Nature vs. Nurture--why does it matter?

[Tobi]

Hi all,

I posted this in the "Hello, my name is . . ." forum, but a responder said this would be a good new thread for the main forum. So here goes.

I'm new here. I was browsing the web looking for a forum that would be able to discuss Christianity and homosexuality. I have been a Christian (born again) for the last 18 years. During this period, because of being married and raising a family, I have put aside (buried) my transgendered feelings. Now that my kids are grown and have left home, these feelings are coming back as strong as ever. I believe this forum tends to deal more with homosexuality than transgendered people, but, in my case, I have also been gay identified, and have lived in the past out and open as a crossdressed gay male. I would say that I am truely bi-sexual. My relationships, sexual and otherwise, have been about equal between males and females. Don't get me wrong, I love my wife and have no thoughts of changing our relationship in anyway. She is aware of my TG nature and is supportive.

I am a Bible believing fundamentalist Christian that has a head full of the sin of homosexualality. I have taught Sunday school, been active in the church, served on church boards, etc. I can't, at this time come out with the real me. It is like I live a dual life--in fact I do live a dual life.

So here's my problem, I love the Lord, and I know he is my Lord and Savior, but I am having a terrible struggle reconciling my love of the Lord with my "sin" of homsexuality. Even though, at this time, I am not a practicing homosexual, (and probably never will be again) I cannot help but indentify with my gay brothers with whom I have suffered much in the same fate.

I would like to be a good Christian witness to the gay community, but I'm struggling with all the condemnation that comes down from the Christian community which even makes me want to condem myself. I can't help who I am. I did not choose to have Gender Identity Disphoria. I do believe that Jesus loves me, but how do I deal with the statement, "Jesus loves the sinner, but hates the sin." What do you do, if you feel that who you are is the sin?

When my wife and I go saved we embraced the bible as the word of God and threw ourselves into Christian fellowship. We excepted the teaching that homosexuality is a sin. It wasn't difficult, I had put all that behind me--(so I thought). But, unbidden transgendered feelings, that I had thought were buried forever, have begun to emerge. Even though a person can be transgendered and not homosexual, in my mind it is all the same.

My wife can accept that transgendered people are a combination of nature and nurture, after all she lives with me and has scene my struggles over the years. Also, the Bible (New Testament) does not speak specifically against being transgendered. On the other hand there are verses in the New Testament that appear to speak specifically against homosexuality. We have read Mel White's pamphlet. My wife says that it comes down to whether it is nature or nurture, otherwise accepting homosexuality becomes a slippery slope--what other human behavior do we now accept? Where do we draw the line?

If you can point me in the direction of some good arguments for nurture, I will be very grateful. On the other hand, it may come down to the fact that it is inconclusive. I do know that our God is a God of love. I cannot believe that he would allow a group of people to become a periah when we cannot help who we are. Yes, I can put it all back in the closet so that I can conform to the church's standard of how male and female should be. But, when I do I become a half a person. A part of me dies. Could God want this? Is this my thorn in the side, like Paul's?

Confused, but still in Christ,

Tobi

[Zerbie]

Tobi, you raise so many important questions, and me not being Christian and having such a different background/perspective from you, I don't know that anything I might say in response would help you sort those problems out.

I do think we have no logical choice but to accept who we ARE and how we feel. Who we are, spiritually, eternally, does not change, no matter what we do or how we feel. So who you are is always okay, it is the being that God made. One thing about feelings is that they are always migrating and changing. We have the choice whether or not to act on them, and part of that decision will be made based on whether a certain action is compatible with our values or not. But feelings simply come and go, like thoughts, it is the way with them. It sounds like in many ways you are in a very good place: you have a supportive marriage to which you are committed and you have a sense of who you are as a person. None of that sounds bad to me!

[Emproph]

Hey Tobi,

It’s a good question, but definitely a loaded one. I realize you don’t intend it as such, but it begs the asking of many more questions.

Aside from the already ingrained attempts to “nurture” heterosexuality, that still hasn’t worked (just ask several people here), and especially those born intersexed/hermaphroditic, who were surgically altered to be a particular gender and then raised accordingly, and still grew up with “same sex” attraction, I’ll bite.

If nurture or lack of it were the cause I would think there would be a direct correlation between the amount of that, and amount of gender “confusion” or same sex attraction. Resulting mostly in varying degrees of bisexuality, with a minimum of pure homosexuality.

