Redefining Marriage

Redefining marriage has had and will have negative consequences on society. Redefining marriage by any means- making it nonexclusive, making it non-permanent, making it gender irrelevant- has and will change the fundamental principle of marriage so that it is no longer marriage. The family unit is designed to provide the best possible environment for the upbringing of children (the future of society). That is not the only designation, but overall is the most vital. Statistics, any way you look at them, describe a committed, exclusive relationship in which children have a mother and father present in the home to fit the standard of such a relationship. Is permitting gay marriage the worst thing that could happen to the family unit? No. Divorce, in fact, is the most far-reaching familial/marriage deflection in our society today. We have taken marriage and changed it from a basis of family, commitment, and sacrifice for the betterment of society as a whole to a basis of emotional attachment and, dare I say, selfish fulfillment. And that goes so so SO much deeper than just gay marriage. I stand firm in the truth that Natural Marriage should be the only kind promoted by our government. My stance does not come from a blind religious faith or a bigoted, ‘old-fashioned’ mindset. My stance comes from a scientific case for Natural Marriage. For example:

-In states and countries in which marriage has already been redefined, the number of marriages whatsoever drop by tens of thousands at an increasing rate. By weakening what marriage actually is- by changing the meaning of a marriage relationship- we basically have desecrated marriage altogether.

-Males who practice homosexual activity have the highest rate of HIV- 72% of all new cases are from male homosexual activity. Only 4% of the American male population identifies themselves as having homosexual activity, yet make up 61% of all HIV cases, making them 150 times more likely to get HIV than the heterosexual male population. (Center for Disease Control)

-Children are denied a right to a loving parent of both genders, which has large psychological effects from an early age. Parental figures are the basis by which children form their views on roles, actions, morals, and gender identity. From an early age, they learn how to interact to others from their parents. The denial of a parent of one gender can skew the way they view and interact with others. Despite what our culture at large may think, men and women are not designed the same way. Men and women have different appropriate and natural reactions and tendencies that a child would not grasp without a parent of both sexes. (No. I’m not a sexist. It’s true.)
I LOVE my homosexual friends. Truly, I do. Anyone who knows me can attest to that. I abhor bullying. I do not aim to keep others from living life to the fullest. I do not aim to put down those who have homosexual desires, or to demean them, or any of that. I am in no way saying someone would make a bad parent or that they don’t deserve love. Rather, I stand for Natural Marriage as a very specific relationship that means so much more than an emotional bond.

Myself and many others who support Natural Marriage have been the victims of intense bullying and intolerance ourselves. Supporters of Natural Marriage have been unfairly fired, shunned, legally oppressed, and had our freedom of speech restricted. We have been called names. We have NOT been ‘tolerated’, though the definition of that word has been terribly warped in this culture. I ask that you respect and attempt to understand my stance, and I shall do the same to yours.

 

Affluenza

Affluenza: “a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the pursuit of more.”

We are a society obsessed with stuff, infected with affluenza, blinded to what truly has value.

Americans spend more on trash bags each year than 90 other countries spend on everything they buy that year.

Americans produce twice the amount of trash per person as Japan, Germany, or France, and 5-10 times the amount per person of most developing countries.

Many Americans work a job that doesn’t make them happy so that they can buy stuff that provides, at best, a temporary and fleeting pseudo happiness. Then the stuff we buy (TV [and the channels to actually watch], magazines) tells us we need more, better, newer stuff to make us happy. And so we work some more at our unhappy job to buy more unfulfilling stuff.

We are successfully convinced that newer, better stuff is necessary for our happiness, even for our everyday function. Do you realize how fast technology becomes obsolete these days? It was less than a year between the iPad 3 and iPad 4 (or maybe it was 2 and 3, I don’t even know anymore). I won’t even touch on how environmentally bad this is.

Americans have less free time now than we did in the 1950′s. Guess what we spend the majority of that free time on? Television and shopping. Not spending time with our family or volunteering or pursuing a hobby.

