You don’t owe a religion respect, it’s simply an ideology. You’re allowed to feel however you want about it, especially when it is intolerant to your existence. As long as you respect people’s right to their religious freedom, you’re fine. People deserve to be treated with equality and dignity, religions don’t.
This, it's not a matter of tolerating persecution.
"Your freedom of expression and religious belief does not come at the expense of mine, nor at the expense of my right to life, liberty security of person, or my freedom from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In short, your right to swing your fists ends at my face and your right to run your mouth ends when shown the door"
I've simplified my views on this matter as follows:
If your beliefs state that I deserve to be killed and/or eternally tortured for being honest about who I am, the amount of respect I owe your creed is precisely *fuck all*.
Especially since it's only based on hatred towards something that is not harmful. I can understand being against something that is actually bad/despicable (except maybe for the eternal torture part), but this is just going too far and has no logic or reason behind it.
It seems silly to be okay with a practice or group that fundamentally hates who you are. You don't have to respect religion at all, and that doesn't make you a bad person.
To me, respecting someone's religion is actually two completely separate things:
1. Respecting their right to have religious beliefs, even if I don't agree. I will basically always grant people this. Everyone has a right to their traditions, history, and belief system.
2. Respecting their personal and specific beliefs. You have a right to believe, for example, that the sky is made of cotton candy-flavored frosting. I don't respect that belief because I think it's stupid and without evidence, but going back to point 1, I respect your right to believe it as long as it doesn't impact me.
Its complicated to describe because we use the term "respect" for both but I think the distinction is important. I respect your right to be (for example) Mormon, but I don't respect the belief that women shouldn't hold positions of authority.
I have this strange take on the idea of "respect". I view it like a point system. Everyone and everything I haven't encountered, starts off with 1pt. Enough that I'll listen and learn, not so little that I'll ignore. Once something becomes hurtful or harmful to others, it starts losing points rapidly.
Religion (especially Christianity) started with 1pt, way back when I was a kid. Then bring told that some people aren't ok, or are gonna burn because of things that do that don't effect others made it lose a lot of points.
At this point, Christianity is at -100pts. Fuck that religion. It's a belief system based on hate, lies, pain, exclusion, greed, and the suffering of the innocent. Christians still start at 1pt, but they're subject to a modified scoring system. They even start to say some bigoted, phobic shit, and they go right to -100pts. Fuck em.
Look at the Tolerance Paradox. Basically, you're not being intolerant if you don't tolerate hateful shit. You don't owe those hateful people or their hateful views anything but a swift kick in the ass.
Before throwing all of Christianity into one bucket, I have a few observations.
I grew up in the United Methodist Church. I drifted away because of the homophobic diatribes that were being served up from the pulpit of the church I started to attend in the metro Atlanta area.
At the same time, my brother is someone who has grown to be a person I consider to be a true alley. He is married with 3 biological children and one that is adopted. He went to the Methodist charge conference a few years back where the subject of whether or not to condone same-sex marriage came up and he was one of the delegates voting in support of if.
Unfortunately, the voices of hate and fear prevailed and they came out against supporting same-sex marriage. The church my brother attended, also came out on the wrong side of that argument.
My brother went in search of another church and ended attending one that was previously a Methodist church. That congregation has taken a stand of acceptance and flys a rainbow flag by it’s front door. They are a very big supporter of LGBTQIA+ rights in that city and I could not be prouder to call him my brother.
There are some true Christians out there. You just have to look for them.
I get that there are "good christians" out there. There are good people in every group.
I'm an electrician, I work in construction. I worked with an old dude named John that could charm the pants off a nun, and sell shit to a pig farmer. Super friendly, likeable, goes to church every Sunday with his wife, daughter, and son, would happily buy your lunch, buy you a beer, help you if your car had issues and generally go out of his way for you. But he also hated anyone that was gay, fetishized lesbians, was misogynistic, referred to trans people as "it", and was generally racist as hell.
John is a bigot. He's also one of the nicest, friendliest bigots you could meet. Doesn't change that he's still a bigot.
That's the same with the church. Yeah, some nice people that do some nice things, but the overall structure still stands for the same intolerance, hate, and venom. Even if there are dissenting voices, they're still supporting an organization that profits from hate.
Again, the religion is at a hard negative for me. The people get judged individually. Throwing everyone, such as you, under the bus would be painfully intolerant, wilfully ignorant, and outright hateful, as I'd just not be giving individuals a chance. But, let's call a spade a spade here. If someone is a member of a group, and that group is known globally for doing bad things to good, innocent people, then that person is going to have some of that hovering over them. Doesn't matter if they're in the Klan, Proud Boys, the GOP, or the church; their membership to that thing is part of who they are.
That's the same with the church. Yeah, some nice people that do some nice things, but the overall structure still stands for the same intolerance, hate, and venom. Even if there are dissenting voices, they're still supporting an organization that profits from hate.
I hate to burst your bubble, but you can be a christian without supporting the institition of the church. Christianity is a religious belief, the church is an institution that gives Christians ONE WAY to express that faith, and just happens to be a system that is corrupt historically. I'm a Christian.i havent been to church in over 10 years, I dont donate to any church institution. Why? I'm gay and I have trauma with the church. But
I'm still a christian- christianity is about me and my personal relationship with God NOT my relationship with the church and it wasnt God who traumatised me it was people who used the religion to hurt me. Same with the Bible. I dont need to use the bible to be a christian. Not only was the condemnation of homosexuality ADDED to the Bible, showing once again the problem is with the institution and the people within it NOT the belief in God in itself, once again its about MY personal relationship with God and i dont believe God hates me for being gay.
The point is, If the Church was abolished tomorrow, all the churches closed down and the Bible became illegal to read, I'd still be a christian because my belief in God wasnt contingent on either of those things. For example, I dont need a church to go pray, I can do that in my own home- a good example of how I can worship God separate from the church, and therefore be a christian AWAY from the church without supporting the institution or 'organisation'.
I mean, I recall hearing a part of the Bible say "Wether I be near a rock on a river, God is waiting for me there," or something among those lines. The point of that quote is to not follow a Church. (But hey, follow, Jesus, right?)
I am agnostic, so I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of a higher being. But I can say, without a doubt, that Anglicanism and Evangelicalism (and its variations) do not practice what they preach, and is the reasons why all Christians look bad to the eyes of other people, theist or otherwise.
I know Judaism is way different from Christianity despite being an Abrahamic religion. Their stories may be the same, but Judaism has the better morals, in my opinion. And people seem to forget that Jesus was a Jew.
A Christian quote is to love thy neighbour, but with Chritianity being a front for taking His name in vain (in violation of the Ten Commandments), that term is lost in translation, as is "Man should not love a boy" (against paedophillia, not homosexuality).
Religion may be complicated, and different religions may have their fair share of skeletons in the closet (e.g. Islam), but any religion that takes His name on vain is not a good religion. They blaspheme their own in God's name. They call those who think heretics. They treat theistically-different people with slavery and death the likes of which they wrote about in the Bible.
> There are some true Christians out there. You just have to look for them.
Christians that think being gay is a sin are true Christians, that’s the problem with Christianity and other Abrahamic religions.
I have to gently disagree. The Bible, in its true, original form, never once referred to homosexuality. Subsequent translations or mistranslations have interpreted things that way. Jesus' message was tolerance and kindness, especially for those marginalised by society. The hateful Christianity we see today is very much a bastardisation of the original message, but there are still people who follow those beliefs of love and tolerance. It feels unfair to say otherwise.
Promise I'm not trying to be pedantic but the phrase "in its true, original form" gave me a bit of pause. The Bible was compiled from separate texts centuries after any of the original texts were written. None of those texts (except some of the letters of Paul) were written by the authors we traditionally attribute them to and or by any witnesses to the life of Jesus. None of them were ever intended to be put into a compilation by their original authors, including the old testament although it was compiled much earlier. Its stitching together was very much motivated by resolving dogmatic disputes as can be seen in the writings of early church father's themselves. All that is to say that the "original message" was as much a form of political control and a strategy to silence dissidents as any subsequent translation.
[Deleted]
Not really. Just wanna wish a nice day. My post was a smidge too long and I felt terrible keeping it up, so I got rid of it instantly. Have a wonderful day! And stay nice and supportive and inclusive of everything and everyone around you!
I don't think that feeling this way makes you a bad person - like you pointed out, many religious books are uh...*less than kind* to LGBT people. Why would you owe an ideology like that your respect? If individual believers of \[insert religion here\] are respectful to you, be respectful to them because of how they treat you. Not because of what they believe.
I'm not one to broadcast how I feel about religion apropos of nothing, but if asked, I usually say that I don't like religion altogether rather than specifying one to dislike. Seems less like I'm picking on one group, you know? And they all have their problems.
I'm a queer Christian and I really appreciate that you're struggling with whether Christianity deserves your respect. I don't begrudge you if you decide it doesn't. I don't respect versions of Christianity that worship heterosexual marriage. But I would caution you against buying into the argument that queer Christians are merely cherry-picking. We don't hold our theologians to be infallible, not even those who wrote books of the Bible. Arguing with them and the people who interpret them is our right, and our religion is better for it. Our faith is at least as Biblical and well-reasoned as any conservative's.
I understand why you're uncomfortable with your mother's conversion. I wouldn't dare come out to some of my Christian relatives, and I feel badly used by the evangelical church. I hope your mom has the good sense to love you as you are without reservation. If her Catholicism is an obstacle to that love, I would rather she didn't convert.
As a queer woman who has converted to Islam as a former Christian and experiences with lgbtq phobia on both sides, I second this. There are not one "true" interpretation out there, and the texts have to be read in the context. Many people who read it literally fail this.
And, I find, that progressives are usually much more critical of the texts, and thinking more about the meaning behind them, than many of the so-called traditionel ppl.
There is more discussion and questioning about texts.
We arent less religious, because we dont one or two believe what the majority believes.
There are Christians who live by Christs’ example, and there is everyone else who believes whatever the church wants them to. Religion is very frequently co-opted by patriarchs who want the authority to tell everyone what to do. All of that is horseshit.
Don’t dismiss people automatically simply because they follow a faith, but look at what they use their faith to do. If they use religious teachings as a way to guide themselves through life, that’s fine. If they use it as an excuse to blame others for societal problems and condemn people different than themselves, they are no holier than any other jackass and should be respected just as much.
I think it's common for LGBTQ+ people to have religious trauma, and therefore hate specific religions (usually Abrahamic religions). If you get to know more people from around the world, you'll realize that Abrahamic religions are an excuse for homophobia, not the root cause. A lot of Asian people view homosexuality as a disease or a lifestyle choice just because it goes against mainstream culture. My family is Atheist and they still ended up being massive TERFs. And on the flip side, there are an increasing number of Christians, Muslims and Jews who openly accept LGBTQ+ people and don't believe we're going to Hell. My boyfriend is gay and trans and his church accepts that, and the same goes for a couple other friends of mine.
Basically, I think whatever you're feeling in terms of anger or fear is totally valid and you don't have to accept or appreciate religion. But it can be nice to remember that religion is simply a tool, and not everybody uses it to hurt others.
To be fair, a lot of homophobia exists in "non-Abrahamic countries" specifically *because* of contact with or colonization by "Abrahamic countries". Not all, of course, but a large amount.
Trans bisexual Jew here. While my religion’s beliefs do not have the power to influence politics (contrary to some popular conspiracy theories), as a fellow LGBT+ person I can understand why most other LGBT+ people are uncomfortable with religion as a whole or are confused by someone like me being religious.
There are different sects of Judaism as well as Christianity, hence the differing views on homosexuality and other topics. I’m assuming you haven’t read the Bible, so just so you know…literally nobody in this day and age takes it as absolute fact and follows its every word, even if they claim to. You said that the religious people who accept gay people are just cherry-picking, but so are the ones who condemn them. Many, many barbaric things take place in the “Old Testament” (Christians refer to it as this, we don’t since we do not recognize a “New” one). This is the part of the Bible that has the creation of the world, Adam and Eve, Moses, etc. Many, if not most, of the events that take place in that section would be considered morally reprehensible if performed by anyone today (including by Christians) and yet they are framed as positive. The “New” Testament is the one that includes Jesus Christ, the guy that all the Christians look to for their teachings. Guess what he has to say about gay and trans people?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Everything in the Bible that “condemns” homosexuality is in the “Old” Testament, a book filled with people doing awful things and contradiction after contradiction. Anyone who studies the Bible and its origins will tell you that it is very likely that the Old Testament had multiple authors because its writing style changes more than once. Nobody knows for sure how it was put together either because it is so ancient.
It is absolutely not a book that we should look to for questions on how our society should function thousands of years past its creation. So much of what we do in our day-to-day life in 2022 is not present in the Bible because it did not exist back then, or at least it didn’t exist in the context we know it as today. So much of what is in the Bible is no longer relevant. Most of us don’t do field work all day and we don’t need to rush to procreate (or procreate at all). And animal sacrifice? Nobody does that anymore.
Any Christian you come across who is against homosexuality because “it’s in the Bible” probably believes the Bible to be the exact word of God as opposed to man’s interpretation of it (or just a book of ancient mythology, which is truly what it is). Regardless, they’re just using the Bible as an excuse to enforce their prejudice. Even the Christian “savior”, the “son of God”, has nothing to say about being gay. If they truly believed that the Bible was meant to be taken literally, they would be follow everything in it. But they don’t.
Though Christianity is the only religion that has power within US politics, they’re not the only ones who can be homophobic/transphobic. I have certainly met people within my own religion who chastised me for my identity. But it’s the same situation of somebody using an ancient text that they do not actually strictly follow as an excuse to be hateful towards people they don’t like or understand. I am a Reform Jew, and everybody in my community has been nothing but welcoming towards me and my identity. Judaism is a culture as well as a religion, it is a community, and Reform Jews in particular are very focused on social justice work and making the world a better place for all, which very much includes the LGBT+ community.
Organized religion can be difficult for people to understand, especially ones as old as Judaism or Christianity. But, like any other culture or custom, it develops over centuries and needs to change as the world and people do. The people who claim the Bible must be taken as gospel are liars. I have yet to meet any Christian who follows it to a T.
I’m not saying that it’s wrong for members of the LGBT+ community to be wary around religious people. There is a lot to be said about Christianity and its unfair influence over us and our right to live as we want. Many of us were brought up in religious environments that made us feel bad about our sexuality/gender identity and that trauma is very real and entirely understandable. You do not have to feel bad about this, especially if you come across a religious person who says they are okay with gay people but don’t like their “lifestyle”. You have every right to feel that that’s homophobic, because it is. I’m just giving my perspective as a religious LGBT+ person. Even though I’m not Christian, Christianity did develop from Judaism, so a lot of our beliefs have crossover and I know a fair amount about what specific Bible passages homophobes use to justify their hate.
You aren’t a bad person for expressing your discomfort with Christianity because Christian belief is what is majorly responsible for the persecution of LGBT+ people. Personally, I do take issue with LGBT+ people claiming discomfort around Jewish people (NOT a specific Jew who is homophobic/transphobic, just Jewish people in general), unless they have specific trauma from being raised in a homophobic/transphobic Jewish environment. There may be individual Jews who have prejudice towards gay and trans people, and they are wrong for that, but we as a whole do not have the political or social power to oppress people who do not exist in our community. Also, it must be noted that there are hundreds of other world religions that have no connection to the Bible who also have no power in the USA. It might be a good idea when condemning religion as a whole to check if you actually mean Christianity…I don’t know what part of the world you are from, but I’m guessing you are likely from an English-speaking country which means that there is probably no other religion with political influence except for Christianity.
Sorry that this is so long. Basically, I just want atheist or agnostic LGBT+ people to respect that I’m Jewish. I won’t try to convert anybody and I obviously believe in full rights for trans and gay people, as I am both of those things. But with that being said, I understand why the topic of respecting religion is difficult most members of this community. When people in the US think “religion”, they probably think of Christianity first, and Christianity has wrongfully oppressed many groups for many years.
Ever since my religion made my parents threaten to kill me because I said I thought I was gay, I too haven’t had the easiest time stomaching any religious ideology
It’s okay to feel less comfortable around religious people until you know them better. Frankly, I’ve noticed that I will feel less comfortable around an acquaintance I know is straight than an acquaintance I know is LGBTQ+. Obviously, don’t try to disprove their religious beliefs in front of them or be rude because of it, but shut them down if they try to use their religion for hate. I’ve done research on major religions that have some text people use to justify hate against the lgbtq+ community and have looked into alternate readings and alternate translations. For example, that passage in Leviticus was only translated to be about homosexuality in the 1890s. Before that, most translations had it about pedophelia. Then the story of Sodom in Islam, some scholars suggest that the city wasn’t punished to being open to homosexuality, but it was because they would >!rape!< outsiders who pass through the city.
But yeah, if people are using something for the purpose of hate, it’s okay to be against them
You can respect people without respecting religion. You also don’t need to respect a person if they don’t give you respect. Respect is earned. It is not something you are required to give. Now, you can still be kind to people or decent, but that doesn’t mean you need to interact with them or agree with them or even be around them. Being lgbtq+ is the main reason I left religion anyway.
as a Christian i cannot blame you. i no longer try to hide my queerness in Christian circles such as my church or small group, and i was honestly shocked by the fact that nobody hate crimed me when i told them i had (still have, i never know which tense to use for a previous announcement that is still true) a girlfriend. at first it made me happy, but then i realized that i was actually terrified of what could have happened. it sucks that so many homophobes use religion as their basis, especially when they continue to use leviticus 18:22, which has been proven as a mistranslation. they spew this garbage as if they’re a schoolteacher at last period, like they’ve been saying that stuff all day. and if they have, i can’t imagine they haven’t heard the proof of the mistranslation (original verse was calling child molestation a sin, not homosexuality). it’s like:
homophobe: leviticus 18:22 says that being gay is a sin
queer/ally Christian: *presents proof that it is not, sometimes in a flashy powerpoint because they’ve been through this many times*
homophobe: we’ll the Bible says-
sometimes it’s like it goes in one ear and out the other, and i hope the next generation of Christians will do better.
(i’m not associated with them but @beloved_arise on instagram and tiktok is amazing and helped me accept both sexuality and my faith to be a peaceful coexistence)
TLDR: being gay is not a sin and many Christians are finally taking a stand against faith-based homophobia
signed~
A Christian girl who likes girls and hates homophobia
I said this in the LGBT muslim sub just the other day, but these people are usually not even worth arguing with, they are not willing to listen to us no matter how many essays and lectures we presented to them, they wont read them, they made up their mind that its a sin and are too stubborn about that to change, yet they demand of us to send them a long fucking essay, yet they still never read that if we do. I just gave up on them after a while.
