Are you religious? Or pious?

[crayons]

Just curious who here is religious? What are you metaphysical beliefs? How do you justify your sexual orientation based upon this if you do.

[trish]

hi crayons.

i'm pious but not religious.

[trish]

that is...i've been accused of being a pious bitch; but i describe myself to most who ask as an atheist.

[crayons]

Thats interesting. Most people who I meet who describe themselves as atheist are usually very bashful of any religion and display no piety whatsoever.

More?

[elo]

I used to be religious.A christian.I was raised to be religious.By and by i realized how unlogical religions in general are.Now i am a atheist.I don´t have any metaphysical beliefs.

[tgirlzoe]

(Debating whether I should respond to one of crayon's posts...)


Ah well, here's my vote. I'm Christian. I go to a high Episcopal church with the choir, full organ, rood gate and such for Sunday Mass and I try to make Euchrist service on Wednesdays. I live in a communal house and we do morning and evening prayers together. Feast days are fun. I believe we are doing something for Epiphany tonight. Yay beer!

How do I justify my sexual orientation? I don't. Justifying something would mean that you think it's wrong. I am well aware of the usual Christian objections to homosexuality, hopefully other people are well aware of the rebuttals.

As someone with one foot in the Queer camp (being trans but also openly bisexual) and one foot in the Christian camp, I will say that I get more crap from gay people about being Christian than Christians about being gay.

The Episcopal / Anglican church has been in the news fairly often with its controversy over electing a gay bishop (who is getting legally married this summer to his husband of nearly two decades) and some churches performing gay "commitment ceremonies" (they just don't call them "weddings").

The United Methodist church recently had a controvery about a pastor who transitioned female-to-male. Some people were trying to defrock him but although the church doesn't recognize gay marriages and insists that gay clergy remain celibate, they nationally clarified that transsexuality was not the same as homosexuality and that there were no objections to him remaining pastor.

One of my roommates commented that he often feels like he has to defend himself as a religious person from non-religious people. He said he ends up having more in common with a Pagan, Buddist or Muslim than with an atheist. I agree. I wouldn't necessarily classify myself a universalist, I remain agnostic on most theological debates, but having spent five years practicing another religion, I quite identify with non-Christians.

Here's another thing: I don't believe being gay is sinful, I don't believe being transsexual is sinful but I do believe in chastity. While I'm hardly a virgin or even still the most chaste person around, if everything goes right, I won't have sex again until I'm married. To me, it doesn't matter if the church or the state recognizes your marriage, it's still a marriage before God.

I have always had a spiritual aspect to my sexuality. When I sleep with someone, regardless of the specific sexual activity involved, it creates a special, permanent link between myself and the other person. What I didn't understand before was why you would only want to link yourself with a single person in your whole lifetime. I also have been in polyamorous relationships and would be curious about a polygamous marriage but will most likely just be monogamous.

I am fairly good in bed with both men and women, IMHO. I quite enjoy bringing delight to other people. I don't think sex is wrong or dirty or anything. There's just something about having the proper context for sexuality and, to me, that context is within a healthy marriage ~ heterosexual or homosexual.

I don't know if that's much of a "justification" for my sexuality. As far as my transsexuality goes. Some people say "God doesn't make mistakes". I answer that He doesn't. I am not a mistake. People were born to change and to grow, otherwise we'd always remain infants! Transition is dramatic to some people but simply part of growing up. Everything that happens to us is a lesson to be learned and many things, I believe, are Fate. We don't know if transsexuality is physiological, hormonal, psychological, or what, but I know that I was fated to transition.

That's a result of my personal relationship with God. It doesn't mean it's a healthy thing, the right thing, for everyone to do. It's the same with sexuality, or with drinking or anything ~ it's the context.

[BrendaQG]

I was an atheist for a long time before I came to Islam. I came to islam becase it touched me emotionally.

[elo]

I was an atheist for a long time before I came to Islam. I came to islam becase it touched me emotionally.

May i ask what touched you so much that you became a believer?


@ crayons:Could you add to the topic:And why?

[BrendaQG]

The 109th Sura of the Quran.

In the name of Allah most Benificent ever mreciful

Oh say unto the disbelivers
I do not worship what you worship.
You do not worship what I worship.
I will never worship what you worship.
You will never worship what I worship.
To you is your way and to me is mine.

It is my favorite chapter of the Quran. When I fist read it it made me cry. Certain other passages still do. I read the Quran and found it to be profoundly beautiful and logical for a religous book. That and the love of a boyfriend who was a Muslimm brought me to the Islam.

[tgirlzoe]

I couldn't imagine how people could be atheist. Even when I wasn't Christian and didn't know what to call myself, I still believed in God(s). God saved my life when I overdosed in 10th grade. God named me.

I think atheists are people who refuse to acknowledge their spiritual experiences as real. To me, they are more real than my physical experiences. Who defines what is real?

Some people just have a lot of barriers built up spiritually, just like there are people who are always uptight or frigid, for whatever reason. Some people have a lot of hangups around sex because they were raped as a kid. Other people have a lot of hangups around spirituality because they were spiritually raped as a kid. The solution is therapy, yes, but also sometimes substances.

Drugs are a beautiful thing. They can also be dangerous and so must be used with respect and caution. However, they can also be very beneficial. One of my former roommates was permanently uptight and I just really wanted to get her drunk or stoned so she could simply relax and say what she was always too afraid to say. To the atheists, I want to give mushrooms or acid because it'll make you let go of your spiritual hangups.

My favorite way to use mushrooms is in a tea mixed with yerba matte to keep me from drifting off (also, make sure you have an empty stomach). Get changed, relaxed, light a candle, and put on some ambient music (I do the same thing with white wine sometimes to relax) and just lie down on your bed or couch or whatever. Even better is to forgo the music and just go into a big park or the woods where you can be away from all the man-made things which demand our attention and closer to our natural state. I don't know how anyone could miss the spirituality there.