. How can this be explained? It's quite simple — this essay will expose the truth so-called "Christians" don't want you to know.
Mind you, modern-day so-called "Christians" didn't invent the hatred, rejection, and disapproval of gays and lesbians. Until the advent of semi-modern medicine within the last few hundred years, mortality was high and life-spans were short; in order to have a sufficient number of offspring to keep the species propagated, people often had to have as many as 15 children during their fertile years. Since purely gay and lesbian people by definition do not reproduce, the gays and lesbians of those times were not contributing to the further propagation of the human species. It is primarily for this reason that the societies of those times heaped scorn upon gay and lesbian people; this has carried forward to the present day, despite the modern world's over-population.
Also, at some point along the time line of human civilization, people began to figure out that a huge percentage of mankind is, for want of better terminology, intractably stupid. Specifically, the smarter people — the elites — figured out that the ignorant hordes could be easily controlled by exploiting their fear of things they didn't know. This fear of the unknown is a natural, instinctual human reaction, evolved over many thousands of years by our cave-dwelling ancestors, but it is a significant weakness in civilized societies. Without regard to what is absolutely moral or immoral, the elites of these ancient societies invoked fear in the masses by citing some kind of a higher power as an authority; whatever the elites chose became the "moral" codes of those societies. For reasons discussed in the previous paragraph, homosexuality was often one of the things these ancient elites condemned. Later on, this hatred of homosexuality was attributed to God as a means of keeping control in the hands of the elites.
This ancient hatred of gay people has filtered down through the millenia into modern society, despite modern medicine's obviation of any purported social "need" to "prevent" homosexuality. Nowadays, more gay people might actually be a good thing, in order to control a world population that is already too large for its own good. However, so-called "Christians" obviously still haven't moved out of the Dark Ages, considering the unprecedented levels of hatred they hold toward gay people — despite the lack of any logical motive for such hate. Their motives, in fact, are far more dark and sinister than they would ever let on.
Jesus Himself said that "you cannot worship both God and mammon (money)." Some two thousand years after He walked the earth, His words are oh-so-prophetic today. What is ultimately at the root of everything these so-called "Christian" churches do is not Christ's example, but rather the pursuit of earthly power — money. The elite leaders of these churches know that their followers' fear of the unknown — in particular, their fear of death and what happens after death — can be easily played in such a way that makes the elites fabulously wealthy. I will prove this over the next several paragraphs.
In the early part of the second millenium, the Roman Catholic Church became known for its granting of "indulgences." The idea was that a person could make a "sin offering" to God, in the form of a monetary payment to the Vatican, that would render his/her sins "forgiven" and leave him/her "pure" in God's eyes. Needless to say, this idea was so horribly abused by the wealthy to justify almost anything over the centuries, until one priest decided he had seen enough of it. Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on a church door in the year 1520, and in so doing forever changed the course of Christendom — no longer did all of the world's ecclesiastical authority derive from Rome. The Church in Rome fought the 95 Theses, branding Luther a "heretic," but eventually realized that Luther was right and ended the practice of indulgences. One would think that Christianity had been returned to its proper place as the worship of God, not an earthly money pit.
Sadly, this is not the case today. Our so-called "Christian" leaders of the 21st century haven't learned a thing from the 16th century. Actually, they have learned one thing: they've learned how to be more slick about it than the Roman Catholic Church of the 16th century was. "Christian" televangelists (who are more accurately known to God as minions of Satan) appear on programs designed to play to the fear of the unknown among their blind-sheep followers, saying things like, "If you support our work in opposition to the 'homosexual agenda,' won't you please send us a small donation of $25? Would you please support us as we protect the unborn children of God? Even $50 will do! God will remember on the Day of Judgment who did and did not help us carry out 'His' work!" This implicit threat of eternal damnation causes the largely stupid flock to immediately and reflexively reach for their checkbooks, thereby fattening the bank accounts of the televangelists.