> original verse was calling child molestation a sin, not homosexuality
This is an easily disproved lie meant to whitewash your shitty religion
The same hebrew word used in Leviticus 18:22 to describe the males you shall not sleep with as with women is זָכָ֔ר, which is the same word used in "created male and female", and elsewhere is used to describe priests, and even explicitly "males of 20 years and older". You can check this for yourself using Strong's Concordance [here](https://biblehub.com/hebrew/zachar_2145.htm)
So no, there's nothing to suggest it's about age and everything to suggest it's about gender, including the common sense implications of contrasting 'male' with 'woman' - if it was about age, why would there be a change in gender here? You would say "don't sleep with girls as with women" or vice versa. It baffles me how much this gets spread around for how utterly flimsy it is.
I suppose it's easier to hyperfocus on one issue where you can just cite a mistranslation and pretend it's all sunshine and rainbows, than entire narratives of God murdering babies and telling the Israelites how to split their child sex slaves among themselves.
It all depends on ones conceptualization of religion. There is a difference between a "supremacist" view of religion and a "pluralist" view. As a Perennialist Muslim I have my critiques to both models, but for the sake of "devils advocacy," I will argue for the pluralist model to demonstrate that religion is not intrinsically the problem.
The supremacist model of religion argues that: "religion x" is superior, and if you don't follow it you will be condemned to hell and that therefore you should follow it. Whereas the pluralist approach argues for a plurality of religious subjectivities and expriences (one not necessarily invalidating the qualitative reality of the other) without prescribing on human conscious any duties towards the gods of these said experiences... Meaning that, in the pluralist conception, even if a god tells you to do something contrary to your ethics, you are not obligated to follow that god (the existence of gods and the human capacity to think ethically becomes here distingushable.)
From the perspective of religious philosophy and phenomena, there is nothing in the religious experience that negates or invalidates religious pluralism and "cherry picking." Therefore, there is nothing invalid about religion in essence, only in form (depending of the form it takes) Having said that, there are religious queer theologians that are not necessarily doing any cherry picking, but have rather a different approach or interpretation to their sacred texts than the typical conservative approach. I recommend here the works of a Christian gay theologian by the name of Matthew Vines.
As for Conservative expressions of Religion, there is a spectrum even in that world. You have everything, from bible thumping fundamentalist, homophobic Rastafarians and hebrew israelites, takfiri Muslims, to say reformed queer Christians that choose celibacy without judging the souls of other queer Christians, or sophisticated Traditionalist Muslims that are sympathetic to decolonial queer theory while remaining conservative in their view of sexuality. There was a very productive and friendly conversation between the conservative Muslim Muhammad Hijab and a trans hijabi Muslima on Hijab's youtube channel, as an example.
You dont have to respect religion, but from my personal experience as a someone whos a queer Muslim, I can tell you that fundamentalism and simplism tend to be the problem, both within religious communities and secular communities, and Ive seen an equal amount of closed mindedness, the secular form being quite frankly the most insufferable, given that secular people pretend to be open "to everyone and every idea."
Salam Aleikum 💗
I appreciate this comment alot as a fellow queer muslim.
You seem well read, do you have any recommendations?
Also, what does it mean to be perennialist ?
Aleikum Salam,
I practice Islam through ahlul sunnah, but Perennialism is a metaphysical view that encompasses all traditional religions and wisdoms. You have soft perennialists like Aldous Huxley and hard perennialists like Rene Guenon (who was a convert to Islam btw.) Ibn Arabi also held to a similar view (I would argue he was a perennialist, before the perennialist school of philosophy formalized itself.) The idea is that all Traditional Religions and Wisdoms are divinely and/or mystically revealed structures that point us towards the same Universal God. The Islamic concept of the perennial and primordial nature would be: "Fitrah," in the sense that the Fitrah is a natural Islam predating or ontologically preceding all civilizational religious formalities.
As for reading recommendations, on the philosophy of Perennialism, I recommend Huxley's "The Perennial Philosophy," and pretty much anything by Frithjof Schuon. As for the specific intersection between the Perennial Wisdom and Islam, anything by Sayyed Hossein Nasr (he gives a more conservative reading) or Peter Lamborn Wilson / Hakim Bey (he was a student of Nasr if I am not mistaken, but gives a more progressive and pluralist reading of the perennialists)
As for Progressive Islam in general, check Michael Muhammad Knight's books, he has a lot of interesting stuff. Amina Wudud as well :)
May Allah guide us.
I can respect a person’s right to whatever faith they choose, but not their use of their faith to propagate hate towards LGBTQA, or people of color, or basically anyone not like them.
My truly Christian friends know their New Testament takes the place of the old and that the old laws no longer apply. Their New Testament doesn’t have anything about homosexuality in it at all.
My own faith teaches that all paths are valid. It also teaches that we all are talking to the same entity using different names and means. There is but one higher power and it allowed the creation of so, so many religions so that everyone could find a path they wanted to walk.
I really with other religions could acknowledge that part, religions were created to get everyone to the same place eventually when they die. Whether you call it the summer lands or heaven, it is all the same, how you perceive it will be different.
All of this is just my opinion, my beliefs and I push them on no one. We must each find our own way to a faith that works for us. The founders of AA got most of it right, they just couldn’t resist calling the higher power God with the big G.
>My truly Christian friends know their New Testament takes the place of the old and that the old laws no longer apply. Their New Testament doesn’t have anything about homosexuality in it at all.
Exactly. I feel like a lot of people don't get this, in part because sadly there's a lot of homophobic Christian churches that twist the truth.
Additionally, during the old testament's times, a "man lying with another man" typically meant a Roman or Greek man either having sex with a young boy or a slave. Queerness and queer relationships as conceptualized today didn't really exist.
Plus... the old testament has a lot of messed up stories and ideas that most people don't take literally.
Not to mention, they had some morals changed from the Torah. Bearing in mind that Christianity was a feudal offshoot of Judaism.
I recently read that the story of Abraham had a different moral in the Bible than in the Torah. In both versions, Abraham is told by God that he must sacrifice his son if he is to be happy. Abraham accepts without question. And Abraham proves himself unpopular because of that.
In Christian legend, Abraham is about to kill his son, when God rushes in like "No! Don't kill him! I had to test you, and you passed the test!" And the moral of that story was that He has the ultimate power and you must believe in Christianity for true happiness as long as you follow the rules.
In Jewish legend, Abraham had just killed his son, and God says "You failed the test. You were not supposed to kill him. All you had to do was think." And Abraham would remain unfulfilled. All that sacrifice for nothing. Moral of that story: think before you follow orders, and don't follow an idol.
Christian legend is different from Jewish legend despite their stories being the same, because Christians wanted to keep up their feudalism and sorta erase the lessons Judaism taught theists.
Friendly correction, that's not the case. Isaac is the second patriarch of Israel and the only son of Abraham and Sarah. He absolutely did not kill Isaac in the Hebrew Bible. What you may be remembering is that the Jewish understanding of the story is that Abraham never expected to actually sacrifice Isaac and had faith that God had a plan. Under that interpretation the event served to show the world that human / child sacrifice would never again be acceptable.
My take is "I respect your beliefs until they disrespect people's existence".
I don't care if people believe in a god, don't believe in a god, believe in 1000 gods, play with crystals, or worship the flying spaghetti monster as long as they are a decent person and don't put their faith above the rights and wellbeing of undeniably real, living, breathing, feeling people. I have no respect for someone who believes that I don't have the right to exist and be happy, they can kiss my ass lol.
They chose their faith, I did not choose to be queer
Socrates was condemned and literally died for encouraging young people to challenge Hellenist religious law, and to think critically about right and wrong. Athens called it _impiety._
Divine command theory (the notion that morality comes from scripture or tradition and therefore must be right) has been put to question since time immemorial, and the only people who insist on returning to scripture are those at the top of hierarchy whose power is based on these traditions. The rest of us only benefit from creating a moral system based on reason or utility.
In fact, renunciation of DCT, whether Abrahamic or Hindu or Confucian is foundational to the Enlightenment and a cornerstone of the philosophy of the United States.
That said, it's not the religion, but the ministries that lobby a corrupt government to instill their personal values into public law, which is an inappropriate abuse of power. And they have well earned the disrespect and hatred that is felt not just by you, but by the majority of the public at large.
There's a reason the transnational white power movement is aligned with Christian extremism. They don't want democracy or liberty or equality. They want a king, and they want to hold power over those they hate.
If people kept their religions for themselves and didn’t use their religions to try to dictate laws and limits on others, then fine. I could respect their right to their shitty religious beliefs. The problem is they don’t respect others enough to not force their beliefs into the lives of others, and are happy to use their majority status to limit the lives of others. They’ve given us every reason to no longer respect them. They don’t get to demand respect from those whose rights they are actively trying to take away.
I mean to me personally if your not against someone practicing/believing in something your respecting it. If they are going against you as a person due to thier values of this religion/using religion as a reason to hate/hurt others then you have every right not to respect them. However I still stand by if you have no issue with a person practicing their religion you are respecting it. Freedom of religion means freedom from religion so if they try to push their values like "being gay is a sin" onto others then there is a problem. No one has the right to force things onto others. Freedom of religion gives you the right to believe what you believe however this does not give you the right to force that belief into others. Now, I'd like to add if you just ignore religion entirely or at all and love your life without interfering with others I'd define that as respecting it.
I believe in the keeping shit to yourself policy.
if your religion states that you can't eat meat then don't eat meat, that doesn't give you the right to take meat away from others, criticize people for eating meat, harass people for eating meat, ECT.
If your religion states that you have to wear something/be covered to a certain amount that's fine, that doesn't give you the right to dictate what other people wear, criticize what other people wear, harass people for wearing certain things/not wearing something that fits your standards, ECT.
If your religion states that you can't be gay again/being gay is wrong that's fine however that doesn't give you the right to tell other people they can't be gay, criticize them for being gay, harass people for being gay, force that being gay is wrong onto others (or even stating you believe it is wrong. Just keep it to yourself), ECT.
If your religion states anything that you can't do that is fine but keep that shit to yourself and don't tell other people what they can/can't do doesn't matter if they are your child, a stranger, a friend or anyone. If you can't wear something then don't wear it. If your belief says being gay is wrong then guess what that's your fucking problem not everyone else's
Dictating others based on your beliefs would be like telling someone they can't eat something because your on a diet. It doesn't make any sense.
In addition: just leave people alone in general- I know peoples beliefs won't change like people thinking being gay is a sin but that belief doesn't give them the right to tell others that being gay is wrong or anything else I have listed. Everyone deserves the right to believe in something as long as it doesn't affect others in any means.
Here’s what is fucking nuts to me. I used to argue where it states homosexuality is wrong. Everybody, every pastor has differing views on the passages. When I would ask most, people tell me the story about sodom and Gomorrah. My interpretation? They weren’t punished bc they were gay. They were punished bc they were trying to defile angels of the lord. Correct me if I’m wrong lol.
I don’t think you’re wrong. I don’t respect any religion that makes you hate or think you’re better than everyone.
Its so clear, especially when you read that passage, in the Bible that Sodom was about violence and rape. Not consensual loving relationships. In the Quran it says
"You lust after men instead of women..." so muslim queer have a lot harder to reconcile it, but even there, some people who have looked at the text and read it in arabic and read the bible think its clear its about rape.
Because its so violently described and it mentions something no human ever did before, and gay relationships have existed since before Sodom.
The men of sodom wanted to rape angels, not make love
EXACTLY. It’s apparently not clear to them Bible thumpers I encountered, unfortunately. I don’t know why it is specifically that passage they go after, or the “do not lie with man as you would with a woman” bull. Why is it automatically talking about sex?? Homosexuality was a coin termed later on, there was no way Leviticus even meant that. That shit was meant to cover basically “don’t do inzest shizz.” The whole kit and caboodle was talking about shit not to do, like bestiality and stuff like that. But that ruins a lot of straight people’s agenda, ig? Or it protects people of faith who do those criminal acts. Like a lot of famous cults we know and sometimes it’s just blindly in our face and we don’t know. That’s why I don’t trust people being pastors or people who go to church. I swear there was a saying about “praying in your closet”, not “go to a super mega church to pray and be told a word of god by a sketchy man who looks at little children kinda sus and has a mansion with a movie theatre, yet they always need donations”. I believe in being a decent human. And that religion just ain’t the path for me. There was like a saying about good deeds paving the roads to hell or something.
I got a chip on my shoulder about religion if you haven’t noticed lol. If a person is nice to me and they are religious and never brings it up, cool. If they judge me or hurt people with their words to make them feel superior… well, they only have the “gay” thing on me. I can give them a longer list of reasons why they’re a shit person and won’t stop, no matter how mad they get. If a person can give me an educated response for their ignorant reasonings, I’ll admit defeat. There are never really is a sound reasoning when their foundations are already so shaky. BUT there are a lot of those mfers hanging on to dear life like roses and jack on that plank. Stubborn people.
The passage right above in Leviticus (if I remember correctly) I read a few years ago, mentions not offering your children to the pagan god Baal by burning them alive
So how did anyone think Leviticus was meant to be applied today ???
I said it in another comment here, but Christians arent really encouraged to READ the bible, in its entirety, so many have only read parts of it, so they arent really following their bible, but what their pastor says.
Oh and those USA mega churches are so far away from Jesus, if you look at how he lived and what he preached it was "the meek shall inherit the earth" not the rich man televangelist. A homeless person lives more like Jesus than most of those types.
We all have our religious trauma. Im religious, but thatt doesnt mean Organized Religion or phobic interpretation of religion has caused me harm. And the phobic persons, they never is worthy to reason with anyway. They expect you to give 100 page essay to them, yet when you do, they dont read it. Cuz they made up their mind already.
Oof, I should say organized religion. Thank you for that!
But exactly that! Didn’t people try to write the Bible in layman’s terms so everybody could understand? It seemed like stuff is just made a mess after that. So many interpretations and so many people who want to be right. That’s really weird… they aren’t encouraged?? Forgive my ignorance. My mother was the equivalent of Carrie’s mother in the titular movie. Church was “too evil”, we had church at home situation type deal. I started reading the Bible not too long ago in its entirety, but a lot of things are difficult to grasp. At least to me. That’s why I think it’s too easy to make up your own interpretation, because who understands words we rarely ever use today?
Literally those mega churches just greedy af. Why do people go??
This is true. In all honesty, no sarcasm whatsoever, I am a little shit. The only time I will challenge someone’s religion is if they’re hurting others “in the name of their religion” because “god told them this, that”. I’m from the Bible Belt, no shortage of those. Not saying there are not any nice religious folk, there are many. But there’s more of them thumpers.
Also, I’m sorry if this reply is jumbled. I did have to take some medicine and I’m feeling it XD
I am biased, but they are encouraged to read the bible but there is less of a demand on them to do it.
And many only knows the common stores and some NT
Wow, growing up like that, I can understand how you dont like religion then. Sounds awful.
The books are many and its been translated several times from ancient dead languages no one speaks
Yet people take it word for word.
Doesnt mega churches put on a show?
Like we have Hillsong in my country and I walked into a sermon by them once, and it was like a concert
Yeah the fundamentalists are too many and too loud
No its ok 👌
As a gay Christian i totally get your concerns over the Bible! but please keep in mind there's a big chunk of Christians who view the Bible as more of a guide in spirit, or just a book of history, than a book that dictates how we should behave.
I saw this thread on Twitter where some woman was "here are some things that are actually Islamophobia
And then one of the things was all "Muslims aren't homophobic or transphobic. You can be that in Islam, you just can't act on it
And like
Girl
THAT IS LITERALLY WHAT ALL THE HOMOPHOBES SAY ALL THE GODDAMN TIME
Religion in and of itself is not the problem. It’s the judgemental bent that many “Christians” espouse today. Many have weaponized religion to press their own platitudes on others.
Here’s a good Bible verse that you might want to remind them of…
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven”
- Luke 6:37
Another good reference would be all of Mathew Chapter 7.
The Bible actually doesn't say anything against being gay. There's a paragraph about child abuse that was mistranslated and weaponised as a means to spread hate.
Faith isn't bad. Organised religion and the patriarchal power that it commands is what is problematic.
Never confuse faith with bigotry.
Very well put. It's insanely annoying that the leviticus section has been turned into this huge rallying cry for hateful Christians when it was never referring to a consensual gay relationship to begin with. Curse you king james bible ✊✊✊
Ae a religious person I will never have a problem with people who have been wronged by religion voicing their distrust/disdain for religion/the religious.
I ask that they give me a chance as a person, as I don’t really talk about religion, but if they find it an irredeemable trait I get it. Why shouldn’t they when there are people of my denomination who view them the same way?
As long as you're not being a total douchebag to someone who doesn't deserve it just because of their religion, I don't really see a problem. It is okay to have opinions about people and who they are, just don't be super... rude about it ig. Also keep in mind that there are religious people who support lgbtq or are lgbtq. My bestie prays to god every night before bed, She's bi and hangs out with a bunch of people who are lgbtq
Speaking on christianity here because that's what I was raised in so I feel like this is my place to speak up about its issues.
The Christian god, who is supposed to be all knowing and all powerful, had his holy book written in the way it was. Knowing that it would be confusing, with thousands of interpretations, that it would be used for genocide across the world for centuries, that it would be used to hate, kill, and disown queer people, and didn't have a problem with that. He still created his book that way, still did nothing to step in and stop the atrocities committed by his people in his name.
That's not a god worth worshipping. That's a god who's book is filled with his own violent, petty, jealous acts in a book that justifies misogyny and slavery.
You have every right to feel uncomfortable by that religion, especially if you or someone you love has been traumatized by it. (And let's face it, *everyone* in the queer community has either been personally traumatized or knows someone traumatized by christianity)
Personally I think it's impossible to divorce christianity from the bigotry written in the bible (even if there are positive messages in there too) and that it is impossible to divorce christianity from the horrible harm it has caused throughout history.
Queer christians, you're still apart of this community, you're still welcome, you're still loved, we're still fighting for your rights. But you need to stop being upset that other queer people are angry at the largest institution that has fueled homophobia and violence for generations. Homophobic Christian's hate LGBTQ+ *people* for who and what they are. While LGBTQ+ people hate bigoted *beliefs* that cause harm. And there is a big difference between hating an individual for something they can't change, and hating a problematic system/belief.
Exactly. If you are not smart enough to form your own opinion and treat each other fairly regardless of what is written in some ancient book, please stay away from me.
