I'm sorry but the disease came second after Falwell's warning. In 1977 Falwell supported Anita Bryants save our children campaign which was speaking out against Homosexuality, then in 1979 Falwell continued to speak out and warn the nation about the evils of this life style and started the Moral Majority. Then in 1981, AIDS was first recognized as a new disease when a number of young gay men in New York and Los Angeles were diagnosed with symptoms not usually seen in individuals with healthy immune systems. Aids was first spread by the gay community. It is not the infection that sends people to Hell. And I never said that. Falwell told the truth of what was to come. The cost to this world in lives and money is almost incalculable. And the one who is hated above all, is the one who first tried to warn the world. People who hate the Bible will hate it's truth, even when it's truth could of saved so many from death. The Bible tells us that those who live such a life style will be vomited out by the land, and sadly this is what is happening to this very day, and often the innocent suffer to because of the evil of others. God knew how humans would be affected, and that's why warings were given in the Scriptures.
This viewpoint is based on emotion and propaganda....there is no truth in it, at all....Do not believe that God punishes people on Earth....Judgement Day will come...it is not today, it was not yesterday....but it is coming.
Falwell was an evil man...Robertson is an evil man...these men pretend they are of God...but they preach hate and intolerance, the opposite of what Jesus taught. All you need to do is open your eyes...the truth is right in front of you, and you don't need anyone to tell you what it is.
This is a prime example of "Bible Abuse". I belong to a organization on MySpace, and their mission message is as follows:
Stop Spiritual Abuse!!!'
Exposing spiritual abuse in the church...
According to Spiritual Abuse Recovery, Jeff VanVonderen states, "Wouldn't it be great if it was as simple as looking it up in a dictionary? But nothing about spiritual abuse is simple. Those who have experienced it, know it is powerful enough to cause them to question their relationship with God, indeed, the very existence of God. And it is subtle too! The perpetrators of spiritual abuse are rarely 'Snidely Whiplash' sorts of characters who announce that they are going to drain your spiritual energy. They may be people who seem like they are seeking to guide you to the deepest levels of spiritual maturity. Spiritual Abuse (spir'-i-choo-el a-byoos')occurs when someone in a position of spiritual authority, the purpose of which is to 'come underneath' and serve, build, equip and make God's people MORE free, misuses that authority placing themselves over God's people to control, coerce or manipulate them for seemingly Godly purposes which are really their own. The result? Well, if you have experienced spiritual abuse, you know the result. The damage that has been done is not irreversible. It is possible to feel safe again. It is possible to learn to rest again. It is possible to regain that sense of blessing you once had when you first realized that God's stance towards you, God's 'yes', was not based on your performance, but rather on God's very own performance, that of Jesus, signed, sealed, finished, available in gift-form only."
Are you or have you experienced church abuse? Is someone you know experiencing church abuse? Would you like to know what defines church abuse? Here are a few things to look for that characterize an abusive church.
1. Power positioning
2. Unquestioned authority
3. An atmosphere of secrecy
4. An elitist attitude
5. Performance emphasis
6. Fear or guilt motivation
7. Use of manipulation and control tactics
8. Painful exit
Christian MySpace Graphics
There are extremes of faith that harm rather than heal. A religious addict or spiritually abused person may not realize they are apart of a harmful church. The following quiz taken from the book "Faith that hurts/Faith that heals" can help us check ourselves or those close to us or even our spiritual leaders.
1. Has your family complained that you are always going to a church meeting rather than spending time with them?
2. Do you feel extreme guilt for being out of Church just one Sunday?
3. Do you sense that God is looking at what you do and if you don't do enough He might turn on you or not bless you?
4. Do you often tell your children what to do without explaining your reasons because you know that you are right?
5. Do you find yourself with little time for the pleasures of earlier years because you are so busy serving on committees and attending other church functions?
