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inspiredcreativity
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[8093666]
[2008-08-13 22:17:32 +0000 UTC]
"Matthew"
(United States)
# Statistics
Favourites: 591; Deviations: 105; Watchers: 627
Watching: 85; Pageviews: 71550; Comments Made: 13362; Friends: 85
# Interests
Favorite bands / musical artists: EnyaTools of the Trade: Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Charcoal, Pencils, Watercolors, etc
# About me
A LITTLE ABOUT MEI am a 60 year old Gay man, way-old, and I have been married to my husband Greg for over 25 years and counting, and now married under Washington State law. My degree is in Engineering, from a Merchant Marine Academy (not military), and I went to sea to sail as an Engineer on Supertankers, and worked up to Chief Engineer. I retired on my own investments when I was 34 years old, and went into Full-time volunteer work in a Soup Kitchen and doing in-home care helping those dying of AIDS. I had also started doing volunteer Peer Counseling to the Gay Community (trained at the University of Washington). I also started doing secondary and primary care of those dying of AIDS. After 8 years, I was no longer able to do physical labor in the Soup Kitchen, so I decided to focus much more on counseling. When I became disabled, I could no longer help those with AIDS, so I started doing all of my counseling using the internet.
In art, I started with pencil, charcoal and ink drawing, as well as watercolor. Then I primarily did metal art for about 17 years, since I was also a machinist, welder and metal fabricator, as well as certified electrician and plumber, etc. A year after retiring at age 34, I purchased my first Apple computer and Photoshop 1. Digital Photography barely existed in 1990. I had some experience working with film in a darkroom, which helped me learn Digital Photo Editing, and then Digital Art. When I felt more confident in my skills, I started a Digital Graphic Design Company, using Adobe Photoshop, PageMaker (later InDesign), Acrobat, Illustrator, and Painter.
It is believed that I started developing arthritis at around age 12. It was not much a life-limiter until my early 30's, and became crippling in my late 40's. The disease is progressive and will do me in, since the progressive nerve damage is now effecting my internal organs. I am now unable to do much of anything, including my art. Pain medications have had severely affected my cognitive and memory functions. The disease has progressed to the point where I am effectively homebound and rather non-functional, other than my online volunteer counseling. I am no longer able to dance or do much of anything physical, including much walking.
I was also born with Autism Spectrum Disorders, with High Function Autism and Sensory Integration Disfunction being dominant. I failed 1st grade and was going to be put in a school for the Mentally Retarded (what they called it back in 1960). Thankfully my parents borrowed money to have me tested, which was when the Sensory Integration Disfunction was found. After a lot of physical therapy and one year of private school, I was able to skip 3rd grade. I was in speech therapy up through the 6th grade.
I also faced physical abuse at home until I was about 15 years old, and bulling and isolation at school. Fear, loneliness and self-hatred defined much of my childhood. Autism itself acts to socially isolate you. I always felt like I was on the outside looking in, never fitting in anywhere or with anyone. When I was 11 years old, I was discretely following cute boys around, and at 12 years old, I fell in love with a boy and came to realize that I felt about boys the way I was supposed to feel about girls. When I was 13, I tried to come-out to my aunt, but she just brushed it off as a phase. Soon after that my Priest told us Altar Boys that when a boy is attracted to another boy, he is an Abomination in the eyes of God and doomed to burn for an eternity in the everlasting fires of Gahanna. I had wanted to be a Missionary Priest. Soon after that my Faith shattered and I tried to jump off a Freeway overpass, just to have some man grab my feet.
Despite knowing that I felt about boys the way I was supposed to feel about girls, I had no clue what sex was or even what swear-words meant, or what Faggot or Queer meant, until I was 19 years old, so you can see how isolated, innocent and naive I was. I was actually stalked by girls through both Jr. High and High School, which made my life more miserable. However, because of that no one thought I was Gay. I was bullied and isolated because of my Autism.
When I entered the Academy, everything changed. They guys fully accepted me, included me in everything, and even liked me, which was a completely new experience for me. The Academy basically became my new family and I experienced rapid personal growth, and I thrived. Back then, in the Merchant Marine, Gay men would literally be killed if discovered, tossed over the side of the ship. I had to watch myself carefully. One time on a ship, I got caught sitting down and crossing one knee over the other, then got razzed for a week for, “Sitting like a Queer.” Even mail was not private, so my partner then, Paul, became Paula, and I had to constantly change ‘him’ to ‘her’ and ‘he’ to ‘she’ when talking about home.
On my last ship, retiring from sailing, I sent out over 50 letters to my best mates at sea, coming-out to them that I was Gay. I then came home to find an empty house, empty bank accounts, and no partner. It shattered me. Then letters started coming back from my best mates at sea, and about half of them totally rejected me with outright hatred, including two death-threats, and comments like, “I hope you die a horrible lingering death from AIDS,” “Burn in hell Faggot,” “You don’t deserve to live,” “Fu**ing Queer,” etc. About another quarter of the letters were not answered and about a quarter were supportive. The end result all of these things was that I almost succeeded in killing myself. I only survived due to severe allergic reaction to a sedative I took to relax myself into the dying process. This is when I finally got some counseling.
I needed to learn how to overcome the worse of my Autism challenges, to meet people, make friends, and socialize. I found a Gay & Lesbian Dance place where everyone seemed to be having a blast, so I started learning how to dance, eventually learning to both lead and follow Two-step, West Coast Swing, Tango, Fox-trot, Rhumba, Waltz, Samba, Mambo, Bolero, etc, as well as going enjoying a club dance floor. With my kind of Autism, dancing should have been ‘impossible’ to learn, but I just kept going 5 to 6 nights a week, taking lessons, and forcing myself to introduce myself to one stranger each night and socialize (harder than you could ever imagine). I pushed myself so hard to learn how to dance and to socialize with people that my brain literally remapped itself, forming new neural pathways around problem areas. This process is called Neuroplasticity. It brought real joy and happiness into my life, as well as a lot of love.
I loved dancing, rock climbing, hiking, whitewater rafting, landscaping and building things. But one-by-one, I could no longer do the things I loved. I kept dancing until I was coming home and vomiting from the pain. As I keep losing the ability to do things I love, I have to keep reinventing myself and learning new ways to fulfill my life. My hard life has given me a true appreciation for the many small or simple things everyone else takes for granted. This allows me to find happiness in each day, despite the constant pain, as well as physical and mental limitations and knowing I will not exactly have a long life. My partner Greg helps care for me, and I feel certain that he will stay with me until the end. What more can a guy ask for?
Alas, little of my work is posted. There was no internet to speak of when I did most of my digital art, and then no way to post art. Almost all of the sold and commissioned work was done under older contracts that did not allow posting a likeness of the work on the internet, which means it requires written permission to post, and that is too big of a project for me. I posted mostly things that marked important personal moments or have emotional meaning for me.
I am astounded by the breadth and depth of the creative and artistic work form the artists here on deviantART. I am amazed at how creative and imaginative young artists are. DeviantArt is like a candy store with a huge variety of candy. I am very thankful for all of the artists here who have shared their work with us. While I do get attacked by Christian Fundamentalists on DA, I have never before found a community like this where almost everyone is so cordial with each other, respectful of each other, encouraging, and willing to help each other. A big ‘Thank You’ to all of the artists here.
Live life to the fullest every day of your life. Take nothing for granted.