Not only have we lost sight of what truly does have value and worth and necessity, but completely and utterly take our stuff for granted. We take a lot of things for granted. I apologize for being cliche, but while we struggle to keep up with the latest fashion trend or phone apps, people struggle to survive, struggle to get a meal a day. When our society reached the point that we care more about our gadgets than our neighbors, that is truly a sad day.

Don’t get me wrong, I love stuff too. And stuff has allowed us to do some amazing, crazy things. Technology has opened so many opportunities. I am in no way dissing ‘stuff’ and technology, but rather how we view it and how we use it. We have to be the most wasteful nation on this planet.The US houses 5% of the entire population, yet produces 30% of the world’s waste.

 

(Couple of the facts are from Miller Textbook Living in the Environment.)

 

Take My Life

There’s really no blunt way to put this; I’m not even really sure what to say.

When you realize- when it finally clicks, registers, whatever- that your actions in this world your LIFE have has one purpose and one purpose only- to glorify God and spread His name and His love- it will completely change and alter every part of your view of life.

I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t nearly reached that point yet. But I want to be at the point where the only person whose opinion matters to me is God’s. Because in all reality, that’s the truth.

A few weeks ago at my church, we played Chris Tomlin’s version of Take My Life. Here are the lyrics.

“Take my life and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days,
let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands and let them move
at the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet and let them be
swift and beautiful for Thee.

Take my voice and let me sing
always, only for my King.
Take my lips and let them be
filled with messages from Thee.
Take my silver and my gold
not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect and use
every power as You choose.

::Chorus::
Here am I, all of me.
Take my life, it’s all for Thee.

Take my will and make it Thine
it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart it is Thine own
it shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord I pour
at Your feet its treasure store
Take myself and I will be
ever, only, all for Thee.
Take myself and I will be
ever, only, all for Thee.

Here am I, all of me.
Take my life, it’s all for Thee.
x3

(Take my life, Lord take my life. Take all of me)

Here am I, all of me.
Take my life, it’s all for Thee.”

———————————————————————————————–

Believers, I want you to go back up to the top of the song and read it thoroughly. Slowly. Prayerfully. Here they are again.

Take my life and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to Thee.

One’s life, you could say, is the greatest gift one could give. Devoting your entire life- you only get one (think about that for a minute)- to something is the biggest gift or praise you could ever give.

Take my moments and my days,
let them flow in ceaseless praise.

What do you spend your time doing? Who is pleased with what you spend your time doing? We have very limited time here on earth. The moments and days are what God will judge you on. Do you spend them ceaselessly praising Him?

Take my hands and let them move
at the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet and let them be
swift and beautiful for Thee.

Let every single one of our actions be an action that God is proud of. That he can use. That shows Him love and shows others His love.

Take my voice and let me sing
always, only for my King.

I want to put a lot of emphasis on the “always, only for my King” of this part. Always, Only. It doesn’t say “Take my voice and let me sing for my King”. It doesn’t mean sometimes, or once in a while. It says Always, Only.

Take my lips and let them be
filled with messages from Thee.

What do you say to others? What do you say to yourself?? Are they messages God would be pleased with you conveying? 

Take my silver and my gold
not a mite would I withhold.

Material possessions. They are a part of your life. Are they donated to God for His use? Every mite?

Take my intellect and use
every power as You choose.

This really empasises the importance of freely and wholly giving every single part of our lives to God. Our smarts, our talents, our possessions, our relationships, our speech.

::Chorus::
Here am I, all of me.
Take my life, it’s all for Thee.

Take my life. I want You, the perfect God, the only one worthy of praise, to have it. All of it. Every part.

Take my will and make it Thine
it shall be no longer mine.

This part is especially powerful to me. We all have a will- or otherwise known as a plan for our own life. What we want to happen. To be so devoted to Christ as to ask Him to take our own will- everything we desire, basically- and completely transform it to fit His and ONLY His will and not ours… that is my goal.
“The foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans…” 1 Corinthians 1:24

Take my heart it is Thine own
it shall be Thy royal throne.