6. Have people complained that you use so much Scripture in your conversation that it is hard to communicate with you?
7. Are you giving money to a ministry because you believe God will make you wealthy or bless you more if you give more?
8. Have you ever been involved with a minister or other church leader sexually?
9. Is it hard for you to make a decision without consulting your minister even over small issues?
10. Do you see your minister as more powerful & wise than other humans?
11. Has your faith led you to an isolated life, making it hard for you to relate to your family and friends?
12. Have you ever looked to your minister for a quick fix to a life long problem?
13. Do you feel extreme guilt over the slightest mistakes or over the reality that you aren't perfect?
14. Is your most significant relationship going bad because of your strong beliefs or because you have a "weaker partner"?
15. Do you ever have thoughts of God wanting you to destroy yourself or others in order to go and live with Him?
16. Do you often believe God is speaking to you with an audible voice?
17. Do you believe God is angry with you?
18. Do you believe you are still being punished by God for something you did as a child?
19. Do you feel that if you work a little harder God will finally forgive you?
20. Has anyone ever told you they thought a minister was manipulating your thoughts?
A great on-line resource for Christian recovery from abuse/addiction is The National Association for Christian recovery. Please take the time to check it out.
I didn't mean exactly what I typed. Childless couples do so because of their own reasons, and gays just want to go against the grain and stand out. God didn't give us the nature to be homosexual anyway, Satan has clouded the judgement of normal people and influenced them to be gay. Why would you want to be gay anyway? If I may say so, girls are much easier on the eyes than most guys anyway.
I'm sorry if the truth offends you, but Aids was discovered after Falwells warning. And God does judge people all the time, and if you don't believe that then tell the men of Sodom and Gomorrah that God made a mistake. He was suppose to destroy their cities on judgment day.
Romans 1:18 "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men... For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burning in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful that those who pratice these things are worthy of death and not only those who do the same but also (THOSE) WHO APPROVE OF THOSE WHO PRATICE THEM!"
Sodom and Gomorrah were given as warnings for future generations.
I told you before, I have a job that requires I be there on Sundays. I don't have a minister. I do have my Bible, and thats what I'm reading. Falwell and Robertson are just repeating the Bibles take on Homosexuality, it is you who oppose the Bible. And the Bible is clear when it tells us that in the latter days men will call good evil and evil good.
I think he discriminates against them because what they do is unnatural/abnormal. - DRNALINE
Why because the old testement say so. period. If your for it then your not following Gods' laws. pay the price at judgement day! Is that simple enough to understand. And no I know several lesbiens and we get along fine. I just don't discuss how they are wrong. remember Free Will of Choice. So don't start to blast me as a Homo hater. that isn't it at all. MLURP
However, homosexuality IS a benign mental disorder. Men are genetically designed to be attracted to women, and thus maintain the population, and vice versa. If a man likes men, or a woman likes women, they aren't firing on all cylinders. It's nothing of which they should be ashamed, but it is not something of which to be proud either. FREEMAN15
God's design was tainted by the temptation Satan gave Eve and Adam and Eve used their free will to choose this. Satan just rolls it along until you decide to be an abomination and go against God's wishes.
Bible Abuse....plain and simple...
Don't believe it, don't believe it.
We're you there at Sodom and Gomorrah? Are you an eyewitness? then it is just hearsay....you cannot believe everything that is written...somethings are allegorical.
Falwell used the AIDS crisis to further himself, and his standing in the church...he was pure evil...he preached hate and intolerance...and that's the truth..
Oh, concerning Falwell and Anita Bryant, and her fall from grace....her career never recovered from her hate campaign against gays....didn't she become a alcoholic? I guess she's a "saved alcoholic". Hypocrites, all.
I'm sorry if the truth offends you, but Aids was discovered after Falwells warning.
I can believe this. If people believed the warnings given by the Bible, there would be many more people alive today. Falwell told this nation about those warnings. You call that hate, yet your kind of love is not to warn anyone at all, just let them continue in their sin and die. I believed the warnings given, and I see what happening to the millions who did not.