An examination of the history of "Christian" churches tells you a lot more. For example, the Roman Catholic Church had a well-known role in the European exploration and conquest of the New World — rumors in Europe in the Middle Ages had it that the New World was full of valuable earthly treasures like gold, silver, turquoise, and other minerals and metals not known or in limited supply in Europe. European countries' fortunes changed rapidly when these rare, valuable items were found in their New World colonies; Spain, for example, became the most powerful nation on earth for over 100 years after discovering and plundering the gold-rich civilizations of the Aztecs, Mayas, and Incas. Often times, the monarchs of these European countries sought the permission of the Vatican for these explorations, frequently kicking some of the proceeds back the Pope's way.
Even today, the Roman Catholic Church still maintains a "Vatican Bank" with billions upon billions of dollars in holdings. Granted, it is not nearly as powerful and rich as it was before scandal rocked it in the 1970s and 1980s, but it was bailed out by the secretive, ultra-conservative Catholic cult Opus Dei. Why does the Vatican still maintain its own bank, when Jesus explicitly said that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God?
So-called "fundamentalist" churches of modern times, like the Southern Baptists, are just as morally culpable as the Vatican. It is well-known that "fundamentalist 'Christian'" preacher Pat Robertson took the donations of his "flock" and used them to enrich himself by buying a diamond mine in the west African nation of Liberia. The purchase of the diamond mine has made Robertson a billionaire, and he has put some of that money back into his "Christian" broadcasting empire, which he then in turn uses to further his own wealth. Many "fundamentalist" or "charismatic" preachers are at least multi-millionaires, and their churches frequently are amazingly extravagant, opulent testaments to their wealth. In many cases, they use the boatloads of money to construct graven images, such as giant crosses and statues, in direct defiance of God's Ten Commandments.
The Mormon church is also well-known for its love of money. Much like the "fundamentalist" mega-churches all throughout the South, Mormon temples are huge, opulent structures that cost tons of money. They won't even let non-Mormons visit the main temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. Islam, which forbids non-Muslims to visit Mecca, is the world's only other religion that does this. Could they both be hiding huge amounts of material wealth? Additionally, the LDS Church is alone among "Christian" churches in expecting its missionaries — you know, those cute, well-dressed boys who come knocking at your door, while you plot how to get them into the missionary position — to cover their own expenses while doing missionary work; they are the only church too cheap to support their missionaries! Perhaps the money is going to line church leaders' pockets?
It is this love of money that causes so-called "Christians" to hate gay people. More accurately, it is the leaders' never-ending hunger for money that causes them to demonize gays, in the process fostering identical attitudes in their flock. In fact, this very same love for money is also at the root of so-called "Christian" opposition to any kind of birth control, from condoms to birth-control pills, to the "morning after" pill and especially abortion. Obviously, they are dead-set against any kind of non-procreative sexual activity, or anything that prevents procreation from occurring. Why is this?
In order to keep the money flowing, these churches ultimately rely on their flocks to participate in a sort of reproductive pyramid scheme. That is to say, these churches are counting on all of their followers of child-bearing age to have as many children as possible, who when they become adults will in turn all proceed to have a bunch of kids, and so on and so on. If one couple coming into the church today has eight children, and each of those eight children has eight of his/her own upon reaching adulthood, that's 74 members of that church who will at some point in the next 50 years feed the church's money machine! This is exactly what the elite church leaders want; it keeps them fabulously wealthy for a good long time to come. The reason they so hatefully condemn gay people is because our lack of reproduction doesn't fit into the scheme whose continued existence they need to stay rich and powerful.
Unfortunately for them, that's not what God wants — nor is all the hatred of His gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender children, nor is the extreme opposition to any form of population control that leads "Christians" to murder people at abortion clinics. God sees right through what they are doing, and He knows they are truly worshipping money — temporal earthly power — instead of Him and His universal, timeless Power. He will punish their worship of earthly power in the most horrific ways when the Day of Judgment arrives, while at the same time allowing His gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender children who follow Him to enter into His heavenly kingdom.