Matthew
# Comments
Comments: 1951
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Hello, Matthew. How are you? I hope you remember me, I come here every once in a while, because I haven't got enough time to spend here on DeviantArt. I really miss this place. I'm a grown up now, I've graduated in Foreign Languages and I'm currently working as a teacher in a language school (mostly English, but I also have students studying Spanish or German). I keep on taking photographs whenever I can (yes, working and studying at the same time can be tough and, sometimes, I feel like I can't cope with everything... but I brace and convince myself that I can't make it).
But let's not talk about me, I hope you are feeling well - or maybe at your best. Looking forward to reading your reply to this message.
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Hi, I think it has been about 10 years, but I do vaguely remember you. I had gifted you a subscription to DA.
I am happy to hear that you are making a difference in people's lives as a teacher. Yes, studying and working full time is very difficult. My sister worked full time and worked to get her college degree. It took a long time, little sleep and partial starvation, but she succeeded, and that led to an amazing career as an ocean cartographer with NOAA. She is the mother of digitizing ocean cartography in the world. Many years ago no one wanted to take on the project. She did not think she could do it but I encouraged her to take it. Then I tutored her in the higher math and some other things she needed. The rest was self-taught.
Out of high school, we both worked in the same factory making electronic parts for $2/hour, working the midnight to 8 AM in the morning shift so that we could go to school during the day, do homework, nap, eat and run back to work again. Not much time to sleep and no time for fun.
I had a dream to graduate college in 3 years, then work for 10 years, saving and investing, then retiring for life so that I could devote my life to volunteer work. It was incredibly difficult and I was tempted to give up a few times. But then the day came when I was able to stop working for an employer and devote myself to hospice care, feeding the hungry, etc. I went back to school at the same time to become a Peer-Counselor. This worked out well because when I could no longer physically do the heavy work of taking care of people and shifting heavy food around, I could still do counseling. I also started a digital art company back in 1990 when it was almost unheard of, as a part-time thing, which was all self-taught.
In other words, please don't give up on your goals and dreams.
Sometimes life forces you onto another path. My younger sister earner a doctorate in both Physics and Chemistry, which a minor in oceanography. But her graduation coincided with the fall of the Berlin wall and a rush of Eastern European and Soviet professors and doctorates into the USA, filling all possible positions. She got temporary jobs to survive and then volunteered as a science advisor to the US Congress. This opened doors to a job in the governement and she became an expert in energy and water sustainability, doing amazingly well. She never really got to use her doctorate in doing the research she wanted to do, but she had a fulfilling career. The years of schooling gave her a lot of self-discipline and skills that she later needed. The trick is to be adaptabel to changes in life and the environment.
You are continuing to gain self-discipline and skills of your own by continuing your education and working with others. These things will be useful to you all of your life.
I also miss being able to talk with people on DA and explore the endless supply of great art. It took more and more of my time to help young people, while at the same time my health kept getting worse. I am now home-bound and unable to do much of anything. Even sitting here typing is very limited to about 20 minutes at a time. As time has flown by, more of my joints have joined the symphony of pain, with my pelvis and spine being the worse, then shoulders, knees, toes, and knuckles, etc. We have tried a number of medical and even some eastern interventions. Some have helped but soon fade away. In a few months, we will try another experiment. I am also seeing a pain psychologist who teaches you how to meditate to decrease pain and convince your amygdala (in your brain) that although the pain is real, the pain is not actually harming you. My brain has perceived the decades of continuous pain as a continuous threat. This causes the body to produce stress hormones like cortisol and pain receptors in your brain actually become oversensitized. Anyway, I wish I could report better news.
Despite my situation, I still try to find enough bright spots in each day to make living worthwhile. As I become more and more limited in what I am able to do, I am trying to see it as simply more challenges to work around and still get something out of life. The things I used to define my life by are mostly all gone now and this has forced me to define myself in more meaningful ways.
My biggest challenge of the last few years has been the death of my older sister. she was the closest person in my life, best friends for as far back as memory takes me. I managed to get through the deaths of both of my parents in the same year, then Greg's mother and aunt (with whom I was very close), and the death of two of my cats, but the sudden and completely unexpected death of my sister has completely thrown me off the rails of my life. After 3 years it is slightly easier but still feels like it happened a few months ago. going through all of her things (still ongoing) has been daunting.
Life goes on. I hope my situation improves but in the meantime I make the most of each day. I am frustrated because I have so many projects I want to work on but find myself very limited. Life is seldom fair. My suggestion is to simply keep doing your best and follow my rules for finding happiness, lol: Finding HAPPINESS, Fulfillment & Contentment . I read these keys at least once a week to keep reminding myself of what I need to do. some things are all but impossible, but others I can certainly do.
Thank you for checking in with me. It is always nice to hear back from people I became friends with online.
All the best, Matthew
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Happy Birthday Matthew! I know your bithday is not today, but in the next few days I won't probably be able to log in and so decided to anticipate my wishes! 
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Thank you. It has been a long time since we talked. I am still alive and surviving. I have been in narcotic withdrawal for the last 3 months as I transition to a different drug. You would think that going from one narcotic drug to another would not be a problem, but each narcotic acts on the brain's receptors in different ways. Unfortunately, the new drug is not doing much for my pain. this severely limits what I can do and my quality of life is not good. My big goal is to get off the new drug by Christmas and be free of narcotics. Then I have to see if I can live with the pain.
Research says that using narcotics for many years can actually make pain worse. I am taking a chance in the hope that they are correct. I am also seeing a pain psychologist to help learn how to use meditation better to reduce pain.
I hope that life is good for you and your family.
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Hi Matthew! I know that you are a strong and tenacious person, but to endure physical pain for so many years must be exhausting. I sincerely hope that your attempt to suspend narcotic drugs will succeed.
My life proceeds, as for most people, with ups and downs, but overall I have no right to complain. In three weeks my only daughter will get married ... I am happy for this, but at the same time I know that I will miss her presence here at home. However, the most important thing is that she and her husband are happy together.
I send you a big, warm hug hoping that you can continue to be as strong as you have been for your whole life and that someone will support you with love along your difficult path.
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Thank you for the warm hug and hopes. Congratulations to your daughter for finding love and getting married. Greg and I have been married for almost 30 years. It is sad when those we love move away from us, but this is the way life is. As people become less prominent in our lives, we can make the effort to bring another closer or to bring another into our lives. Alas, I am very isolated and this has not been possible. With the death of my sister, I am far more alone. However, I have found that when we are isolated and alone we can still fill up our lives. Ideally, we should go out and seek connections with people, but this is not always possible. I try to remain hopeful and focus on 'now.' We all have challenging paths in our own ways, but some people carry a heavier burden. This is part of the randomness of life.
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Dear Matthew, your ability to find the courage not to give up, even when everything seems to go wrong, strikes me deeply and I admire you. Indeed, despite physical pain and loneliness, existing is still infinitely better than the nothingness of not existing. Being here now, breathing, seeing, feeling ... thinking ... everything is extraordinary, miraculous, and this awareness can help us to be strong and not to be defeated by an adverse fate. I hope you continue to be strong enough not to be overwhelmed by pain and isolation.
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Thank you. Sometimes I do get overwhelmed and then depressed, but I can usually bounce back to normal mode, which is not happy but also not depressed, more like existing. I suppose it takes courage to choose to live when you want to die to escape the misery, but I also find that I fear to die. I don't believe in Gods or external heavens or hells. Religion must be a real comfort to people who suffer or who face death.