First thing you need to be aware of is that "discovery" does not equal "initiation." Long before it was discovered, AIDS was with us. But let us suppose for a moment that you are correct, that AIDS is God's vengence for the "homosexual lifestyle."
Homosexuality has always been with us. You might not know this, but there is very stong historical evidence that King James (you know, the King James who commissioned the translation of the bible into English) was at least bisexual, if not homosexual. Given that, why did God wait at least 2000 years before starting his vengence? (For that matter, why did He allow the name of a man who was almost certainly a flamboyant homosexual to be forever attached to His word?)
Also, know that hundreds of thousands (actually more but we will get to that in a minute) of straight folks, right down to infants, have been infected with and died from HIV. Is God's aim so poor? Many of the people who have died from the HIV virus got it not from homosexual activity, but from heterosexual behavior. Others contracted it through the sharing of drug paraphenalia. And if your point is that these people contracted it through sinful behavior, and as such it just an extension of God's retribution, then what about the people who never behaved in a sinful fashion, yet died from the virus anyway? People like the men and women who were both married and faithful, but contracted the virus from their less virtuous spouses? What about the literally thousands of people who had the misfortune of needing blood for one reason or another prior to our knowledge of how to test for the virus in the blood supply? More innocent victims of God's wrath? What about the health care workers who have contracted the virus through a simple accident, such as an inadvertent stick from a needle used on an AIDS patient. Are they not acting as Christ commanded, caring for the sick? Why is God mad at them? Or worst of all, the infants who contracted the virus merely by being born? (The virus usually does not cross the placental barrier, but it can be transmitted from mother to baby during childbirth.) Surely you don't contend that God was angry at them? Or is it more likely that HIV is simply another virus? A particularly nasty and virulent one, to be sure, but for all that, a virus that has arisen like all other viruses, from the common cold to influenza?
And if HIV is God's retribution for the homosexual lifestyle, can you explain Africa to me? You see, in Africa, the continent hardest hit by the virus, where literally millions of people have died from the virus, it is not a disease of homosexuality, but rather one of heterosexuality. It has mutated into a more easily transmitted form there, and is spread almost exclusively through heterosexual contact. Is God mad at the straight folks in Africa?
As a health care professional, your attitude concerns me. As long as we can ignore the virus as "God's vengence" against the gays, we can continue on in blissful ignorance. Unfortunately, given the normally long time of incubation before HIV blossoms into AIDS, that blissful ignorance could lead to a disaster that makes the influenza virus that killed so many in WWI look like a mild cold.
One other question: If HIV is God's work, what is your position on those people who are working to find a cure for the virus? Or those working to find an effective vaccination? If HIV is God's judgement, surely those who are trying to eliminate the virus as a threat are interefering with God's plan, and are just as surely sinners as those who contract the virus through the behavior that so angers God. Wouldn't you agree?
HIV is the result of a lifestyle that opposes God. God gave the warning of the evil this would bring on human race. God did not target gay people, but He knew ahead of time what the end results would be. God finds no pleasure in the results of sin. God is on the side of those trying to eliminate the virus. If people had only listened to God first, there would of been no need for those people, and they could of been working on other projects that would of been benificial to man. If God is angery? It is because of a human race that ignores His warnings and continues to shoot themselves in the foot.
HIV is the result of a lifestyle that opposes God. God gave the warning of the evil this would bring on human race. God did not target gay people, but He knew ahead of time what the end results would be. God finds no pleasure in the results of sin. God is on the side of those trying to eliminate the virus. If people had only listened to God first, there would of been no need for those people, and they could of been working on other projects that would of been benificial to man. If God is angery? It is because of a human race that ignores His warnings and continues to shoot themselves in the foot.
No God's aim is not poor, just like some one trying to warn drivers that the Bridge is out, some will ignore those warning others will not. Yet the result is the same.
