These are “not very important questions” about the Middle East and Lgbt people, with some “very surprising” answers!
1- There is an Asian Country which has recently decriminalized “sex among the same sex people”. What country is it?
a) India
b) Pakistan
c) China
d) Saudi Arabia
2- Helem, an acronym which means “dream” is an Lgbt NGO settled in:
a) Sudan
b) Lebanon
c) Israel
d) Egypt
3- Is Palestine a Country?
a) Yes, it was conquered by the Zionist army in 1948
b) Yes, it has been occupied by the Palestine people since 1800 BC
c) Not yet, because there have NEVER been an independent Palestinian State since the Jewish Diaspora.
d) Not yet, because Israel has undermined all the Palestinian efforts to build their own state.
4- What´s the meaning of Jewish?
a) People of Jewish Religion
b) People of Hebrew origin.
c) People which descend from Israeli people.
d) Everyone who “feels like” Jewish.
5- What´s the meaning of Arabic?
a) People who were born in Arabic Countries.
b) People who descend from inhabitants of Arabic Peninsula
c) People who speak Arabic as their mother tongue
d) Everyone who “feels like” Arabic.
6- For the Coran, The holy Spirit which would explain The Words from God to the human race is:
a) Not a spirit, but a metaphor about Mohamed and the Coran itself.
b) A Heresy, God is only ONE.
c) The Holy Spirit announced by Jesus is not mentioned in the Coran
d) Mohamed respected Jesus but also thought Jesus was wrong about some topics.
7- In the Torah, de Devil which became the Snake who tempted Adam is:
a) A fantasy and IT is not mentioned in the Scriptures
b) Is a metaphor of the Dark Side of the Creation according to the Kabala
c) Represents all the misfortune of the existence, but is part of the plans of God as we can learn in the Book of Job
d) All the statements are correct.
READ THE ANSWERS IN THE NEXT POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
quinta-feira, 25 de março de 2010
The LGBT people and “The People of the Book”
Hi friends! This is a “paper” about gay people in Middle East and/or members of abrahamic religions around the world. Everything you wanted to know about gay people in Middle East but you didn´t ask any question about it because you thought there were no gay people in the Middle East :p
There is no rational reason which can explain why I´m fascinated by the Middle East. I´m not Jewish nor Muslim, I was born to a catholic (but a bit agnostic)family in south Brasil. Well, there is One reason: I´m Christian. The person of Jesus Christ has always amazed me since I was a child. But I´ve never agreed with that vision of Jesus that was taught in the Catholic School. The teacher used to say: “Jesus is God” so I thought to myself: “No, He isn´t”. Anyway, I desired to know all about the real Jesus, where did he live, what did he think, what languages did he speak, what culture and people was he breed in.
Nowadays, I´m still a Christian, I make part of a Gay Christian Church in São Paulo, Brasil (click www.icmsp.org ). But I think about Christianity as a section of a largest philosophy and religion, that is, the abrahamic religion. All of these there religions have so much in common, so The Dalai Lama said in one of his interviews: “They are the three Mediterranean Religions”.
All of them believe in God, and it is not as obvious as it can seem to us(of course, we are “abrahamic”). In the Buddhism and in the Tao Philosophy, there is a belief of SOMETHING which (not this SOMETHING, not someONE) which governs the Universe with total righteousness, but there is not a “personal God” at all. Well, the author of this page doesn´t have enough knowledge about East Asian religions, so contributions from the visitors will be welcome. ;)
But I want you, my brothers and sisters in faith, to meditate about the political and social consequences of the abrahamic ideas if they could be practiced in its entirety. If (we) Christians knew how much Jesus is loved by the author of the Coran, we could not hate the Muslims as we hate nowadays. If we knew that the Coran does NOT allow suicide bombers, because killing someone self is a SIN and kill the enemies is allowed only for SELF-DEFENSE, we would conclude that Osama bin Laden and his “friends” are not real MUSLIMS, in the same way Hitler could not be called a “real Christian” man.
Let´s talk about God. I´m Christian and I can call him Allah, too, or Elohim, they are all the same. In Portuguese and Spanish, DEUS, from the latin root Deo which derives from the greek root Theos. Theos is Zeus, the father of all the gods. By the same way, Allah and Elohim were “the greatest gods of all” when their people were polytheist. That is the vision from agnostic people when they study about God. However, if you have this belief deep in your heart, if you believe that this God is not imaginary and the religions are not role playing games, let´s remember what God has done in the heart of their sons along the History.
