People get me all wrong...I am not throwing stones by any means and believe everyone is free to make they're own decisions about the way they want to live...A God given right in my belief..only thing I try to point out is for every action there is a reaction,or consequence...this again is my belief and refuse to sugar coat dog crap.

If you don't see it, aren't part of it or being hurt by it what business is it of you or me? It's okay with you if a guy does the hershey highway with a woman?
What does common sense or truth have to do with it? Morality comes in all different flavors. I believe that homosexuals aren't that way by choice. I don't think they woke one day and say "Gee I think I'll be a fag from now on". It suites your truth that they 'pretend' they are heterosexual? Unless you do have your head in the sand some gays you can spot from a mile away just by their mannerism, walk, feminism, etc. I don't believe they practice in the mirror at home. Not hard to see at all. Should they stay behind closed doors or do the right thing and blow their head off? What are they supposed to do? What is your truth?

One of my favorite sayings, specially so when I was army. Anyway. What do you think the consequences are?

I cannot express myself any better than this and in light of how many times I have seen countless long winded posts by some I post this and end my discussion in this particular thread lest some be more offended.

What do I think the consequences are?


J. Gresham Machen



Machen (1881-1937) was Professor of New Testament, first at Princeton Theological Seminary, and afterwards at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. Published in God Transcendent (1949).

"For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23).

Some time ago I heard a sermon on this text by a preacher who has now retired. The sermon was not one that I agreed with altogether, but the beginning of it, I thought, was interesting. The preacher said that during the preceding summer he had met in a chance sort of way, on one of the steamers of the Great Lakes, a gentleman who turned out to be a man of large affairs, but a man who had little to do with the church. Incidentally the conversation turned to religious matters, and the man of business gave to the preacher the benefit of a little criticism. The criticism was perhaps not unworthy of attention. "You preachers," the outsider said, "don't preach hell enough."

Usually the criticism which is leveled at the church by men who know nothing about it is as valueless as ignorant criticism is in other spheres. But in this case I am inclined to think that the critic was right. We preachers do not preach hell enough, and we do not say enough about sin. We talk about the gospel and wonder why people are not interested in what we say. Of course they are not interested. No man is interested in a piece of good news unless he has the consciousness of needing it; no man is interested in an offer of salvation unless he knows that there is something from which he needs to be saved. It is quite useless to ask a man to adopt the Christian view of the gospel unless he first has the Christian view of sin.

But a man will never adopt the Christian view of sin if he considers merely the sin of the world or the sins of other people. Consideration of the sins of other people is the deadliest of moral anodynes; it relieves the pain of conscience but it also destroys moral life. Many persons gloat over denunciations of that to which they are not tempted; or they even gloat over denunciations, in the case of other people, of sins which are also really theirs. King David was very severe when the prophet Nathan narrated to him his sordid tale of greed. "As the Lord liveth," said David, "the man that hath done this thing shall surely die." But Nathan was a disconcerting prophet. "And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man." (II Samuel 12:5, 7) That was for David the beginning of a real sense of his sin. So it will also be with us.

Of course it seems quite preposterous that we should be sinners. It was preposterous also for King David seated on his throne in the majesty of his royal robes. It was preposterous, but it was true. So also it is preposterous for us. It seems to be a strange notion to treat respectable people as sinners. In the case of college men, it seems particularly absurd. College men look so pleasant; it seems preposterous to connect them with the dreadful fact of sin. Some time ago I was reading, I think in a journal published in London, a review of a book that dealt with religious conditions among university men or young people. The author of the book spoke of the moral ideals of the young men of the present day as being summed up in the notion of being a good sport. The young men of the present day, it was said in effect, may not use the old terminology of guilt and retribution, but they dislike the man who does not know how to play fairly a match of lawn tennis and does not know how to take defeat like a gentleman. The remark of the reviewer, I thought, was eminently just. Surely, he said, with regard to this very common lawn tennis view of sin — surely, he said, among university men "there are grimmer facts than these." He was right, and we know he was right. He was right about university men in England; he was right about college men in America; and he was right about the rest of us as well. There are grimmer facts than poor lawn tennis and poor sport, regrettable though that no doubt is. There is, in general, in a thousand ugly forms, the grim fact of sin.

So when I speak of sin I am not talking to you about the sin of other people, but I am talking to you about your sin, and I am talking to myself about my sin. I am talking about that particular battle ground where you come to grips with the power of evil and where you meet your God.

