New Member Here

[Neon Genesis]

Hi, everyone! As you can guess, I'm a new member at this site! I hope it's ok for me to post here as I'm an atheist and not a Christian but I am gay. To give some background, I was raised in the Church Of Christ (the conversative church that doesn't use instrumental music, not the UCC). I believed the bible was the inerrant literal word of God. I was taught to believe homosexuality was a sin. I first realized I was attracted to guys sometime during middle school. At first I tried to ignore it and then I tried to make myself like the opposite sex but I later realized I was only trying to fool myself and I was definitely gay. I was in high school when I finally realized I was gay. I had already came out to all my online friends and they were all very accepting and supportive of me which helped me a lot. The first person offline that I ever came out to was my best friend when I was a senior in high school. She was also very supportive and accepting but I still had my fears God was going to send me to hell for being gay. I eventually came out to one of my Sunday school teachers at church and was asking for help with my sexuality. I then saw a psychiatrist at church who claimed to be able to cure homosexuality. He claimed that he was able to cure this one guy that went to him for help that was gay and is now married to a woman and has kids. The psychiatrist kept insisting that there must have been some childhood trauma that caused me to be gay. I tried praying to God and studying scriptures but the psychiatrist was worthless and didn't help any. No matter how much I prayed for a cure, nothing ever came and so I though God must have hated me and wanted me to go to hell. I started questioning the effectiveness of prayers and if God really existed. I knew there were gay Christians who were able to reconcile their sexuality with their faith.

I read the arguments by Christians that supported homosexuality but there were still many questions I had left unanswered. The final nail in the coffin for my faith was when I came across contradictions in the scripture. I had believed the bible had no mistakes or contradictions in it and was perfect in everything. I thought people were just taking the contradictions out of context to suit an agenda or something. But I checked the verses myself and read the entire chapters they were in to make sure everything was still in context and it was. These were contradictions that did not frankly cast God in a positive light. I have tried asking Christians to justify God's actions throughout the OT for me but so far, only the liberal Christians who don't believe in biblical inerrancy have been able to sufficiently answer these questions to me and I'm a fan of Bishop John Shelby Spong. But even though I tend to agree with liberal Christianity, I'm still unable to make a leap to faith to believe in God but I'm looking for a LGBT community to be apart of and I hope it's ok for me to post here being an atheist.

[Alecto]

Welcome! A lot of the content here does tend to look at Christianity because those churches are the largest and most visible perpetrators of spiritual violence against GLBT people, but this is in no way an explicitly Christian organization. We've got Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, and a Faery or two. Poke around, jump on in. :)

[Gennee]

Hi Neon and welcome :wave:. I am transgender and Christian. I know how a lot of dogma and man-made doctrine can kill the spirit. There are many folks here from many different backgrounds. Feel free to wade in the water.


Gennee
:love::love::pray::pray:

[Pablo Rafael]

Hi Neon,

Atheists are most welcome here. These forums are not specifically "Christian", and all points of view are valued.

Although I firmly believe in the Bible as the Word of God, the literal interpretation that many conservative Christians place on the Bible just doesn't fit. As you said, there are just too many contradictions. I don't see the contradictions as errors, but rather differences in points of view. I see God as far vaster and more wonderful than the human mind can comprehend. The Bible was written by men who understood God only partially and were highly influenced by the culture in which they lived.

Interestingly enough, the idea of the Bible as literal is an idea that is fairly recent in origin. I liked a wonderful Cathoic priest who said that he believed that the principals and ideas of the Bible were inspired; the words were not.

I once was pretty much in the literalist camp. Fortunately I never had any doubt that God loved me even if I was gay and confused about my sexuality.

It is ironic that so many of us brought up in conservative churches have had the struggle with being gay and Christian. It is a struggle that is totally worthless and without reason.

Anyhow, welcome, and please let us hear more of your ideas and opinions.

Tu Amigo, Pablo

[Jennifer5]

Welcome Neon! :wave: Glad to have you here. :)