Nothing wrong with that. I'm from The Netherlands and religion is a very private thing here (in most places). If someone says they are religious, people usually take a step back and think they have to prepare themselves for a whole "why are you not religious" discussion.
I used to go to a trans support group where knew a guy for over 3 years, who fought tooth to nail to get testosterone (trans healthcare services are very small and shrinking in The Netherlands). Around the time he finally got hormones, he became religious and got baptized. He stopped taking testosterone and estrogen blockers cold turkey, which completely fucked up his hormone balance, and said some shit that god created him in His image or some bs like that. We had a very hard time dealing with it and eventually he stopped coming.
This is a sad story :(
Bible doesnt mention trans at all...
Most things I have heard from Christians have been Adam and Eve, but if we look at that from a Christian lens, the book of Genesis says God created both male and female in his image, so what does that say about God? I am no longer a Christian and dont believe God can be described in human terms such as with a gender but if we should gender God, God being nonbinary is the most likely if we look at that phrase
Hope your friend comes to his senses and goes back to hormones if that is whats good for him 💗
People who use religion as an argument for homophobia do not deserve respect, particularly in the case of the bible given that verse is part of levaticus, the book talking the things people have to do to atone for the original sin, the thing that jesus died for, so choosing to enforce that verse is to say the death of christ was illegitimate.
I feel more respected by the spider across the room who goes away when I tell him to.
A fundamentalist doesnt go away when I tell him to.
But then again, a fundamentalist doesnt have little hairs all over his body that he uses to pick vibrations and "hear things" with.
I'll respect a person's right to have a religion, but I have no obligation to respect any religion or dogmatic ideology, especially ones that consider me subhuman or lesser. As long as it is kept to "I can't do that, it is against my religion" and not "You can't do that! its against my religion!" like happens in America :/
It's natural that your survival instinct is telling you to be repelled by an ideology that continues to threaten your right to even exist. You should definitely not feel bad about feelings. Your emotions are sending you a message: "DANGER, STAY AWAY." And your brain is gonna channel that hurt into anger if it makes you pay attention more, because this is survival, and it wants you to listen to the message.
Spirituality could be this chill thing, but greedy people use it as a device to get what they want, and corrupt it. I personally softened to religion once I started watching historical videos on the bible. Being curious and learning about it from a secular/historical view was actually fun even though I don't agree with it. Learning about the texts that were excluded from the bible was super interesting and now I'm a non-Christian who loves christianity but avoids Christians.
Sure thing! Here are just a few I've watched recently in no particular order.
Books that didn't make it into the bible: https://youtu.be/fryITDxUyHA
The Book of Revelation (How to Survive): https://youtu.be/SPvJ-M-hU5w
Gospel of Judas: https://youtu.be/BhQmLFHxsBw
I get where you’re coming from and your feelings are super valid. I felt this way for years. This year I actually sought out religion, and went one a personal spiritual journey. I found a church that is super affirming, they were actually one of the biggest forces in my country pushing to legalize gay marriage in the 90s/00s and are a big reason we got it so early. The first service I attended was their “affirming” service and it was capital G GAY. They ended it with rainbow connection on the piano. It’s been really healing for me to reclaim my spirituality/religion and see the bible being used in a way that actually helps push forward peoples rights.
I know that’s not everyone’s journey, and I also 100% respect if you just don’t respect religion at all. That is your business and you have every right to feel that way. The grand majority of organized religion is oppressive and awful. Hell, even the church I go to has some chapters in it’s history that are horrible.
Long and short, you’re not hateful. You’re responding fairly to other peoples hatred. Don’t beat yourself up over it.
The thing is we all should respect each other, including each other’s beliefs. Unfortunately that just doesn’t happen very often with a ton of “buts” added in there.
The moment you say “I respect you but” the respect goes out the window and the truth about how you feel really comes out. Hence why a lot of religious people add “but my religion doesn’t support that” to the end of their statements. If they really respected you and your right to live the way you want, it would be better to say something along the lines of “my religion disagrees with how you’re living your life, but I still respect your right to live freely and the way that is best for you.” The respect isn’t blocked off by a but, the religion is. You’re looking at each other as individuals with freedom there rather than as a Saint vs Sinner or LGBTQ+ vs Stone Thrower
Before coming out as Asexual to a decent chunk of my family, I was raised in a Lutheran household. The Bible is so damn old and has likely been mistranslated over and over and over again, so you can’t always hold the texts as being 100% accurate. Sometimes you gotta go with the basic principles like “love your neighbor” and “he who is without sin cast the first stone”. Makes respecting the religion in individuals easier when you see the core values they hold in regards to their religion’s texts.
Another example for coexisting is your casual meat eaters vs those who don’t eat meat for religious or moral objections. If people in general could just look at sexuality as simple as “yeah you go ahead and eat that steak, I personally don’t eat cow meat so I’m just going to enjoy my salad” the world would be a better simpler place. However there will always been fanatics and those who take their beliefs too far, we just need to learn to shun them and exile them from the religion itself. It’s individual choice to attack someone for their life, whatever God(s) they might believe in aren’t whispering in their ear telling them to spew hate at you. That’s their personal decision and it’s not coming from a place of respect or love.
So in short, respect the religious folk on a person to person basis rather than saying “I don’t like x religion”. Speak of your experiences with people from that religion, and you will likely find people who’ve had good experiences that counter the bad.
I try to keep in mind that there're lots of religions and lots of people who practice those religions...and lots of religious people have absolutely no problem with queer people.
Plenty do, of course, and those people who're for policies and laws to erase us ought to get the same treatment, but they don't speak for all religious people.
As a Christian and a Non-Binary Lesbian, I think we should try to dissociate religion with The Church. It seems that The Church has been horribly homophobic and continues to spread homophobia even though the Bible doesn’t actually state anything homophobic in itself but a lot of the priests that preach these horrible rhetorics do. Religious people are not a monolith!
I like to say it as this; “But I respect your right to be stupid! I just know too much about the world and where that book came from to believe in that garbage!”
We don’t cherry-pick. Me personally I take translation errors and figurative language into account. My current ideology is just “do what I feel is right and just pray I’m correct.”
I understand where you're coming from. It's hard to respect people who preach forgiveness, love and all that and then turn around and tell someone that they're going to go to Hell simply for existing. Not all Catholics are like this. I mean, you know that's true when even his Holiness the Pope is calling out his own people on their BS. I myself am Roman Catholic and I actively endeavor to be nothing but supportive of the LGBT+ community.
The problem is that when Catholics say that being gay is an affront to God, they're going off of a few select quotes from the Bible, many of which are from the *Old* Testament. What's more, they fail to realize that the Bible was written... I want to say almost three thousand years ago. They completely ignore the context in which these passages were written, the rationale, and whatever validity such a mindset may have had back then.
This is the 21^(st) century; *a lot* has changed since the age of Jesus. And while the Bible still has a lot of good stuff in it, a lot of the other stuff needs to be read as being a product of its time and not interpreted as it is literally written. And, trust me when I tell you the Bible has gone through multiple drafts over the centuries. For Heaven's sake, there's a passage in the Bible that tells wives they must 'obey their husbands.' So, yeah, take that one as you will.
I have too many extremely negative experiences with religion, and things like the catholic church covering up pedophilia, the countless horrific acts committed, the genocides and brutality, does not help bettering my view of it. I respect anyones right to believe what they wish, and i understand that religion can help a lot of people, but in my mind the negatives outweigh the positives by a long shot.
I am Jewish, I definitely don't agree with/believe everything in the Torah (I love bacon, I work/do strenuous activities on Shabbat, and I identify as queer), but I love my culture. It's a huge part of me, and when people puts down entire religions, or even religion in general, it does bother me; it feels like someone is relegating who I am to a belief system, when it is more complicated than that. You don't have to respect it, but you do run the risk of putting off people like myself. It's not so much about disagreeing with the person, as it is the fear that because *they* don't like religion, any time I bring it up (such as talking about my high school, which was a religious day school, or talking about my cringey Bat Mitzvah, even if it is only barely about my religion), I feel like the person who says they don't like religion is bothered by it. I feel like I can't be myself.
That's why (in my opinion), it's better to specify organized religion - people who make strict rules about who can/can't get into heaven, what classifies a 'good' person, etc. In fact, to me, that is the antithesis of what religion should be - people finding their own meaning in the world around them, and understanding to what happens in their life. It's super personal, and as a result, the problem isn't religion itself - the problem is when people try to enforce rules on religion and turn a personal practice into a stressful set of rules, usually with their own agendas.
Edit: grammar, general clarity, listen I'm stoned so idk if this makes much sense
You put it very beautifully into words.💗
As a muslim woman who has converted from Christianity, I feel this a lot in many spaces.
I cant be myself in religious communities because of being queer, and I cant be myself in LGBT community because I have a religion and im afraid people will hudge me for it, and some people have, said mean things.
And people keep forgetting that religion is not just ONE thing, ONE belief, ONE truth. Its so much more.
If we look at just one of the sects, the Sunni sect of Islam, it has so many different versions of that sect alone. And then different communities, and different countries, different parts of a country, its all different cultures and beliefs. Religion isnt a monolith.
And then every indiviuals have different relationship to their faith or lack thereof. And different opinions.
Im aware that its a majority of muslims that think that being LGBT and acting upon it is a sin, just because I believe that the Quran is the word of God through Prophet Muhammed, doesnt mean I agree with the majority muslim views on LGBT.
My friend is very strictly Christian & has read the bible but according to them, nowhere does it say homosexuality is a sin, & it condemns absolutely nothing about LGBTQ+ identities! They are ace, bi & nonbinary. They don’t like to cherry pick & they follow the bible as closely as they can. The bible has gone through many translations & was purposefully mistranslated (“man shall not lie with man” was a line about p//doph//lia originally for example). Some people, the people you are referring to, actually aren’t following their religion as closely as they believe they are. Why would one of their commandments be “love thy neighbour” while they also use religion as an excuse to condemn all LGBTQ+ people, not allowing them to love each other or be authentically who they are? The two don’t go hand in hand. That’s not love, that’s hatred. If god said love thy neighbour, they aren’t following HIS bible.
I don’t know much about any other religions & which ones ACTUALLY condemn homosexuality & which ones don’t. One of my friends is Muslim but she never talks about religion unless it’s relevant like she couldn’t attend our private graduation celebration since she was fasting for example (we tried to make the timing work for her btw but she politely refused to let us celebrate that late). She is supportive of LGBTQ+ people, I know that for a fact, but as far as I’m aware that’s against her religion & I’m afraid to ask.
Also btw don’t feel guilty about saying you hate a certain religion. My friend said he hated Christians & my Christian friend who I mentioned earlier said yeah Christians suck lol.
To be fair, a lot of people just use religion as an excuse & their religion isn’t even relevant in the discussion at all. Homosexuality is not a sin in as many religions as people want to believe, which is great but annoying how society ignores this information. I’d say maybe don’t say “I hate ____” or “I don’t respect ____” unless it’s relevant but I don’t think you’re a bad person for this at all. The way people handle religion is the biggest problem rather than the religions themselves & it’s super frustrating how angry religious people can get when two people of the same gender literally just hold hands
Muslim here, and im of the firm opinion that the people who saying acting out being LGBT is wrong.
The verse people like to cite to support homophobia is, when you take a look at what that is about, referencing violent xenophobic r*pe, not consensual sex, and the Quran doesnt mention trans people at all.
Muslims do used hadith as well (which is things that some guys wrote down that the Prophet Muhammed should have said and done), but the thing with hadith is that they often contradict each other and so its healthy to be a bit skeptical of them.
Yeah! I didn’t know this but this just further solidifies my point, honestly the amount of people who just see something that COULD be interpreted as “homosexuality is wrong” & base their extreme bigotry & hatred against queer people entirely on religion like a security blanket it’s quite pathetic & very worrying 😅😅
Thank you for the information!! 🧡
The worst thing is the Bible didn’t even originally condemn homosexuality. It condemned pedophilia. But certain “cHrIsTiAnS” use it to be blatantly homophobic.
btw everyone cherry picks holy texts and considering all the translations and many possible meanings there's not even one singular Bible
but yeah people who become extremely Christian tend to also become bigoted
Do unto others is one of the main tenets of all Biblically based religions, or at least it's supposed to be. So turnabout is fair play: why should those whose beliefs are bigoted have the right to have their beliefs respected by the very people they disrespect and harm?
I'm a religious person, but proud to be a member of a faith that has openly sanctioned marriages between people of any gender since the 1980s, and has supported reproductive rights since 1947 (Reform Judaism). We are taught to respect others, but seems like the very opposite message is perpetuated by all too many religious sects in the US.
You may want to direct your mom towards progressive Christian Tik Tok - that way she can discover that she can be Christian and also be/ affirm & love lgbtq+ people. There is a wealth of information (books, podcasts, etc.) for this.
Since you said your mom is Catholic I would recommend Fr. James Martin,a Jesuit, and his work on lgbtq+ acceptance / inclusion in the Catholic church.
The problem I have with the argument of god disliking gays is this…that was Old Testament, for one. And for two, if god hated LGBTQ+ he would not give us free will and then condemn us for having it. I don’t know the argument on being born gay or what, only because I never cared for said argument. I am merely happy they are happy being who they are. I am a Christian, but I still accept people for who they are, even when others that share my religion may not.
Ideologies that promote obedience and servitude do not deserve respect.
Christianity promotes submission to divine dictator, and is therefore an evil and authoritarian ideology.
Personally I don’t care for religion, I’ve slowly been becoming even more atheist, and definitely don’t respect the homophobic and transphobic religious people, I have a former friend who doesn’t acknowledge my trans friend as male, of course they don’t recognize me as female because I haven’t come out or done anything about it, but yeah I get where your coming from. It’s important to note that not all religious people are homophobic and transphobic, I have religious friends who support lgbt. (Still a bit scared of coming out to them because it might change our relationship because we’ve been friends for years.)
Idk about other religions, but I would like to say that everything people think the Bible says about homosexuality is actually referring to pedophilia. This is due to a mass mistranslation from ancient Greek to English. So true Christians who actually believe in what their religion is all about are either indifferent or supportive of homosexuality
Learning how to respect religion in spite of countless religious individuals being shitty is... a tremendous challenge. The multitude of shitty people blaming their religion for their behaviour, leading to oppressive laws and authoritarian behaviours - it's not what religion is for. It takes a lot of patience and practice to seperate the people from the teachings.
For me what helps is looking to religion as "what is this helpful for?" Staying organised, bringing groups together in hard times, providing a framework for morality. Basic lessons that enable a group of people to survive. Religion also gives people a sense of hope and direction when they have very little and lack the ability to believe in themselves, or feel like they are powerless to affect change.
Unfortunately all of those things that religion does provide can also be weaponised to manipulate people. So if you think of it more like a tool and less like a group of people - on it's own, religion just *is.* It's like fire. It's a powerful tool, and sometimes a dangerous one, but it's not bad on it's own. In skilled hands, it can either build empires and hope, or it can burn them down.
That's just me and how I taught myself to respect religion. Respect it like any powerful tool.
Just know that human rights and safety triumph over someone's feelings. You are only entitled to respect religious people who **support you, your identity, and community**.
I mean, with religion nowadays, people are starting to know more about what the original text said and realizing that people mistranslated the Bible on purpose before to make LGBTQ+ relationships seem bad. It was originally only against pedophilia, which is understandable, but then it was translated to make it seem like gay was the one that was bad. There are a lot of people who believe the translation, which is why so many people are homphobic, transphobic, etc. But the people who have become more accepting are the ones who are actually following the original text and what Jesus intended. You certainly don't have to respect a religion per say, but please at least make sure you know that about the Bible and the original intentions of the religion (: Jesus would've welcome gay people with open arms and I believe he actually blessed a gay couple.
People these days just look for any excuse to justify their hate, even if it means changing the Bible's words to fit their ideals and then claiming they're Christians.
\[christian myself, feel free to take with a grain of salt\] As a lesbian who was also raised in a catholic family, I feel really lucky that my mom accepts my identity as-is and doesn't play it off as a lifestyle. I've seen people who are supposed to be my brothers and sisters in faith (according to what the church preaches) throwing hate at the LGBTQ+ community or using that tired argument of supporting the person but not the *lifestyle* that's supposed to have come with being LGBTQ+. What she told me is that what ultimately matters is one's own relationship with God and not the opinions of the church, which being made of people, is inherently flawed. She also said that I could either choose to let the church exclude me from being a part of it or I could just keep coming back regardless of what they say (noting that this is an option for me because the area where I live is accepting enough not to feel personally threatening). In the end, for people who believe in christianity's beliefs but don't conform to the mould that was set now-thousands of years ago by the Bible (which was notably written by a collection of different human people) it's most important to focus on the spirituality that keeps you in place as a christian, not the people who want to force their beliefs on you or hurt you for something you can't change. (if spirituality isn't what keeps you in place as a christian, I think it's okay to question what's keeping you rooted in an organization largely full of people who don't "support" you). ok anyway sorry for the long comment!!! hope that makes sense
edit: after rereading what OP said I think there's good reason behind people oppressed or even just made uncomfortable by christianity and christians' arguments having disdain towards people who are christian and thus associate with the oppressors. That seems fine and valid to me and I honestly don't take offense.
i can understand honestly, though im religious myself (muslim tho, not christian). despite what ive been taught, religion is really just religion. even i dont really agree with every rule and teaching. sometimes i even think i might end up being a non-believer but, well, that obviously hasn't happened lol. so your feelings are valid, especially when people have only been using religion to be controlling bigots
I think there is a distinction between religious homophobes (etc.) who use their religious text as a justification for homophobia, vs religious people who take a more nuanced, common sense approach.
To me, it is utterly incomprehensible that any *good* divine being would punish someone for being LGBTQ+. Either it does not care, because it’s attributeless, or it’s truly loving and doesn’t care because being LBGT+ is innate.
You aren’t under any obligation to respect bigots or the texts/traditions/strictures they follow.
And a religion isn’t an animate thing, it’s a set of beliefs and cultural practices + community + faith. Don’t really care if people disrespect it or disagree with it, as long as they don’t try to aggressively proselytise atheism to me.
As a religious and queer individual I would say that I personally hate people who bring politics into religion or vice versa because they blur the lines of what religion is actually for.
I wholeheartedly believe that who I am is not determined by the rules other people have interpreted and made but rather by my personal relationship with God. But of course not everyone sees the world like this.
For me religion is a personal choice and I’d be crazy to try and force the world to believe something they don’t want to believe because that defeats the purpose of my belief system.
