Religion vs. Belief: Homosexuality

So i made it to my bi weekly church sessions this Sunday. Went to bible class (breakfast is an incredible incentive to wake up an hr earlier on a Sunday to study the bible). So the teacher cut short what he was talking about, to have all the college student talk about what they thought about Bishop Eddie Long (yea the guy i revealed to you on my last post that he was a fellow member of the Illuminati). But well this isn't important, the important thing was what he did after.

He began telling us to open to verses in the bible that showed homosexuality was wrong. I of course was holding my tongue but i whispered to my friend beside me about how in the same chapter in Leviticus it talked about not eating pork and not having sex with a woman on her period. All the verses till that point were in the old testament. But then the life altering moment happened. He told us to read a verse in the new testament.

Romans 1:26-27
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

I had never read a new testament verse that was against homosexuality, so i had conveniently concluded that it didn't exist. So i used the old reliable "the old testament is outdated" to justify homosexuality. I think homosexuality is NOT a choice. So i found it hard to believe that God could make someone a certain way and then chastise them for it.

So i sat there quiet and contemplating. The moment i should have known would happen sooner or later, had happened. My religion directly opposed what i felt was right. So there it was, homosexuality is wrong. It cannot be right, it cannot be natural, because my God would not do that to his creation. It has to be of the devil, homosexuals should die.


But then i remember why i came to the conclusion that homosexuality was natural. I have seen people who tried their hardest to be straight, who dated good looking people, who were not raped as a child, who were loved as a child, and who could no longer deny their homosexuality. I know a girl who since she was in the 8th grade knew she was gay. And no she was not raped as a child. To me, all the theoretical and theological jargon cannot be compared to these experiences. I cannot just say cus it is written in the bible these people are lying to themselves. Homosexuality for some might be a choice but for a lot it is natural. Especially in places like our beloved Nigeria that your life might be in danger, why will you choose to be homosexual.

As for me, I'm straight. But if i came out the closet today, people who know me would not be surprised. They would be like "that explains a lot". But that is just because people can not wrap their minds around a 22 year old male virgin who is not super religious, who puts good looking females that like him in the friend zone or just acts oblivious to their "hints". I have my reasons, some of them i dont even understand but homosexuality isnt one of them. Asexuality might be...lol I remember laughing my heart out recently when i chilled with some old school friends that i went to JSS with, and hadnt seen in 10yrs. One of them asked me if the steroids i was taking cut down my drive to talk to girls. I had not tried to dance or talk to enough girls the 2 nights we had all gone to the club. And no i dont use steroids, but i did get big (muscular) so i get the steroid joke a lot. That comment made my hour.

But yea, i learned something about myself on sunday. When it comes to my beliefs and my religion... I will pick my beliefs. Because after all my religion is just a part of my belief not the entire thing. Because like Azazel right fully put in the top of the blog page

"We Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. We Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. We Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. We Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. We Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. We Believe only what we ourselves test and judge to be true"

This post was also inspired by Z's post on Bella Naija. http://www.bellanaija.com/2010/09/27/queer-till-i-quench-zs-story/comment-page-2/#comments

You people are slowly sucking me into the naija blog world.

WHY DO BLACK PEOPLE HATE HOMOSEXUALS??

                  

So I have honestly come to the conclusion that "Black People" are (Idk the word to use) but I will settle for "DENSE". Honestly, like black people find it so easy to HATE, and other people use our HATE for each other to manipulate us.
Anywayz, in my school the other day this Black pastor came for this educational seminar thing and after he finished talking I asked him whether he would marry a "gay couple" and this man said. "No, I would not marry a gay couple, because my "personal beliefs" will not allow me to marry them.
I swear to Allah I almost flipped, like I thought he would say something like "his religion" stops him from giving them marriage and then maybe we could discuss on that front, but this dude had the audacity to say his "personal beliefs" stop him from marrying gays. So, after the whole thing me and a group of students where now discussing about what he had said and we pointed out that it was the same "PERSONAL BELIEFS" that the justice of peace in lousiana had for not wanting to marry "interracial couples", it was also that very same "personal beliefs" that made it illegal for interracial couples to get married in this country. It was also those same "personal beliefs" that made it possible for the blacks in these country to be enslaved for close to 100 years.
Please I am here to remind you all, that just because you have a "personal belief" does not mean you have to act on it, because your personal belief might be stopping a group of people from being happy. In the 2008 elections in California, a proposition called Prop 8 was put on the ballot. This proposition would ban gay marriage from the state entirely. The proposition passed with a vote percentage of 51% to 49%. The vote was so close, and it passed because BLACKS in the state voted overwhelmingly to ban gay marriage. OVERWHELMINGLY!! Lmao blacks make me laugh, so the very same people who for years fought for equality and rights now turned around and denied equality and rights to another minority. Such Irony, my yoruba friend would say IRO NI!! So they asked one of those baggar black voters why he voted to ban gay marriage, this baggar said the exact same thing that black pastor said. ""I think it's mainly because of the way we were brought up in the church; we don't agree with it," said Jasmine Jones, 25, who is black. "I'm not really the type that I wanted to stop people's rights. But I still have my beliefs, and if I can vote my beliefs that's what I'm going to do." another black voter said this  " "God doesn't approve it, so I don't approve it. And I approve of Him." 

