[Blindtlk] Off Topic - Accessible places on the net forLGBTQindividuals?

Fri Feb 22 19:53:18 UTC 2013

First of all, thanks so much for all the kind words. It was quite
difficult writing it, but I do hope that people can relate to it,
which is why I did it. Dianne and Mark, I think like you I could
describe myself as a liberal Christisn, like I said sort of
Episcopalian. I have heard of people for example Gene Robinson, would
love to read his book.
The difficulty I think I have is how to read and interpret the Bible,
for example, like I explained probably Jesus couldn't condemn the
terrible things in the old testament at the time, and I also don't
read Paul much, because he wrote very nice things he also wrote all
that stuff about women must be submissive and can't teach etc. But the
figure of Jesus and the idea is what I love, and the nice fuzzy
feelings and carols at Christmas.
One thing I think is hardly highlighted is how much actually the Old
Testament is even against disabled people in many ways. I think its
Leviticus 21 or something, the old testament God did not consider us
perfect enough to be his priests, never mind that probably the
perfect, ablebodied priests might have sinned more than the disabled
person, the leviticus god cared for the outward.
Another instance which is very disgusting is when david captures
jeruasalem and he orders his commander of the army to kill all the
blind and the crippled, and the old testament God doesn't even punish
him or do anything to him, and even calls him a person after his own
heart.
I so sympathise with you Dianne. I used to get so upset because when
miracles didn't happen many of these people even openly in front of
everyone blamed me, actually saying that it is my lack of faith that
God's power isn't working. Have you noticed though that the people who
supposedly speak in tungs just normally say the same line over and
over, and sometimes it isn't even a real language?
I also read a really amazing book this holiday I found on Project
Gutenberg. It is old, but still very interesting. It's called The
Warfare of Science with Theology and it is written by an American,
Andrew Dixon-White. What I found so fascinating in this book was it
shows you so many instances where the church in the Middle Ages
opposed science and man's understanding to advance. Like mentally ill
people, they thought they were possessed, or even in the medical field
they objected to all sorts of useful things. Even today we see the
church opposing stem cell research which could really help all of us.
I know they have that whole belief that cells contain life, but our
cells in our bodies are living and dying all the time. An embryo
eisjust a few cells and apparrently hasn't even developed a brain or
nervous system yet. This is different to abortion, I think I can
understand and even to a certain extent agree to the objections
against that, especially if it is true that the fetus can suffer and
feel pain.
I really do hope and wish that there is a God and an afterlife because
the thought that all that we love and people who have died just
disappear and stop existing is just so depressing that I really can't
cope with it. I was thinking, if you were brought up in a religion
where you are totally certain there is an afterlife, if you become an
Atheist the come-down must be incredibly awful, especially if you are
blind or disabled because then you realise that there is so much
you'll never ever be able to experience and do and you just stop
existing.
Ari
On 2/22/13, Mark Tardif <markspark at roadrunner.com> wrote:
> Absolutely, Peter.
>
>
>
> Mark Tardif
> Nuclear arms will not hold you.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Wolfe
> Sent: Friday, February 22, 2013 9:16 AM
> To: Blind Talk Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Off Topic - Accessible places on the net
> forLGBTQindividuals?
>
> Mark,
>
>
>     You neglected to mention the death penalty in your rant! Alas, I
> believe that you cannot separate cleanly where blindness enters our
> lives or where it ends so it should be expected that bleed over
> occurs. All that being said that society must accept all minorities
> not just some. Sometiems in the blind community that I'm isolated from
> others cause of not following their religious tennants or whatever.
> Actually at prepatory program for college classes in Alabama that the
> instructor suggested that we all pray. Assuming that we're all
> christian isn't a good way of beginning dialogue with other.