I am seeing a pain psychologist who is teaching me to meditate and focus on my pain. I know this sounds backward, but strangely, when you are in a relaxed state and focus on your worse area of pain, the pain shifts away, and if you chase it, it gets lower in intensity and even goes away for a short time. The purpose of doing this is to help train my brain away from Chronic pain. Chronic Pain rewires your brain. The brain gets stuck on the flight or fight response to injury or danger. The amygdala is the part of the brain that remembers when you burned your finger on a stove and then makes you beware of stoves in the future. It handles the response to danger and injury. I have to work to convince this part of my brain that the pain itself is NOT harming me. This is extremely difficult to do. Getting into a relaxed mode to meditate and do the required work is very challenging when pain is very high, especially for someone like me who needs to keep moving to keep pain under control. Such is life...
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thank you for the Birthday Greetings. 63 seems very old. I don't feel that old, LOL.
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Hahaha.
Didn't know you are 63 now.
😅
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The older you get, the faster time seems to move. It is a matter of relativity. If you are 10 years old, 1 year represents one-tenth of your life and waiting a month can seem like a very long time. If you are 100 years old, 1 year represents only one-hundredth of your life and waiting for one month seems to go by goes by in a flash. I have heard a lot of young in my life complain of boredom, yet it is not a concept I am familiar with. Even sitting in a doctors office waiting to be seen is an opportunity to create something in your mind.
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Damn.
Time really is weird
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Hi Mathew,
I am looking at doing a world peace project where I would like to use your world map projection artwork as part of a print for t-shirts to raise money. Could you please contact me via my website kerlunkdotcom to discuss my project. Thanks, David.
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Hi Matthew,
I am looking at doing a world peace project where I would like to use your world map projection artwork as part of a print for t-shirts to raise money. Could you please contact me via my website kerlunk.com to discuss my project. Thanks, David.
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Hi David,
I replied with permission for use in your charity project, via your website contact page.
Matthew
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I already answered this for someone else, in great detail, on the deviation page in question. I don't have time now to find all the relevant information, but a quick scan of The Catholic Catechism: Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines for Pastoral Care, I found these three passages:
1. A considerable number of people who experience same-sex attraction experience it as an inclination that they did not choose.
2. To the extent that a homosexual tendency or inclination is not subject to one’s free will, one is not morally culpable for that tendency.
3. While the Church teaches that homosexual acts are immoral, she does distinguish between engaging in homosexual acts and having a homosexual inclination. While the former is always objectively sinful, the latter is not. To the extent that a homosexual tendency or inclination is not subject to one’s free will, one is not morally culpable for that tendency. Consequently, the Church does not teach that the experience of homosexual attraction is in itself sinful.
I have discussed this issue extensively in the past and see no point in repeating it again and again.👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Hidden by Commenter
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Hi, I replied and explained why Homosexuality persists over the millennia of humankind and in the animal kingdom, in my New Testament + Homosexuality .
HINT: Fecundity in family lines shares genetic links to homosexuality.
As for God, I have no worries about judgment. Even as a young boy I worked daily at being a good person, as I have continued to do. When I was 34, I quit my job and started doing full-time volunteer work, which I still continue to do at age 61. I worked caring for the dying, feeding the hungry (soup kitchen) and doing counseling. When my body could no longer do physical stuff (arthritis started developing in at around age 12) I did only counseling and fundraising for Street Kids.
Although my first few sexual encounters were outside a relationship, they taught me why I should wait and only be sexual in a loving committed relationship, which I have done the rest of my life. There is nothing bad or unhealthy about my homosexual love, relationship, and sexuality. We are better people because of our relationship. Then people like you come along and try to tell the world that our loving relationship is bad and a sin. I would suggest that you focus on your own life and your own spiritual path and not spend your life throwing stones at others or judging others. Those who focus on imposing their beliefs, judgment and will on others do so because it feels empowering to feel like you are righteous, superior and better than others. A good spiritual person focuses on their own spiritual path and life.
I focus on helping others, not tearing others down. When I shared a meal with some Christian Fundamentalists, they naturally brought up the homosexual topic. I explained that discussing that would only lead to strife and negativity, then directed the conversation to other Christian topics I knew we would have in common, resulting in 3 hours of agreeable conversation, with no anger or negativity.
You can attack homosexuality all you want and spend many hours a day doing so, but if you direct that at Sexual minorities, it will only result in negativity, in upsetting people, which is why I believe some Christians do it. They get off on hurting what they consider to be sinners. They get to feel superior when putting others down and telling them that their love, their relationships are all a sin and you will burn in hell for romantically loving someone of the same gender, and express that love through sexuality, just like heterosexual people do.
You then justify all of this with the mistranslated words of other people, NOT with the words or teachings of Jesus Christ. The world would be a much better place if Christians stated behaving more Christ-like and actually follow his teachings. Have you read the Two Great Commandments (Matthew 22), Semon on the Mount (Matthew 5), and Semon on the Plain (Luke 6)?
I have an extensive write-up about translations and what can go wrong. In Corinthians and Romans, translators translated a word-pair from Coptic Greek to Latin, to mean homosexual sex. In order to make a correct translation of any text, one must study the CULTURAL influences on the language at the time of the writings.
Consider the English word-pair ‘Lady Killer,’. A direct translation would be ‘a person who kills ladies,’ or ‘a lady who kills.’ A translator would have to choose which to use. But it reality, ‘Lady Killer’ means ‘a man who knows how to charm ladies.’ The only reliable way to determine the meaning of a word, phrase, or word-pairing is from the cultural context of its use, how it is used and in what direct context it is used. For an ancient language, you need to look for as many other usages of that word, phrase or word-pair in other writings of that time period, to try to discern its usage.
When non-biased scholars look for how the word-pair that Paul used is compared to how it is used in other Coptic Greek writings of the same time period, they do not get the same translation of the word-pair that church translators used (homosexual or same-sex sex). I go into the etymology of both words and the word pair in my New Testament + Homosexuality , if you really want to understand it.
You blindly accept whatever your church tells you to believe, the same church that committed genocide when Pope Innocent III proclaimed he had a vision from God that the Cathari were heretic and declared Holy War against them, killing and burning at the stake, approximately 40,000 children, women and men, all in the name of God. In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII blamed the Little Ice Age on witches, leading to centuries of innocent women and men being burned at the stake, for nothing. He had inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jacobus Sprenger systemize the persecution of witches. He said they could raise hailstorms, lightning, violent storms, wretched cold… He did it because people were giving less money to the church and fewer people were going to church. Scapegoats are a tried and true method to solidify power, SHIFT BLAME, and unite people against a common enemy.
In the Christian Inquisitions, we saw the torture and/or death by fire of many of thousands of people (over 125,000 people investigated in Spain alone), all in the name of God. The Catholic church is still riddled with corruption. Saints we prayed to as children turned out to never have existed.
The bible, old and new testament, justify slavery (interpreted that way) all the way into the 18th century. The books of the bible were haggled over in 3 North African Synods, where many gospels were banned. Roman Emperor Constantine wanted to use Christianity as a unifier (he was dealing with hundreds of pagan religions), but Christians were fighting with each other, the Western church and the Gnostics. The Western church had a Patriarchal and hierarchal structure, while the Gnostics were decentralized and more spiritual. They had women priests. Constantine ordered the first Council of Nicea with instructions to unify the church. He probably had a lot to say in what he wanted (justification for slavery, patriarchal, etc) but there are no records about it. The Gnostics lost and were then hunted down and killed if they would not convert. Every single bit of their literature was burned. Nothing remained until the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, and they are still trying to piece it together.