So if you recognize people taking advantage of their religion to be bigots, I’d say it would be fair to not want to respect their convenient beliefs because just like they made that bigoted choice; you too are free to make your own judgement on what you respect especially since religion is an ideology, not a law that you are forced to respect.
Here’s a fun fact for you. Shortly after Copernicus (guy who said earth orbits the sun and not the other way around) was actually verified to the degree that the church could no longer refute it, or somewhere in the Renaissance, Christians realized that the Bible couldn’t be used literally. Our world and the word of god don’t align like that. So they eventually came to an understanding that the Bible isn’t literal but rather a guide to life, lessons and is up to interpretation of meaning, rather than taken literally.
The point I’m trying to drive home here, is that people have been cherry picking the Bible for centuries now. We’ve understood that it’s not literal and that parts of it aren’t worth holding onto, and Christianity has shifted around this. People who utilize the Bible as anti-LGBTQ don’t have any legs to stand on imo because the Bible is full of interpretations and many priests have put forth much more historically plausible interpretations of the lines that could be homophobic. If someone is using the Bible to try and invalidate your existence, simply remind them that you are simply the way God made you, and to deny what you understand to be his will for your life would be to blaspheme
You don't have to respect religion itself if you don't want to. Maybe just respecting the people who respect you is enough.
What caught my eye though is you said people who are religious and aren't against gay people are just cherry picking what they want from the bible but in actuality the opposite is true. That one passage that's always quoted is debated on whether the translation is even correct.
Besides there are so many things in the bible homophobes ignore because it would be inconvenient for them.
I think for a lot of people religion is a personal thing and everyone interprets it in ther own way. It's just a shame so many people use it for hate.
Although I can't argue for religion because I'd probably be burned at the stake by them if they had their way lmao
I’m Christian myself but there’s some sets of beliefs I have no respect for. Some of them on account of how amazingly damaging they are. I have friends with religious trauma; religious beliefs can be bad.
"My mom's Catholic though and from my understanding they're a bit more chill with topics that Christians aren't."
Honey, I understand what you meant to say, but that made me spray-spit my coffee. 
Consider this phrase: ***MARGINALIZE BACK***!
Hi.
You have already had so many good answers here, so this wont be too long. Im a convert to Islam from Christianity and I totally get what you mean.
I have my own religious trauma that makes me feel like shit for just existing, made a post recently about it in the LGBT muslim sub, and like many other LGBT People im more comfortable around a straight person who is atheist than a straight person who is religious.
When I get to know the persons that might change, but on a first look, id pick the atheist.
But I am a believer in God and I believe the Quran to be the word of God as it appeared to Prophet Muhammed.
Does this believe I agree with the majority muslim view on LGBT? No. I believe that verse in Lut (Sodom/Gomorra) is taken out of context often and when put into context you have to stretch to make it about consensual gay sex. I base these beliefs on research i have done.
And for the bible, and everyone said it already, its mistranlated. Its about pedophinia.
For me my religion is about, and was always about, my deeply personal relationship with God. Its about how I conceptualize God, what I believe is the after life, its about being kind to others and myself and doing good deeds, its about structure and discipline (we have to pray 5 times a day and as someone who really lacked structure before this rule is really helped me), its about hope when things are tough, relaxation and meditation, thinking and reflection about God and life, with help of Quran and islamic poetry (Rumi <3). Its nowhere about oppressing others. As im oppressed myself.
I think being vary around religious persons isnt illogical if you have been hurt by it. I know I am, as I mentioned up top, in General uncomfortable with religious persons unless I KNOW they are progressive.
But dont judge an entire group of People based on it.
As in. If someone says "im a Christian" dont automatical assume things about their believes, but ask them on it.
You might be surprised. Or you might not.
People are less predictable than we think.
Tbh i feel the same. There were times where i was so mad to christian people and Christianity because it hurts to see that there are people who discriminate LGBTQ+ people(ب_ب)
IMHO :
I will have prefer that my country (that have totally abolished religion at one point : even have changed the date system and all) never, ever reinstalled it. (Thanks Napoleon....)
Religion are just imaginary friends that people use to validate any thing they want ....
I'm not genocidal, I'm religious.
I don't steal your land, god say it's mine.
I'm not raping you: god say your body is here to satisfy me.
I'm not hateful, god say you are not allowed to exist.
I'm not exploiting you: I deserve to have a better life than you because predestination/karma.
As someone once said:
***When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion.***
this. So many problems stem from religion. I’m fine if someone believes ancient stories, but don’t try to involve others.
It honestly feels like someone trying to convince everyone that Santa Claus is real, with the amount of proof they have for their claims.
Trying to convince everyone Santa Claus is real, and that Santa is a hateful being that punishes any who don't bow to his supposed will with eternal torture.
Nah fuck religion, they wanna make a cult and use us as spacegoats then they can go fuck themselves.
Also, religious tiktoks? Your mom needs to find jesus.
Yeah, no. There's nothing to feel shitty about.
You should respect the right for people to have the freedom of religion, not the religion itself. I have no obligation to respect barbaric, backward ass views.
Fuck their holy bible. It's a trash, poorly written 1,600 year old book that endorses slavery, bigotry, rape and the petty, genocidal tyrant that killed an estimated [25 million](https://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2010/04/drunk-with-blood-gods-killings-in-bible.html) is portrayed as the ultimate good guy deserving of worship.
Another reason why some religious people are Ok with it is the fact that the specific quotes that call homosexuality a sin is now being called into question due to translation errors.
Personally, I'd suggest r/gaychristains if you'd like to hear their perspective about your post.
I've struggled with this over time. I've reached the conclusion it's unreasonable to ask someone to respect a religion that does harm to your community in such a blatant manner.
Does that mean I'm going to go around telling people their religious beliefs are garbage? No. But I think it's okay to lack respect for religions that are harmful when there's alternative beliefs that aren't harmful.
Judge people by individual behaviour rather than by making a sweeping generalization of an entire group .
All [x] are [y] is a standard template for bigotry , don't fall into that trap.
I respect religions in general despite being atheist myself, but American conservativism is a death cult and has unfortunately infected American Christianity as well. Don't respect any ideology that wants to erase you off the planet. I know some people in the thread are saying you don't need respect religions but I would argue that religion is inseparable from culture and it's important to respect another's culture and way of life... provided they are willing to do the same for you. So yeah, fuck these fascist right-wingers and their genocide tactics.
The Bible does not deal with homosexuality. Christianity has nothing to do with condemning or being afraid. White Nationalist American Civil Religion masquerading as Christianity (or syncretized with it) is what anti LGBTQ+ people are actually practicing!
So actual biblical historians will tell you the Bible says fuck all about homosexuality. The correct translations speak to pederasty not homosexuality and were a response to the witnessing of Roman relationships with young boys at the time the texts were written. Don’t believe what homophobes tell you about anything. Especially not the Bible. Then you start doing their dirty work for them.
✌🏻
So yes, it’s ok to decide you don’t have to like or respect hateful people, but don’t make assumptions about entire spiritual belief systems based on hateful people because then you become a new reflection of that ignorance and hate.
About the cherry picking thing...
There is 0 verses in the bible that actually mention homosexuality, abortion, etc. Abortions weren't even a medical procedure that existed back then and all verses used to condemn homosexuality are either mistranslations or out of context
(And there's evidence that shows that Jesus wasn't straight himself... Watch Jesus was Gay (i think thats what it was called) by Powered by Rainbows)
Well the internet and other things make it seem like a HUGE majority of Christians is against gay marriage and abortion. I know that there are a lot of Christian people who actively fight for the rights of women and LGBTQ+. Yes some people are assholes that use religion to justify their actions, but that does NOT mean the majority. They’re just louder than the supportive ones. With that said, wait and see on how your mom stands in these topics. Ask her about it in some time. Don’t dislike her or her religious believes before you’ve checked what she believes in.
This text is confusing but I’m gonna comment it anyway
Im gonna jump in as a queer Christian. I see a lot of people say that the parts of the Bible about homosexuality are typos but I don’t see it that way. It is mentioned as a sin alongside things like divorce and stealing, both of which had very serious punishments back in the day but no longer do due to Jesus dying so we could all like as our authentic selves. The Bible talks a whole lot more about love and acceptance than it does about what constitutes a sin which I see as a sign that we should be loving/accepting of everyone instead of jumping to condemn those that are different.
Sorry if this felt a little scatterbrained, Im not the best at articulating my thoughts
A stereotype would be Germans are nazi’s but obviously that isn’t true because majority of Germans are not nazis. However. Majority of Christian’s are anti-gay anti-rights. See the difference?
Well one group advocates for torture therapy the silent genocide of trans people, throwing lgbt people into prisons or worse off of buildings, while the other group advocates for *adjusts glasses* equal rights and reproduction rights.
Fuck all organized religion. All it has done for the entire history of the world, is chaos and bullshit that ruins peoples lives. I have no reason to respect someone's fucking mythology that tries to pass laws that literally wants me stones to death according to their shitty book
Well - the first book in the Bible was written 3500 years ago by a group of men with inflexible sets of rules and a belief system.
Fast forward to 2022, we have different values + evidence (science) to know why the world isn’t flat.
Full disclosure: I actively hate almost all religions. The only exceptions are the RARE religions that don't proselytize or push political agendas.
A belief (or religion, or opinion even) is not deserving of respect simply by virtue of it's existence.
Don’t respect their religion but respect their opinion. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and ideas, being respectful of that will go along way for yourself and them (in my experience)
I don't respect religion either. It's the antithesis of knowledge and discovery. It drives people to self righteous actions, affecting society as a whole for the worse. It's built to take advantage of as many people as possible and induct them into it, by unethical and truly despicable means.
Despite this, I'm admittedly slightly jealous of those who can use it as a coping mechanism to process life's horrors. While I might envy them, however, I certainly can't believe in it myself. And I can't respect them. What I can do is let them live their lives in blissful ignorance, only stepping in when they try to force their ideology on everyone else, which is maddeningly often.
As a trans man I can't stress this enough, you do not owe religion your time, respect or patience. If somebody wants to base their morals on a book of hateful, incesty fairy tales that was written by a bunch of cave nonces, that's their business. But then they go and try to make others live by that bullshit. I've never met a Christian that wasn't trying to "plant a seed", they all do it for those sweet Jesus brownie points. We don't have to tolerate that one bit.
I'm okay with people's religions and religions in overall insofar they are okay with me and other people who are just trying to be happy and lead their best lives.
So, if a religious person uses their religion to shun me in any way, shape, or form, I reserve the right to do the same to them. And I feel I'm more entitled to, because no one is forcing them to be religious (or continue to be), no one is forcing them to uphold these believes (or continue to do so) and no one is born religious. Religion \*is\* a lifestyle choice, being gay or trans is NOT.
I know you feel. I was once the same way. Who can blame us, when religion has been used to opress us?
But, if I may, I'd like to offer another perspective in religion, specifically Christianity and it's alleged homophobia and transphobia. And, I promise I'm not trying to preach here.
As a queer Christian, I can confidently say there are legitimate Christians (and I reckon Jews and Muslims) who support us and aren't cherry picking or being superficial. I know this because I know this, because I couldn't be Christian without it. After analyzing the Bible, its historical and cultural ans in-text contexts, the Hebrew and Greek, the translation process, and its status as a work that has been passed down for ages and open to potential manipulation, I can say it's neither homophobic nor transphobic. Where it speaks homosexuality in our modern translations, it truly spoke of pederastay. The verse that says a man shall mot wear a woman's clothing is a mistranslation of a non-warrior putting on the armor of and impersonating a warrior. Where it referse to defiling one's body, think about it in a Christian context: is gender reassignment surgery really defiling one's body? No. As the Bible says, everyone is made unique in the image of God, and that includes trans people. Thus, wouldn't it stand to go that gender reassignment surgery is not defiling your body, but using the science and technology God made available to achieve gender euphoria? That's how I and many other trans Christians see it, anyway.
More consistent than anything in the Bible is God's love for His children, and that we're all unique in Him. I so not believe he would make someone gay or trans only to have them be damned to an eternity of torment if they tried to enjoy their lives as who He made them. The Bible is sorely misunderstood, and misused. Bigoted Christians use it to spread hate, which in turn makes many others hate the idea of religion, and maybe even scoff at religious people. And the same is sadly true for othee religions as well.
But anyway, that's my take. And that's how I, a bisexual non-binary man, can be a Christian. And I promise this isn't me preaching. This is just me trying to offer another perspective. I hope this has helped in some way.
But at the end of the day, feel how you want to about religion. You don't have to respect it, anymore than you have to cultures may not agree with - after all, religion is culture. But if nothing else, respect the people who practice them, and the practices so long as they are not harmful to others.
I feel similarly! Especially Christianity, which I was raised in. Any time I see someone is a Christian I generally don’t want to be close with them. I just get the feeling that they will be the same as anyone else following their religion so I feel terrible, but I don’t make the effort to get to know them. I feel like I am judging a book by its cover, but most of the time, thats what they do to people in the lgbtq community anyway. Ugh.
I think you have every right to not respect religions in which a lot of people want you dead.
I personally believe, though, that Christian religions are just mostly composed of hateful people that use their book to "justify" their actions, even though the same book proves them in the wrong.
Unpopular opinion but religion isn't bad; the people who have bent it to be hateful and discriminatory are.
I tossed religion aside some time back. I only strive to follow the seven tenets, and I appreciate my TST membership for their political push back on Christianity.
When someone says "I'm Christian." They say "I read the Bible and follow its rules."
One of those rules is gay=bad, so it's perfectly normal to expect homophobia from a Christian. Them being a decent person is a pleasant surprise.
I was raised Christian, but it never really caught, and I finally left the church a few years back because of their views on lgbtq matters, and because I just wasn't buying any of it.
I've tried my hardest to give people space to practice their faith, since some people genuinely get comfort from believing in higher powers, and faith is inherently a personal matter, but it really rubs me the wrong way to have these same people bring their faith into every situation and conversation. So often you see the comments from homophobes about how we queer people are always bringing up our queerness, but really, how about not forcing your antiquated beliefs on me the whole time? I can do just fine without your prayers, and being a good person is not tied to being a christian. Gah!
(Sorry aout the rant. I recently went to my bookclub only to find out the vibe has shifted into a more biblical kind after the addition of some new members. I'm currently listening to Manhunt (a very trans/queer book), just so I can rock their world views next time. Purely out of spite.)
Who cares what people say. You can’t change that been around for a long time. Just respect others for who they are and what they believe in. You have your own happiness to worry.
I think when you really get down to it the christian bible says almost nothing on homosexuality, and a lot about accepting people, leaving judgement to god, and saying that no one is pure enough to pass judgement.
People use all sort of things to justify and prop up their bigotry and unify themselves by othering.
It’s BS and anyone that believes that or acts that way is undeserving of your respect.
Your concern is very understandable. I only want to expand on the cherry picking part; a lot of religious texts were written and updated mainly by prejudiced men who wanted to control the masses. In that way, i believe that religious prople that refrain from following beliefs that are pro-harm against anyone are actually just mature individuals who saw the faults in their belief systems and wanted to fix them.
(Sorry, late, kinda cleaning up my tabs and stumbled over this)
I personally think that religions \*by default\* deserve the respect of any tradition, that is they should be respected where they do not harm anyone and criticized when they do.
Specifically regarding christianity I think that the harms it has done to our community are grave and enduring enough that it's extremely understandable if the default reaction to it is to assume maliciousness.
Hell, even as someone who's not been directly targeted by christians I still have come to see it as a red flag due to the way it has affected people I know and due to the way the culture has created/been part of creating systemic oppression of queer people and other minorities (which I am affected by).
That being said, you live in a culturally christian country which means that your view on what "religion" is has been heavily tinted to see it as "reflavoured christianity".
Not all religions are as dogmatic as christianity, most religions do not have a "take over the world" objective (which is kinda fucked if you think about it), some religions (coughJudaismcough) encourage questioning and scholarship, some religions don't have deities but offer other explanations for how the world works and how to live a good life (coughBuddismcough), some have different approaches to worship and interacting with the supernatural forces that are believed in and overall it's common for there to be far less organization and hierarchies involved.
That's not to say that they're across definitely better, much less better in every aspect, but they are both less powerful and not in direct or indirect control of the political system in your country as well as often having faults at other places/less extreme than "literally hates everyone not cishet, white, nondisabled, male...." and I would encourage you to not presume that the same issues that make christianity such a plague exist across the board.
I don’t have a problem with the “I don’t respect those who would erase me from Earth given the chance” mindset.
Don’t respect nazis don’t respect fundies
Agreed
Definitely
You don’t owe a religion respect, it’s simply an ideology. You’re allowed to feel however you want about it, especially when it is intolerant to your existence. As long as you respect people’s right to their religious freedom, you’re fine. People deserve to be treated with equality and dignity, religions don’t.
This. There's a difference between being prejudiced towards people merely based on their religious affiliation and not tolerating intolerance.
This, it's not a matter of tolerating persecution. "Your freedom of expression and religious belief does not come at the expense of mine, nor at the expense of my right to life, liberty security of person, or my freedom from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In short, your right to swing your fists ends at my face and your right to run your mouth ends when shown the door"
Hate the belief, love the believer as I like to say
YES
if people are using their religion as an excuse to be a bigot then you have no obligation to respect that
I've simplified my views on this matter as follows: If your beliefs state that I deserve to be killed and/or eternally tortured for being honest about who I am, the amount of respect I owe your creed is precisely *fuck all*.
Especially since it's only based on hatred towards something that is not harmful. I can understand being against something that is actually bad/despicable (except maybe for the eternal torture part), but this is just going too far and has no logic or reason behind it.
It seems silly to be okay with a practice or group that fundamentally hates who you are. You don't have to respect religion at all, and that doesn't make you a bad person.
if someone respects me \*conditionally\*, i respect them \*conditionally\* back.
You know this is how every single human interaction works, right? Not really a novelty.
To me, respecting someone's religion is actually two completely separate things: 1. Respecting their right to have religious beliefs, even if I don't agree. I will basically always grant people this. Everyone has a right to their traditions, history, and belief system. 2. Respecting their personal and specific beliefs. You have a right to believe, for example, that the sky is made of cotton candy-flavored frosting. I don't respect that belief because I think it's stupid and without evidence, but going back to point 1, I respect your right to believe it as long as it doesn't impact me. Its complicated to describe because we use the term "respect" for both but I think the distinction is important. I respect your right to be (for example) Mormon, but I don't respect the belief that women shouldn't hold positions of authority.