>
>
> hugs,
> Peter
>
> On 2/22/13, Mark Tardif <markspark at roadrunner.com> wrote:
>> Ari, you have no idea how much I respect you and your bravery for talking
>> about these issues.  I respect people who struggle and admit that they
>> don't
>>
>> know.  That in itself is, ironically, more Christian than the disgusting
>> televangelists with their huge purses and arrogant stands.  That is the
>> very
>>
>> essence of humility.  I too have been through the spiritual ringer, as we
>> would say here in America, and I have finally landed as a liberal
>> Episcopalian.  In my church in Florida, people lived compassion and
>> really
>> did try to live the Christian life.  I have friends and relatives who are
>> gay, and I love them every bit as much as anybody.  That is what is
>> needed,
>>
>> not exclusion, not harsh judgment.  It simply doesn't make sense to me
>> that
>>
>> only a select few will go to heaven and so many others who certainly left
>> the world much better for their work, somehow will end up in hell.  That
>> is
>>
>> the ultimate in arrogance and I think Jesus would have a few angry things
>>
>> to
>>
>> say to those people.  It seems that those people also support everything
>> that promotes death and suffering, except for themselves of course, such
>> as
>>
>> war, racism, intolerance, gun rights being more important than human
>> rights,
>>
>> environmental degredation, etc.  I'll shut up now, because I'll probably
>> be
>>
>> run out on a rail by some people and this is after all a list about
>> issues
>> that impact blind people, so please forgive me for being so off-topic.
>> Thank you, Ari, I think you've shattered some ice here and I applaud you.
>>
>> Mark Tardif
>> Nuclear arms will not hold you.
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Ari Damoulakis
>> Sent: Friday, February 22, 2013 2:41 AM
>> To: Blind Talk Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Off Topic - Accessible places on the net for
>> LGBTQindividuals?
>>
>> Hi Dianne, Peter, Mark and Carley
>> You're probably absolutely right I think about maybe the fact that
>> attraction probably just happens, although for me the gay and lesbian
>> thing just seems so brave to be able to come out like that.
>> I am hetero, but I think telling you the story of my life here might
>> explain some things.
>> To my shame I must admit that in the past I think I was one of those
>> people who was incredibly intollerant and awful. It is not really a
>> nice story I'm going to tell, and I probably don't come out of it well
>> at all, but since I like chatting and knowing about other blind people
>> here it is. I'm also hoping that if they are any young blind people
>> out there who are in a similar position to me this story will be
>> interesting to them and can help them, that's why I'm telling it here.
>> I think the reason could have been the school I was at.
>> In South Africa they have now started a little mainstreaming, but
>> before when I was at school there were mainly two good blind schools
>> in the whole country.
>>   The one I went to was run by a very right-wing, conservative
>> Afrikaans church.
>> This meant that religion and Christianity played a huge part in the
>> school. Since it also was a bording school and many blind people
>> borded there, I think we were often moulded to think in certain ways.
>> We were never expressly told to hate gay people, but I mean we were
>> taught that the Bible was amazing and that all truth was to be found
>> in it. Therefore, when I used to read it and it said that gay people
>> should be put to death I thought that LGBT people were disgusting. At
>> school also, I don't think anyone could afford to be gay because of
>> the conservatism of the school and the way many of the kids thought I
>> think they would have been really hated at worst, and at best people
>> might have tried to reprogram them. Some Christians believe that being
>> gay is wrong, but that gay people must be loved, but their supposed
>> sin must be hated.
>> It wasn't just gay, it was even music. Some of us would sit for hours
>> wondering whether it was ok to listen to this music or whether it had
>> evil lyrics or whether the artist was from the devil etc.
>> It also didn't help that at home my mom loves the Charismatic
>> evangelical church which said all the same things, and on top of it
>> all used to invite so-called healers and prophets who used to go on
>> and on about supposed miracles they'd done. I was prayed for millions
>> of times, wondering why God didn't speak to me when he was supposedly
>> speaking to everyone else, wondering why I didn't fall over or say
>> random words like others did, always had hopes and then afterwards
>> questions why nothing was happening, was it my fault nothing was
>> happening? So I tried even harder to live what would be called a
>> Christian life.
