Given the way homosexuals are treated, why would anyone choose to live their life being hated, unless they can’t help it?
Question:
According to your article, homosexuals choose their lifestyle, they are not born that way. Given the way they are treated in 99% of the world, hatred, violence, death, discrimination, etc, why would anyone choose to live their life being hated and defiled?
God does not create people to go to hell. If the practice of homosexuality is a sin, then why are these people born with the urges to love their same sex?
No one would freely choose to live as a homosexual. So if they have no choice, are they to live their whole life without anyone to love and be loved by? Did God create a whole group of people that cannot give and receive love?
Didn't Jesus say the greatest of all gifts He gave to us is love?
Please help me try to understand how you can believe that God created people to go to hell for loving someone. As far as sins that guarantee Hell, what about honoring the Sabbath, or eating shellfish, or any of the other sins that are supposed to send you to Hell. I thought the only unforgivable sin was disrespect of the Holy Spirit.
Please write back to me and help me understand.
Answer:
Notice that you claim that homosexuality is genetic without evidence. There are several studies which state that there might be a genetic tendency toward homosexuality, but even these studies are not replicable and thus are suspect. Instead, the trend recently is to state that homosexuality is not genetic. See "No "Gay" Gene According to the American Psychological Association."
Your initial question is interesting because it goes to the heart of the matter, why would someone choose to be a homosexual?
Let's start with something less controversial: stealing certainly isn't claimed to be genetic, though there was an attempt to do so back in the 1970s. Clearly people who steal do so by choice with environmental factors providing motivation to do so. According to the National Shoplifting Prevention Coalition, 1 in 11 people steal. Now, why would people choose to do such a thing when it is condemned and even punished, sometimes violently, throughout the world?
Heterosexual sex does have a biological basis, but in most of the world, it is condemned when it takes place outside of marriage. Sometimes such indiscretion leads to violence. "For jealousy is a husband's fury; therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance. He will accept no recompense, nor will he be appeased though you give many gifts" (Proverbs 6:34-35). We understand that sexual acts between a man and a woman are a choice. We hold those involved responsible for their choices. Why would someone choose to have sex outside of marriage when it causes so many problems?
Why would some choose to be a pedophile, a murderer, a swindler, or a rapist? Let me give you a hint: it isn't because they were born that way.
Take off the blinders! Homosexuality is no different than any other sin. As a whole, people understand sinful actions are wrong and condemn it. Homosexuality is no exception. Every homosexual freely chooses to sin.
Let's pull apart your second argument: It is all about love. Like many people, you confuse sexual acts with the concept of love, even though the two are completely independent. I love God, my country, my parents, my friends, my children, and yet sexual acts have absolutely nothing to do with those feelings and expressions of love. Read through the definition of love in I Corinthians 13:4-8 and you will find no mention of sex. Therefore, love is not a justification for homosexuality; just as it is not justification for adultery or fornication.
Sin is the violation of the law. Honoring the Sabbath was required under the Old Covenant because it was the day to worship God. Violating it was a sin because it dishonored God. Eating shellfish was forbidden under that same law because it fell under the category of unclean. In neither case did a person have to violate the law. People did violate the laws, but they did so because they chose to do so. That you think the laws were silly doesn't make it so; there were good reasons for each of the laws God gave to Israel, just as there are good reasons for the laws God gave to Christians.
Any unrepentant sin will send a person to hell. "But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death" (Revelation 21:8). There are numerous people who gave up homosexuality because they came to understand it was wrong. There are numerous modern-day accounts and there are ancient accounts as well. "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God" (I Corinthians 6:9-11).
God doesn't want anyone to die because of their sins. "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (II Peter 3:9). But without that change, that repentance, far too many people will lose out on heaven.
