News and Politics Forum

axe wrote:

2.FOH. wrote:

axe wrote:

Maybe if you let them marry, they would be more inclined towards monogamy

They -can- marry, just not to each other.

One of these days... STRAIGHT TO THE MOON!

We've got a flag there.  No SSM on the moon either.

axe wrote:

One of these days... STRAIGHT TO THE MOON!

& proud of it too, but you don't see me dressing up like Don Juan in V neck
trousers & marching around the street proclaiming my raging straightness.

Qwinn wrote:

I -have- shown incontrovertible statistics showing an ironclad, unassailable link between homosexuality and intravenous drug use, and AIDS.  These statistics were from the Census Bureau and the CDC.  They show that homosexuals have at -least- a 100x greater chance than a straight non-IV-drug-using person to catch AIDS.  And that's assuming that every person who catches AIDS and is gay tells the truth about their sexual orientation.

At.  Least.  One.  Hundred.  Fucking.  Times.  More.  Likely.

How often do I have to prove this?

Qwinn

AIDS is much more common in South Africa than it is among your homosexual population, what about the south africans?

zukiphile wrote:

They have a hetero problem that piggybacks, no pun, on travel and works patterns and other STDs.  That doesn't reduce the role homosexuals and IV drug abusers have played in AIDS transmission in this hemisphere.

Perhaps the gays' issues are due to societal pressures forcing them underground, where methods of protection were not readily available.

Also -- have those AIDS statistics been dropping since the last 10, 20 years?

axe wrote:

Also -- have those AIDS statistics been dropping since the last 10, 20 years?

Probably.

axe wrote:

Perhaps the gays' issues are due to societal pressures forcing them underground, where methods of protection were not readily available.

No.  Not a chance.  We had condoms in the 70s.

Ever read the story of patient zero, the canuck steward?  He fucked guys in bath houses knowing he would give them "gay cancer".  When the problem was made public in the late 70s, San francisco tried to shut down the "bath houses" where these guys, being guys, met for anonymous sex.

The protests were loud and transmission by that method continued.

African transmission has to do with people having open sores from other diseases allowing blood transmission that does not normally occur when a vagina is involved.

axe wrote:

AIDS is much more common in South Africa than it is among your homosexual population, what about the south africans?

Has anyone done a homosexual study in Africa yet?  Even if AIDS in Africa has nothing to do with homosexuality, there is still the more generic issue of adultery, of which homosexuality is a subset, and I'm sure AIDS in Africa is primarily spread through adultery.  We could argue about that....

Quinn and FOH, thanks.  Why the venom on the last page, T and Axe?  This whole AIDS topic started when I stated rather matter-of-factly:  "[homosexuality] is destructive to both homosexual parties both physically and mentally.  It is not a good thing."  Putting your hand on a hot stove is destructive and not a good thing too.  It should be clear by now that I am not against homosexuals or "out to get them."  I'm against their practices and I'm genuinely concerned for their welfare.  If your hand is on the hot stove, I'm going to tell you that you would be better off not touching it. 

Ultimately, homosexual acts are a symptom of a much deeper illness:  a dead heart.  Only God can quicken hearts.  It's my job to spread the word.

Buho wrote:

Zuki wrote:

African transmission has to do with people having open sores from other diseases allowing blood transmission that does not normally occur when a vagina is involved.

Really?  That's news to me.  Not saying you're wrong...

It's what I've read about southern Africa.  You have populations of migrant workers who cover regular routes, and women they associate with when in an area.  Each woman may have three or six boyfriends, and each man three or six women he knows along his work route.  They will all have the routine venereal diseases, untreated.  Even if they copulate rather than have anal sex, the likelihood of blood transmission is high.

With this sort of web, a disease spreads quickly.  I also understand that a whole generation in parts of Africa is essentially missing a big chunk of its adult sexually active population, and you see the elderly raising lots of small children.

As if this weren't already indescribably sad enough, the resulting children are disproportionately channeled into prostitution where, you guessed it, they get AIDS.

Buho wrote:

Quinn and FOH, thanks.  Why the venom on the last page, T and Axe?

Because of the content and tone of the article you posted. It was so unabashedly ignorant and biased that I couldn't help but react that way.

NPB - YES! LET THE HATE FLOW THROUGH YOU!

axe - Nooooooo!

axe wrote:

axe - Nooooooo!

Sorry, I should have made that a conditional instead of an absolute.  If the Bible's description of the condition of man is accurate, then what I said above is true.  So sorry for that blunder!

But in my opinion, it does make good sense of why people do what they do.