Suppose that on that battle ground we have met defeat. What is the result? The answer of the text and the answer of the whole Bible is short and plain. "The wages of sin," says the Bible, "is death" (Romans 6:23). I shall not pause just now to consider in detail what Paul means by "death" — except just to point out this interesting fact that if you want to find the most terrible descriptions of this eternal death you will find them not in Paul but in Jesus. It is the custom nowadays to appeal from the supposedly gloomy theology of Paul to the supposedly sunny philosophy of Jesus; but the strange things is that it is Jesus, not Paul, who speaks of the outer darkness and the everlasting fire and of the sin that shall not be forgiven either in this world or in that which is to come. Paul is content in his Epistles to treat of the punishment of sin with some reserve — a reserve very impressive and very terrifying, it is true — but Jesus is more explicit. Jesus makes abundantly plain that the offender against God's law is facing something far more dreadful, to say the least, than mere annihilation would be. The teaching of Jesus has at the very center of it the fear of God and the fear of hell. No human law without sanction is complete; a law without a penalty is an altogether worthless and pitiful thing. Are God's laws of this pitiful kind?

There are some people who seem to think that they are. But as a matter of fact God's laws have attached to them sanctions compared with which all human penalties are as nothing.

The fact appears even in the course of this world. There is a deadly inexorableness about the laws of nature. Offend against the laws of health, and the result follows with a terrible certainty; no excuses will avail; crying and tears will count nothing; the retribution, however deferred, is sure. In the sphere of the physical life, it is certainly clear that the wages of sin is death. But many people think that the paymaster can be cheated, that after a life of sin we can present ourselves hopefully at the cashier's window and be paid in some different coin from that which we have earned. Do you really agree with them? Do you really think that in this accounting you can cheat? Do you really think that by care in the physical sphere you can avoid the consequences of sin? There is something within us that tells us that such is not the case; there is something within us that reveals the abyss over which we are standing, that brushes aside our petty excuses, that reveals in the inner, moral sphere, as in the physical realm, the same terrible inexorableness of law. God grant that we may not deceive ourselves! God grant that we may not hope to cheat! God grant that we may learn in time that the wages of sin is death!

There is a definiteness and certainty about wages. Wages are different from a spontaneous gift; wages, unlike a gift, are fixed. A man has done his week's work; he presents himself at the paymaster's desk, and is paid off; the matter is not discussed; the employee does not try then to strike a bargain with the cashier. The amount of the payment has been determined beforehand, and the payment itself is a purely formal, impersonal affair. So it is, somewhat, with the wages of sin. The wages have been fixed already. I do not mean that all sins are punished alike; no doubt at God's judgment seat there is a delicacy of discrimination quite impossible under human laws. And I do not mean that the penalty of sin follows merely by a natural law that is independent of God. But however the law has been established, it is, when once established, inexorable. It is quite useless for a man to argue about the penalty of his sin; it is useless in the physical sphere of the laws of health, and it will be useless when we appear at last before Him who knows the secrets of the heart. Let us not deceive ourselves, my friends. The moral constitution of the universe is a very terrible thing. Let us not think that we can trifle with it. The world is governed by inexorable law. And that law establishes by an immutable decree the dreadful consequences of sin. The wages of sin is death.

At that point some preachers stop. Here stopped, for example, the noted preacher whose sermon gave us our text and our subject today. The terribleness of sin and the inexorableness of law — it is writ large in the physical organism of man and in the whole course of nature. It is also writ large in the Bible. But the Bible, unlike nature, does not stop here. "The wages of sin is death" — it is a great truth, but it is not the end of our text. The wages of sin is death — that is the law. But the Bible contains more than the law; it contains also the gospel. "The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23).

The free gift is contrasted with wages. Yet men persist in dragging it down to the wage level; they persist in trying to make the gift of God a product of some law. They persist in regarding salvation as proceeding by some natural process from faith or from some other quality of men. They regard Christianity as founded upon permanent principles of religion instead of being founded upon an unexpected piece of news. When will the vain effort be abandoned? Salvation is nothing, or it is a free gift; it is not a principle that has been discovered but an event that has happened.