The next questions I think would be, where, why and how is every trace of heterosexuality removed in the process? Is it gradual or instantaneous? Either way, why would there be no memory of such a profound transformation and why would it be irreversible?

Some few claim to have become ex-gay, though I have yet to see success statistics of total heterosexuality vs. psychological damage done in the process of trying to change. They offer not even statistical proof of heterosexual conformation yet demand of us genetic “proof” of same sex attraction, to me this smacks of insincerity.

What about children of single parents? Wouldn’t they have a higher propensity to grow up gay?
If it’s about nurture as many believe, why aren’t efforts going toward eliminating poverty, child abuse and neglect of every kind, Instead of attacking the GLBT people that currently exist? According to their own theory of nurture being the cause, wiping out social ills would wipe out homosexuality.

It’s a legitimate argument and a practical and understandable notion, but the implications of the question must be addressed in order for it to be a workable theory. Yet I have heard and read, not so much as a peep of acknowledgment in that regard. Not asking such critical questions demonstrates a lack of interest for their answers.

Perhaps a better question would be: What is the criteria for determining whether it is nature or nurture? The next question might be: To what extent does nurture play a role in the aversion of homosexuality vs. the suppression of it.

When it comes down to it, I think asking those questions without prejudice is what’s most important. As long as we’re not “prejudiced” against information and understanding, the route to answers will not be blocked.

And ultimately it comes back to is who is God, and why would God allow such a conundrum? Does God condemn arbitrarily or is there malice unseen regarding same sex attraction / transgender status?

And to what extent is your understanding of God based on the nature of Love or the nurture of Bibilcal and/or preconceived beliefs? Because what if after all possible questions are answered, you’re still not certain?

In fact that sounds like a thread... (rubs chin in scholarly manner)

[revtj]

Dear Tobi,

I appreciated your post and your struggle is a known wilderness to many of us here. Maybe you will find a few breadcrumbs here, I hope so, maybe even manna from heaven.

I wanted to comment on your question about nature vs. nurture. It's a question I posed in another thread "What if it is a choice?" It's a fascinating question to me and not one that I think there is a clear answer to...

The ex-gay movement tends to emphasize neo-Freudianism, teaching that gays are in latency where resolution of the Oedipus/Electra complex determines whether we'll be gay or straight. Thier therapy emphasizes men building strong non-sexual bonds with a male father figure. Women likewise are assisted in resolving thier over-identification with their father by makeovers and learning to be feminine.

Most people are desperate who buy into this. It isn't Freud's scientific view and it has so many unsupported data rabbit-holes in it that it is for me a farce. For one thing, I know lots of str8 men who had lousy relationships with their fathers. And I've known plenty of gay women who had supportive relationships with both parents.

The nature movement is seeking to find the truth in genetics and possibly in the human genome. At least they're demanding real science as proof. The nature argument looks at anthropology and the persistent appearance of the same-gender loving/gender-crossing persons in different cultures.

themattperry

points out an excellent summary of this information in the other thread.

I am sympathetic to the nature argument with several exceptions. I believe the social category of 'gay' is recent and only tangentially related to the roles of same-gender loving/gender-crossing persons of other cultures. "Gay" is a postmodern phenomena related to the rise of a concept of the non-contingent individual (ony about 500 years old) to the extent that we are privileged and free enough to choose it. Of course, that's a good thing for most of us. If you are homeless, hungry, or dying in a tribal civil war, 'gay" would probably be an irrelevant category.

But WHY we choose, or seem to choose it, is probably a unique individual mix of nature/nurture, like everything else about our personalities. So, although I would not agree that being gay is like having blue eyes, I would think it's more like hating spinach or loving turnips.

But you know what Tobi? The real question I am convinced you are asking is not why am I gay but can/does God still love me if I am gay. And the answer is an unequivocal YES.

God loved David who loved Jonathan more than he loved women. God loved Naomi who chose Ruth over national loyalty. Jesus loved the Centurion and his slave, hung out with Mary and Martha, wept when Lazurus died because he loved him. Jesus' disciples readily accepted the Ethiopian Eunuch and he was baptised into the same body of Christ as all the str8 people. And I could go on and on...

God loves you infinitely, incomprehensibly and totally understands your sexual nature no matter what. Every hair on your head, every cell of your body.