The heart is mentioned over 700 times in the Bible. In just one way, ”Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37)” and then of course with all your strength. I can’t say that at this point in time I can tell you the specific differences between the areas of your life and heart, soul, mind, and strength. (Mind and strength are pretty self explanatory, but soul and heart get pretty deep.) The heart is called decietful and wicked, and God tells us to rend our hearts. The only way to do so is through Him. Making our heart His throne.

Take my love, my Lord I pour
at Your feet its treasure store

God so desires us to love Him. The love and desire we show for friendship, other people, even the love we have for various things like hobbies, passions, etcetera… He wants it all. He deserves it all. All love you have for other things should be flowing directly from the love you have for Him.

Take myself and I will be
ever, only, all for Thee.

Again: Ever, Only, All. At Every Point In Time, Exclusively, and Wholly.

Take myself and I will be
ever, only, all for Thee.

Here am I, all of me.
Take my life, it’s all for Thee.
x3

(Take my life, Lord take my life. Take all of me)

Here am I, all of me.
Take my life, it’s all for Thee.

What hinders you from earnestly praying and meaning these words to God? Seriously, what is stopping you? On one hand, you’ve got the world. You’ve got the flesh, which asks you for more and more selfish pleasures that will never satisfy. You’ve got the opinion of fellow man, which will never satisfy either. You will always be let down. Sneered upon. Lied about and lied to. The list could go on forever.
On the other hand, you have a being so powerful, It can create everything we see and know out of absolutely nothing. This being is not limited to time, space, and matter like we are. But past those is what truly matters. This being is the epitome of perfection and love; true, pure, unadulterated, absolute love. Perfect love. This being is a personal being- His thoughts toward you- you- are as countless as the grains of sand. His foolishness is wiser than our wisest wisdom (not that He’s ever foolish. That’s just to put it in perspective.) His weakest is stronger than our strongest strength. This being has demonstrated that love firsthand through the sacrifice of His blameless Son. He was beaten and cut so you wouldn’t have to be. We shouldn’t wish to please Him for the bonuses; we must wish to please Him because He deserves it. We need to set our sights on the reward in Heaven- because that reward will be spending eternity with this being.

Listen. Jesus was mocked. He was called crazy. He was spit upon, cursed at, lied about. People made rash assumptions about Him. People judged him. They didn’t believe Him nor attempt to listen. He was betrayed (by His closest followers and disciples!). He was hated and persecuted. And it’s true- He says that if the world did so to Him, we whom He has come to live in will also be subject to this. But we are to consider it JOY that we have been subject to such things for someone so worthy as God.

And that makes for what is a tough choice sometimes. How do we get in that mindset?

Submit. Submit to God. Before he can take our life, our heart, our will, our movements, our speech, our actions, we must let go of them ourselves. I have a friend whose main objection to God was that He’s always asking us to submit. She found that as extremely negative, most likely due to the negative and corrupt examples in our culture and society. However, submitting to an all-powerful, LOVING, perfect, all-knowing God cannot be bad. We are SO much better off when we allow an all knowing and loving God to guide us than we EVER would be if we tried to formulate our own path.

Obey. We need to obey His commands. That is the epitome of showing our love for Him. “Loving God means keeping his commandments…” (1 John 5:3) While we do not get into Heaven through works- we get in through faith- God tells us in His word that faith without good works is dead. We bear good fruit (those good works) as a result of our good roots in Him, so if we bear no good fruit, one must question the roots. And because the standard of goodness is God, obeying His commands would be ‘good works’.

