Religion

[Wendae]

Now the pope is down on us. I'm a Catholic and I am sad about what my Pope has to say about us. I know what the Bible says. Strikes me that God bubbles up somewhere. He created us. Why?



** Edited by SL ... Watch the foul language - automatic word censoring is enforced!

[Rikki]

Wendae,

Not god and not us!!! The only ones who've messed up are those bozos who profess to "know" what their god thinks and wants. If we follow the "Golden Rule" in life, we don't have to worry one bit what some cleric says is the proper (his) way to live. This goes for any and all religions.

Hang in there kid!

Rikki

[Lacey Hadley]

The simple fact is many people of numerous religious faiths claim to speak for 'God' when in essence they should only speak for themselves and let any persons who wish to find a relationship with 'God' have said personal relationship for each person's selves.

In an imperfect world, persons who may read which ever book of scripture as black and white are doing a disservice to the variety of human life and our collective imperfections. Those who wish to live life to the often literal and often black and white words of any book of scripture should only do so for each of themselves. To pass one's own bias of judgment unto others is a representation of arrogance. Add the fact that many who profess perfect knowledge of and enforce onto others to their interpretations of faith and of written scripture, also for most if not all fail to see their own failure as persons, these people often fail to live by said scripture.

Many say God is all loving, but as such God should be all understanding. People who live life trying to be fair, decent and productive people, should not suffer wrath of God for their personal traits and idiosyncrasies. So to the fundamentalists of any faith I say when you attain your perfection under God and you live life after rooting out your maybe not so good traits and idiosyncrasies, then and only then can you wag fingers and cluck tongues to the rest of us flawed, failed and sometime oddly idiosyncratic human sheep. But being flawed and all does not mean we have no worth, no love nor any moral decency to be better persons under our 'God'.

So...STICK A FORK IN IT!

Morals and ethics can be traced to a person's faith and as such help keep us on a better plane in life and in human decency, but using one's own vision or thoughts of morals and ethics, wrapping them up speaking for one's own 'God' to judge and often persecute others is IMMORAL AND UNETHICAL!

IE; The often religious ideal about transgendered people. The two genders in our world are as clear as day. But 'God' must be allowing those who do not fall into either gender to feel a need to TRANSition to the other gender. These people are not mentally ill, they have a disorder, not an illness, they are abnormal only to the idea that they are not typical to what? 99.8% of the population. Being abnormal is not a sin, nor is it a point to be persecuted for. I'm abnormal as a crossdresser, I do not lie to myself as to such. Stats claim about 3or4 % of the male population are some form of crossdresser, I'm ABNORMAL! I'm ok with that as that is a fact. As a Cder I do not have a mental illness for I function as typical in society as most any other persons do. I'm fine by saying I have a disorder, maybe not one to change my gender identity to that of the other, but in that my mind has me needing to express my feminine self though my crossdressing. I am not evil, I do not go about hurting others even as a cder, any relationship I have with my 'God' I have squared that circle with and I could not care less what finger wagers and tongue cluckers may say to me.

Same goes with my view on transgendered people. God has given mankind the medical, scientific and psychological abilities to help these persons with their gender dysphoria, to find what is right for them to lead better lives.

I read and hear from the 'self-righteous', "But, but, but, God does not make mistakes, so if your birth gender is a boy or is a girl, you are a boy or a girl."

OH REALLY!!! No mistakes, then please explain a host of child birth defects right back to birth and even before birth (ever hear about heart surgery on a fetus?)?

Cleft tongues.
Missing or deformed limbs
Damaged organs
Very severe mental defects.
blindness
deafness
ON AND ON AND ON!

Children born with these, are to be left alone, not to utilize our wonderful ability as to THE ONLY SPECIES ON EARTH to be able to learn, understand and attempt to correct or alleviate many of these defects?