Did you know that Christmas and Easter are not celebrated on the dates they actually happened?
Emperor Constantine went further by incorporated the Pagan holidays and festivals into the Christian church ritual—attracting the Pagans, but he gave the holidays and festivals new "Christian" names and identities—thus appeasing the Christians.
Early Christian believers kept Saturday as the Sabbath until March 7, 321 CE when Emperor Constantine passed a law requiring believers to worship on Sunday, the day the pagans worshipped the sun-god. Believers still kept Saturday as the Sabbath until another law was passed eleven years later. This law signed into a decree by Emperor Constantine forbid believers to worship on the Sabbath (Saturday) and it was punishable by death by the Catholic Church. Many believers were burned to death by the Catholic Church for keeping the Sabbath.
Jesus was not even born in the winter, let alone December 25th (winter solstice), which was a major Pagan holiday shared between many Pagan faiths, with roots from the Persians, Babylon, Arabia and Egypt. Every sun-god was born on December 25th. Amun-Ra, Horus, Mithra, Tammuz, and Zeus were born on December 25th. Yule is the Babylonian name for Infant, in the Pagan festival commemorating the figurative birthday of the sun and the renewal of its course. The Yule occult colors are Red & Green.
Easter, the Easter Bunny, and eggs are all rooted in Pagan rituals/celebrations/holidays. One mythological legend says that sometime after Semiramis died, a huge egg dropped from heaven. Out of the egg came a re-incarnated Semiramis, now a goddess. The Babylonian Talmud refers to her as Ishtar or Easter. The forty days of Lent symbolize one day for each year of Tammuz' life. This period of time is celebrated in the "Christian" church by giving up something to mourn the death of Tammuz, the son of the pagan goddess Semiramis! The (Easter) bunny is the oldest pagan symbol of fertility—Semiramis. The date of Easter is also celebrated by the Druids. In ancient times, eggs were used in the religious rites of the Egyptians and the Greeks, and were hung up for mystic purposes in their temples… The classic poets are full of the fable of the mystic egg of the Babylonians.
Jesus was not even born in the winter, let alone December 25th (winter solstice), which was a major Pagan holiday shared between many Pagan faiths, with roots from the Persians, Babylon, Arabia and Egypt. Every sun-god was born on December 25th. Amun-Ra, Horus, Mithra, Tammuz, and Zeus were born on December 25th. Yule is the Babylonian name for Infant, in the Pagan festival commemorating the figurative birthday of the sun and the renewal of its course. The Yule occult colors are Red & Green.
The Christmas tree is Nimrod revived—the slain god come to life again. The Christmas tree was equally common in Pagan Rome and Pagan Egypt. The mistletoe branch symbolized "the man, the branch" and was regarded as a divine branch, a Babylonian representation of the true Messiah. Both mistletoe and holly were considered fertility plants by the pagans. Candles which are lit on Christmas Eve and used throughout the festival season were equally lighted by the Pagans on the eve of the festival of the Babylonian god, to do honor to him.
Even now, as you see Christianity practiced in Africa, South America, Australia, and other areas, you will see the roots of their Pagan cultures embedded in their Christian traditions.
CONCLUSION: The Catholic church has distorted the truth and lied about many things in its history. They have a hidden library where few ever get permission to enter, and then only to specifically requested things.
Even with a history of thousands of years of lies, distortions of the truth, and corruption, you would believe every word and translation coming from the church? A pope made a decree that the Bible (put together in the last synod in North Africa), was as if God himself had written every single word (it was all divinely inspired).
FAITH has to do with your belief in God and Jesus. It does not mean you must believe every single thing they tell you, especially translators.
I have a software application that lets me enter a passage from the bible, then it shows me the same passage in up to 100 English Bibles. It is surprising how different passages can be between bibles. Here is a quick example. There has been a recent new translation (the 1960s) of Paul, in Corinthians 13:13. In the King James Bible, it said, And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. This has now been changed in many bibles to read, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.. The word ‘Charity’ has been replaced by the word ‘Love.”
If you look up CHARITY in the dictionary you should see that one of the definitions for Charity is: Universal Love for your fellow mankind, which used to be the primary definition used for the word Charity, up until more recent times. However, over time, the vernacular usage of the word became: The giving of Help to those in need. Therefore, translators decided to replace CHARITY / UNIVERSAL LOVE FOR YOUR FELLOW MANKIND with the single word LOVE. The word LOVE does not at all convey the meaning of UNIVERSAL LOVE FOR YOUR FELLOW MANKIND. A small change in one word made a significant change in the original intent of Paul.
SODOM & GOMORRAH
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah was never interpreted as having anything to do with homosexuality until a man named Matthew Damien did so around AD1100. This new interpretation with homosexuality all hinges on one work ‘KNOW.’ Genesis 19:5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them.
The new interpretation in AD11000 read this to mean that ALL that we might sexually know of the people called out to Lot to bring out the strangers (two male angels) so that we can have sex with them. So, all of the men, women, and children of Sodom wanted to have sex with two strangers? It is idiocy.
The correct interpretation of the demand to KNOW is demanding the right to interrogate the strangers. The sins of Sodom & Gomorrah were many but mostly based in INHOSPITALITY & GENERAL WICKEDNESS.
Interpreting ‘to know’ with sexual connotation is used only 13 out of 900 times the Old Testament, where the context makes it very clear that it is sexual. Even the Jewish/Hebrew faith has never seen the story that way. One of the worst sins for nomadic Hebrews was INHOSITALITY. The people of Sodom demanding to interrogate the strangers would have been a terrible act of inhospitality. To know this, one would have to study the culture of Nomadic Hebrews, which is what Lot was (he was newly moved to Sodom, never having lived in a city before).
JEWISH VIEW:
The people of Sodom were seen as guilty of many other significant sins. Rabbinic writings affirm that the Sodomites committed economic crimes, blasphemy, and bloodshed. One of the worst was to give money or even gold ingots to beggars, after inscribing their names on them and then subsequently refusing to sell them food. The unfortunate stranger would end up starving and after his death, the people who gave him the money would reclaim it.
A rabbinic tradition, described in the Mishnah, postulates that the sin of Sodom was related to property: Sodomites believed that "What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours", which is interpreted as a lack of compassion. Another rabbinic tradition is that these two wealthy cities treated visitors in a sadistic fashion. One major crime done to strangers was almost identical to that of Procrustes in Greek mythology. This would be the story of the "bed" that guests to Sodom were forced to sleep in: if they were too short they were stretched to fit it, and if they were too tall, they were cut up.
In another incident, Eliezer, Abraham's servant, went to visit Lot in Sodom and got in a dispute with a Sodomite over a beggar, and was hit in the forehead with a stone, making him bleed. The Sodomite demanded Eliezer pay him for the service of bloodletting, and a Sodomite judge sided with the Sodomite. Eliezer then struck the judge in the forehead with a stone and asked the judge to pay the Sodomite.
The Talmud and the book of Jasher also recount two incidents of a young girl (one involved Lot's daughter Paltith) who gave some bread to a poor man who had entered the city. When the townspeople discovered their acts of kindness, they burned Paltith and smeared the other girl's body with honey and hung her from the city wall until she was eaten by bees. (Sanhedrin 109a) It is this gruesome event, and her scream in particular, the Talmud concludes, that are alluded to in the verse that heralds the city's destruction:
So Hashem said, "Because the outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah has become great, and because their sin has been very grave, I will descend and see... " (Genesis 18:20-21).