>> At school we were never even taught important things such as evolution
>> or anything, I left school thinking it was totally evil and not even
>> knowing what it was.
>> Obviously you could ask why I never read about any of these. The
>> problems were two-fold, one was that, up until a few years ago the
>> library for the blind here as far as I know had Atheist books, or, as
>> far as I know books on Evolution, but even if they did have I wouldn't
>> dare look at them.
>> These churches and people are great at manipulating other people. I
>> was really taught never to question, and the thing is, the way it was
>> done was by using the idea of hell very strongly. It is incredibly
>> easy to scare a child with fear of hell. There used to be this
>> manipulating play called Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames which
>> totally scared me to death.
>>             There were then a few factors after school that slowly
>> changed my mind and my life.
>> First, I started reading on the internet athat these supposed healers
>> and prophets and televangelists were not what they seemed. Even other
>> Christians thought they were dodgey.
>> Ironically another chapter was when I went to university to do
>> Theology. I wanted to be a better Christian, or understand the secrets
>> of religion that I didn't get.
>> I was lucky that it was a Theology class that wasn't at a
>> fundamentalist place or had a fundamentalist point of view. All sorts
>> of people started there, from fundamentalist believers like I was at
>> the time to liberal people.
>> I thought there was something wrong with a guy there who even couldn't
>> stand Catholics and wanted to go to Northern Ireland to preach and
>> help the Protestants in their struggle against the evil wrong
>> Catholics. On the other side, there was a Catholic person, and they
>> argued all the time and I thought this was awful.
>> Then I started learning about all the contradictions of the Bible, but
>> at that time I still believed it and sort of tried to ignore them,
>> although there were some things that were just impossible to ignore
>> and sounded even awful.
>> I left Theology because I saw the arguments and that nothing could be
>> proved. I think I got tired of the philosophy and the philosophical
>> differences, and the fact that I saw people taking different parts out
>> of the Bible to justify their opinions.
>> At that time, after seeing the contradictions and how awful some of
>> the old testament actually is I started accepting gay people, but I'm
>> not really sure whether I still feared hell and all that, so I might
>> have been living two lives. I knew the Bible had problems but I was
>> worried that it might still be true and totally scared of hell. So I
>> was living two lives. One part of me wanted to accept people in all
>> their differences, I think the God or Bible part of me though was
>> still using fear to control me, so I'd be thinking something like:
>> "Suppose you're wrong? You'd still better believe the Bible and you
>> can believe that God loves gays, but believe that he hates the sin of
>> gayness or Atheism."
>> My mindset started to change again when I went to a new university and
>> started meeting and actually becoming friends with gay and atheist
>> people.
>> I never wanted to admit it to myself, but even when I had Christian
>> friends I got the feeling that the friendships were very much on the
>> surface. What I mean is, they loved it that I'd come and worship with
>> them, they'd sort of talk to me, but I had a sort of feeling that they
>> were my friends and talking to me more out of a sense that they had
>> to, you know, they were commanded to love other people, not because
>> they really actually wanted to socialise with me, and outside worship
>> many of them didn't take the trouble to actually get to know me.
>> I then contrasted this to the behaviour of people who I'd met who were
>> gay or Atheist. I started asking myself why did many of them actually
>> like being with me, talking to me, and being interested in my life and
>> me as an actual person. Why was it that gay and atheist people seemed
>> to becoming my best friends compared to the Christian people I'd known
>> before?
>> I then stopped fearing hell by this reasoning. I became really amazing
>> friends with a girl who is an Atheist. I then started thinking that if
>> she's such a kind girl and is going to hehll when so many of these
>> Christians who are weird are going to heaven this is just awful and
>> that they were just going to hell for something that couldnt be
>> proved. I started thinking that if God really cared about my friends
>> who I'd started to really love, surely he would try more and make an
>> effort to prove to them that he exists, or that better believe in
>> Jesus to get to heaven.