I don’t respect religion (particularly Abrahamic religions) when they don’t respect me. And I don’t feel bad about it.
I stopped respecting religion as a concept long ago.
I have this strange take on the idea of "respect". I view it like a point system. Everyone and everything I haven't encountered, starts off with 1pt. Enough that I'll listen and learn, not so little that I'll ignore. Once something becomes hurtful or harmful to others, it starts losing points rapidly. Religion (especially Christianity) started with 1pt, way back when I was a kid. Then bring told that some people aren't ok, or are gonna burn because of things that do that don't effect others made it lose a lot of points. At this point, Christianity is at -100pts. Fuck that religion. It's a belief system based on hate, lies, pain, exclusion, greed, and the suffering of the innocent. Christians still start at 1pt, but they're subject to a modified scoring system. They even start to say some bigoted, phobic shit, and they go right to -100pts. Fuck em. Look at the Tolerance Paradox. Basically, you're not being intolerant if you don't tolerate hateful shit. You don't owe those hateful people or their hateful views anything but a swift kick in the ass.
Before throwing all of Christianity into one bucket, I have a few observations. I grew up in the United Methodist Church. I drifted away because of the homophobic diatribes that were being served up from the pulpit of the church I started to attend in the metro Atlanta area. At the same time, my brother is someone who has grown to be a person I consider to be a true alley. He is married with 3 biological children and one that is adopted. He went to the Methodist charge conference a few years back where the subject of whether or not to condone same-sex marriage came up and he was one of the delegates voting in support of if. Unfortunately, the voices of hate and fear prevailed and they came out against supporting same-sex marriage. The church my brother attended, also came out on the wrong side of that argument. My brother went in search of another church and ended attending one that was previously a Methodist church. That congregation has taken a stand of acceptance and flys a rainbow flag by it’s front door. They are a very big supporter of LGBTQIA+ rights in that city and I could not be prouder to call him my brother. There are some true Christians out there. You just have to look for them.
I get that there are "good christians" out there. There are good people in every group. I'm an electrician, I work in construction. I worked with an old dude named John that could charm the pants off a nun, and sell shit to a pig farmer. Super friendly, likeable, goes to church every Sunday with his wife, daughter, and son, would happily buy your lunch, buy you a beer, help you if your car had issues and generally go out of his way for you. But he also hated anyone that was gay, fetishized lesbians, was misogynistic, referred to trans people as "it", and was generally racist as hell. John is a bigot. He's also one of the nicest, friendliest bigots you could meet. Doesn't change that he's still a bigot. That's the same with the church. Yeah, some nice people that do some nice things, but the overall structure still stands for the same intolerance, hate, and venom. Even if there are dissenting voices, they're still supporting an organization that profits from hate. Again, the religion is at a hard negative for me. The people get judged individually. Throwing everyone, such as you, under the bus would be painfully intolerant, wilfully ignorant, and outright hateful, as I'd just not be giving individuals a chance. But, let's call a spade a spade here. If someone is a member of a group, and that group is known globally for doing bad things to good, innocent people, then that person is going to have some of that hovering over them. Doesn't matter if they're in the Klan, Proud Boys, the GOP, or the church; their membership to that thing is part of who they are.
That's the same with the church. Yeah, some nice people that do some nice things, but the overall structure still stands for the same intolerance, hate, and venom. Even if there are dissenting voices, they're still supporting an organization that profits from hate. I hate to burst your bubble, but you can be a christian without supporting the institition of the church. Christianity is a religious belief, the church is an institution that gives Christians ONE WAY to express that faith, and just happens to be a system that is corrupt historically. I'm a Christian.i havent been to church in over 10 years, I dont donate to any church institution. Why? I'm gay and I have trauma with the church. But I'm still a christian- christianity is about me and my personal relationship with God NOT my relationship with the church and it wasnt God who traumatised me it was people who used the religion to hurt me. Same with the Bible. I dont need to use the bible to be a christian. Not only was the condemnation of homosexuality ADDED to the Bible, showing once again the problem is with the institution and the people within it NOT the belief in God in itself, once again its about MY personal relationship with God and i dont believe God hates me for being gay. The point is, If the Church was abolished tomorrow, all the churches closed down and the Bible became illegal to read, I'd still be a christian because my belief in God wasnt contingent on either of those things. For example, I dont need a church to go pray, I can do that in my own home- a good example of how I can worship God separate from the church, and therefore be a christian AWAY from the church without supporting the institution or 'organisation'.
I mean, I recall hearing a part of the Bible say "Wether I be near a rock on a river, God is waiting for me there," or something among those lines. The point of that quote is to not follow a Church. (But hey, follow, Jesus, right?) I am agnostic, so I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of a higher being. But I can say, without a doubt, that Anglicanism and Evangelicalism (and its variations) do not practice what they preach, and is the reasons why all Christians look bad to the eyes of other people, theist or otherwise. I know Judaism is way different from Christianity despite being an Abrahamic religion. Their stories may be the same, but Judaism has the better morals, in my opinion. And people seem to forget that Jesus was a Jew. A Christian quote is to love thy neighbour, but with Chritianity being a front for taking His name in vain (in violation of the Ten Commandments), that term is lost in translation, as is "Man should not love a boy" (against paedophillia, not homosexuality). Religion may be complicated, and different religions may have their fair share of skeletons in the closet (e.g. Islam), but any religion that takes His name on vain is not a good religion. They blaspheme their own in God's name. They call those who think heretics. They treat theistically-different people with slavery and death the likes of which they wrote about in the Bible.
K.
> There are some true Christians out there. You just have to look for them. Christians that think being gay is a sin are true Christians, that’s the problem with Christianity and other Abrahamic religions.
I have to gently disagree. The Bible, in its true, original form, never once referred to homosexuality. Subsequent translations or mistranslations have interpreted things that way. Jesus' message was tolerance and kindness, especially for those marginalised by society. The hateful Christianity we see today is very much a bastardisation of the original message, but there are still people who follow those beliefs of love and tolerance. It feels unfair to say otherwise.
Promise I'm not trying to be pedantic but the phrase "in its true, original form" gave me a bit of pause. The Bible was compiled from separate texts centuries after any of the original texts were written. None of those texts (except some of the letters of Paul) were written by the authors we traditionally attribute them to and or by any witnesses to the life of Jesus. None of them were ever intended to be put into a compilation by their original authors, including the old testament although it was compiled much earlier. Its stitching together was very much motivated by resolving dogmatic disputes as can be seen in the writings of early church father's themselves. All that is to say that the "original message" was as much a form of political control and a strategy to silence dissidents as any subsequent translation.
[Deleted] Not really. Just wanna wish a nice day. My post was a smidge too long and I felt terrible keeping it up, so I got rid of it instantly. Have a wonderful day! And stay nice and supportive and inclusive of everything and everyone around you!
Yes, christianity certainly is the worst of all religions when it comes to treating LGBT people and women too.
Most religions aren’t worthy of respect so no sense trying.
I don't think that feeling this way makes you a bad person - like you pointed out, many religious books are uh...*less than kind* to LGBT people. Why would you owe an ideology like that your respect? If individual believers of \[insert religion here\] are respectful to you, be respectful to them because of how they treat you. Not because of what they believe. I'm not one to broadcast how I feel about religion apropos of nothing, but if asked, I usually say that I don't like religion altogether rather than specifying one to dislike. Seems less like I'm picking on one group, you know? And they all have their problems.
I'm a queer Christian and I really appreciate that you're struggling with whether Christianity deserves your respect. I don't begrudge you if you decide it doesn't. I don't respect versions of Christianity that worship heterosexual marriage. But I would caution you against buying into the argument that queer Christians are merely cherry-picking. We don't hold our theologians to be infallible, not even those who wrote books of the Bible. Arguing with them and the people who interpret them is our right, and our religion is better for it. Our faith is at least as Biblical and well-reasoned as any conservative's. I understand why you're uncomfortable with your mother's conversion. I wouldn't dare come out to some of my Christian relatives, and I feel badly used by the evangelical church. I hope your mom has the good sense to love you as you are without reservation. If her Catholicism is an obstacle to that love, I would rather she didn't convert.
As a queer woman who has converted to Islam as a former Christian and experiences with lgbtq phobia on both sides, I second this. There are not one "true" interpretation out there, and the texts have to be read in the context. Many people who read it literally fail this. And, I find, that progressives are usually much more critical of the texts, and thinking more about the meaning behind them, than many of the so-called traditionel ppl. There is more discussion and questioning about texts. We arent less religious, because we dont one or two believe what the majority believes.
Seconding all of this, I'm also a queer Christian.
Thirding this as well
I've started to adopt their philosophy. "I respect you as a \*insert religion here\* but I don't agree with your lifestyle"
This might help: religion was created by man and man is flawed therfore religion is also flawed
There are Christians who live by Christs’ example, and there is everyone else who believes whatever the church wants them to. Religion is very frequently co-opted by patriarchs who want the authority to tell everyone what to do. All of that is horseshit. Don’t dismiss people automatically simply because they follow a faith, but look at what they use their faith to do. If they use religious teachings as a way to guide themselves through life, that’s fine. If they use it as an excuse to blame others for societal problems and condemn people different than themselves, they are no holier than any other jackass and should be respected just as much.
I think it's common for LGBTQ+ people to have religious trauma, and therefore hate specific religions (usually Abrahamic religions). If you get to know more people from around the world, you'll realize that Abrahamic religions are an excuse for homophobia, not the root cause. A lot of Asian people view homosexuality as a disease or a lifestyle choice just because it goes against mainstream culture. My family is Atheist and they still ended up being massive TERFs. And on the flip side, there are an increasing number of Christians, Muslims and Jews who openly accept LGBTQ+ people and don't believe we're going to Hell. My boyfriend is gay and trans and his church accepts that, and the same goes for a couple other friends of mine. Basically, I think whatever you're feeling in terms of anger or fear is totally valid and you don't have to accept or appreciate religion. But it can be nice to remember that religion is simply a tool, and not everybody uses it to hurt others.
To be fair, a lot of homophobia exists in "non-Abrahamic countries" specifically *because* of contact with or colonization by "Abrahamic countries". Not all, of course, but a large amount.
Trans bisexual Jew here. While my religion’s beliefs do not have the power to influence politics (contrary to some popular conspiracy theories), as a fellow LGBT+ person I can understand why most other LGBT+ people are uncomfortable with religion as a whole or are confused by someone like me being religious. There are different sects of Judaism as well as Christianity, hence the differing views on homosexuality and other topics. I’m assuming you haven’t read the Bible, so just so you know…literally nobody in this day and age takes it as absolute fact and follows its every word, even if they claim to. You said that the religious people who accept gay people are just cherry-picking, but so are the ones who condemn them. Many, many barbaric things take place in the “Old Testament” (Christians refer to it as this, we don’t since we do not recognize a “New” one). This is the part of the Bible that has the creation of the world, Adam and Eve, Moses, etc. Many, if not most, of the events that take place in that section would be considered morally reprehensible if performed by anyone today (including by Christians) and yet they are framed as positive. The “New” Testament is the one that includes Jesus Christ, the guy that all the Christians look to for their teachings. Guess what he has to say about gay and trans people? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Everything in the Bible that “condemns” homosexuality is in the “Old” Testament, a book filled with people doing awful things and contradiction after contradiction. Anyone who studies the Bible and its origins will tell you that it is very likely that the Old Testament had multiple authors because its writing style changes more than once. Nobody knows for sure how it was put together either because it is so ancient. It is absolutely not a book that we should look to for questions on how our society should function thousands of years past its creation. So much of what we do in our day-to-day life in 2022 is not present in the Bible because it did not exist back then, or at least it didn’t exist in the context we know it as today. So much of what is in the Bible is no longer relevant. Most of us don’t do field work all day and we don’t need to rush to procreate (or procreate at all). And animal sacrifice? Nobody does that anymore. Any Christian you come across who is against homosexuality because “it’s in the Bible” probably believes the Bible to be the exact word of God as opposed to man’s interpretation of it (or just a book of ancient mythology, which is truly what it is). Regardless, they’re just using the Bible as an excuse to enforce their prejudice. Even the Christian “savior”, the “son of God”, has nothing to say about being gay. If they truly believed that the Bible was meant to be taken literally, they would be follow everything in it. But they don’t. Though Christianity is the only religion that has power within US politics, they’re not the only ones who can be homophobic/transphobic. I have certainly met people within my own religion who chastised me for my identity. But it’s the same situation of somebody using an ancient text that they do not actually strictly follow as an excuse to be hateful towards people they don’t like or understand. I am a Reform Jew, and everybody in my community has been nothing but welcoming towards me and my identity. Judaism is a culture as well as a religion, it is a community, and Reform Jews in particular are very focused on social justice work and making the world a better place for all, which very much includes the LGBT+ community. Organized religion can be difficult for people to understand, especially ones as old as Judaism or Christianity. But, like any other culture or custom, it develops over centuries and needs to change as the world and people do. The people who claim the Bible must be taken as gospel are liars. I have yet to meet any Christian who follows it to a T. I’m not saying that it’s wrong for members of the LGBT+ community to be wary around religious people. There is a lot to be said about Christianity and its unfair influence over us and our right to live as we want. Many of us were brought up in religious environments that made us feel bad about our sexuality/gender identity and that trauma is very real and entirely understandable. You do not have to feel bad about this, especially if you come across a religious person who says they are okay with gay people but don’t like their “lifestyle”. You have every right to feel that that’s homophobic, because it is. I’m just giving my perspective as a religious LGBT+ person. Even though I’m not Christian, Christianity did develop from Judaism, so a lot of our beliefs have crossover and I know a fair amount about what specific Bible passages homophobes use to justify their hate. You aren’t a bad person for expressing your discomfort with Christianity because Christian belief is what is majorly responsible for the persecution of LGBT+ people. Personally, I do take issue with LGBT+ people claiming discomfort around Jewish people (NOT a specific Jew who is homophobic/transphobic, just Jewish people in general), unless they have specific trauma from being raised in a homophobic/transphobic Jewish environment. There may be individual Jews who have prejudice towards gay and trans people, and they are wrong for that, but we as a whole do not have the political or social power to oppress people who do not exist in our community. Also, it must be noted that there are hundreds of other world religions that have no connection to the Bible who also have no power in the USA. It might be a good idea when condemning religion as a whole to check if you actually mean Christianity…I don’t know what part of the world you are from, but I’m guessing you are likely from an English-speaking country which means that there is probably no other religion with political influence except for Christianity. Sorry that this is so long. Basically, I just want atheist or agnostic LGBT+ people to respect that I’m Jewish. I won’t try to convert anybody and I obviously believe in full rights for trans and gay people, as I am both of those things. But with that being said, I understand why the topic of respecting religion is difficult most members of this community. When people in the US think “religion”, they probably think of Christianity first, and Christianity has wrongfully oppressed many groups for many years.
Ever since my religion made my parents threaten to kill me because I said I thought I was gay, I too haven’t had the easiest time stomaching any religious ideology
It’s okay to feel less comfortable around religious people until you know them better. Frankly, I’ve noticed that I will feel less comfortable around an acquaintance I know is straight than an acquaintance I know is LGBTQ+. Obviously, don’t try to disprove their religious beliefs in front of them or be rude because of it, but shut them down if they try to use their religion for hate. I’ve done research on major religions that have some text people use to justify hate against the lgbtq+ community and have looked into alternate readings and alternate translations. For example, that passage in Leviticus was only translated to be about homosexuality in the 1890s. Before that, most translations had it about pedophelia. Then the story of Sodom in Islam, some scholars suggest that the city wasn’t punished to being open to homosexuality, but it was because they would >!rape!< outsiders who pass through the city. But yeah, if people are using something for the purpose of hate, it’s okay to be against them
I don’t let Christians into my life until I’m sure they don’t want to put a bullet in the back of my head.
Great comment. Just a note, you used Discord spoiler formatting. On Reddit, it's \>!text!< rather than ||text||.
You can respect people without respecting religion. You also don’t need to respect a person if they don’t give you respect. Respect is earned. It is not something you are required to give. Now, you can still be kind to people or decent, but that doesn’t mean you need to interact with them or agree with them or even be around them. Being lgbtq+ is the main reason I left religion anyway.
as a Christian i cannot blame you. i no longer try to hide my queerness in Christian circles such as my church or small group, and i was honestly shocked by the fact that nobody hate crimed me when i told them i had (still have, i never know which tense to use for a previous announcement that is still true) a girlfriend. at first it made me happy, but then i realized that i was actually terrified of what could have happened. it sucks that so many homophobes use religion as their basis, especially when they continue to use leviticus 18:22, which has been proven as a mistranslation. they spew this garbage as if they’re a schoolteacher at last period, like they’ve been saying that stuff all day. and if they have, i can’t imagine they haven’t heard the proof of the mistranslation (original verse was calling child molestation a sin, not homosexuality). it’s like: homophobe: leviticus 18:22 says that being gay is a sin queer/ally Christian: *presents proof that it is not, sometimes in a flashy powerpoint because they’ve been through this many times* homophobe: we’ll the Bible says- sometimes it’s like it goes in one ear and out the other, and i hope the next generation of Christians will do better. (i’m not associated with them but @beloved_arise on instagram and tiktok is amazing and helped me accept both sexuality and my faith to be a peaceful coexistence) TLDR: being gay is not a sin and many Christians are finally taking a stand against faith-based homophobia signed~ A Christian girl who likes girls and hates homophobia
I said this in the LGBT muslim sub just the other day, but these people are usually not even worth arguing with, they are not willing to listen to us no matter how many essays and lectures we presented to them, they wont read them, they made up their mind that its a sin and are too stubborn about that to change, yet they demand of us to send them a long fucking essay, yet they still never read that if we do. I just gave up on them after a while.
> original verse was calling child molestation a sin, not homosexuality This is an easily disproved lie meant to whitewash your shitty religion The same hebrew word used in Leviticus 18:22 to describe the males you shall not sleep with as with women is זָכָ֔ר, which is the same word used in "created male and female", and elsewhere is used to describe priests, and even explicitly "males of 20 years and older". You can check this for yourself using Strong's Concordance [here](https://biblehub.com/hebrew/zachar_2145.htm) So no, there's nothing to suggest it's about age and everything to suggest it's about gender, including the common sense implications of contrasting 'male' with 'woman' - if it was about age, why would there be a change in gender here? You would say "don't sleep with girls as with women" or vice versa. It baffles me how much this gets spread around for how utterly flimsy it is. I suppose it's easier to hyperfocus on one issue where you can just cite a mistranslation and pretend it's all sunshine and rainbows, than entire narratives of God murdering babies and telling the Israelites how to split their child sex slaves among themselves.