Welcome to Soulforce!

[Zerbie]

TJ I hear you as saying that the capacity to love and respond fully to a partner of the same-sex is one thing, and accepting the identity label "gay" is another.

Yep. The phenomenon of people *defining* themselves based upon the gender to which they are romantically attracted is a new one. And imo, a very strange one. But for many people it is a psychologically life-saving definition, we need to remember that.

Tobi, another thing I would say about your questioning. . .simply, God knows you already even better than you yourself do. Whoever, whatever, however you are, He made you. Whatever feeling you have that frightens you, or that you judge, remember that God already knows, and He loves you. He is the One who gave you feelings, the capacity to love, the capacity for sexual interest, and so on. He knows all about it already, and that knowing goes way beyond mere acceptance. God's love is unconditional.

[revtj]

Thanks Zerbie, it is a life-saving self identification for many people, myself included! I do hear from my bisexual, lesbian and trans friends that the idea of the gorgeous young gay male has become an icon of defining what it means to be "gay", and they feel pretty excluded from that. So I want to honor that. In the end we are all so much more the same than we are different, that the splitting of hairs about our different-ness can be tedious, and yet, thank God we are leaving something behind for generations after us who hopefully won't agonize over it as many of us had to...

[awediot]

Tobi,
I am glad to see you have gotten some responses. I hope they contain some helpfull advice. I have started one myself more than once, but brevity is not my forte and they get out of control. I thought I had occupied myself with other posts, but keep coming back to yours. Though I cannot relate directly to the gender confusion you are dealing with (thank the Lord. He must save that one for a particular strength of character), but the pariah feeling, the angst at wanting to worship what so many say doesn't really like you, the grins and nods of pseudo-friends merely proud to have someone to prove what a tolerant person they are, the justified anger at God, I am all too familiar with.

And I know, in my infancy, in my past life, in my subconscious, I did not in anyway choose it.

Long story short, I grew to utterly despise God. He had either made me gay, let the devil do it for him, seperated me from my family, friends and potential real friends, (honesty=bashing), refused to lift a finger to change me, then removed the ultimate escape that suicide offerred by insuring it was just a quicker way to damnation. The trap was airtight and I concluded Hell would be tolerable due to His abscence. I loathed Him, and dismissed Him, but I oddly didn't disbelieve in Him, which would have been easier and more logical...I felt liberated...
(flash forward through the crazy, party years)... I perhaps got to the point where I was ready to take the final leap of faith to atheism. I unconsciously had decided any "god" I would follow, must be PERFECT. Flawless in Love and intelect and other. I was about done with the very idea, had nothing to lose. I not only set the bar into space, but demanded such a God, make me want It again. I didn't care one way or the other.

It answered. It, appologized. It said some people suck in It's name. That they can get things wrong on accident, just as I have and will do in the future. And, It had plans for me... The gay thing, for the first time in my life, was too trivial to mention. He didn't care.

It was not in my head or heart, but more like my Soul suddenly just knew. The thing I couldn't imagine to demand of Him, yet the most obvious, the one thing it didn't dawn on me I was owed, filled me. God appologized, and at that instance, proved Himself to me. Backdoor, enlightened crushing, forrest for the silent trees falling, unwitnessed and deafening one hand clap PROOF. I have not needed faith since... That was about twenty years ago.

I have learned since then, it is the not the objects of our lust, but how we control it, what we allow it to do to us and those around us that is crucial. Gender, yours, mine, ours or theirs is a non-issue. It is nonsensical. I've also come to believe that the Bible (inspired word that it is) has retained the core Truths of what God wants us to know, but has picked up some baggage and additions which served some man's purpose, not God's. Weigh its message, not as to if you like it, or prefer it be another way, but if it makes sense for God to do. Certain actions cause unnecessary pain and selfish harm. They are Sins, and they make sense. God is stunningly logical and His instructions are not arbitrary or hidden in the symbolic. He is wierd, intense, dangerous, mysterious and beyond our scope, but He is not baffeling or obtuse. We have done that to Him and each other for reasons He explained. Your so called sin is a reckless, potent distraction for those who will have alot more 'splaining to do than you.