The trouble is that we are unwilling to take God at His word. We persist in endeavoring to save ourselves. If we have learned to any degree that lesson of the law, if we have come to have a horror of sin, we persist in thinking that it depends upon us to get rid of it. We try to make use of our own moral resources in this struggle, and we fall yet deeper and deeper into the mire. When shall we take God at His word? When shall we simply accept, in faith, the gift of salvation which He has offered?

It is certainly worth accepting. It consists in "eternal life." We need not now ask in detail what that means. But certainly it is as glorious as the "death" with which it is contrasted is terrible. It is certainly happiness as contrasted with woe, but it is far more than happiness. It involves service, and it involves the presence of God.

The free gift of God is an absolutely unaccountable event in the life of every man who accepts it. It is not the natural working out of a principle, but it is a thing that happens. But that happening in the soul is the result of a happening in the sphere of external history. The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. There we have the central characteristic of our religion; the central characteristic of Christianity is that it is not founded merely upon what always was true but primarily upon something that happened — something that took place near Jerusalem at a definite time in the world's history. In other words, it is founded not merely upon permanent truths of religion, but upon a "gospel," a piece of news.

The Christian preacher, be he ever so humble, is entrusted with that gospel. We could not hope to be listened to if we had merely our own thoughts; there are so many others in the world wiser and more learned than we. But in a time of peril in a beleaguered city the humblest of day-laborers is more worth listening to than the greatest of orators, if he has news. So it is with the Christian preacher in this deadly peril of the soul. The wages of sin is death — that is the law. But at the decisive point Christ has taken the wages upon Himself — that is the gospel. Inexorable is the moral law of God. But God's mercy has used, and triumphed over, His law. We deserved eternal death; but Christ died instead of us on the cross. Shall we accept the gift? The result will be a fresh start in God's favor and then a winning battle against sin. "The wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Help Bradclark a little more here. It is all summed up in this - the reason their are gay pride marches is because there is 'GAY SHAME' from sticking ones cock into another mans sh*t. Hence they even know it wrong because it is programmed into the deepest parts of your brain this way. Instinct tells you it is wrong, and you know it.

Does that help add a little graphic reality here? Glad I could be of service. :D

-S

I don't know about that subman. I think the whole gay rights movement rode the coat tails of the civil rights movement, of which the pride thing was a pretty critical part (IMO). If they were truely ashamed of it, would that many people keep on doing it?

PD

Something just for some fun.
Since no one posted it so let me take some credit :smug:

Copy & Paste job:

That list of statistics is for the most pretty much questionable if not useless since the claim's content can be interpreted in two directions, or the data simply are questionable in some other claims.

Just a few examples, I doubt that so many suicides are attributed to gays, but that the rate amongst gays may be higher indeed is no surprise - considering the immense social pressure and discrimination they are being put under in many local regions of this world. It's like saying the rate of men in the death cell who die from violant force implemented on them is close to 100%. Or "On April 25, 2001, the CDC reported that “We are seeing substantial increases in sexually transmitted diseases among men who have sex with men in multiple locations across this country.” Well, that answers it - the problem more likely is polygamy and too diverse and too many sexual contacts. Surprisignly, the suxually transmitted deseasaes amongst heterosexual people increase too the more often they chnage their sexual partners - wowh! "• 41% of homosexual men say they have had sex with strangers in public restrooms, 60% say they have had sex with strangers in bathhouses, and 64% of these encounters have involved the use of illegal drugs (8). " Well, heterocouples and one-night-stands surely do not do that. "• 25-33% of homosexual men and lesbians are alcoholics (11)." The rate amongst doctors and top managers is estimated to be even higher. the use of cocain is widespread amongst these. " Sperm readily penetrates the anal wall (which is only one cell thick) and gains direct access to the blood stream. This causes massive immunological damage to the body’s T- and B-cell defensive systems (14). " That is true, but then you must crusade against hetero couples practcing it as well. And condoms seem to be a good idea anyway, no matter your sexual orientation "• Homosexual men got homosexuality removed from the list of mental illnesses in the early 70s by storming the annual American Psychiatric Association (APA) conference on successive years. “Guerrilla theater tactics and more straight-forward shouting matches characterized their presence” (2). Since homosexuality has been removed from the APA list of mental illnesses, so has pedophilia (except when the adult feels “subjective distress”) (27)." Well, that one I know from my former psychological profession, and the twist the author tries to give it here is absurd. In america, many things make people yell and shout hysterically, especi8ally relgious demosntrations pro or against abortion, death penalty, gunlaws, missionising, and sexual prudery. The social pressure and voices to abandon this idea of homosexuality being mental desease came from ALL levels and camps of society, amybe exceopt the relgious right, and followed a trend that doctors and psychiatrists on an international level already had formed.