So the first commenter said he voted on his beliefs, and I've already tackled that line of reasoning, the second comment is what riled me up. "God does not approve of it"??? U have got to be shitting me, again I repeat blacks are dense. Wasn't it the same bible that "whites" used to justify slavery? Didn't whites also claim that God approved of slavery? NEWSFLASH!!! People have always declared human judgements as divine commandments. Even the same bible put down women in the old testament, but do we follow it? No. What is the obsession with "CHURCH" among the black community? I am not saying that we as "blacks" should not go to church or be christians etc, but we should have common sense nah. We should know by now that it is so easy to use the bible to deny people rights, so we as a people should never EVER use the bible to deny anybody rights, because we have seen firsthand where that leads to. Moreover, gay couples being married does not AFFECT anybody one bit. So I don't understand why this thing is taking so long? Are people really that hateful and spiteful?

In Nigeria, the gay church that was created in Lagos was BURNT down. Why? Can't gay people be christians as well? Am telling you, when it comes to religion, nigerians and africans in general like to OVERDO it. Blasphemy gave me this quote about "Religion" in Nigeria.
"In Nigeria, religion is an event for many persons, not a way of life even when they pretend that it is. There is a yawning gap between private and public morality that explains individual and group attitudes. It is a contradiction that outsiders may find puzzling but which means nothing to us at home."
You can't have every baggar out there acting upon their "PERSONAL BELIEFS". Ok, I have a personal belief that I myself am the best thing since slice bread, it's a BELIEF!!! and that's what it will always remain, a BELIEF!!..
In conclusion, if your "Personal Belief" brings misery and suffering and pain to anybody or any group, then your belief is not RIGHT! CAPICHE...




P.S: I wrote this in such a hurry, because my ass has to watch this show of mine. Forgive any mistakes o.
Btw

GOD APPROVES OF HOMOSEXUALITY AND HOMOSEXUALS ARE NOT GOING TO HELL!!!

Please before I go on, I do not really intend this post to be one in which I find a problem with the bible or anything. I feel that this should be a "chill" post, just follow me and think and lets get through this "less controversial post" today. Please open your bibles to "Hosea 1:1-10..

God commanded Hosea, prophet of Israel to basically go and marry a prostitute, sleep with her, make her his wife and use her to deliver babies that the lord would use as an example to showcase how much he detested his chosen people "jews".

God commanded/gave the go ahead to Hosea to go and marry a prostitute. First the woman was a prostitute, and when she got married she committed adultery. Hosea threw her out, and God told him to go and take her back again after she had gone back to her "whoring" ways. Hosea was already unequally yoked with this "whore" but he got a "pass" because God gave him the "greenlight" to commit this sins in his name.

Now if another pastor in this our times was to do something that went against God's teachings, but told us that God gave him a "pass" or that God "commanded" him to do it. Would we believe him/her or would we throw such a pastor out of the church. Would we not leave that particular church saying that that man of God had gone rogue and was now a "false prophet". My point is this, Hosea  the prophet was able to marry a prostitute/adulterer and the people did not question his claim that "God" told him to do it. They took him at his word when he said God told him to do it.

I am not sure whether any of you have heard about the tale of Carlton Pearson. He was a black preacher who was very popular, had a megachurch until suddenly he had an awakening. He started preaching that there was no hell, and that God had told him gays where supposed to be loved. He even went as far as preaching a gospel of "inclusion", that nobody was going to hell and that everybody was saved.

My point is this, this man claimed that God told him all these things, he says that he has been told by God to say "these things". So why did the church kick him out, he was literally tossed out of the church. Naturally, he was branded a heretic, shunned by his fellow preachers and if it was in the olden days, homeboy would have been strung up to a stake and burnt at that lovely stake.. Why would a preacher who had everything going good for him, suddenly risk the "err" of his fellow preachers and church members by preaching such stuff if what he was saying wasn't "TRUE"? Why would he suddenly start saying stuff he knew would get him in trouble? So apparently, he now preaches in a small church, gays, sinners, etc are welcome in his church and he preaches a gospel of inclusion.

When Hosea did something that went against God's teachings, he got a pass because God commanded him to do what he did, even though it was a sin. Carlton Pearson does something that goes agaisnt the teaching of the bible, and he is branded a heretic. Why the double standard? Where is the "FAITH"? Why do christians limit "God"? I mean he works in mysterious ways, so we should clearly not hold him to the standards we ourselves judge to be true. As i've previously pointed out, God does not necessarily have to obey/follow his own "laws/commandments" concerning homosexuals. Who says that God could not have changed his mind concerning "gays"? I mean it's not as if he can create another "Post New" Testament portion of the bible and let everybody know he has changed his mind like he did in the New Testament. But lets be honest with ourselves, even if God has "inspired" a writer to write another testament of the bible, which one of us is going to believe such bull? Even christians themselves would toss such a person who claims to have written a "Newer Testament" out of the church and probably have him/her killed. In the Old Testament, a whole lot of laws where made that were later repealed/amended in the New Testament by Jesus. For example, there was the "eye" for an "eye" law that was repealed by Jesus and other hosts of laws that were repealed. So, if God could do repeal some of his laws in the OT and then provide brand new ones for the NT, why is it impossible to think that he could now very well approve of "homosexuality"?

In conclusion, GOD APPROVES OF HOMOSEXUALITY AND HOMOSEXUALS ARE NOT GOING TO HELL!! according to the "man of God" Carlton Pearson. If you want to learn more about this preacher, the link to his videos will be posted below.

Carlton Pearson Link 1
Carlton Pearson Link 2
Carlton Pearson Link 3