Only that which "the Bible tells me so," which transcends my opinion.  (In my opinion, the Bible is clear on this subject.*)

An exhaustive answer to your question would probably be book-length.  I'm trying to figure out how to cut it down to forum-size. 

Short answer:  those with a dead heart are those who are not "saved."**

The idea of a dead heart is directly related to the phrase you all have heard of:  being "born again."  The concept behind being "born again" comes primarily from John 3.  Here's a piece of that:

John 3 wrote:

Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"

Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.'"
. . .
[Jesus continued,] "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."

The idea of being born again is the spiritual birth.  We all have had a first birth, but not everybody has had the spiritual birth.  Those who are born again are alive to the things of God. 

"Alive" and "dead" and "heart" are metaphors, of course.  The Christian understands that every single person has a functioning spirit/heart along with a functioning body.  The spirit persists beyond bodily death.  But not every spirit is aligned with God, or changed to be in accord with God's will, or made anew, or regenerated.  (For those who want to dig further, the word "regeneration" has a precise meaning that can be searched on.)  The spirit that is in it's "default" state is described as "dead."

The symptoms of a dead heart are described all over the Bible.  A concise summary is in Romans 1:18ff and Romans 3:9ff.  A dead heart wants nothing to do with God or His will.  My whole point about mentioning a "dead heart" in the first place was to de-emphasize the whole homosexuality issue, since it is simply a symptom of a much deeper problem (as the Christian sees it).  God has quickened dead hearts of homosexuals.  As a result, the homosexual then is faced with a predicament:  his old way of living, or God's new way of living.  This conviction occurs in the newly-made heart and is between him and God.  It has nothing to do with the anti-homosexual picketers.  That's why I said that.  It's more important to spread the Good News of what Jesus has done to grant us this freedom from a dead heart.

Buho wrote:

But in my opinion, it does make good sense of why people do what they do.

The concept of a dead heart explains why there is evil in this world.  It explains why there are serial murderers and bullies, why your coworker is trying to defame you when you've done nothing wrong.  It explains why our impulse when angered is to resort to ad hominems.  It explains why we want to destroy rather than build.  It explains why expensive toys, technology, money, and grand personal achievements fail to satisfy us and give us lasting happiness.  Man was built and designed to be "connected to God" (another metaphor), but that was severed in the garden of Eden.  God, through Jesus' sacrifice, is actively working to restore us to the way it was supposed to be.

It's a little more complicated, though.  If it were not, born-again Christians would never do anything wrong, but we all know that's a load of crock.  But the Bible has already addressed this.  In Romans 7, Paul speaks to the born-again and explains why we still do evil when we've been freed from the control of evil.  Born-again Christians are only half-fixed.  We're still stuck with the "flesh" or "sinful nature," which are metaphors for another unseen component.  When they are bodily raised from the dead, they will be given new bodies, which will complete God's work in them.

What makes this topic difficult to explain to non-Christians is twofold.  One, the topic necessarily deals with things unseen and unseeable.  We cannot see hearts.  God can.  We're left to resort to imperfect metaphors in an attempt to understand what's really going on.  Two, there is an experiential aspect to this topic that born-again Christians share but are perplexed how to communicate to those who have not experienced it.  This experiential evidence does wonders to explaining what's going on.  You can see this with Jesus' parables, how they confused so many people, but can be understood by those whom are alive (Luke 8:9-10; Luke 9:60).  The best I can hope for in this post for those who are not born-again is that they comprehend what I am writing with theoretical head-knowledge only, which, on the scale of understanding as I see it, is paltry.  I do not mean to be elitist at all!  This again comes from the Bible:  1 Corinthians 2:14 says, "The man without the Spirit [the dead of heart] does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned [with an alive heart]."  My experience has proven this verse to be true.  But hey, if the Bible is wrong, everything I said is bunk, I'm delusional and to be pitied more than all men (1 Cor 15:12ff).  I'm okay with that.

On a theoretical level, I can't imagine how someone can be offended at being told they have a dead heart.  Those with a dead heart want nothing to do with God, and care not what is evil or good in God's eyes, only what is "good for them."  But there is a human aspect to all this that trumps theory.  I tend to speak on clean, theoretical grounds to the detriment of people's feelings.  Too that I apologize and will work toward improving.

* In my opinion, the Bible is authoritative on my life.  Most here will not share this opinion, which is fine.

** I'm quick to add that just because someone is a homosexual does not necessarily mean they are not saved.  As stated earlier, I am a sinner as much as a homosexual is.  I still sin, but my salvation is not in question.  Read further in my post to see why.