Moses leaded the first well succeed socialist revolution of the history, making the Jewish slaves free, when The People of God was not believing in God´s mercy anymore.
Jesus challenged the religious establishment against the empty faith, which used to serve the exploitation of the people. Well, He was killed (after that he resurrected, but try don´t believe in that for a while) and gave for legacy only TWELVE disciples, and only ONE of them was courageous enough to see Him being crucified. But the history of the world has changed because of Him.
Mohamed got to unite his people, saving it from millennia of tribal wars (ok, the Arab people seem to have forgotten this lesson). The Muslim conquers after He dead was supported by the people of the foreign countries themselves, to be liberated from their oppressive governments and religions. The Islam made all the culture of the antiquity come back and again benefit the humanity, the fusion of east and western culture in Andaluz was the first step for the current Globalization.
And what a surprise, NONE OF THEM SPOKE EXPLICITLY AGAINST HOMOSSEXUALS. Read any of the BOOKS, look for just One reference about homosexuals, and you will find only the history about SODOMA and GOMORRA. When Jesus talked about Sodoma and Gomorra he mentioned the sin of LACK OF HOSPITALITY, he didn´t even mention the sexual intercourse between two people of the same sex along the whole gospels. In the Coran, The history is told explicitly about men which have sex with men, but read what the Wikipedia says:
“However, there do exist some dissenting opinions amongst Ulema. Mohamed El-Moctar El-Shinqiti, a contemporary Mauritanian scholar, has argued that "[even though] homosexuality is a grievous sin...[a] no legal punishment is stated in the Qur'an for homosexuality...[b] it is not reported that Prophet Muhammad has punished somebody for committing homosexuality...[c] there is no authentic hadith reported from the Prophet prescribing a punishment for the homosexuals..."
The Jewish position is almost an “hour concours”. The fundamentalists are a little minority; homosexuality in Israel is more liberated than in United States.
In all of the three sacred books, the homosexuality is actually abominated as a part of a context of violence (non-consented intercourses) or Satanic rituals, or at least morally unacceptable actions.
The histories of the tree religions of the BOOK have a lot of things in common, but the most important for us are the victories of people inspirited by God who achieved miracles that seemed to be impossible for the contemporary people. They were bullied as crazy and outcasts, but they made the difference, and what about you? Do you think this God of Miracles no longer exists? Do you read the Bible as you see a movie or read a cartoon?
However, you can choose to believe that GOD IS STILL THE SAME. HE/SHE CAN MAKE MIRACLES EVEN TODAY!!!!!
Well, if you are a member of a traditional religion you can ask: where are the religious gay people ? Do they exist? Well, you can imagine there are no gay people in your church, in your mosque, or in your synagogue, because your religion is the Righter, is the One loved by God…
But you are WRONG! Gay people are everywhere, because WE WERE CREATED BY GOD, and you can do NOTHING about it.
You can KILL gay people, but you can change the will of God, that HE/SHE wants us to exist, nor the FAITH which lives in our hearts and souls.
There is no rational reason which can explain why I´m fascinated by the Middle East. I´m not Jewish nor Muslim, I was born to a catholic (but a bit agnostic)family in south Brasil. Well, there is One reason: I´m Christian. The person of Jesus Christ has always amazed me since I was a child. But I´ve never agreed with that vision of Jesus that was taught in the Catholic School. The teacher used to say: “Jesus is God” so I thought to myself: “No, He isn´t”. Anyway, I desired to know all about the real Jesus, where did he live, what did he think, what languages did he speak, what culture and people was he breed in.
Nowadays, I´m still a Christian, I make part of a Gay Christian Church in São Paulo, Brasil (click www.icmsp.org ). But I think about Christianity as a section of a largest philosophy and religion, that is, the abrahamic religion. All of these there religions have so much in common, so The Dalai Lama said in one of his interviews: “They are the three Mediterranean Religions”.