CONCLUSION:
In the case of Sodom & Gomorrah, the translation did not change, but the Church chose to change the INTERPRETATION of the story, making it about ALL of the people of Sodom, men, women, and children wanting to have heterosexual and homosexual sex with the two male strangers (angels visiting Lot). If a person studies this story and knows much of anything about the Nomadic Hebrew culture in 3129 BC, the correct interpretation is obvious. this proves that the church had an agenda to find ways to attack homosexuality, even to the point of distorting the truth and lying about the true story.
NOTE: Shortly before dawn on 6-29-3129 BCE, and 600 miles (966 Km) from Sodom & Gomorrah, there are two Samarian Astronomers observing the skies. They observed a fiery body traveling across the night sky. They inscribed its path and it relative course and position against the stars on a clay disk, called a Planisphere. Dr. Hempsall and Alan Bond deciphered the clay disk and used computers to recreate the night sky thousands of years ago. They pinpointed the sighting of the ancient astronomers to shortly before dawn on June 29 in the year 3123 B.C.
The asteroid, which was estimated to be 1.25 Km (0.78 Miles) in diameter, exploded above the ground with a force of a 10,000 megaton nuclear weapon (100 times more powerful than any nuclear weapon on earth). It utterly destroyed the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorra. This is verified by Ice Cores that show a sudden world-wide FREEZE around 5200 years ago (3200 BCE).
This does not actually counter the majority of the story of Sodom because obviously, God could have sent the asteroid specifically to destroy the cities. As always, there is no way to either prove or disprove if there is a God or if God sent the asteroid. That is where FAITH comes in.
Wha we do know is that the Catholic church and other Protestant churches stemming from the Catholic church have no credibility, including their translators, due to a long tradition of lies and distortion of the truth. This means going back to the original scripture (as far back as possible) to retranslate it all by non-Christian translators educated not only n Coptic Greek, but also in the archeological history of the culture at the time the scriptures were written.
A church is made up of people, and all people really are fallible.
Even between the all of the various Protestant churches and the Catholic church, there are many disagreements about the interpretation of the scriptures and even which books of the Bible should or should not be included.
QUESTION: If you follow one of the Protestant teachings and not Catholic teachings, where there is disagreement, such as confession, does that mean you go to hell? I was taught that the answer was yes, only good Catholics could go to heaven. I understand this is no longer taught. In the end, God will judge you on the good or bad INTENT of your thoughts and behaviors. You can accidentally kill someone. The ten commandments say though shalt not Kill. some say it is translated as though shalt not murder. Murder is intentionally killing a person. If soldiers are sent to war and kill people, including non-combatants like children, is this murder, a sin? In executing prisoners, is this not murder? If you vote for people knowing they will go to war or execute people, are you not complicit in their murders? Jesus never said anything about self-defense, only to turn the other cheek.
People decide to do whatever they want, then find ways to justify it.
In the history of mankind, the very worse atrocities were committed by Christians and Muslims. I now see the Buddhist felt left out and are now committing an atrocity. Myanmar Buddhists are facilitating ethnic cleansing and committing atrocities against the indigenous Rohingya people.
Spirituality is about your spiritual beliefs. Religion and churches are like semi-exclusive clubs made up of people, with lots of rules. Much of the Catholic and other Christian 'rules' are not out of the scriptures, but are supposedly justified by scripture, if you interpret scriptures in a certain way.
You need NO other rules to guide your life than to follow the Two Great Commandments. If you truly love your neighbor (all the people of the world) and God, you will not be killing, stealing, cheating, lying, harming, raping, bullying, deceiving, putting people down, intentionally causing suffering, etc. You do not need ten thousand church rules and guidelines to follow. Jesus gave you a simple map with God's Two Great Commandments. This is my view.
People should focus on their own spirituality and life, and not focus on imposing their beliefs on others, judging others, putting others down for being different or not following your beliefs. Parents should teach by example, by how they live. Children learn far more about values from role models than from what they are told. I see a lot of hypocrisy in parents. If you are intolerant of other people (bigot) then chances are your children will be too, unless they rebel against those distorted values. the worse homophobic vicious hate attack I ever received on DA was from a 14-year-old girl, and you know that she got that level of hatred by emulating her parents and/or role model in her church.
If a person believes they are fundamentally better than other people, especially groups or classes of people, then it should be a giant red flag that they are in spiritual trouble. I have been physically attacked, discriminated against, abused and bullied at home and school, lived for years under threat of losing my family, friends and my career, if it was discovered I was Gay. All of those bad people did those things against me in the name of God, justifying it with their religion. I have spent 26 years trying to keep Sexual Minority children from killing themselves, helping them learn to cope, to build hope for life after school and when they can escape the hell of home and school.
Maybe you would hesitate with your judgment and in telling some child that being homosexual and expressing their love is a sin, when spending hours on Skype with a child and watching him load a gun and put in his mouth, or the boy who cut one of his wrists with me on the phone, talking fast to get him to call 911 or shout for his mother. He called to his mother, who first reacted insults to him, calling him a worthless faggot, then screaming at me for daring to talk to her son, and finally getting 911 called. He lost a lot of blood but lived. There was a girl who swallowed a handful of pills from bottles in her mother's bathroom, and the girl and boy who tried hanging themselves. I lost one who used me as his suicide note and jumped off a freeway overpass, the way I tried to kill myself at 13, but a man jumped out of his car and grabbed my feet as I was going over the fence. My mother was called. She screamed at me for being an ingrate, swore me to secrecy so that even my father would not know of great sham, and she walked away, never to talk about it again or even ask what was wrong or offer help.
The rest have no clue how much their child is suffering, or that their child has lost all trust in their parents, with some actively coming to hate their parents and just waiting to escape. Some are already in counseling but only tell me the truth, because they know under the law that the counselor can divulge everything to the parents. It becomes a waste of money.
Only one parent ever knew about me until they were adults. I had convinced her 13-year-old son to come out to her, based on his descriptions of how close they were and how open minded she seemed. even then it was terrifying for him to do. He told her about me and she then contacted me and said she read my Notes back and forth with her son and decided I was trustworthy enough to teach him about homosexuality and how to be safe.
Christian churches and parents typically teach and control children through the tools of guilt and shame, to the point many kids feel guilt and shame when they did nothing wrong. How do you think your child will react after you have been showing homophobia and intolerance for homosexuality, and then starting as young as 11, some kids are already realizing they are homosexual. What do you think the odds are of your child coming-out to you? If the child builds enough courage to tell you, would you be there to say that homosexuality is a sin, or falling in love with someone of the same gender and forming a loving relationship, including making love, is a sin? Would you kick into high gear to try to convince your child that he or she is not homosexual, which would feel like total rejection by your child, or would you be supportive?