>> I then started thinking. From Theology I really started hating the
>> behaviour of at least the stories I'd heard about the God of the Old
>> Testament. Before we were taught at school that Elisha, Moses, Joshua
>> and David were these great heroes, but I really started thinking that
>> these people are just barbarians and savages in the way the Bible said
>> they behaved, i.e causing bears to eat little children just for
>> teasing a prophet for being bald. I know I should have noticed it
>> beforehand, but beforehand even if I thought some of what they did was
>> cruel, I kept on trying to justify their actions. Its terrible to say,
>> but since I'd never really met any, before I'd never even considered
>> that gay people were actual people with feelings and nice people just
>> like I had. I really did think there was something wrong with them.
>> Anyway I started reading Atheist books such as Dawkins and Hitchens.
>> They have not convinced me there isn't a God, I just believe that we
>> just don't know.
>> I then started looking at liberal Christianity such as the
>> Episcopalians in your country (Anglicans), and I thought this is
>> actually great. They believe so much of the Bible is myth, and they
>> also accepts gays, love atheists, don't believe in hell as this place
>> of eternal pain, so this is great.
>> I started reading Biblical scholar books I managed to get hold of from
>> Audible and I thought that, even though the evidence is absolutely
>> that Jesus did exist, we can interpret him in our own way. The problem
>> I am still struggling with though is that Jesus did believe in the Old
>> Testament, but I rationalise it this way. I say to myself, he had to
>> tell the Jews that he believed in all those things because he couldn't
>> explain to ancient people the whole concept of myth and maybe it was
>> just not the right time for them to know otherwise.
>> But I'm starting to doubt much of this as well because I'm at the
>> moment reading a man called Robert Ingersol.
>> From what I am reading, Robert Ingersol must be one of the greatest
>> thinkers and people that you guys in America have ever had, even one
>> of the best in the world. He, his arguments, and all that he seems to
>> stand for is really inspiring me at the moment, and I think you guys
>> should really read him, especially his book About the Holy Bible, and
>> the other one, the Thoughts on the Warm and comforting doctrine of
>> Hell.
>> You ask where I'm spiritually at the moment and I must say I'm not
>> really sure. I think I'm a liberal, Episcopalian Christian. I only
>> believe in the Gospels and the death and russerection of Jesus, since
>> I think I did exist.
>> I think the image of God was so disgustingly misrepresented in the Old
>> Testament that Jesus had to come to show us what God is really like,
>> not all these terrible stories and propaganda.
>> I could never again become an Evangelical, I think its so distasteful,
>> and the way they treat our gay brothers and sisters, as well as single
>> parents and people who do not fit into the norm. You get these
>> evangelical groups who pervert or cherry-pick scientific research to
>> try prove their discrimination towards others, or their differing
>> treatment.
>> For me, even their doctrine that being gay is wrong, but gay people
>> can't help it so they must abstain is now totally unaccpetable and
>> awful.
>> Look I know I've probably written more than what I should have and
>> made a very long post, but I decided to do it because I really don't
>> want other blind people who are struggling with what I struggled with
>> to think that they are alone, because I really do know the pain and
>> the sacrifice and the pure struggle of changing one's beliefs, or
>> wondering why God doesn't seem to answer.
>> For that, what I think is that, since we see all the suffering and
>> problems in the world, maybe God is just a God for the afterlife,
>> maybe he doesn't really interfere in the problems we have in the
>> world. Look , at the moment all I can say is that I just don't know,
>> but neither I think does anyone else. We just aren't sure how God
>> works or where God is, but I'm definitely sure that God cannot be the
>> God of the Old Testament.
>> Ari
>>
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>
>
> --
> Cordially,
> Peter Q Wolfe, BA
> cum laude Auburn University
> e-mail: yogabare13 at gmail.com
> "If you don't stand up for something your willing to fall for anything"
> Peter Q Wolfe
> "Stand up for your rights"
> Bob Marley
>
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