Okay (wrapping it up wrapping it up) A couple specifics: Let Jesus hate the sin. I have said why I don't see you In that sin, but if I'm wrong (and your and my own alien inclination is a sin) so be it. I will own that sin for now, put it aside, and work on some others. We'll always have flaws, so give yourself a break and work on the one that would take this ones place. It's probably doing more harm than this, and is enjoying your focus on something else. We are always sinners, so quit pickin' at this one.
......And, I may be misreading, but I don't understand the Nature/Nurture dilemma. Is that another way to word the Choice question? Is Nature=God, Nurture=Mom, and Me=choice? Since we know its no choice, and mom did her best (no blaming mom and dad), and genetics is God's handiwork, The winner is: The Creator Himself. Of course He has purpose and reason and love for some of His wildest designs. The insights and strengths and light you will embody in the future because of this struggle, will astound and be used by Him for great things. He will bring those to you who could be helped by only someone like you...."..what other human behavior do we now accept?" Draw the same line at hurting one another, exploiting the weak, liers, cheaters, thugs, whores, dolphin marryers; God bless her silly soul.... And sorry, but yeah, it probably is the thorn in your side. I don't think God wants the pain, He wants the transformation, the diamond nothing else can make.

Hope you can gleen a little peace of mind from this. Please forgive the occasional irreverence and presumption of your sense of humour. I feel we would crumble with unwothyness if we knew what we were to become. God Bless you and your wonderful, rare wife and (probably pretty cool) kids. Hurry up and put your face on... the community could sure use you...

(awediot) Dean

[revtj]

......And, I may be misreading, but I don't understand the Nature/Nurture dilemma. Is that another way to word the Choice question? Is Nature=God, Nurture=Mom, and Me=choice? Since we know its no choice, and mom did her best (no blaming mom and dad), and genetics is God's handiwork, The winner is: The Creator Himself.

Awediot, you oversimplify the Nature/Nurture dilemma, but this a profound declaration nonetheless. When we look at the diversity of creation...grasshoppers, kangaroos, alligators, hummingbirds, etc. it should be no big surprise that same gender loving humans fit in the vastness of it all somewhere!

[vaguy78]

Hey Tobi,

how are things going with you?

Yeah the old age battle of nurture Vs. nature can get pretty complicated. I have been doing some research on this topic mostly because I run across this issue alot in counseling but i'm realizing a lot of things that can be a hinderance to understanding how the nature and nurture variable work together.

I think sometimes in our arrogance, we as humanity and christians think that we understand God's created order in all it's intrinsic components. We tend to like to make things black or white so we can stand in pride but I believe God has things a way that can't be simplified specifically so that we will continually realize our need for him.

It's when we try to surpass our finite boundaries that we get into trouble. I've been pray a lot about this and asking God how it all fits and though I don't have the magic answer, I do know that its not simple and a human life and all components that shape that life are aspects of nature and nuture. There are things that are suppose to be developed in us genetically and there are components of creation that as a human life are developed though nurturing means. For me I think in an ideal world, things would always fit and I do believe that sin has added confusion, but what I also believe is that when it comes to human sexuality, I think that gender is developed biologically, socially, and psychologically, and sexual orientation is developed physiologically, psychologically, chemically and/or biologically. It's not simple or known how these completely work together to shape human sexuality but research is being done and it's out there.


I think the fundamental problem that we think in a very two dimentional way. We look at things from a biological/spiritual point of view only as if it's authoritative above all other components that make up the human experience such as the psychological, sociological and physiological aspects. When God created us, He did not make us simple. I mean the soul alone is more than just a spiritual variable because it connects to the biological component though the psychological and physioligical variables as well. These of course are research theories that are going on but I make the point not to prove one thing or another but to show that there is a way we tend to think that is really not authoritative. I mean to assume that bioligcal components of human nature is authoritative over other components is not founded in scripture or any other authoritative foundation.


I pray that you find the answers that your looking for that you may find peace in this life and the life to come.




derrick

[awediot]

My simplification is an intentional attempt to boil it down or get at the heart of possibly the central issue that feeds homophobia and gays initial self hatred. It IS simple black and white: Did you choose to be Gay? Yes or No. Easy....And why this question is critical is because if Yes, then it may be an immoral choice, you are choosing to sin, and a world of fodder for therapy and speculation is opened, supplying life long careers and sweaty nights of second guessing yourself, not to mention openning the door for the fundamentalist accusations which in this case, might be right... If the answer is No, not, well outside forces may have warped my little mind into preferring an unnatural, culturally imposed luxury that I have possibly a burried, subconscious recollection of making kind of no, (which means Yes) but NO, I never wanted or decided to be like this, NO.