If your child is questioning, then handling it wrong could cause a lot of damage later in life, because a person's true sexuality will emerge in time, no matter how much brain-washing/programming and abuse has taken place. Many times there is confusion, which is normal. For example, if a boy gets sexually stimulated seeing some Gay porn, or when he was wrestling around with a buddy, this is not an indicator he is Gay or Bi, he is being a typical teenager in puberty. But when coupled with other things, like a strong sexual attraction and/or romantic fantasy for someone of the same gender, then it might be a sign of homosexuality. I once had a boy who thought he was straight and loved his best friend, who was a girl. Then at age 17, he started to have gay homoerotic fantasies and dreams, which freaked him out. In the end, after various attempts, his girlfriend asked him if he was gay. It turned out that he loved the girl as his best friend, which he was confusing with romantic love. He is very much Gay and has been in a long-term relationship with a guy for about 10 years I think. Having a person interfering in a negative way can cause a lot of psychologic damage. Being supportive and allowing time for him or her to figure things out is the best way to go.
The option is to try to reprogram your child to be straight. The end result will be a very messed up child and adult, who very probably hates his or her parent(s).
In the end, you may have a choice between your religious belief and the life of your child. Your beleifs may justify all kinds of things on your part, but once your child is dead, it is far harder to justify what you did, to yourself. Some kids become suicidal without even talking or coming-out to their parents. If they perceive a homophobic environment at home, unaccepting parents, they can make big assumptions that may or may not be true. Depression will tell them that their parents will hate them, reject them, and their biggest fear of all is being thrown out on the street. You may think this is illogical, but a depressed mind distorts things, makes the person jump to negative conclusion and believe the very worse. The thought that nobody loves me jumps to nobody will ever love me, I will alone forever. Death then looks like a better solution.
PREACHING:
There is far too much preaching going on and not enough trusting communicating and bond between parents and kids. You preaching to me about homosexual sex is a sin is a waste of time for both of us, and it is not your place to do so. With young children, preaching can have some effect, but younger children, under age 7, learn values mostly through observation. They are observational sponges and do a lot of emulating of what they hear and see and sense in other ways. When children start puberty, they start to try to carve out some individuality and self-identity. Self-image becomes important and especially self-worth, which can be very fragile. Preaching to kids at this point, and being an autocratic parent (which was needed at early ages to teach boundaries) will likely induce rebellion, even if they don't show it. If there is not great trust and communication by now, it is probably too late.
I am educated in psychology and child development, and I am hoping you see this as me passing on information which may be useful to you someday, rather than me preaching to you.
Instead of preaching to kids not to have sex for moral reasons, or talking about sin, I give them practical reasons. For example, hooking-up (sex without emotional connection or anonymous sex, sex for the sake of sex) leads to a disconnect in his or her brain between love and sex, especially for those under 25 years old. This disconnect can make future relationships very difficult to maintain. Love serves three big functions in sexuality:
1. Love keeps your partner looking beautiful/handsome, for decades, despite the ravages of time and gravity.
2. Love keeps making-love from getting boring, even after decades.
3. Love makes making-love far more fulfilling, intense and bonding.
When loves gets disconnected from sex, the above three things can partially go away or completely go away. The person might love their spouse and lose all sexual interest after only months or a year, pushing him or her to be unfaithful, needing a constant stream of sexual partners to keep it from getting boring. They would tell you, I love my spouse, but love is love and sex is sex and they have nothing to do with each other. This is horrible for the spouse, which is why relationships don't last long n these cases. NOTE: The disconnect between love and sex can also happen when kids are sexually abused, especially if it happens multiple times. Adults being sexual with younger teens can be damaging because a child's sexual libido forms before maturity around understanding the love and sexual connection, thus causing a disconnect.
I tell them that if sex is going to happen, it should be with someone they believe they love and trust, and you should first get educated about safety, pregnancy prevention, and not harming your partner through ignorance. I then go on to define love and how to know if it is romantic love versus infatuation, how to build romantic love, and how to be emotional, physically and even sensually intimate without having sex. The idea is to encourage thinking before acting, then only acting after careful consideration, and looking at options if you want to wait.
My point is that it is far better to educate a young person and give meaningful reasons for why they should or not behave certain ways. Relying on simply saying, "I'm your parent, don't do this thing because it is a sin," does not yield very good results in their teen years. There are far too many kids who are sexually active in Jr. High School and they are usually doing so in complete ignorance, or worse, using porn for an education. Pornography skips all of the emotional stuff, loving non-sexual foreplay, how not to harm your partner or be harmed, how to practice safe sex and avoid pregnancy, and it basically shows sex without any connection with love, which is psychologically damaging. Scholls give minimal sexual education, if at all, and most parents do not talk about this or educate their children about sexuality, what is safe and not safe, how to manage risk (which is always present in untested people), how to use non-sexual intimacy to delay being sexual and build trust, etc.
I have no hidden agenda and have helped some kids to realize they are probably straight. I try to help kids sort out what they think their sexuality is, mostly just listening. Just being able to talk about it or write to someone about it, helps people to understand things better, sort out thoughts and come to their own conclusions. I help those who are suicidal, depressed, have anxiety or panic disorder, low self-worth, low self-image, lack of confidence, being isolated, negative thinking, etc.
CONCLUSION:
Preaching to people who don't want it usually causes negative feelings towards you. Just because YOU and your church believe in something does mean you should try to impose your beliefs on others. Do you have any idea how many wars have been instigated over this? You believe that your way (your church's way) is the right way, and any other way is wrong. You believe that homosexual sex, under any conditions, is a sin. Fine, you are welcome to your beliefs but do not try to impose them on other children or adults. All it does is create strife and negativity. If others come to you for spiritual guidance, then teach. Otherwise, my advice, for what little it is worth, is to focus on your own spiritual path. It is a waste of your time to go around being judgmental of others and preaching your creed to those who do not want it. If they want it, they can ask for it.
In American History, Christians were allowed to steal children away from their Native American parents, by force, put them in boarding schools, where they were severely punished for using their native language or any of their traditions, and had Christianity thrust down their throats. Conditions were deplorable and punishments now considered to be inhumane torture. You can bet that those Christian churches felt fully justified in what they did, saving the souls of those many children, by whatever means necessary, but I believe if anyone will burn in hell, it will be them. The same justifications allow for murdering abortion doctors, for torturing homosexuals to stop them sinning, to pit on me when I am in the Gay parade, to force your preaching on "sinners" (your interpretation that they are sinners), to force your child into a Christain camp designed to "Pray the Gay Away" when in fact it is a living hell for the children, to discriminate against homosexuals via the law, preventing equal rights and protections (how dare they want to buy a wedding cake from a Christian), and on and on. Christians have a larger proportionate ownership of Guns.
Do you get the Catholic Reporter. They commissioned a Pew research Poll of American Christians on TORTURE, in 2006, by religion. The results were:
Why do you suppose that Catholics approve of torture at such a higher rate? Why do you suppose that Seculars approve of torture at a much lower rate? It is disgusting that so many people approve of torture, for any reasons.
The CIA, FBI, and heads of each military branch testified before Congress that torture was ineffective and useless, because people will say anything you want under torture, and using friendlier psychological approaches (takes longer). They also pointed out that it sets a precedent that other countries can use to torture American soldiers and citizens. They also said it compromises the moral integrity of soldiers forced to do torture and opens the door for them doing inappropriate torture, as was seen in Afghanistan. President Bush said that the Geneva conventions were antiquated and then broke the treaty.
How can any Christian read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and find any way to justify human torture? But you can see by the numbers that three-quarters of Catholics have no problems with justifying torture.
The United States refuses to sign the Human Rights Treaty because we are already breaking it by giving children life sentences with no chance of release, with the Death Penalty, with our treatment of migrant workers, with our inhumane super-max prisons and on and on.