Trust. Yeah, I know it’s hard. Let’s be honest- God isn’t a literal, audible, human voice that we talk to and it automatically replies. It takes focus, concentration, and a genuine will and desire to hear His voice. How much time do you spend trying to hear it? Is your life so full of other things that you can’t hear Him over the clutter? Do you deliberately sacrifice time, even when you know you’re busy, for the God of the Universe? What worldly task could be more important than that?
Sometimes, God’s will isn’t very clear to us. I’ll admit that right now, I’m extremely unsure of where I’ll be going to college. I have my top choice, and I’m guilty of saying, “God, please, please, please help me get in here and provide me with a way to pay and work it all out. I know you will provide for me. I pray that you use me here.” We NEED to instead pray this: “God, I fully commit my college experience to you. Please lead me and clearly show me the path marked by You. The one that You, not I, want me to go on. Please open my heart and mind and allow them to be willing to be a peace with and eager to obey. Place me where you may best use me for Your glory.” Not, use me where I place me.
When we feel that calling for something or a passion, and we don’t understand what we’re supposed to do with it or how, just trust. How do you trust? By getting to know Him. Like any other kind of relationship, you must put forth effort into it. You must spend time with the other person. Learn about the other person. That’s exactly what we can do with God’s word. I think we do not put nearly the emphasis on reading the Bible as we should. Go to a Godly, Bible-preaching, sincere church. Hang out with people who will draw you closer to Him. Most importantly, read His word and talk to Him through prayer.

Now,

Go read the song one more time.

 

How "food stamps" are helping to destroy the country, and how to fix the problem

Reblogged from Eternity Matters:

I am all for helping the truly poor, but the current food stamp program is out of control and being systematically abused.  It is hard to conceive how much the program has grown under Obama, and we all know it would be a 24x7 news item if it occurred under a Republican administration.

The cards are basically treated like cash and can easily be converted to buy tobacco, alcohol, drugs -- anything!  

Read more… 227 more words

 

A secular case against same-sex marriage

Reblogged from Wintery Knight:

• 

Note: this post has a twin! Its companion post on a secular case against abortion rights is here.

Roxeanne de Luca challenged socially conservative bloggers to write a non-religious case against same-sex marriage, so here's mine.

I can't possible cover everything, but I will make three arguments.

1. Same-sex marriage is bad for children
2. Same-sex marriage is bad for civil society and business…

Read more… 2,491 more words

A secular case against same-sex marriage, with TONS and TONS of links to outside sources, actual research papers, CDC papers, Harvard papers... etc.

 

Which came first, sex or marriage?

The bottom line that can cause so many people to disagree and NEVER come to an agreement point is this:

Sex was made for marriage; NOT, marriage was made for sex. And that right there is the denominator that can split a country. The moment we as a culture took sex from sacred to simply personal pleasure (the moment Eve sinned) is the moment when our culture would be inevitably torn. Because if you look from a Christian worldview- where God made Adam and Eve for each other, then they “left their father and mother and were joined” (yes, I know they didn’t technically have a mother- my bible version says “This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.) Anyway, according to my worldview, God made marriage (the leaving the father and mother-) and then made sex FOR the confines of marriage (-and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one flesh). But if someone has a nontheistic worldview and believes that the origin of life is a single inexplainable cell and every living thing evolved from that one cell, then under that worldview, sex came first before marriage, and under that worldview, marriage is simply something humans made up so humans can change it and define it however they like. There are two ways to view marriage, and if we don’t agree on that, we won’t ever agree on anything related!

Sexual intercourse causes a bodily, physical, emotional, and mental connection to the person you do it with. (It has to do with chemical releases in your brain, all that fun stuff.) This connection is really intriguing. It also works like tape- it’s sticky and binding. If you rip it off, A) It’s extremely painful (this can explain how sometimes people that get abused will still come back to the same man and other scenarios) and B) It’s not as sticky the next time. That fact is true regardless of one’s worldview, but I believe God designed us that way because sex is supposed to be a sacred act within marriage; that’s what it talks about when two become one flesh (not simply the literal aspect).

While our culture has made it seem like we bash homosexual sex more than the other sexual sins (premarital, adulterous, etc)- and as a whole, we have- that doesn’t make it right that we have done that. I think part of the reason that this is such a huge deal is because homosexual marriage will seemingly legitimatize homosexual sex, and while all the TV shows, movies, media, books, and magazines seem to legitimatize premarital sex and adulterous sex, we have not spoken out about those issues NEARLY as much as we have against homosexual sex. We’ve kind of let it slide and now the government is even endorsing premarital sex rather than abstinence in school curriculums- why haven’t we spoken out and done more about that?? If we encouraged self-control, abstinence, and actually taught the emotional and physically harmful effects of promiscuity and premarital sex- why haven’t we as Christians or conservatives spoken out about that so much as we have about homosexual marriage? We definitely need to.