My fellow gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender children of God, pay very close attention to what I am about to say. Whenever you hear so-called "Christians" condemning, harassing, and slandering you, throwing out their insane, Satanic, thoroughly false accusations of pedophilia, feces ingestion, universal HIV/AIDS infection, and certain death by the age of 42, you must always bear in mind that they are absolutely not speaking for God. Instead, they are merely demonstrating their unrighteous, Satan-motivated anger at our Godly non-participation in their pyramid scheme. What they are doing angers God greatly, and He will have his righteous vengeance upon them when the Day of Judgment arrives.
Do not under any circumstances listen to these money-worshipping "Christians" when they open their Satan-occupied mouths to speak out about homosexuality or abortion — God will reward you for staying true to Him and avoiding the traps these so-called "Christians" lay in front of you. Carry on as a GLBT child of God, doing whatever you can to better His creation and His other children here on earth, and do not fall for their meaningless, empty threats of eternal "hellfire" and "damnation." (Their claims have zero bearing on anybody's eventual salvation or damnation — God makes that choice, based upon how closely one has emulated Jesus' perfect example of universal love, and He will punish those "Christians" who are trying to fool you into thinking they share that power.) By doing this, you will earn the rich bounty of eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven, and avoid the fate of spending eternity in Hell that most assuredly awaits the vast majority of so-called "Christians."
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14 comments:
WOW! Cited in a Closet Professor post! I am honored!
Joe, I agree with you. This covers a lot of it. But I'm not sure how Westboro Baptist and their ilk (meaning, the smaller, non-megachurch types of noisy hate groups) fall into the "get rich and stay rich" focus of this essay, which I do believe applies (at least unconsciously) to almost everyone the writer mentions. NO ONE joins the WBC from the outside, they're all inbred. But they've managed to make so much noise and garner so much attention. Why aren't the mainstream denominations castigating these people? Publicly and loudly. WBC has GOT to be at least one of many reasons why church membership is dropping at a pretty fast rate. I honestly think that many people associate Christianity with groups like the WBC so much more than say, Aunt Abigail's little Methodist church, because Aunt Abigail's isn't standing up for what IS right and just in Christianity today. What a shame that so many suffer (and not just the LGBTQ community, but all the other people who wouldn't set foot in church because they don't want to be associated with anything that would be construed as a WBC group) because of hate groups that try to wrap themselves under the umbrella of Christianity.
Thanks for your research, it's appreciated.
Peace <3
Jay
Jay, considering how secretive the WBC is about their finances, their use of tax exempt status, and the families successful law firm, I am not sure that the WBC should not be considered part of a group that is at least partially out for money.
But really, if there was a christ who is god and a god who is all powerful and loving, the torture and suffering of gays would not be happening in "His" name now would it?
Happyman, there are many passages in the Bible that speaks of false teachers. Those who preach hate are the false teachers because they are not preaching God's word.
An interesting article with some good thoughts. I do not agree with the idea that gays were demonized in early church history as they could not procreate. Perhaps this was a part, but not the main reason. And I am not sure what the main reason would have been, other than some issue involving 'control' by the church. The early catholic church in Eurpoe managed to arise to the control of each small village. As you travel today, the church (catholic) is usually on the highest point in the village. It was the center of the life. It received the offerings made to ensure admittance into heaven in the hereafter. You only need to go into the large (ancient) churches and cathederals to see the amount of money poured into them --in additon to the time and workmanship to build them. Queen Isabella of Spain, insisted that the first gold from the new countries be give to the catholic church where it remains today even.
It would be interesting to find a study, not supposition, of the history of gay acceptance in churches through the ages. At one time the priest were allowed to marry and have families even. Then they were denied the opportunity~~ for a family or a relationship.