If genetics, an abscent father, over bearring mom and underwearring uncle Bob combined forces to twist any of us into gayness before we were old enough to make a conscious decision, the answer is still NO. Why there is homosexuality at all is another issue, another (eternal) thread and interesting mental masterbation. But when someone answers no, please just take that at face value. Simplistic or not, imposed Himself via nature or allowed by Satan when His back was turned, God wanted it.

[mr_chaas]

Originally Posted by awediot

Long story short, I grew to utterly despise God. He had either made me gay, let the devil do it for him, seperated me from my family, friends and potential real friends, (honesty=bashing), refused to lift a finger to change me, then removed the ultimate escape that suicide offerred by insuring it was just a quicker way to damnation. The trap was airtight and I concluded Hell would be tolerable due to His abscence.

This was me... I couldn't hate God outright or dismiss Him, though, because I knew He was real. Growing up in the A/G, you learn of this God of love... who wants all to come "into the fold." So, you enter this wonderful family of love and then they tell you that, "...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." and you think, "I'm not alone!" Until the fateful day that same pastor gets up and tells you, "Not one sin will enter the gates! You must be without spot or wrinkle to enter Heaven!"

Suddenly I was alone and confused. God loves everyone and nobody is perfect (I John 1:8), but not one sin can enter... so I have to be perfect? I thought about this and I came to a conclusion - I've been introduced to a God of love that can't love me! I've been placed in a mouse race with no possibility of winning. I've been told by the Word I can't be perfect, but yet I have to be perfect to make Heaven? Well... they tell me that the true pain of Hell isn't the fire and brimstone, but the separation from God. Big Deal... The A/G put me there when I was told that my only hope... the God of Love, couldn't love me.

So, I went to my pastor and admitted my attraction to other men response was "Go appreciate the beauty of women." He continued to basically tell me to lust after women until my desires changed. He was a big help. So, here I am at twenty-three (ten to twelve years later) and I still have issues that I can't find the light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes... a lot of the time... it feels as if it would just be easier to drop God and move on with my life. The problem is that I know in my heart He's real.

I just want proof... I wanna know when I lay my head on my pillow that God loves me... and be able to love myself again. Is that too much to ask?

(PLEASE NOTE: This is one A/G church... I am not attacking the denomination because it is so different from church to church.)

[Jamie McDaniel]

Originally Posted by mr_chaas

Sometimes... a lot of the time... it feels as if it would just be easier to drop God and move on with my life. The problem is that I know in my heart He's real.

You're not alone Mr_Chass. So many GLBT people who want to follow God have been where you're at. Not just us, but so many people whose hearts are after the Divine have found themselves in a place of seemingless endless winter, grappling with an irreconcilable dichotomy of God is love on one hand and what their religion tells them God has done or will do on the other.

There are those that all their lives never see the dichotomy. To them the belief of a perfect loving God and the idea of the same being sending the greater part of humanity to a place of unparalleled physical and spiritual suffering is compatible with Christian teachings while two men loving is incompatible.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do in life is to let go of the religious teachings that fail us. But in the release, you discover a secret.

[Zerbie]

People are not God. We have to learn to separate the words and actions of regular people like ourselves from the heart of God.

[awediot]

...But certainly we can grasp profound and meaningful Truths both about God and about this creation He laid at our feet.

Originally Posted by vaguy

"I think sometimes in our arrogance, we as humanity and christians think that we understand God's created order in all it's intrinsic components. We tend to like to make things black or white so we can stand in pride but I believe God has things a way that can't be simplified specifically so that we will continually realize our need for him".

Intrinsic components or the devil in the details. I would never pretend to understand, nor want to, the depths and machinations of Gods work. Some of us may still like the rare, clear cut black and white simply to KNOW something then move to build upon it. Pride may have nothing to do with it. There will always be reason to seek God, and attributing to Him a desire to mystify it so we don't outgrow Him, makes Him sound a bit nervous and concocting tricks because He doesn't think His gifts are enough (my take on your words). I've found the more I am shown, the more fantastic and curious it gets. Not necessarily more complex.

Maybe we like to overcomplicate things in order to justify our confusion and thus our inability or unwillingness to act on the obvious. We've heard a President actually question what 'Is' is.

