And people wonder why I don't go to church

[tj1380]

This is a photo of a real sign that was in front of a real church in Blacklick, Ohio.  I believe it's from September of 2008, but I just stumbled across it tonight:

Comments

All You Need is Love

[phoenixredux]

I agree with you. It's disgusting. And it's irrational. It's like they're ignoring the best parts of their religion and only embracing the parts that preach intolerance and oppression. I left it behind years ago, and I haven't regretted it yet.

Re: All You Need is Love

[tj1380]

The worst thing about all of this is that there's actually very little in the Bible about homosexuality, yet if I didn't know the Bible at all I would assume that there are entire chapters that boil down to "God hates gays and will send them to hell" because of what I hear from so many people. I'm not even sure if the few mentions of homosexuality in the Bible were originally meant to condemn it. There have been lots of questionable retranslations and reinterpretations of scripture throughout history, and I can't believe that simply being attracted to someone of your own gender is enough to get you sent to hell for eternity.

For that matter, I don't believe that anyone goes to hell. The Bible says that non-Christians will simply die, and I've taken that to mean that what awaits them is oblivion or nonexistence. Still, somebody somewhere in the church decided that what awaits them is eternal torment, and they use it to scare people into behaving exactly as they want them to. That's pretty disgusting in itself.