Today, I am not sure the issue is the inability to procreate and thus propagate the next generation but is more of a "we do not like gays becasue daddy and mommy did not like them, and grandparents did not like them" an so on...No one has been able to get around this fact, and the (I belive) incorrect interpretation of the Bible verses relating (supposedly) to homosexuality being a sin.
Silvereagle, from a historians point of view, and one that I have been taught and read about many times, the reason that priest were denied the right to marry and ave a family is because of inheretence. If they had a wife and children then anything owned by catholic clergy would go to them, not the church. Therefore to keep wealth within the church, it was necessary for priest to not be allowed to marry. Furthermore, I do believe that the need for a larger population has a great deal to do with why homosexuality was demonized. Children will most often continue the religion of their parents and children were also needed to fight the wars of the church and country. Remember that for the Catholic Church, sex is only allowable for procreation only, another reason that contraception is against church teaching.
So why are the false teachers winning? In my considerable time on the planet, I have witnessed a lot more harm being done by the christian religion than good. If your christian god was who and what you think he is-that would not be the case.
Sorry, but your dog just doesn't hunt.
Happyman, the false teachers are winning only because we let them. It is one of the reasons I write these posts every Sunday, to show that not all Christians are those who preach hate. The Christian community I was raised in was all about love, and continues to be about God's love. The false teachers happen to be the loudest because that is what the news media focuses on, but the truth will win out. I'm sorry that we disagree on this, but my faith is all that I truly need, no matter what those who preach lies and hate want to proclaim.
And that is why I posted my comment...why the bloody h3ck aren't the "REAL" Christians raising bloody h3ll?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Jay
I read the first few paragraphs and skimmed the rest. It strikes me as a load of crap, to put it kindly — wildly improbable and purely speculative fabrication without a single shred of actual evidence linking the money-making with the opposition to homosexuality.
And he misstates the doctrine of indulgences.
I comment as both a Christian (former Protestant, now a Roman Catholic) and a gay man. I have experienced very personally and painfully, the hate, ignorance, fear of which is written. I have experienced from Christians, because I am gay and from gays, because of my faith. There is an abundance of fault in both camps. I am very weary of the ignorance that breeds the hate and fear, from both camps. Again the faults are very real but even more real is the rich and blessed (i use the word intentionally) history of the church and of gays and of gays in the church, in spite of all the darkness many seem to long to embrace. Why can't we simply respect and discover the truth and freedom of love? Why must there be this unending outpouring of ignorance, fear and hate?
There is another reason so called Christians hate gays. The historical fact is the vast majority of Europeans converted to Christianity only under the threat of death and economic sanctions. Why else would people give up their own local religions to convert to a religion from the Middle East? To further wipe out all memory of the home grown European religions, the violent Christians banned anything and everything the native Europeans religions stood for-herbal medicine, public baths promoting cleanliness, gays as having a special place in society, eating protein rich insects, a high status for women in society and cats as pest destroyers. Both homosexuals and cats were killed by Christians in droves and women became chattel. I encourage people to abandon Christianity and go back to the old pre-triabl religions of Europe, Africa, the Americas and so on.
I’m OK with homosexuals as long as they don’t shove their lifestyle on everyone, and they have been doing just that. They have filed lawsuites against many organizations forcing everyone to accept their perversions.
I choose not to believe in “gay rights” and I won’t change. On TV, I always see one annoying gay character on talk shows followed by a discussion on how normal homosexuality is these days. It is their intolerant and perverted attitude which has garnered so much hate from everyone.
Also, according to research done at UIC Chicago, there is no “gay gene;” homosexuality is a lifestyle. Although gays are trying to create a fake gay gene in science books.
I find it interesting how gays HATE former gays…this reveals their hypocritical nature.
RG, first of all, I believe in human rights. Gay men and women are human and we all deserve the same right. Second, there have been many studies about the so-called "gay gene" and nothing has ever been conclusive so far. And third, as a Christian I love all people and try my best to follow the example of
Christ, which means I don't judge people for the way they act. I find it heartbreaking when people do judge others. It goes against so much that I believe.
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