I’d have to disagree in a sense that we live in a religiously free country, with so many accounts of people being fired for believing one thing by people that are forcing them to believe another; children getting suspended for supporting their beliefs (any belief), etc. Now trust me, I know that many people ‘support’ their beliefs in the WRONG way (harassment, just plain being obnoxious, do not tolerate other beliefs, just insults and no backing) and I believe that anyone, no matter what beliefs they hold, that goes about it in that way needs to be reprimanded. But the problem with this fantasy free country is that there’s a difference between practicing your belief as in going to church/praying/meditating etc and practicing your belief as in sticking to the moral code we believe it has. Every person on earth has a worldview; it’s impossible not to have one. And laws are government legislated morality. The question is, whose morality are they legislating? Someone thinks they get to decide what the moral laws are, when what we need to be doing is seeking the TRUE absolute moral laws, because they without a doubt exist (if everything is relative, than nothing is ‘wrong’). Yes, my beliefs are not shared by everyone, and I do respect that. I cannot and would not even want to force anyone to have the same beliefs as me. (Beliefs and rights are different.) However, I believe that the absolute morals that must exist regardless of one’s beliefs come from an immaterial, nontemporal, nonmaterial, omnipresent, personal, intelligent Being. With further investigation into topics such as science, history, and philosophy, I have come to the conclusion that the Christian God is the absolute moral Law Giver, and all rights and laws stem from Him. We may have different worldviews, but no humans can have different RIGHTS, and to legislate morality, we must discover exactly where those rights come from. Just to put it in perspective- if someone’s religious views told him that you must murder one person to get to some kind of nice afterlife, would they still be free to do so? Why or why not?

 

Homosexual Marriage.

Yes, this post is about my view on homosexual marriage.

Please respect my belief that you are about to read.

If all you will do is get angry, spew insults, and make rash assumptions about me, conservatives, Christians, or any other ‘group’, please click that red X in the corner of your page now.

Know that I present it in utmost love and respect to everyone. Nevertheless, I stand up for my view on this topic. Please do not make me regret posting this.

Answer me this.
If the basis between romantic love and apparently, to our nation, marriage, is simply that two people “commit love to each other” (in the words of our President), then as long as a 40 yr old man commits that same amount of love to a 12 yr old girl and she back to him, they should be able to get married. Or if six women commit the same love to one man and he the same love to each of the six, they should be able to get married, right?
If you make exceptions for one thing, you make exceptions for everything.
So, basically, are you ready to throw every guideline for romantic love and marriage out the window? I’m not.

Regarding biblical verses that undoubtedly show homosexuality as a sin and those of you that claim they are in the old testament along with laws against cutting your hair, playing football, and eating shellfish therefore they cannot be used- there are three types of laws; Ceremonial, Civil, and Moral. Ceremonial and Civil change with culture. Moral does not.

Thank you. I sincerely hope that you respect where I am coming from. Before you judge me on my views, I’d love for you to get to know me and how much I love and respect gay people. They have been the center of horrible torment that no one should be subject to. My heart aches for them and the harassment they undergo.

However, in the matter of homosexual marriage (an oxymoron itself), which has much deeper social and philosophical consequences than the surface may seem, I must stand up for my view on the matter.

I hope you can genuinely respect that.

[EDIT]: Just a few links.
CDC Research paper concerning same-sex couples http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ss/ss60e0606.pdf (Due to the length and wording of the document I highly suggest you only read it if you have an entire day of nothing to do.)
A secular case against homosexual marriage: http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/a-secular-case-against-same-sex-marriage/ 
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT LINK!!! It has exerpts from the CDC paper, papers from Harvard, and other very reputable sources.