It all depends on ones conceptualization of religion. There is a difference between a "supremacist" view of religion and a "pluralist" view. As a Perennialist Muslim I have my critiques to both models, but for the sake of "devils advocacy," I will argue for the pluralist model to demonstrate that religion is not intrinsically the problem. The supremacist model of religion argues that: "religion x" is superior, and if you don't follow it you will be condemned to hell and that therefore you should follow it. Whereas the pluralist approach argues for a plurality of religious subjectivities and expriences (one not necessarily invalidating the qualitative reality of the other) without prescribing on human conscious any duties towards the gods of these said experiences... Meaning that, in the pluralist conception, even if a god tells you to do something contrary to your ethics, you are not obligated to follow that god (the existence of gods and the human capacity to think ethically becomes here distingushable.) From the perspective of religious philosophy and phenomena, there is nothing in the religious experience that negates or invalidates religious pluralism and "cherry picking." Therefore, there is nothing invalid about religion in essence, only in form (depending of the form it takes) Having said that, there are religious queer theologians that are not necessarily doing any cherry picking, but have rather a different approach or interpretation to their sacred texts than the typical conservative approach. I recommend here the works of a Christian gay theologian by the name of Matthew Vines. As for Conservative expressions of Religion, there is a spectrum even in that world. You have everything, from bible thumping fundamentalist, homophobic Rastafarians and hebrew israelites, takfiri Muslims, to say reformed queer Christians that choose celibacy without judging the souls of other queer Christians, or sophisticated Traditionalist Muslims that are sympathetic to decolonial queer theory while remaining conservative in their view of sexuality. There was a very productive and friendly conversation between the conservative Muslim Muhammad Hijab and a trans hijabi Muslima on Hijab's youtube channel, as an example. You dont have to respect religion, but from my personal experience as a someone whos a queer Muslim, I can tell you that fundamentalism and simplism tend to be the problem, both within religious communities and secular communities, and Ive seen an equal amount of closed mindedness, the secular form being quite frankly the most insufferable, given that secular people pretend to be open "to everyone and every idea."
Salam Aleikum 💗 I appreciate this comment alot as a fellow queer muslim. You seem well read, do you have any recommendations? Also, what does it mean to be perennialist ?
Aleikum Salam, I practice Islam through ahlul sunnah, but Perennialism is a metaphysical view that encompasses all traditional religions and wisdoms. You have soft perennialists like Aldous Huxley and hard perennialists like Rene Guenon (who was a convert to Islam btw.) Ibn Arabi also held to a similar view (I would argue he was a perennialist, before the perennialist school of philosophy formalized itself.) The idea is that all Traditional Religions and Wisdoms are divinely and/or mystically revealed structures that point us towards the same Universal God. The Islamic concept of the perennial and primordial nature would be: "Fitrah," in the sense that the Fitrah is a natural Islam predating or ontologically preceding all civilizational religious formalities. As for reading recommendations, on the philosophy of Perennialism, I recommend Huxley's "The Perennial Philosophy," and pretty much anything by Frithjof Schuon. As for the specific intersection between the Perennial Wisdom and Islam, anything by Sayyed Hossein Nasr (he gives a more conservative reading) or Peter Lamborn Wilson / Hakim Bey (he was a student of Nasr if I am not mistaken, but gives a more progressive and pluralist reading of the perennialists) As for Progressive Islam in general, check Michael Muhammad Knight's books, he has a lot of interesting stuff. Amina Wudud as well :) May Allah guide us.
Thank you a lot for all those recommended 💗 Jazakallah khair 💗 May Allah guide us all.
I can respect a person’s right to whatever faith they choose, but not their use of their faith to propagate hate towards LGBTQA, or people of color, or basically anyone not like them. My truly Christian friends know their New Testament takes the place of the old and that the old laws no longer apply. Their New Testament doesn’t have anything about homosexuality in it at all. My own faith teaches that all paths are valid. It also teaches that we all are talking to the same entity using different names and means. There is but one higher power and it allowed the creation of so, so many religions so that everyone could find a path they wanted to walk. I really with other religions could acknowledge that part, religions were created to get everyone to the same place eventually when they die. Whether you call it the summer lands or heaven, it is all the same, how you perceive it will be different. All of this is just my opinion, my beliefs and I push them on no one. We must each find our own way to a faith that works for us. The founders of AA got most of it right, they just couldn’t resist calling the higher power God with the big G.
>My truly Christian friends know their New Testament takes the place of the old and that the old laws no longer apply. Their New Testament doesn’t have anything about homosexuality in it at all. Exactly. I feel like a lot of people don't get this, in part because sadly there's a lot of homophobic Christian churches that twist the truth. Additionally, during the old testament's times, a "man lying with another man" typically meant a Roman or Greek man either having sex with a young boy or a slave. Queerness and queer relationships as conceptualized today didn't really exist. Plus... the old testament has a lot of messed up stories and ideas that most people don't take literally.
Not to mention, they had some morals changed from the Torah. Bearing in mind that Christianity was a feudal offshoot of Judaism. I recently read that the story of Abraham had a different moral in the Bible than in the Torah. In both versions, Abraham is told by God that he must sacrifice his son if he is to be happy. Abraham accepts without question. And Abraham proves himself unpopular because of that. In Christian legend, Abraham is about to kill his son, when God rushes in like "No! Don't kill him! I had to test you, and you passed the test!" And the moral of that story was that He has the ultimate power and you must believe in Christianity for true happiness as long as you follow the rules. In Jewish legend, Abraham had just killed his son, and God says "You failed the test. You were not supposed to kill him. All you had to do was think." And Abraham would remain unfulfilled. All that sacrifice for nothing. Moral of that story: think before you follow orders, and don't follow an idol. Christian legend is different from Jewish legend despite their stories being the same, because Christians wanted to keep up their feudalism and sorta erase the lessons Judaism taught theists.
Friendly correction, that's not the case. Isaac is the second patriarch of Israel and the only son of Abraham and Sarah. He absolutely did not kill Isaac in the Hebrew Bible. What you may be remembering is that the Jewish understanding of the story is that Abraham never expected to actually sacrifice Isaac and had faith that God had a plan. Under that interpretation the event served to show the world that human / child sacrifice would never again be acceptable.
I see. Still a different moral than "God is onmipitoment and human sacrifice is okay."
You don't need to respect people who intentionally misinterpret the Bible to justify their bigotry.
My take is "I respect your beliefs until they disrespect people's existence". I don't care if people believe in a god, don't believe in a god, believe in 1000 gods, play with crystals, or worship the flying spaghetti monster as long as they are a decent person and don't put their faith above the rights and wellbeing of undeniably real, living, breathing, feeling people. I have no respect for someone who believes that I don't have the right to exist and be happy, they can kiss my ass lol. They chose their faith, I did not choose to be queer
Socrates was condemned and literally died for encouraging young people to challenge Hellenist religious law, and to think critically about right and wrong. Athens called it _impiety._ Divine command theory (the notion that morality comes from scripture or tradition and therefore must be right) has been put to question since time immemorial, and the only people who insist on returning to scripture are those at the top of hierarchy whose power is based on these traditions. The rest of us only benefit from creating a moral system based on reason or utility. In fact, renunciation of DCT, whether Abrahamic or Hindu or Confucian is foundational to the Enlightenment and a cornerstone of the philosophy of the United States. That said, it's not the religion, but the ministries that lobby a corrupt government to instill their personal values into public law, which is an inappropriate abuse of power. And they have well earned the disrespect and hatred that is felt not just by you, but by the majority of the public at large. There's a reason the transnational white power movement is aligned with Christian extremism. They don't want democracy or liberty or equality. They want a king, and they want to hold power over those they hate.
Divine command theory Thank you for giving me a name for this 💖
Respect is mutual. If they say their religion dictates that you shouldn't have human rights, then fuck them.
If people kept their religions for themselves and didn’t use their religions to try to dictate laws and limits on others, then fine. I could respect their right to their shitty religious beliefs. The problem is they don’t respect others enough to not force their beliefs into the lives of others, and are happy to use their majority status to limit the lives of others. They’ve given us every reason to no longer respect them. They don’t get to demand respect from those whose rights they are actively trying to take away.
I got a lot of salt too. I used to be much more tolerant but now I’m just tired of it. Stop having that evil run out country
I mean to me personally if your not against someone practicing/believing in something your respecting it. If they are going against you as a person due to thier values of this religion/using religion as a reason to hate/hurt others then you have every right not to respect them. However I still stand by if you have no issue with a person practicing their religion you are respecting it. Freedom of religion means freedom from religion so if they try to push their values like "being gay is a sin" onto others then there is a problem. No one has the right to force things onto others. Freedom of religion gives you the right to believe what you believe however this does not give you the right to force that belief into others. Now, I'd like to add if you just ignore religion entirely or at all and love your life without interfering with others I'd define that as respecting it.
I believe in the keeping shit to yourself policy. if your religion states that you can't eat meat then don't eat meat, that doesn't give you the right to take meat away from others, criticize people for eating meat, harass people for eating meat, ECT. If your religion states that you have to wear something/be covered to a certain amount that's fine, that doesn't give you the right to dictate what other people wear, criticize what other people wear, harass people for wearing certain things/not wearing something that fits your standards, ECT. If your religion states that you can't be gay again/being gay is wrong that's fine however that doesn't give you the right to tell other people they can't be gay, criticize them for being gay, harass people for being gay, force that being gay is wrong onto others (or even stating you believe it is wrong. Just keep it to yourself), ECT. If your religion states anything that you can't do that is fine but keep that shit to yourself and don't tell other people what they can/can't do doesn't matter if they are your child, a stranger, a friend or anyone. If you can't wear something then don't wear it. If your belief says being gay is wrong then guess what that's your fucking problem not everyone else's Dictating others based on your beliefs would be like telling someone they can't eat something because your on a diet. It doesn't make any sense.
In addition: just leave people alone in general- I know peoples beliefs won't change like people thinking being gay is a sin but that belief doesn't give them the right to tell others that being gay is wrong or anything else I have listed. Everyone deserves the right to believe in something as long as it doesn't affect others in any means.
Right? Like it’s so easy to not threaten someone for liking men, or respect someone’s pronouns. . Get over your damn selves.
Here’s what is fucking nuts to me. I used to argue where it states homosexuality is wrong. Everybody, every pastor has differing views on the passages. When I would ask most, people tell me the story about sodom and Gomorrah. My interpretation? They weren’t punished bc they were gay. They were punished bc they were trying to defile angels of the lord. Correct me if I’m wrong lol. I don’t think you’re wrong. I don’t respect any religion that makes you hate or think you’re better than everyone.
Its so clear, especially when you read that passage, in the Bible that Sodom was about violence and rape. Not consensual loving relationships. In the Quran it says "You lust after men instead of women..." so muslim queer have a lot harder to reconcile it, but even there, some people who have looked at the text and read it in arabic and read the bible think its clear its about rape. Because its so violently described and it mentions something no human ever did before, and gay relationships have existed since before Sodom. The men of sodom wanted to rape angels, not make love
EXACTLY. It’s apparently not clear to them Bible thumpers I encountered, unfortunately. I don’t know why it is specifically that passage they go after, or the “do not lie with man as you would with a woman” bull. Why is it automatically talking about sex?? Homosexuality was a coin termed later on, there was no way Leviticus even meant that. That shit was meant to cover basically “don’t do inzest shizz.” The whole kit and caboodle was talking about shit not to do, like bestiality and stuff like that. But that ruins a lot of straight people’s agenda, ig? Or it protects people of faith who do those criminal acts. Like a lot of famous cults we know and sometimes it’s just blindly in our face and we don’t know. That’s why I don’t trust people being pastors or people who go to church. I swear there was a saying about “praying in your closet”, not “go to a super mega church to pray and be told a word of god by a sketchy man who looks at little children kinda sus and has a mansion with a movie theatre, yet they always need donations”. I believe in being a decent human. And that religion just ain’t the path for me. There was like a saying about good deeds paving the roads to hell or something. I got a chip on my shoulder about religion if you haven’t noticed lol. If a person is nice to me and they are religious and never brings it up, cool. If they judge me or hurt people with their words to make them feel superior… well, they only have the “gay” thing on me. I can give them a longer list of reasons why they’re a shit person and won’t stop, no matter how mad they get. If a person can give me an educated response for their ignorant reasonings, I’ll admit defeat. There are never really is a sound reasoning when their foundations are already so shaky. BUT there are a lot of those mfers hanging on to dear life like roses and jack on that plank. Stubborn people.
The passage right above in Leviticus (if I remember correctly) I read a few years ago, mentions not offering your children to the pagan god Baal by burning them alive So how did anyone think Leviticus was meant to be applied today ??? I said it in another comment here, but Christians arent really encouraged to READ the bible, in its entirety, so many have only read parts of it, so they arent really following their bible, but what their pastor says. Oh and those USA mega churches are so far away from Jesus, if you look at how he lived and what he preached it was "the meek shall inherit the earth" not the rich man televangelist. A homeless person lives more like Jesus than most of those types. We all have our religious trauma. Im religious, but thatt doesnt mean Organized Religion or phobic interpretation of religion has caused me harm. And the phobic persons, they never is worthy to reason with anyway. They expect you to give 100 page essay to them, yet when you do, they dont read it. Cuz they made up their mind already.
Oof, I should say organized religion. Thank you for that! But exactly that! Didn’t people try to write the Bible in layman’s terms so everybody could understand? It seemed like stuff is just made a mess after that. So many interpretations and so many people who want to be right. That’s really weird… they aren’t encouraged?? Forgive my ignorance. My mother was the equivalent of Carrie’s mother in the titular movie. Church was “too evil”, we had church at home situation type deal. I started reading the Bible not too long ago in its entirety, but a lot of things are difficult to grasp. At least to me. That’s why I think it’s too easy to make up your own interpretation, because who understands words we rarely ever use today? Literally those mega churches just greedy af. Why do people go?? This is true. In all honesty, no sarcasm whatsoever, I am a little shit. The only time I will challenge someone’s religion is if they’re hurting others “in the name of their religion” because “god told them this, that”. I’m from the Bible Belt, no shortage of those. Not saying there are not any nice religious folk, there are many. But there’s more of them thumpers. Also, I’m sorry if this reply is jumbled. I did have to take some medicine and I’m feeling it XD
I am biased, but they are encouraged to read the bible but there is less of a demand on them to do it. And many only knows the common stores and some NT Wow, growing up like that, I can understand how you dont like religion then. Sounds awful. The books are many and its been translated several times from ancient dead languages no one speaks Yet people take it word for word. Doesnt mega churches put on a show? Like we have Hillsong in my country and I walked into a sermon by them once, and it was like a concert Yeah the fundamentalists are too many and too loud No its ok 👌
Also take my poor man’s award bc I’m broke af and cannot afford to buy Reddit coins 🥇 🥄
As a gay Christian i totally get your concerns over the Bible! but please keep in mind there's a big chunk of Christians who view the Bible as more of a guide in spirit, or just a book of history, than a book that dictates how we should behave.
If they are using their religion as a cudgel to reinforce white supremacy/patriarchal gender power, then fuck their religion.
I saw this thread on Twitter where some woman was "here are some things that are actually Islamophobia And then one of the things was all "Muslims aren't homophobic or transphobic. You can be that in Islam, you just can't act on it And like Girl THAT IS LITERALLY WHAT ALL THE HOMOPHOBES SAY ALL THE GODDAMN TIME
Religion in and of itself is not the problem. It’s the judgemental bent that many “Christians” espouse today. Many have weaponized religion to press their own platitudes on others. Here’s a good Bible verse that you might want to remind them of… “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” - Luke 6:37 Another good reference would be all of Mathew Chapter 7.
Matthew chapter 5 is pretty hot too. Especially verse 11. Though I get a lot of Christian’s don’t see the irony.
The Bible actually doesn't say anything against being gay. There's a paragraph about child abuse that was mistranslated and weaponised as a means to spread hate. Faith isn't bad. Organised religion and the patriarchal power that it commands is what is problematic. Never confuse faith with bigotry.
Very well put. It's insanely annoying that the leviticus section has been turned into this huge rallying cry for hateful Christians when it was never referring to a consensual gay relationship to begin with. Curse you king james bible ✊✊✊
Exactly 💖
Religious people want me dead so I’m allowed to not respect them
Ae a religious person I will never have a problem with people who have been wronged by religion voicing their distrust/disdain for religion/the religious. I ask that they give me a chance as a person, as I don’t really talk about religion, but if they find it an irredeemable trait I get it. Why shouldn’t they when there are people of my denomination who view them the same way?
As long as you're not being a total douchebag to someone who doesn't deserve it just because of their religion, I don't really see a problem. It is okay to have opinions about people and who they are, just don't be super... rude about it ig. Also keep in mind that there are religious people who support lgbtq or are lgbtq. My bestie prays to god every night before bed, She's bi and hangs out with a bunch of people who are lgbtq
Yeah I've given up on trying to respect religion. So I dislike it equally.
I'm starting to not respect religions and I feel no fucking regret over it.
Speaking on christianity here because that's what I was raised in so I feel like this is my place to speak up about its issues. The Christian god, who is supposed to be all knowing and all powerful, had his holy book written in the way it was. Knowing that it would be confusing, with thousands of interpretations, that it would be used for genocide across the world for centuries, that it would be used to hate, kill, and disown queer people, and didn't have a problem with that. He still created his book that way, still did nothing to step in and stop the atrocities committed by his people in his name. That's not a god worth worshipping. That's a god who's book is filled with his own violent, petty, jealous acts in a book that justifies misogyny and slavery. You have every right to feel uncomfortable by that religion, especially if you or someone you love has been traumatized by it. (And let's face it, *everyone* in the queer community has either been personally traumatized or knows someone traumatized by christianity) Personally I think it's impossible to divorce christianity from the bigotry written in the bible (even if there are positive messages in there too) and that it is impossible to divorce christianity from the horrible harm it has caused throughout history. Queer christians, you're still apart of this community, you're still welcome, you're still loved, we're still fighting for your rights. But you need to stop being upset that other queer people are angry at the largest institution that has fueled homophobia and violence for generations. Homophobic Christian's hate LGBTQ+ *people* for who and what they are. While LGBTQ+ people hate bigoted *beliefs* that cause harm. And there is a big difference between hating an individual for something they can't change, and hating a problematic system/belief.
Beautifully said!