All of them believe in God, and it is not as obvious as it can seem to us(of course, we are “abrahamic”). In the Buddhism and in the Tao Philosophy, there is a belief of SOMETHING which (not this SOMETHING, not someONE) which governs the Universe with total righteousness, but there is not a “personal God” at all. Well, the author of this page doesn´t have enough knowledge about East Asian religions, so contributions from the visitors will be welcome. ;)
But I want you, my brothers and sisters in faith, to meditate about the political and social consequences of the abrahamic ideas if they could be practiced in its entirety. If (we) Christians knew how much Jesus is loved by the author of the Coran, we could not hate the Muslims as we hate nowadays. If we knew that the Coran does NOT allow suicide bombers, because killing someone self is a SIN and kill the enemies is allowed only for SELF-DEFENSE, we would conclude that Osama bin Laden and his “friends” are not real MUSLIMS, in the same way Hitler could not be called a “real Christian” man.
Let´s talk about God. I´m Christian and I can call him Allah, too, or Elohim, they are all the same. In Portuguese and Spanish, DEUS, from the latin root Deo which derives from the greek root Theos. Theos is Zeus, the father of all the gods. By the same way, Allah and Elohim were “the greatest gods of all” when their people were polytheist. That is the vision from agnostic people when they study about God. However, if you have this belief deep in your heart, if you believe that this God is not imaginary and the religions are not role playing games, let´s remember what God has done in the heart of their sons along the History.
Moses leaded the first well succeed socialist revolution of the history, making the Jewish slaves free, when The People of God was not believing in God´s mercy anymore.
Jesus challenged the religious establishment against the empty faith, which used to serve the exploitation of the people. Well, He was killed (after that he resurrected, but try don´t believe in that for a while) and gave for legacy only TWELVE disciples, and only ONE of them was courageous enough to see Him being crucified. But the history of the world has changed because of Him.
Mohamed got to unite his people, saving it from millennia of tribal wars (ok, the Arab people seem to have forgotten this lesson). The Muslim conquers after He dead was supported by the people of the foreign countries themselves, to be liberated from their oppressive governments and religions. The Islam made all the culture of the antiquity come back and again benefit the humanity, the fusion of east and western culture in Andaluz was the first step for the current Globalization.
And what a surprise, NONE OF THEM SPOKE EXPLICITLY AGAINST HOMOSSEXUALS. Read any of the BOOKS, look for just One reference about homosexuals, and you will find only the history about SODOMA and GOMORRA. When Jesus talked about Sodoma and Gomorra he mentioned the sin of LACK OF HOSPITALITY, he didn´t even mention the sexual intercourse between two people of the same sex along the whole gospels. In the Coran, The history is told explicitly about men which have sex with men, but read what the Wikipedia says:
“However, there do exist some dissenting opinions amongst Ulema. Mohamed El-Moctar El-Shinqiti, a contemporary Mauritanian scholar, has argued that "[even though] homosexuality is a grievous sin...[a] no legal punishment is stated in the Qur'an for homosexuality...[b] it is not reported that Prophet Muhammad has punished somebody for committing homosexuality...[c] there is no authentic hadith reported from the Prophet prescribing a punishment for the homosexuals..."
The Jewish position is almost an “hour concours”. The fundamentalists are a little minority; homosexuality in Israel is more liberated than in United States.
In all of the three sacred books, the homosexuality is actually abominated as a part of a context of violence (non-consented intercourses) or Satanic rituals, or at least morally unacceptable actions.
The histories of the tree religions of the BOOK have a lot of things in common, but the most important for us are the victories of people inspirited by God who achieved miracles that seemed to be impossible for the contemporary people. They were bullied as crazy and outcasts, but they made the difference, and what about you? Do you think this God of Miracles no longer exists? Do you read the Bible as you see a movie or read a cartoon?
However, you can choose to believe that GOD IS STILL THE SAME. HE/SHE CAN MAKE MIRACLES EVEN TODAY!!!!!
Well, if you are a member of a traditional religion you can ask: where are the religious gay people ? Do they exist? Well, you can imagine there are no gay people in your church, in your mosque, or in your synagogue, because your religion is the Righter, is the One loved by God…
But you are WRONG! Gay people are everywhere, because WE WERE CREATED BY GOD, and you can do NOTHING about it.
You can KILL gay people, but you can change the will of God, that HE/SHE wants us to exist, nor the FAITH which lives in our hearts and souls.
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