But it is too long a list as if i would bother to do it one by one with all items now. Lists like this exist by the hundreds on the internet, many of them in blogs and forums of websites that have heavily biased (= attached to the Christian right and/or political right) tendencies. Uncritically pasteing and copying them without ever questiuoning their content and background and the way the supposed scientific data they pretend to give in shining glory has been won and created, is not really helpful.

Gays are like they are, and if they do not bother others with their characteristics, others must not bother about them. Just this talk of gay marriages and "gay pride" annoys me, like some stupid gay parade as well. there is as much reason to be proud to be gay as there is reason to be proud to be heterosexual. Else, what's next? People like me getting hanged in the streets for the sacrileg of wearing classes, for only gods are allowed to wear glasses in some man-caring mind's sick imagination?

Fact remains homosexuals are NOT 95% of the population, they are not the norm and by genetic design (to be found in the blueprint for the homo sapiens) they never have been meant to be. They are a deviation that happens by genetical accident, probably, for in his early developement cycles, a human shows characteristics that are the same for both sexes, and not before some time later these split into male and female and then undergo different further developement. Other sexual deviations like transsexuality, or a female psyche trapped inside a male body, also may be caused this way. So, such deviations can affect the psyche, the body, or both.

So, homosexuality is neither a reason to discriminate somebody, not more reason then to discirminate somebody for being born with just one arm, maybe, but it also is no reason to talk of "pride" or to reject the fact that heterosexuality nevertheless was the way our species biologically has been designed, and has been meant to be, biologically. As long as the exception does not demand to be seen as the norm, there is no need for clashing. A blond-haired Han-Chinese must not be discriminated - but he wopuld learn laughter when claiming that he is representative for the Han race, where in fact he is a mutation. My impression is that some people here (and those kind of minds putting together such statoistical lists designed to create utmost disgust) have principal problems with other people's sexual habits and behaviors, but that is these people's problem, and theirs alone, as long as the object of their disgust does not try to impose it's manners and characteristics on the (biologically normal) majority, or demands to be seen as of equal quality to serve as a social norm for the community of a species that - you cannot avoid it - has been designed to be split into two sexes, and deal with that heterosexuality and all the social and cultural consequences.

If nature can happily exist and run on with homosexuality to be seen in many animal specieds as well, I do not see why man must be so haughty to take it upon himself to see it different (means: "better") than nature itself.

Have you ever looked at ancient Greek art? :lol: I admit that kind of social acceptance you find in ancient Greece is leading a bit too far, for my taste, but nevertheless! Now think what would be left of europe and it'S culture, without our old ancient Greek heritage!

Nothing!

What's being discussed here is marraige, not sex. Of course there is an obvious overlap, but would you argue that hetero marraige is based entirely on sex?

Saying "this is wrong" does not make it so.

That's different, and Newton gives us the answer. Gay pride exists because gay shame exists. Equal and opposite reaction

I'll pass on reading your story. Thats not an answer.
I don't see any negative consequences. I think they should be able to have civil unions and get the same benefits as an heterosexual couple. There is a lesbian couple behind us that have a daughter. They are a normal family that does normal family things but the nine years old daughter has two moms. Very nice young lady, well mannered and doesn't seem traumatized over the situation.

Edit: Let me expand a little. If one of my kids came home one day and said "Hey mom and dad I'm gay" I would be somewhat upset but I wouldn't fly off in a rage. I would accept it because I don't believe it's a choice. The main thing is that they are happy with their life and not live a life in shame and sorrow just because it wouldn't look right. I won't cast him or her out and disown and I would accept the partner. You have kids and that could be a reality one day.

Guys for the most part this has been an interesting discussion, but can we not get into graphic details ^^^^ here please.
Let's keep it above bar. Thanks :yep:


RDP

So American pride exists because American shame exists?

So pride in your church/religion exists because church/religion shame exists?

So the pride I have in my children exists because of the shame of my children?

Jus trying to understand this

You're coming form a different context. Gay people have always been down on themselves for their different and often viewed as weird lifestyle.

Pride in America or your church or your religion stems from different underpinnings.

-S

So your the forum expert on Gays huh ? :p