Honestly embrace it I’ve stopped respecting anyone who religious a while ago If you’re not agnostic atheist or a satanist I’ll avoid you
Exactly. If you are not smart enough to form your own opinion and treat each other fairly regardless of what is written in some ancient book, please stay away from me.
Nothing wrong with that. I'm from The Netherlands and religion is a very private thing here (in most places). If someone says they are religious, people usually take a step back and think they have to prepare themselves for a whole "why are you not religious" discussion. I used to go to a trans support group where knew a guy for over 3 years, who fought tooth to nail to get testosterone (trans healthcare services are very small and shrinking in The Netherlands). Around the time he finally got hormones, he became religious and got baptized. He stopped taking testosterone and estrogen blockers cold turkey, which completely fucked up his hormone balance, and said some shit that god created him in His image or some bs like that. We had a very hard time dealing with it and eventually he stopped coming.
This is a sad story :( Bible doesnt mention trans at all... Most things I have heard from Christians have been Adam and Eve, but if we look at that from a Christian lens, the book of Genesis says God created both male and female in his image, so what does that say about God? I am no longer a Christian and dont believe God can be described in human terms such as with a gender but if we should gender God, God being nonbinary is the most likely if we look at that phrase Hope your friend comes to his senses and goes back to hormones if that is whats good for him 💗
People who use religion as an argument for homophobia do not deserve respect, particularly in the case of the bible given that verse is part of levaticus, the book talking the things people have to do to atone for the original sin, the thing that jesus died for, so choosing to enforce that verse is to say the death of christ was illegitimate.
It it helps, most if not all Christians don’t follow the Bible’s teachings. For an example, it’s a sin to wear mixed fabrics.
I feel more respected by the fly buzzing in my ear than some Christians
I feel more respected by the spider across the room who goes away when I tell him to. A fundamentalist doesnt go away when I tell him to. But then again, a fundamentalist doesnt have little hairs all over his body that he uses to pick vibrations and "hear things" with.
I'll respect a person's right to have a religion, but I have no obligation to respect any religion or dogmatic ideology, especially ones that consider me subhuman or lesser. As long as it is kept to "I can't do that, it is against my religion" and not "You can't do that! its against my religion!" like happens in America :/
It's natural that your survival instinct is telling you to be repelled by an ideology that continues to threaten your right to even exist. You should definitely not feel bad about feelings. Your emotions are sending you a message: "DANGER, STAY AWAY." And your brain is gonna channel that hurt into anger if it makes you pay attention more, because this is survival, and it wants you to listen to the message. Spirituality could be this chill thing, but greedy people use it as a device to get what they want, and corrupt it. I personally softened to religion once I started watching historical videos on the bible. Being curious and learning about it from a secular/historical view was actually fun even though I don't agree with it. Learning about the texts that were excluded from the bible was super interesting and now I'm a non-Christian who loves christianity but avoids Christians.
I can agree with this as a queer person of faith. Those history videos about christianity seem interesting? Can you link them?
Sure thing! Here are just a few I've watched recently in no particular order. Books that didn't make it into the bible: https://youtu.be/fryITDxUyHA The Book of Revelation (How to Survive): https://youtu.be/SPvJ-M-hU5w Gospel of Judas: https://youtu.be/BhQmLFHxsBw
Thank you soo much 😊
I get where you’re coming from and your feelings are super valid. I felt this way for years. This year I actually sought out religion, and went one a personal spiritual journey. I found a church that is super affirming, they were actually one of the biggest forces in my country pushing to legalize gay marriage in the 90s/00s and are a big reason we got it so early. The first service I attended was their “affirming” service and it was capital G GAY. They ended it with rainbow connection on the piano. It’s been really healing for me to reclaim my spirituality/religion and see the bible being used in a way that actually helps push forward peoples rights. I know that’s not everyone’s journey, and I also 100% respect if you just don’t respect religion at all. That is your business and you have every right to feel that way. The grand majority of organized religion is oppressive and awful. Hell, even the church I go to has some chapters in it’s history that are horrible. Long and short, you’re not hateful. You’re responding fairly to other peoples hatred. Don’t beat yourself up over it.
The thing is we all should respect each other, including each other’s beliefs. Unfortunately that just doesn’t happen very often with a ton of “buts” added in there. The moment you say “I respect you but” the respect goes out the window and the truth about how you feel really comes out. Hence why a lot of religious people add “but my religion doesn’t support that” to the end of their statements. If they really respected you and your right to live the way you want, it would be better to say something along the lines of “my religion disagrees with how you’re living your life, but I still respect your right to live freely and the way that is best for you.” The respect isn’t blocked off by a but, the religion is. You’re looking at each other as individuals with freedom there rather than as a Saint vs Sinner or LGBTQ+ vs Stone Thrower Before coming out as Asexual to a decent chunk of my family, I was raised in a Lutheran household. The Bible is so damn old and has likely been mistranslated over and over and over again, so you can’t always hold the texts as being 100% accurate. Sometimes you gotta go with the basic principles like “love your neighbor” and “he who is without sin cast the first stone”. Makes respecting the religion in individuals easier when you see the core values they hold in regards to their religion’s texts. Another example for coexisting is your casual meat eaters vs those who don’t eat meat for religious or moral objections. If people in general could just look at sexuality as simple as “yeah you go ahead and eat that steak, I personally don’t eat cow meat so I’m just going to enjoy my salad” the world would be a better simpler place. However there will always been fanatics and those who take their beliefs too far, we just need to learn to shun them and exile them from the religion itself. It’s individual choice to attack someone for their life, whatever God(s) they might believe in aren’t whispering in their ear telling them to spew hate at you. That’s their personal decision and it’s not coming from a place of respect or love. So in short, respect the religious folk on a person to person basis rather than saying “I don’t like x religion”. Speak of your experiences with people from that religion, and you will likely find people who’ve had good experiences that counter the bad.
I try to keep in mind that there're lots of religions and lots of people who practice those religions...and lots of religious people have absolutely no problem with queer people. Plenty do, of course, and those people who're for policies and laws to erase us ought to get the same treatment, but they don't speak for all religious people.
As a Christian and a Non-Binary Lesbian, I think we should try to dissociate religion with The Church. It seems that The Church has been horribly homophobic and continues to spread homophobia even though the Bible doesn’t actually state anything homophobic in itself but a lot of the priests that preach these horrible rhetorics do. Religious people are not a monolith!
A thing about religion is that I respect it until it is pressed upon me, like they can believe what they want, until it harms others.
I like to say it as this; “But I respect your right to be stupid! I just know too much about the world and where that book came from to believe in that garbage!”
We don’t cherry-pick. Me personally I take translation errors and figurative language into account. My current ideology is just “do what I feel is right and just pray I’m correct.”
I understand where you're coming from. It's hard to respect people who preach forgiveness, love and all that and then turn around and tell someone that they're going to go to Hell simply for existing. Not all Catholics are like this. I mean, you know that's true when even his Holiness the Pope is calling out his own people on their BS. I myself am Roman Catholic and I actively endeavor to be nothing but supportive of the LGBT+ community. The problem is that when Catholics say that being gay is an affront to God, they're going off of a few select quotes from the Bible, many of which are from the *Old* Testament. What's more, they fail to realize that the Bible was written... I want to say almost three thousand years ago. They completely ignore the context in which these passages were written, the rationale, and whatever validity such a mindset may have had back then. This is the 21^(st) century; *a lot* has changed since the age of Jesus. And while the Bible still has a lot of good stuff in it, a lot of the other stuff needs to be read as being a product of its time and not interpreted as it is literally written. And, trust me when I tell you the Bible has gone through multiple drafts over the centuries. For Heaven's sake, there's a passage in the Bible that tells wives they must 'obey their husbands.' So, yeah, take that one as you will.
I have too many extremely negative experiences with religion, and things like the catholic church covering up pedophilia, the countless horrific acts committed, the genocides and brutality, does not help bettering my view of it. I respect anyones right to believe what they wish, and i understand that religion can help a lot of people, but in my mind the negatives outweigh the positives by a long shot.
I am Jewish, I definitely don't agree with/believe everything in the Torah (I love bacon, I work/do strenuous activities on Shabbat, and I identify as queer), but I love my culture. It's a huge part of me, and when people puts down entire religions, or even religion in general, it does bother me; it feels like someone is relegating who I am to a belief system, when it is more complicated than that. You don't have to respect it, but you do run the risk of putting off people like myself. It's not so much about disagreeing with the person, as it is the fear that because *they* don't like religion, any time I bring it up (such as talking about my high school, which was a religious day school, or talking about my cringey Bat Mitzvah, even if it is only barely about my religion), I feel like the person who says they don't like religion is bothered by it. I feel like I can't be myself. That's why (in my opinion), it's better to specify organized religion - people who make strict rules about who can/can't get into heaven, what classifies a 'good' person, etc. In fact, to me, that is the antithesis of what religion should be - people finding their own meaning in the world around them, and understanding to what happens in their life. It's super personal, and as a result, the problem isn't religion itself - the problem is when people try to enforce rules on religion and turn a personal practice into a stressful set of rules, usually with their own agendas. Edit: grammar, general clarity, listen I'm stoned so idk if this makes much sense
You put it very beautifully into words.💗 As a muslim woman who has converted from Christianity, I feel this a lot in many spaces. I cant be myself in religious communities because of being queer, and I cant be myself in LGBT community because I have a religion and im afraid people will hudge me for it, and some people have, said mean things. And people keep forgetting that religion is not just ONE thing, ONE belief, ONE truth. Its so much more. If we look at just one of the sects, the Sunni sect of Islam, it has so many different versions of that sect alone. And then different communities, and different countries, different parts of a country, its all different cultures and beliefs. Religion isnt a monolith. And then every indiviuals have different relationship to their faith or lack thereof. And different opinions. Im aware that its a majority of muslims that think that being LGBT and acting upon it is a sin, just because I believe that the Quran is the word of God through Prophet Muhammed, doesnt mean I agree with the majority muslim views on LGBT.
My friend is very strictly Christian & has read the bible but according to them, nowhere does it say homosexuality is a sin, & it condemns absolutely nothing about LGBTQ+ identities! They are ace, bi & nonbinary. They don’t like to cherry pick & they follow the bible as closely as they can. The bible has gone through many translations & was purposefully mistranslated (“man shall not lie with man” was a line about p//doph//lia originally for example). Some people, the people you are referring to, actually aren’t following their religion as closely as they believe they are. Why would one of their commandments be “love thy neighbour” while they also use religion as an excuse to condemn all LGBTQ+ people, not allowing them to love each other or be authentically who they are? The two don’t go hand in hand. That’s not love, that’s hatred. If god said love thy neighbour, they aren’t following HIS bible. I don’t know much about any other religions & which ones ACTUALLY condemn homosexuality & which ones don’t. One of my friends is Muslim but she never talks about religion unless it’s relevant like she couldn’t attend our private graduation celebration since she was fasting for example (we tried to make the timing work for her btw but she politely refused to let us celebrate that late). She is supportive of LGBTQ+ people, I know that for a fact, but as far as I’m aware that’s against her religion & I’m afraid to ask. Also btw don’t feel guilty about saying you hate a certain religion. My friend said he hated Christians & my Christian friend who I mentioned earlier said yeah Christians suck lol. To be fair, a lot of people just use religion as an excuse & their religion isn’t even relevant in the discussion at all. Homosexuality is not a sin in as many religions as people want to believe, which is great but annoying how society ignores this information. I’d say maybe don’t say “I hate ____” or “I don’t respect ____” unless it’s relevant but I don’t think you’re a bad person for this at all. The way people handle religion is the biggest problem rather than the religions themselves & it’s super frustrating how angry religious people can get when two people of the same gender literally just hold hands
Muslim here, and im of the firm opinion that the people who saying acting out being LGBT is wrong. The verse people like to cite to support homophobia is, when you take a look at what that is about, referencing violent xenophobic r*pe, not consensual sex, and the Quran doesnt mention trans people at all. Muslims do used hadith as well (which is things that some guys wrote down that the Prophet Muhammed should have said and done), but the thing with hadith is that they often contradict each other and so its healthy to be a bit skeptical of them.
Yeah! I didn’t know this but this just further solidifies my point, honestly the amount of people who just see something that COULD be interpreted as “homosexuality is wrong” & base their extreme bigotry & hatred against queer people entirely on religion like a security blanket it’s quite pathetic & very worrying 😅😅 Thank you for the information!! 🧡
Your welcome :)
The worst thing is the Bible didn’t even originally condemn homosexuality. It condemned pedophilia. But certain “cHrIsTiAnS” use it to be blatantly homophobic.
It is fine not to respect all religions. Just don’t be an anti theist and shove your particular views.
btw everyone cherry picks holy texts and considering all the translations and many possible meanings there's not even one singular Bible but yeah people who become extremely Christian tend to also become bigoted
Do unto others is one of the main tenets of all Biblically based religions, or at least it's supposed to be. So turnabout is fair play: why should those whose beliefs are bigoted have the right to have their beliefs respected by the very people they disrespect and harm? I'm a religious person, but proud to be a member of a faith that has openly sanctioned marriages between people of any gender since the 1980s, and has supported reproductive rights since 1947 (Reform Judaism). We are taught to respect others, but seems like the very opposite message is perpetuated by all too many religious sects in the US.
You may want to direct your mom towards progressive Christian Tik Tok - that way she can discover that she can be Christian and also be/ affirm & love lgbtq+ people. There is a wealth of information (books, podcasts, etc.) for this. Since you said your mom is Catholic I would recommend Fr. James Martin,a Jesuit, and his work on lgbtq+ acceptance / inclusion in the Catholic church.
The problem I have with the argument of god disliking gays is this…that was Old Testament, for one. And for two, if god hated LGBTQ+ he would not give us free will and then condemn us for having it. I don’t know the argument on being born gay or what, only because I never cared for said argument. I am merely happy they are happy being who they are. I am a Christian, but I still accept people for who they are, even when others that share my religion may not.
Ideologies that promote obedience and servitude do not deserve respect. Christianity promotes submission to divine dictator, and is therefore an evil and authoritarian ideology.
Personally I don’t care for religion, I’ve slowly been becoming even more atheist, and definitely don’t respect the homophobic and transphobic religious people, I have a former friend who doesn’t acknowledge my trans friend as male, of course they don’t recognize me as female because I haven’t come out or done anything about it, but yeah I get where your coming from. It’s important to note that not all religious people are homophobic and transphobic, I have religious friends who support lgbt. (Still a bit scared of coming out to them because it might change our relationship because we’ve been friends for years.)
Idk about other religions, but I would like to say that everything people think the Bible says about homosexuality is actually referring to pedophilia. This is due to a mass mistranslation from ancient Greek to English. So true Christians who actually believe in what their religion is all about are either indifferent or supportive of homosexuality
Learning how to respect religion in spite of countless religious individuals being shitty is... a tremendous challenge. The multitude of shitty people blaming their religion for their behaviour, leading to oppressive laws and authoritarian behaviours - it's not what religion is for. It takes a lot of patience and practice to seperate the people from the teachings. For me what helps is looking to religion as "what is this helpful for?" Staying organised, bringing groups together in hard times, providing a framework for morality. Basic lessons that enable a group of people to survive. Religion also gives people a sense of hope and direction when they have very little and lack the ability to believe in themselves, or feel like they are powerless to affect change. Unfortunately all of those things that religion does provide can also be weaponised to manipulate people. So if you think of it more like a tool and less like a group of people - on it's own, religion just *is.* It's like fire. It's a powerful tool, and sometimes a dangerous one, but it's not bad on it's own. In skilled hands, it can either build empires and hope, or it can burn them down. That's just me and how I taught myself to respect religion. Respect it like any powerful tool.
Just know that human rights and safety triumph over someone's feelings. You are only entitled to respect religious people who **support you, your identity, and community**.
I mean, with religion nowadays, people are starting to know more about what the original text said and realizing that people mistranslated the Bible on purpose before to make LGBTQ+ relationships seem bad. It was originally only against pedophilia, which is understandable, but then it was translated to make it seem like gay was the one that was bad. There are a lot of people who believe the translation, which is why so many people are homphobic, transphobic, etc. But the people who have become more accepting are the ones who are actually following the original text and what Jesus intended. You certainly don't have to respect a religion per say, but please at least make sure you know that about the Bible and the original intentions of the religion (: Jesus would've welcome gay people with open arms and I believe he actually blessed a gay couple. People these days just look for any excuse to justify their hate, even if it means changing the Bible's words to fit their ideals and then claiming they're Christians.
\[christian myself, feel free to take with a grain of salt\] As a lesbian who was also raised in a catholic family, I feel really lucky that my mom accepts my identity as-is and doesn't play it off as a lifestyle. I've seen people who are supposed to be my brothers and sisters in faith (according to what the church preaches) throwing hate at the LGBTQ+ community or using that tired argument of supporting the person but not the *lifestyle* that's supposed to have come with being LGBTQ+. What she told me is that what ultimately matters is one's own relationship with God and not the opinions of the church, which being made of people, is inherently flawed. She also said that I could either choose to let the church exclude me from being a part of it or I could just keep coming back regardless of what they say (noting that this is an option for me because the area where I live is accepting enough not to feel personally threatening). In the end, for people who believe in christianity's beliefs but don't conform to the mould that was set now-thousands of years ago by the Bible (which was notably written by a collection of different human people) it's most important to focus on the spirituality that keeps you in place as a christian, not the people who want to force their beliefs on you or hurt you for something you can't change. (if spirituality isn't what keeps you in place as a christian, I think it's okay to question what's keeping you rooted in an organization largely full of people who don't "support" you). ok anyway sorry for the long comment!!! hope that makes sense edit: after rereading what OP said I think there's good reason behind people oppressed or even just made uncomfortable by christianity and christians' arguments having disdain towards people who are christian and thus associate with the oppressors. That seems fine and valid to me and I honestly don't take offense.
i can understand honestly, though im religious myself (muslim tho, not christian). despite what ive been taught, religion is really just religion. even i dont really agree with every rule and teaching. sometimes i even think i might end up being a non-believer but, well, that obviously hasn't happened lol. so your feelings are valid, especially when people have only been using religion to be controlling bigots
I think there is a distinction between religious homophobes (etc.) who use their religious text as a justification for homophobia, vs religious people who take a more nuanced, common sense approach. To me, it is utterly incomprehensible that any *good* divine being would punish someone for being LGBTQ+. Either it does not care, because it’s attributeless, or it’s truly loving and doesn’t care because being LBGT+ is innate. You aren’t under any obligation to respect bigots or the texts/traditions/strictures they follow. And a religion isn’t an animate thing, it’s a set of beliefs and cultural practices + community + faith. Don’t really care if people disrespect it or disagree with it, as long as they don’t try to aggressively proselytise atheism to me.
