I'm not a Christian but I think a part of me yearns for the sense of community and belonging a religious organization can provide. Is this a selfish outlook? I think of the church and religion as tools for providing me a service rather than something I feel I can honestly subscribe to and a part of me internalize that as something that's borderline disrespectful.
I've attended a friend's service in the last couple months and they seem to take a literal interpretation of the bible to heart, I have trouble reconciling that side of christianity with discoveries in science or my own personal views on LGBT issues. How do you guys handle these types of struggles?
Apologies if this isn't the space for this type of discussion. I tend to take the view of others in this thread that there seems to be a hostility in discussing these openly in the general Etcetera.
Thanks.
LGBT has been a difficult topic throughout the history of Christianity, or any religion, or mankind as a whole actually. Personally, I know a lot of LGBT people, including a couple Christian. I must say that I haven't talked a lot about the topic itself with them. Personally, I treat those people with respect. Even though I wouldn't say I like the phenomenon of LGBT - or think it is "good" per se -, regardless of how literally you take the Bible, those people must admit that God loves everyone and that faith in Him is what matters to Him.
God does not want us to sin; he despises sin. When the Israelites wanted to serve Him and do what is good in His eyes, He gave them the law of Moses. The goal of the law was not to punish those who coule not hold the law; He gave them this law to show them that no human can obey His law: everyone has sin. It's in our nature.
God sent His son, Jesus Christ, to the world to die for our sins, to conquer death, and to become the first to partake in a new life - with a new body and nature. One without sin.
When Jesus was on Earth, he said that the most important thing to do was to love God with all your heart, and after that, to love your neighbour as much as yourself (Matthew 22:36-40).
And that has always been the case: read through Hebrews 11. All those people that lived before Jesus came to the Earth, whether they lived before God gave Moses His law or during that period, Paul states in Hebrews 11 that it was their faith that has justified them for eternity.
If you believe in God, He will forgive all your sins. And if we believe in Jesus Christ and his resurrection, we has paid off our sins through His sacrifice, and we partake in His resurrection and get that position in heaven, and we'll get a new heavenly body without sinful nature after we die the earthly death.
Everyone has their fair share of sins. Gay people do, straight people do. No matter how much or how many sins you have, God is both Prosecutor and Judge, and if you place your trust in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, then God is also the Defendant, and He will wipe away your case before the heavenly court.
If you don't believe in Him, then apparently you think you can clean your sheet on your own. Well, good luck with that.
God is righteous, but merciful. Rather than sweeping away this sinful mess, He made a plan to save us from our own shortcomings. He came to the Earth, humiliated Himself by putting away his Divinity and becoming a human of flesh and bones like us (He's made us, and He's been just like us, so He knows what it feels like to be us!), and He sacrificed Himself to save everyone! Now that's power!
Unfortunately, claiming to represent the word of God creates a lot of supposed authority, and it has been misused by a lot of people throughout history and on various scales. There are still people who call themselves Christians, believe in Jesus Christ (apparently), but don't act like they do: they behave like they're trying to save themselves. Well, as I said earlier, good luck with that.
I highly recommend the book "Letters From A Skeptic" by Edward Boyd and Gregory Boyd. Maybe a local library has it for rent. It shows one Christian perspective (that I support, in most cases) on a lot of moral questions about why Christianity would be good/right/true. One of the two men is an agnost, who fires all of his questions about Christianity to the other, who is a Christian. I've learned a lot from that book.
About science, there are things that may not look compatible with the Christian world view, but also a lot of fundamental things where science actually supports the beliefs of Christianity and the existance of a higher entity.
I've started reading the book "The Language of God" by Dr. Francis S. Collins. He has the head of Human Genome Project and he's a Christian. In the book, he's laying down his world view, and he thinks Christianity and science are compatible. I've only started, so I don't have an opinion ready yet, but I found it interesting to have such a high profile scientist in biology (!) make a statement in favor of what some consider to be an unscientific world view.
I end the story here. Hopefully I've answered some questions and raised some new ones, in a satisfactory way. :)