Would your opinion of homosexuals change....

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by livecoug

lol.. thank you oh enlightened one! that might have been the most pretentious, arrogant post I have ever read.. kudos SU.. LOL

You must be new to reading SU's posts, or don't know him by his CB moniker, catblue. I put this only slightly more pretentious and arrogant than his average post.

[livecoug]

Originally Posted by jay santos

You must be new to reading SU's posts, or don't know him by his CB moniker, catblue. I put this only slightly more pretentious and arrogant than his average post.

yeah, i know the guy, but it amazes me everytime i see a post from the enlightened one.. oh well

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Interesting take.

However, I for one do not agree that God ever wants us NOT to judge. For exercising judgment is the exercise of discernment.

God does not wish for us to exercise condemnation, locking a person into a corner with no way out.

So the "do not Judge" is an incorrect interpretation.

We are free to make all the choices we want. God wants us to. It's how we learn and grow (which is the whole point of this planet).

The problem is when we judge something to be good or evil. That is something we cannot possibly hope to know. And doing so makes us miserable (individually and collectively). It also cuts us off from the tree of life.

There was a complete genius, Mike, in my AP Chemistry class in H.S. I couldn't hold a candle to him. Now, I spent a lot of time bemoaning the fact that I wasn't as smart as he was. I was judging my circumstance as bad. Mike = really smart = good
Me = not so smart = bad
There I go, listenting to Satan tell me I'm naked (God made me dumber than Mike, and did so for a reason) and believing it. Believing there is something wrong with, something bad. And so I became miserable.

The proper response is just to notice that we are different, neither good nor evil relative to each other. I'm not naked, God made me this way. Now, Mike was a little odd and didn't date much. (I was a little odd too, but did date a bit). So perhaps Mike was envious of me? Who knows. As long as we think God messed up and made us naked (incomplete), we'll go around finding reasons to hate ourselves and be miserable. If we have enough influence we can persuade a lot of people to believe some collective nakedness (a veritable nudist colony!) and we can all be miserable together.

Now what Mike and I needed to learn here on earth were not the same. So, God created different circumstances for each of us.
Accepting that is very hard, but the key to enlightenment.

Would that I had Bill Gates' lessons to learn (c: (But there I go, munching on that fig again !)

Regards,
Brian

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by jay santos

You must be new to reading SU's posts, or don't know him by his CB moniker, catblue. I put this only slightly more pretentious and arrogant than his average post.

Some posts in this thread would make a monkey feel superior.

[livecoug]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Some posts in this thread would make a monkey feel superior.

for example, this one:


This thread is not a good sign. It means that Fusnik is running out of ideas for provocative subjects. Is there a more tired subject on these BYU boards? The issue has been framed exactly this way countless times. Yes, the crux is whether or not this trait is immutable. Certainly among enlightened people this ought to be the issue. If someone says the answer to the question makes no difference to him, well, that's all I need to hear. It's kind of like what you knew intuitively went on in Mel Gibson's head before he got drunk and said it for us explicitly on tape.

Except for the initial couple of terse responses to Fusnik's initial post, I have not brought myself to read this thread. I for one don't care again to see the same intolerant diatribes from the same predictable cast of bitter homophobes. Their problem is not gays. They are projecting something else. Those of us who are repelled by this kind of hatred need to just try to ignore it, and simply live content in the knowledge that we are unburdened by such dark thoughts, and that among intellectuals this issue has become the litmus test that separates the enlightened from the backward. Gays provide us the service of inducing people who are secretly intolerant, because they must hide their hatred in these times, to drop the mask, to show their true character, i.e., the stripes they would have worn fifty years ago when the issue was not sexual preference but race.

[RockyBalboa]

Originally Posted by Brian

We are free to make all the choices we want. God wants us to. It's how we learn and grow (which is the whole point of this planet).

The problem is when we judge something to be good or evil. That is something we cannot possibly hope to know. And doing so makes us miserable (individually and collectively). It also cuts us off from the tree of life.

There was a complete genius, Mike, in my AP Chemistry class in H.S. I couldn't hold a candle to him. Now, I spent a lot of time bemoaning the fact that I wasn't as smart as he was. I was judging my circumstance as bad. Mike = really smart = good
Me = not so smart = bad
There I go, listenting to Satan tell me I'm naked (God made me dumber than Mike, and did so for a reason) and believing it. Believing there is something wrong with, something bad. And so I became miserable.

The proper response is just to notice that we are different, neither good nor evil relative to each other. I'm not naked, God made me this way. Now, Mike was a little odd and didn't date much. (I was a little odd too, but did date a bit). So perhaps Mike was envious of me? Who knows. As long as we think God messed up and made us naked (incomplete), we'll go around finding reasons to hate ourselves and be miserable. If we have enough influence we can persuade a lot of people to believe some collective nakedness (a veritable nudist colony!) and we can all be miserable together.

Now what Mike and I needed to learn here on earth were not the same. So, God created different circumstances for each of us.
Accepting that is very hard, but the key to enlightenment.

Would that I had Bill Gates' lessons to learn (c: (But there I go, munching on that fig again !)

Regards,
Brian

We can't possibly judge or know the difference between what is good or evil? Yeah...I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you on that.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by RockyBalboa

We can't possibly judge or know the difference between what is good or evil? Yeah...I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you on that.

How can you know what is ultimately good or evil with having infinite knowledge? The combinatorics are astounding. So many variables, so many people, an infinity of time.
God can know. The problem is when *WE* claim to know. We with our limited knowledge, intelligence and finite frame of reference. It's all about humility.

Regards,
Brian

[Brian]

Originally Posted by RockyBalboa

We can't possibly judge or know the difference between what is good or evil? Yeah...I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you on that.

So what did God mean when he told Adam and Eve not to partake of a knowledge of good and evil?

Regards,
Brian

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Brian

So what did God mean when he told Adam and Eve not to partake of a knowledge of good and evil?

Regards,
Brian

What's so bad about the standard Sunday School answer?

God created Adam and Eve in a state of unawareness. They had no ability to sin because they didn't know right from wrong. They also had limited to grow and progress and no ability to procreate. They were commanded not to eat of the fruit, but yet God knew they had to do it in order to get the ball rolling. By disobeying and eating, everything changed--they became aware, started sinning, and thus a Savior became necessary.

[RockyBalboa]

Brian, so are you telling me that we can't possibly know the difference between good and evil?

In fact it's been given to us to judge just that. Adam and Eve's eyes were opened after taking the fruit.

We are not Adam and Eve. They already removed that veil for the rest of us so that we wouldn't have to walk in ignorance. Absolutely we're given the spiritual and mental capacities to know the difference between good and evil.

It is true that one's ability to understand the difference can become dull and blinded over time by their own actions, but that doesn't mean the person is devoid in continuing their ability nor that they aren't instructed to understand and know the differences and then act accordingly.

If we weren't to know the difference between good and evil, then Adam and Eve would've never partaken of the fruit to begin with thus rendering the need for a Savior moot.

Anybody can know the difference since then.