I say all of this because too many Christians are hypocrites, pointing their fingers at homosexuals as sinners when they are far worse sinners.
I would say that the Catholic church and a number of other Christian churches (not all) have NO moral authority with the many sins they commit in the name of God.
Do you realize that millions of Africans are dead as a direct result of the Catholic church, who fought at every turn to prevent AIDS education and Condom distributions in Africa, allowing the epidemic to explode. Even financial aid from the USA, due to Christian pressure, was tied to countries not allowing condoms distribution or AIDS prevention education, because the church said all of it would encourage sex. The Catholic church sat by watching millions die, sending in some missionaries to help the dying, but preventing the measures that would stem the epidemic, and allowing only ABSTINENCE EDUCATION. Then they make that Pope a Saint? He is likely burning in hell for the millions of unnecessary deaths. If it was white people dying in those numbers, I bet the church would have seen it differently. Guess who the real victims were, the wives who stay home while husbands spend months on the road as truckers or working in other countries, having sex with prostitutes, without condoms, and bring diseases back to their wives. But the church had no compassion for any of these people, just their righteousness over their ridiculous rules. As a Catholic, do you support the churches policies that allowed millions of Africans to die and continue to die?
Then multiple research studies, now over 40 of them, found that circumcision greatly decreases the odds of infection of HIV and other Sexually transmitted diseases when condoms are not used. This is due to the foreskin lining being a mucous membrane and direct disease vector into the blood. This time it was European Christians up in arms and blocking programs that offered African men money to get circumcised. There is a possibility that this is lingering antisemitism. The USA started encouraging circumcision after WWII due to all of the problems the military had with infections during the war, and studies showing a lower penile cancer rate with circumcision, lower disease rate, and foreskin problems many boys have (such as retraction problems, tightness problems, etc. Now the science is being ignored and circumcision rates have been dropping sharply, supposedly due to the growing Hispanic population share. Maybe they are against circumcision due to a cultural or Christian thing.
There is a crisis in the Philippines due to the Catholic church preventing birth control or birth education (family planning). A Population explosion has stripped the fisheries and the ability to grow enough rice and food. the country is headed for bankruptcy from importing food. The church's power is almost absolute in the Philipines.
I finish with the story of my mother. They used the Rhythm method to prevent pregnancy, the only means approved by the Catholic church. It failed each time, resulting in 5 of us kids. My mother was small and had too small of a pelvic opening for bearing children. She started with twins. Note that her two youngest children were homosexual. She came close to dying when giving birth to the twins. The doctors at her hospital put together films and medical reports and an appeal to Rome for her to have a hysterectomy, because the birth really tore her up inside, such as her liver getting shifted and a number of other problems. Rome said no.
Then my older sister was born and my mother actually died for a couple of minutes, before being able to revive her. Again the doctors worked to put a package together saying that another birth was a very serious risk to the mother. Rome responded that the priority is to give birth to children and that the survival of the mother is secondary. This continues to be official policy and is the policy at any Catholic hospital in the world. Even if the fetus cannot survive birth, the policy is to let the mother die in the attempt to give birth to a stillborn.
When I was born, we both almost died. I am autistic, with early onset arthritis and other health problems that are slowly killing me now. Again Rome said no. Then my younger sister was born. The doctors told my parents they this time they would guarantee that my mother would die if she became pregnant again. Rome said no again. There was no way my father was willing to give-up sex and he refused to go against the church, basically condemning his wife to death, with the Catholic churches approval. She never went to church again, although she said she was a Christian and believed in god. She had lost all faith in the Catholic church, who had no care if she lived or died. All she was asking for was a hysterectomy. What a horrible sinner...
My mother checked herself into the hospital and had 10 hours of surgery that included a hysterectomy, reattaching her bladder and trying to get everything where it is supposed to be. My father never once visited her. He called her horrible names and a sinner, unworthy wife who will burn in hell. She took us three youngest children, afraid that getting the twins would make her too late to escape, and we got on a bus and went to stay with one of her sisters. She had 9 brothers and sisters like a good Catholic family should. My grandparents were fresh off the boat from Czechoslovakia and were zealous Catholics. My mother was so abused by her father that she fled home at age 14 and went to work as a live-in house servant.
My father naturally found that he was incapable of caring for himself, let alone two boys, and begged her to return. She did, but he treated her horribly for the rest of her life. Alas, we kids started to emulate some of his behavior. She was so unhappy, which lead to some abuse from her, although she was not the worst abuser. I later apologized when I realized what was going on. Twice she left him and you could see her start to blossom. Then she would have to go back and rescue him because he was incapable of caring for himself.
Others saw my father as a virtual saint of a man. He was big in Catholic charities and even started a program to care for those with AIDS, putting many hours in. But when it came to his family, he was a different man. he later expressed unhappiness at losing his life to a family. When I came out as Gay, he urged me to avoid any loving romantic relationships. he said, "You don't have to be saddled with a family, a spouse, responsibilities. You can go anywhere and do anything you want with your life, why ruin it with a relationship?" I think this described his own feelings.
Anyway, I am sure there must be functional Catholic families out there. I have to say I meet a lot of people calling themselves 'Recovering Catholics,' like a recovering alcoholic, both men and women.
After all of the covering up sexual abuse of children, which is worldwide, along with the millions AIDS victims around the world who died due to the Catholic church blocking the education and means to avoid AIDS, it was the final straw for me. I now see the church as an evil institution doing more harm than good in the world. The church is not even being investigated in many countries in the world where they still have a lot of power. In Ireland, the church has seen a rather precipitous decline in attendance. Catholics feel very betrayed there, child sexual abuse (of girls and boys) even a bigger deal there than in the USA. TIn the USA and Europe, local diocese are allowed to declare for bankruptcy reorganization, allowing them to continue and keep church property, and not have to pay all of the victim claims. Way to go church, escape making reparation. Who does the church confess to, because they are not meeting the requirements for the confessional? Who knows, maybe they will one day clean it all up. Pope Francis is finding out how powerless he really is.
In final conclusion, you, the Catholic church and most Protestant churches have no moral authority or right to point the finger at homosexuals and call them sinners, when their own sins are far worse and they (the church and many Catholics and Christians, seem to have no moral compass of their own. I would suggest that Christians focus on becoming better Christians and certain Christian churches focus on cleaning house and becoming moral themselves before they tell anyone else they are sinners.
FINAL thought: I do NOT see all Christians the same way. There are Christian churches and many Christians in the world who are very accepting and tolerant of others and of homosexuality. I have met and known many Christians who are excellent people. Many Christians and some Christian churches are very supportive of homosexual marriage and do not see homosexual sex as a sin when it is within a Gay Marriage or a 'Loving Romantic Long-term Committed Relationship.' Gay Marriage is not legal in many places in the world and most Christian churches will not do gay marriages, which is why 'Loving Romantic Long-term Committed Relationship' are included. I made private vows with my husband over 27 years ago, and they are just as good as if it was done in a church because God was our witness.
Goodbye,
Matthew
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Since you had replied to me and asked a specific question, I decided to reply, which was apparently a mistake. to shortly answer your current question, actually, there is a church founded specifically for the Sexual Minority Community called the founded Metropolitan Community Church in 1968.