Even our 'self-righteous' finger wagers and tongue cluckers would all be on board with science and medicine to help with and/or correct these birth defects, BUT somehow a 'birth defect' if one likes to say of being of some form of gender dysphoria one that often is not so clear or able to seen until most who suffer from it are older and usually around puberty based on FACTS! (About 80-85% of said to be gender confused youth are fine with their birth genders by the time they reach puberty) is all JUST BULL SH*T! GOD MAKES NO MISTAKES! the self-righteous claim... Well tell that to the remaining persons who suffer some form of gender dysphoria that it's all a figment of their own imagination.

Well maybe God makes no mistakes, but God makes each of us who we are and us such allows fate to maybe create for all of us to have our own 'hangups' 'issues' 'problems' and as such we learn to become OURSELVES and hopefully be better people for said issues, hangups and problems. Maybe 'God ' in all his perfection lets humanity BE IMPERFECT! This makes life more diverse and through our flaws, BEING HUMAN. But again 'God' gave and gives us the minds to learn, study, reason, understand and even fix or help alleviate life's issues for all of us, some of us have a bigger bucket of these, others luckily less so, NONE OF US ARE PERFECT! So maybe all of those who are self-righteous up to even the [imposter] Pope should again stick a fork in it!

[Tammy_F]

I too was born into a Catholic family. We were pretty liberal in a pretty liberal parish. So I guess it's no surprise that I've pretty much given up on organized religion for the most part.

I guess the part that bothers me most is when religions speak on behalf of God and get into things that have nothing to do with faith, and the issues that really matter to us. Instead of teaching the universal truths they go off on BS like this and cause hatred instead of the love that they're suppose to be teaching.

If someone wants to wear a dress, a thong, go nude, paint themselves silly colors, sleep with someone or someones it's not our place to judge as long as they're not harming others or themselves.

Personally, I'm for self expression and experimenting again as long as no harm is done. I too think God gave us the ability to think and to experiment for a reason. So let's enjoy life. Love each other and stop doing things to cause hatred.

[Stephanie M]

I have a lot of issues with this pope. I'll leave it at that since I can't eloborate. lol

[Lacey Hadley]

I agree 100%, Pope J.P. the 2nd would probably be very skeptical on this guy as Pope.

In the end we all choose to have a faith or not in a higher power, or God. We all should live as best we can to our individual interpretations of faith and our own mind's character around such. Our goals on such living should be decent, respectful persons, live lawfully but keep our POV on judging others based on our faith to ourselves.


*** Post edited to remove redundant quote, as per: http://crossdressers-haven.com/forums/v ... 65&t=10059" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - SL

[Anne Bonny]

Well, I came to realize that there is a hardened consensus when it came to interpretation of these ancient writings men scribbled onto parchment or skins of some kind. These ancient peoples set in ancient cultures and languages may as well be on Mars when it comes to trying to fully understand what was intended. It is funny we have difficulty interpreting each other's posts at times...what was intended, meaning...etc just think of it. Then I learned how different branches of faith...Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism and even different sects within each can have very different interpretations of these ancient writings and what is meant. Much is pretty straight forward and clear but not all of it.

What bothered me was that there is actually an American conservative patriotic interpretation, liberal interpretaions etc.
Hence the feeding frenzies seen on social blogs by these hard line people who are being very judgmental and prejudiced and filled with hatred based on their idea that their skewed set interpretation is the correct one. From there they spew hate filled venom and savage any who are like we are.

I came across Jewish scholarship which states the relevant text in Deuteronomy only forbids men from dressing as women in order to evade military service in time of war - period. Jesus according to what is written sent his followers into Jerusalem to find a MAN CARRYING A WATER JAR who would take them to the upper room for the pass over meal. Note in ancient times fetching water was strictly forbidden by men because it was a women's task to obtain water and bring it home from the nearest source. That implies this man was fulfilling a woman's role openly which would therefore possibly mean that Jesus had no problem using a transgender person. In the old testament conquered prisoners of war were humiliated by being forced to fetch water for the Israeli army and this is documented in the writings. Throughout the Old and new testament the fact that carrying water jars to fetch water was absolutely a woman's role in the ancient middle east.

I am an agnostic there is not and never will be any definitive proof for or against the existence of a mythical supreme being.