[vaguy78]

A lack of understanding does not equal confused or over complication. I think we like to justify what we believe because it fits our own agenda sometimes. (me included)

One conclusion that I have come to in reference to this battle is that no one has it completely right and that teaches me to depend on God's spirit to lead me though this life and not allow myself to get caught up in things that may not have the eternal impact that we tend to give it. Some choose to defend, while others chose to live.


The point is that we must face the reality that it happens and that there is no need to go to an opposite extreme by suggesting that I was saying that we can't know God and his creation on very intimate levels.

[revtj]

I have a magnet on my fridge that says:

"If God didn't make homosexuals there wouldn't be any."

I like it because it borrows the flawed logic of forced options, so often at the root of the arguments fired at us LGBT people.

[Dash]

Ya'll might consider this a "sidestepping" of the issue, but...

In the kingdom of heaven, Jesus said we will neither marry nor be given in marriage.

Paul wrote in one letter that in Christ there are no distinctions...neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, etc...

For me, such thoughts have powerful implications for the way I view my own humanity. The essential humanity of any individual is not dependent on any spousal relationship or their perception of gender (their own, or another's).

So the question of Nature vs. Nurture has become, for me, an irrelevant study. I was spending time unraveling who I am, and now I try focus on enjoying they way I'm made. It was only important to figure it out when I thought it was an eternally essential issue.

[awediot]

I wish I had toned the tone down a bit vaguy78. This issue cuts to the bone for many of us. The impatience of my post stemmed from a sense that what was hurting Tobi was being buried in alot of unrelated psycho-sososiologicalifragilistic expialidosiousness that was too clinical, abstract and too dependant on yet more research to be of much help now.

I must confess to having a love/hate bias when it comes to therapy. They can be the best or the worst thing for a person. I do not assume either case of you. I also admitt I am a bit flabbergasted to hear that more than a few influencial counselors still remain unsettled as to the central issue about choice. For myself, that pit was resolved years ago, been filled, shored up and quite a bit of work accomplished on top of it. Certainly having our foundation rattled a little is a healthy, uncomfortable thing. It is why I am on this site. But to have something as simple as confidence in black and white, right and wrong, yes and no, be so wordlessly linked to arrogance and cheap pride, was at first difficult to believe you had said, much less over authoritatively -ogicaled into incoherence (my duh) in the next paragraphs. It felt like being schooled, not shown a light.

And I appologize if I implied that you think we can't know God deeply. That was by no means my intent as I know such things about very few people. I agree with your opening, sometimes. I just don't think this is one of them.. . It is easy and common to "humble" one self into a tenuous, selective ignorance and use the novicaine of awe to push such an alien and brilliant God beyond our reach. Out of sight out of mind...However, you have inspired me to ask myself what agenda may be driving me... And, can't we live and defend? Am I supposed to be one of those? Your point eludes me on that one...

[vaguy78]

Hey buddy,

I see where you are coming from. I think when i was addressing the sitiuation, I was more trying to let him know that sometimes there are no easy answers and we have to learn how to work within that reality.

I think I could have been more clear in what I wrote. When I was speaking, I was assuming that it was implied that i was speaking to a specific type of person that seems to be more common amongst christian counselors.

yeah i believe that you can defend and live, but i guess i was more so talking about those who allow being defensive to consume their life instead of using it as a means to improve the quality of life.

Hey friend, no appologies needed. It's probably my fault for mistakenly overlooking possibly obvious implications.

To answer your question if your one of those, I guess to a certain degree we can be one or a combination depend on the area of life we are talking about. I would not really know about you personally because i don't know you yet, though I hope to get to know.

[Daniel]

Dear Tobi,

What stood out to me in your post was not the issue of Nature vs Nurture, but rather your difficulty reconciling the sin of homosexuality and your love of the Lord. With this unresolved tension, the issue of nature vs. nurture seems the least of your concerns.

What about this idea of the sin of homosexuality? Or how about the idea of Original Sin- ie. we are born with two strikes against us. What kind of thinking is that? Tackling these issues first might put the matter of nature vs. nurture in persespective. My own journey in dealing with my sexuality made me aware that assumptions cause us great suffering.

The assumption that we are sinners bound for hell is a big one to take on, but once faced, frees one to see the things differently.