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It would be wonderful to do. I imagine it has not been done because of the cost and time required to gather the appropriate experts. Pope John XXIII, in Vatican II council, commissioned a new Translation of the Bible into most modern languages, which was published in 1968 and called the Saint Joseph Edition. It was a massive undertaking. They are the ones who first changed 'Charity (from Fathy, Hope & Charity), to 'Love' (Faith, Hope & Love) in the English translation. It took a number of years to complete. Alas, those doing the translations were Catholic clergy and did not have the benefit of the Biblical Archeology knowledge (knowledge of Judean culture from the time of Jesus) from the last 50 years, nor the work done by scholars of Coptic Greek. There is also no way that the church would allow translators to contradict long-held beliefs in past mistranslations.
Therefore, the same task would need to be done using scholars not associated who are not clergy and not heavily biased and instead use Biblical archeologists and experts in Coptic Greek, etc.
Please understand that for me the goal would be to get the most accurate and truthful translation possible of the original scriptures, from their original Coptic Greek to most modern languages today, without bias from either the Sexual Minority Community nor Christian community.
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Sorry for breaking into this thread and I mean no disrespect, I'm just confused. Why would you want a bible, regardless of who translated it, if you don't believe in God? The whole point of Biblical History and the Bible is about God.
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By the way, I do not know why the other person chose to hide their comments both on my DA Page and on the page of one of my deviations. I asked for the discussion to stop, but not to be hidden. I only hide comments from others when they get abusive and attacking.
BELIEF:
I may have personally lost my faith in a God, but I think having a faith is generally a good thing for most people and I do not try to impose my beliefs and value system on others. I share my beliefs and values when asked, or when it comes up in a discussion, but in that case, it is only a brief description. I do have a belief system and rather strict value system, but it does not include a belief in a God or Gods, as most religions see it. I live by a code far more strict than any Christian I have ever met. In fact, the world would be a far better place if Christians would live more Christ-like, following the teachings found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, such as The Two Great Commandments (Matthew 22), Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5) and Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6).
REASONS FOR WANTING A BIBLE & QURAN & TO UNDERSTAND THEM:
1. Originally, I wanted to be a priest, but due to the bad treatment of me by the church, my personal faith was broken. In my journey to try to regain my faith, I did a great deal of research into both Catholic and Protestant theology, along with biblical archeology and history.
2. Additionally, the Bible was used and continues to be used as a weapon against an entire class of people, Sexual Minorities, just because of how they were born. For defensive purposes, it is important to study the weapons used against you and the people using the weapons.
3. When I was 34 years old, I left my career and devoted my life to volunteer work, such as caring for the dying, feeding the hungry and offering free counseling (after going back to college). In my volunteer work, I wanted to help Christian Sexual Minorities, especially young people, to be able to reconcile their faith with their homosexual nature. Many of those on the bisexual to homosexual spectrum walk away from their Christian or Muslim faith due to lies told them by their particular church.
4. Since many of the people of the world are either Christian, Muslim or Buddhists, to understand them better it important to understand their beliefs and value systems. I have been studying all three faiths for over 30 years.
There has been a Christian church for homosexuals since the 1960s and since then a number of other Christian churches have changed their theology concerning homosexuality. Christian churches that are accepting of homosexuals believe that when homosexual sex is practiced within the confines of a Gay Marriage or a Committed Loving Long-term Romantic Relationship, then the sex is not a sin. A Committed Loving Long-term Romantic Relationship is included since it is illegal in many parts of the world for homosexuals to get married.v Now there are a number of Christian churches where Gay couples can get married and where they can worship without the threat of harassment. NOTE: Keep in mind that ANY sex outside of marriage is a sin in Christianity.
My father was a Catholic theologian and when I came out to him as a Gay man, he was the one who explained the problems with translations of Paul, concerning homosexuality (this was in the 1970s). He also pointed out that Jesus was very specific about a number of things and that what Jesus did not say or talk about also had significance. He challenged me to very carefully read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the eyewitnesses to what Jesus said and did, and notice that Jesus never once said anything against homosexuality. This is in light of the fact that Jesus would have known about homosexual sex since it was openly practiced at that time in Judea, by Roman citizens and Roman Garrisons (Judea was part of the Roman Empire). Archeology shows that there was even homosexual graffiti on some of the walls of Roman cities.
For Christians who believe that homosexuality is a sin no matter what, this is fine for them and is their right. But why must they do everything possible to impose their beliefs on everyone else? Why do they believe that Jesus Christ and God gave them the right to torture homosexuals, to imprison them, use violence against them, try to take away their rights and protections, to discriminate against them and use foul and degrading language against homosexuals? This is going on right now, around the world. Not that long ago, Christian churches sanctioned and even financed the torture of homosexuals, using high voltage electric shocks to the genitals and other body parts, while showing them homosexual pornography (this is called aversion therapy). See
The Torture Of Homosexuals
Please note that I do not see all Christians in the same light. I can fully respect Christians who believe that homosexuality is a sin, but who also respect me as a human being and do not try to impose their beliefs on me. We can coexist just fine. There are also many Christians around the world who do NOT believe that homosexual sex is a sin when done within the confines of a Gay Marriage or a Committed Loving Long-term Romantic Relationship, although they are a minority of Christians worldwide.
Some Christians have told me, "How DARE you question the words of God?" My answer is that I do not question the words of God, I question the words of biased translators.
I do not see why we cannot coexist together without animosity, hatred, harassment, bigotry, violence, etc. What is wrong with homosexuals having equal rights under the law?
I was born Autistic. What If Christians were to decide that the bible can be interpreted to say that being autistic is a sin? Obviously, the vast majority of people would think that was absurd.
I have been in a loving relationship (now a legal marriage) for almost 28 years. My relationship has outlasted most heterosexual relationships, statistically. I was even a foster parent to a young girl and boy for almost 2 years, and then they were allowed to return to their birth mother who had neglected them twice previously.
I hope this answers your question.
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It does, thank you.
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Thank you very much. I am now 62... That seems rather old, LOL.
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not as old as me !!
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Thank goodness for that, LOL. I am usually the oldest person when we socialize. My twin brothers are oldr than me. alas, My older sister passed away ayear ago. We were extremely close all of our lives and made sure we lived close to each other. I am still lost, and even after over a year later, I feel no better. such is life.
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Keep the faith...better days ahead !
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Happy Holidays to you too.
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Thanks for the birthday wishes. It was nice of you to think of me. All the best…
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Happy birthday! I'm sending all my love to you and your loved ones. I understand you are probably still busy with all the legal aspects and intermittent grief, so you may not even see this for months. So, in that case, also happy Halloween and merry Christmas too! 
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Thank you for the birthday wishes. I appreciate it. It was a difficult birthday because my sister always made a big deal of it and held a part, made a special cake, etc. She died suddenly in February. We were best freinds and extremely close for 60 years. I am still not doing so well, but life moves on. Happy halloween and a Merry Christmas to you too, if we do not talk before that. All the best sir, Matthew
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I didn't think you'd reply so soon, since you had said when we last spoke that it would take about a year to get finances and other things resolved after her death, but I am glad you did. I'm sorry to hear that you're still not doing well, even though that is obviously to be expected. I'm here if you decide you would like someone else to talk to. Either way, I hope you are finding support around you. None of us can make it on our own, as you already know. Lots of love and support.
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I am still a very long way away from finishing my sister's estate. It will probably take until the middle of 2017. But I can certainly answer birthday greetings. Luckily I have a husband and some good freinds as support, although we are all grieving, since she was a part of all of their lives too. She was a connector of people, bringing people to gather and keeping them connected.
Thank you for your love and support. It is appreciated.
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