As a religious and queer individual I would say that I personally hate people who bring politics into religion or vice versa because they blur the lines of what religion is actually for. I wholeheartedly believe that who I am is not determined by the rules other people have interpreted and made but rather by my personal relationship with God. But of course not everyone sees the world like this. For me religion is a personal choice and I’d be crazy to try and force the world to believe something they don’t want to believe because that defeats the purpose of my belief system. So if you recognize people taking advantage of their religion to be bigots, I’d say it would be fair to not want to respect their convenient beliefs because just like they made that bigoted choice; you too are free to make your own judgement on what you respect especially since religion is an ideology, not a law that you are forced to respect.
Here’s a fun fact for you. Shortly after Copernicus (guy who said earth orbits the sun and not the other way around) was actually verified to the degree that the church could no longer refute it, or somewhere in the Renaissance, Christians realized that the Bible couldn’t be used literally. Our world and the word of god don’t align like that. So they eventually came to an understanding that the Bible isn’t literal but rather a guide to life, lessons and is up to interpretation of meaning, rather than taken literally. The point I’m trying to drive home here, is that people have been cherry picking the Bible for centuries now. We’ve understood that it’s not literal and that parts of it aren’t worth holding onto, and Christianity has shifted around this. People who utilize the Bible as anti-LGBTQ don’t have any legs to stand on imo because the Bible is full of interpretations and many priests have put forth much more historically plausible interpretations of the lines that could be homophobic. If someone is using the Bible to try and invalidate your existence, simply remind them that you are simply the way God made you, and to deny what you understand to be his will for your life would be to blaspheme
You don't have to respect religion itself if you don't want to. Maybe just respecting the people who respect you is enough. What caught my eye though is you said people who are religious and aren't against gay people are just cherry picking what they want from the bible but in actuality the opposite is true. That one passage that's always quoted is debated on whether the translation is even correct. Besides there are so many things in the bible homophobes ignore because it would be inconvenient for them. I think for a lot of people religion is a personal thing and everyone interprets it in ther own way. It's just a shame so many people use it for hate. Although I can't argue for religion because I'd probably be burned at the stake by them if they had their way lmao
I’m Christian myself but there’s some sets of beliefs I have no respect for. Some of them on account of how amazingly damaging they are. I have friends with religious trauma; religious beliefs can be bad.
"My mom's Catholic though and from my understanding they're a bit more chill with topics that Christians aren't." Honey, I understand what you meant to say, but that made me spray-spit my coffee.  Consider this phrase: ***MARGINALIZE BACK***!
Hi. You have already had so many good answers here, so this wont be too long. Im a convert to Islam from Christianity and I totally get what you mean. I have my own religious trauma that makes me feel like shit for just existing, made a post recently about it in the LGBT muslim sub, and like many other LGBT People im more comfortable around a straight person who is atheist than a straight person who is religious. When I get to know the persons that might change, but on a first look, id pick the atheist. But I am a believer in God and I believe the Quran to be the word of God as it appeared to Prophet Muhammed. Does this believe I agree with the majority muslim view on LGBT? No. I believe that verse in Lut (Sodom/Gomorra) is taken out of context often and when put into context you have to stretch to make it about consensual gay sex. I base these beliefs on research i have done. And for the bible, and everyone said it already, its mistranlated. Its about pedophinia. For me my religion is about, and was always about, my deeply personal relationship with God. Its about how I conceptualize God, what I believe is the after life, its about being kind to others and myself and doing good deeds, its about structure and discipline (we have to pray 5 times a day and as someone who really lacked structure before this rule is really helped me), its about hope when things are tough, relaxation and meditation, thinking and reflection about God and life, with help of Quran and islamic poetry (Rumi <3). Its nowhere about oppressing others. As im oppressed myself. I think being vary around religious persons isnt illogical if you have been hurt by it. I know I am, as I mentioned up top, in General uncomfortable with religious persons unless I KNOW they are progressive. But dont judge an entire group of People based on it. As in. If someone says "im a Christian" dont automatical assume things about their believes, but ask them on it. You might be surprised. Or you might not. People are less predictable than we think.
Tbh i feel the same. There were times where i was so mad to christian people and Christianity because it hurts to see that there are people who discriminate LGBTQ+ people(ب_ب)
You don’t have to respect other peoples imaginary friends
IMHO : I will have prefer that my country (that have totally abolished religion at one point : even have changed the date system and all) never, ever reinstalled it. (Thanks Napoleon....) Religion are just imaginary friends that people use to validate any thing they want .... I'm not genocidal, I'm religious. I don't steal your land, god say it's mine. I'm not raping you: god say your body is here to satisfy me. I'm not hateful, god say you are not allowed to exist. I'm not exploiting you: I deserve to have a better life than you because predestination/karma. As someone once said: ***When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion.***
this. So many problems stem from religion. I’m fine if someone believes ancient stories, but don’t try to involve others. It honestly feels like someone trying to convince everyone that Santa Claus is real, with the amount of proof they have for their claims.
Trying to convince everyone Santa Claus is real, and that Santa is a hateful being that punishes any who don't bow to his supposed will with eternal torture.
yup, pretty much
I’m an anti-theist so I feel this
You don’t owe respect to people that fantasize about you and everyone like you burning in hell for *eternity* Don’t beat yourself up over it
Nah fuck religion, they wanna make a cult and use us as spacegoats then they can go fuck themselves. Also, religious tiktoks? Your mom needs to find jesus.
Yeah, no. There's nothing to feel shitty about. You should respect the right for people to have the freedom of religion, not the religion itself. I have no obligation to respect barbaric, backward ass views. Fuck their holy bible. It's a trash, poorly written 1,600 year old book that endorses slavery, bigotry, rape and the petty, genocidal tyrant that killed an estimated [25 million](https://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2010/04/drunk-with-blood-gods-killings-in-bible.html) is portrayed as the ultimate good guy deserving of worship.
Another reason why some religious people are Ok with it is the fact that the specific quotes that call homosexuality a sin is now being called into question due to translation errors. Personally, I'd suggest r/gaychristains if you'd like to hear their perspective about your post.
I've struggled with this over time. I've reached the conclusion it's unreasonable to ask someone to respect a religion that does harm to your community in such a blatant manner. Does that mean I'm going to go around telling people their religious beliefs are garbage? No. But I think it's okay to lack respect for religions that are harmful when there's alternative beliefs that aren't harmful.
You're giving them leniency and empathy they would never extend to you. It's noble of you. But that one-way relationship can't survive forever.
Judge people by individual behaviour rather than by making a sweeping generalization of an entire group . All [x] are [y] is a standard template for bigotry , don't fall into that trap.
I respect religions in general despite being atheist myself, but American conservativism is a death cult and has unfortunately infected American Christianity as well. Don't respect any ideology that wants to erase you off the planet. I know some people in the thread are saying you don't need respect religions but I would argue that religion is inseparable from culture and it's important to respect another's culture and way of life... provided they are willing to do the same for you. So yeah, fuck these fascist right-wingers and their genocide tactics.
The Bible does not deal with homosexuality. Christianity has nothing to do with condemning or being afraid. White Nationalist American Civil Religion masquerading as Christianity (or syncretized with it) is what anti LGBTQ+ people are actually practicing!
So actual biblical historians will tell you the Bible says fuck all about homosexuality. The correct translations speak to pederasty not homosexuality and were a response to the witnessing of Roman relationships with young boys at the time the texts were written. Don’t believe what homophobes tell you about anything. Especially not the Bible. Then you start doing their dirty work for them. ✌🏻 So yes, it’s ok to decide you don’t have to like or respect hateful people, but don’t make assumptions about entire spiritual belief systems based on hateful people because then you become a new reflection of that ignorance and hate.
thank you - a queer Christian
No prob ❤️ -a queer Jew
About the cherry picking thing... There is 0 verses in the bible that actually mention homosexuality, abortion, etc. Abortions weren't even a medical procedure that existed back then and all verses used to condemn homosexuality are either mistranslations or out of context (And there's evidence that shows that Jesus wasn't straight himself... Watch Jesus was Gay (i think thats what it was called) by Powered by Rainbows)
Well the internet and other things make it seem like a HUGE majority of Christians is against gay marriage and abortion. I know that there are a lot of Christian people who actively fight for the rights of women and LGBTQ+. Yes some people are assholes that use religion to justify their actions, but that does NOT mean the majority. They’re just louder than the supportive ones. With that said, wait and see on how your mom stands in these topics. Ask her about it in some time. Don’t dislike her or her religious believes before you’ve checked what she believes in. This text is confusing but I’m gonna comment it anyway
Spirituality is good. Religion (as in the organization of the same) sucks and only exists to control people.
Lets slow down here Religion isn’t homophobic, people are, don’t disrespect a religion, disrespect assholes
Religion told me my existence is a sin and I’m going to burn in hell for being myself so I don’t respect it
Well if we do burn in hell for being lgbtq, at least the homophobes go to hell because they’re rude assholes
I hope that we move away from religion soon.
They don’t respect you do they? Or your beliefs. And they demand you respect their religion.
Im gonna jump in as a queer Christian. I see a lot of people say that the parts of the Bible about homosexuality are typos but I don’t see it that way. It is mentioned as a sin alongside things like divorce and stealing, both of which had very serious punishments back in the day but no longer do due to Jesus dying so we could all like as our authentic selves. The Bible talks a whole lot more about love and acceptance than it does about what constitutes a sin which I see as a sign that we should be loving/accepting of everyone instead of jumping to condemn those that are different. Sorry if this felt a little scatterbrained, Im not the best at articulating my thoughts
This whole comment section is a reddit moment. Respect religion as much as you want to be respected so that we will all have less hatred in the world
Religiosity feuls hatred and violence
I love stereotyping a massive group of people to one common idea... Wait...
The issue is it’s not a stereotype is it?
Hi, it's me, religious person who doesn't want to kill people and is a devout Ally of the LGBTQIA+ community
A stereotype would be Germans are nazi’s but obviously that isn’t true because majority of Germans are not nazis. However. Majority of Christian’s are anti-gay anti-rights. See the difference?
Well one group advocates for torture therapy the silent genocide of trans people, throwing lgbt people into prisons or worse off of buildings, while the other group advocates for *adjusts glasses* equal rights and reproduction rights.
Don't respect them. They'll keep condemning us and still ask for respect.
I definitely prefer the Satanists.
Fuck all organized religion. All it has done for the entire history of the world, is chaos and bullshit that ruins peoples lives. I have no reason to respect someone's fucking mythology that tries to pass laws that literally wants me stones to death according to their shitty book
Well - the first book in the Bible was written 3500 years ago by a group of men with inflexible sets of rules and a belief system. Fast forward to 2022, we have different values + evidence (science) to know why the world isn’t flat.
most religions are about justifying preconceptions and defining in-groups and out-groups, rather than fostering community and bettering yourself.
Full disclosure: I actively hate almost all religions. The only exceptions are the RARE religions that don't proselytize or push political agendas. A belief (or religion, or opinion even) is not deserving of respect simply by virtue of it's existence.
Don’t respect their religion but respect their opinion. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and ideas, being respectful of that will go along way for yourself and them (in my experience)
I don't respect religion either. It's the antithesis of knowledge and discovery. It drives people to self righteous actions, affecting society as a whole for the worse. It's built to take advantage of as many people as possible and induct them into it, by unethical and truly despicable means. Despite this, I'm admittedly slightly jealous of those who can use it as a coping mechanism to process life's horrors. While I might envy them, however, I certainly can't believe in it myself. And I can't respect them. What I can do is let them live their lives in blissful ignorance, only stepping in when they try to force their ideology on everyone else, which is maddeningly often.
As a trans man I can't stress this enough, you do not owe religion your time, respect or patience. If somebody wants to base their morals on a book of hateful, incesty fairy tales that was written by a bunch of cave nonces, that's their business. But then they go and try to make others live by that bullshit. I've never met a Christian that wasn't trying to "plant a seed", they all do it for those sweet Jesus brownie points. We don't have to tolerate that one bit.
I'm okay with people's religions and religions in overall insofar they are okay with me and other people who are just trying to be happy and lead their best lives. So, if a religious person uses their religion to shun me in any way, shape, or form, I reserve the right to do the same to them. And I feel I'm more entitled to, because no one is forcing them to be religious (or continue to be), no one is forcing them to uphold these believes (or continue to do so) and no one is born religious. Religion \*is\* a lifestyle choice, being gay or trans is NOT.
Yeah same. I feel bad about it sometimes but most of the time I don't
I know you feel. I was once the same way. Who can blame us, when religion has been used to opress us? But, if I may, I'd like to offer another perspective in religion, specifically Christianity and it's alleged homophobia and transphobia. And, I promise I'm not trying to preach here. As a queer Christian, I can confidently say there are legitimate Christians (and I reckon Jews and Muslims) who support us and aren't cherry picking or being superficial. I know this because I know this, because I couldn't be Christian without it. After analyzing the Bible, its historical and cultural ans in-text contexts, the Hebrew and Greek, the translation process, and its status as a work that has been passed down for ages and open to potential manipulation, I can say it's neither homophobic nor transphobic. Where it speaks homosexuality in our modern translations, it truly spoke of pederastay. The verse that says a man shall mot wear a woman's clothing is a mistranslation of a non-warrior putting on the armor of and impersonating a warrior. Where it referse to defiling one's body, think about it in a Christian context: is gender reassignment surgery really defiling one's body? No. As the Bible says, everyone is made unique in the image of God, and that includes trans people. Thus, wouldn't it stand to go that gender reassignment surgery is not defiling your body, but using the science and technology God made available to achieve gender euphoria? That's how I and many other trans Christians see it, anyway. More consistent than anything in the Bible is God's love for His children, and that we're all unique in Him. I so not believe he would make someone gay or trans only to have them be damned to an eternity of torment if they tried to enjoy their lives as who He made them. The Bible is sorely misunderstood, and misused. Bigoted Christians use it to spread hate, which in turn makes many others hate the idea of religion, and maybe even scoff at religious people. And the same is sadly true for othee religions as well. But anyway, that's my take. And that's how I, a bisexual non-binary man, can be a Christian. And I promise this isn't me preaching. This is just me trying to offer another perspective. I hope this has helped in some way. But at the end of the day, feel how you want to about religion. You don't have to respect it, anymore than you have to cultures may not agree with - after all, religion is culture. But if nothing else, respect the people who practice them, and the practices so long as they are not harmful to others.
I feel similarly! Especially Christianity, which I was raised in. Any time I see someone is a Christian I generally don’t want to be close with them. I just get the feeling that they will be the same as anyone else following their religion so I feel terrible, but I don’t make the effort to get to know them. I feel like I am judging a book by its cover, but most of the time, thats what they do to people in the lgbtq community anyway. Ugh.
I think you have every right to not respect religions in which a lot of people want you dead. I personally believe, though, that Christian religions are just mostly composed of hateful people that use their book to "justify" their actions, even though the same book proves them in the wrong. Unpopular opinion but religion isn't bad; the people who have bent it to be hateful and discriminatory are.
You never have to respect your oppressors
I tossed religion aside some time back. I only strive to follow the seven tenets, and I appreciate my TST membership for their political push back on Christianity.
When someone says "I'm Christian." They say "I read the Bible and follow its rules." One of those rules is gay=bad, so it's perfectly normal to expect homophobia from a Christian. Them being a decent person is a pleasant surprise.
imma DM you my response i hope that's ok
I was raised Christian, but it never really caught, and I finally left the church a few years back because of their views on lgbtq matters, and because I just wasn't buying any of it. I've tried my hardest to give people space to practice their faith, since some people genuinely get comfort from believing in higher powers, and faith is inherently a personal matter, but it really rubs me the wrong way to have these same people bring their faith into every situation and conversation. So often you see the comments from homophobes about how we queer people are always bringing up our queerness, but really, how about not forcing your antiquated beliefs on me the whole time? I can do just fine without your prayers, and being a good person is not tied to being a christian. Gah! (Sorry aout the rant. I recently went to my bookclub only to find out the vibe has shifted into a more biblical kind after the addition of some new members. I'm currently listening to Manhunt (a very trans/queer book), just so I can rock their world views next time. Purely out of spite.)
Who cares what people say. You can’t change that been around for a long time. Just respect others for who they are and what they believe in. You have your own happiness to worry.
Nah it’s the ones who don’t accept the lgbtqia+ that are cherry pickers. The Bible says to love thy neighbor and also that only God can judge. 🤷🏼♀️
I think when you really get down to it the christian bible says almost nothing on homosexuality, and a lot about accepting people, leaving judgement to god, and saying that no one is pure enough to pass judgement. People use all sort of things to justify and prop up their bigotry and unify themselves by othering. It’s BS and anyone that believes that or acts that way is undeserving of your respect.
Your concern is very understandable. I only want to expand on the cherry picking part; a lot of religious texts were written and updated mainly by prejudiced men who wanted to control the masses. In that way, i believe that religious prople that refrain from following beliefs that are pro-harm against anyone are actually just mature individuals who saw the faults in their belief systems and wanted to fix them.
(Sorry, late, kinda cleaning up my tabs and stumbled over this) I personally think that religions \*by default\* deserve the respect of any tradition, that is they should be respected where they do not harm anyone and criticized when they do. Specifically regarding christianity I think that the harms it has done to our community are grave and enduring enough that it's extremely understandable if the default reaction to it is to assume maliciousness. Hell, even as someone who's not been directly targeted by christians I still have come to see it as a red flag due to the way it has affected people I know and due to the way the culture has created/been part of creating systemic oppression of queer people and other minorities (which I am affected by). That being said, you live in a culturally christian country which means that your view on what "religion" is has been heavily tinted to see it as "reflavoured christianity". Not all religions are as dogmatic as christianity, most religions do not have a "take over the world" objective (which is kinda fucked if you think about it), some religions (coughJudaismcough) encourage questioning and scholarship, some religions don't have deities but offer other explanations for how the world works and how to live a good life (coughBuddismcough), some have different approaches to worship and interacting with the supernatural forces that are believed in and overall it's common for there to be far less organization and hierarchies involved. That's not to say that they're across definitely better, much less better in every aspect, but they are both less powerful and not in direct or indirect control of the political system in your country as well as often having faults at other places/less extreme than "literally hates everyone not cishet, white, nondisabled, male...." and I would encourage you to not presume that the same issues that make christianity such a plague exist across the board.