You sound like a nice person, but I agree with #67, you should learn about both sides and make an informed decision about your beliefs. I personally do believe in God, or a higher power of some sort. I don't believe in the majority of the bible though. I am also a biochemistry major and have read about a lot of the things 67 mentioned, which is why I very much agree with the majority of what he/she said

Well, on one hand she may just not accept gays, or on the other hand she may not support the gay group. I for one am fine with the gay community, it's just what some are demanding that I don't like (like changing the definition of a word simply bc they want to say they're married). I'm all for equal financial benefits for unions, but the definition of a marriage does not allow room for a "gay marriage". So get over it. So basically, your mom may just not like the morals of the specific group you're in.

For the people saying homosexuality is a choice, I'm almost positive scientists proved that a mutation on the X chromosome that causes it. i.e. it's genetic, not a choice.

@ #36 and # 41: To be fair, Hell was an acknowledged as existing in the Old Testament as the abode of Lucifer (aka Satan, the Devil, take your pick), just as Heaven was seen as existent, but the OT didn't really believe in an afterlife, which is rightly so as Jesus was essentially the one to add an afterlife to Judaism, thus making Christianity. I'll end the Bible mumbo-jumbo as some of you will think I'm mindfucked and crazy. What I was trying to get at was that the Romans actually didn't create Hell, but rather the image of it that we so stereotype today (fire everywhere, with a red goat-man with a pitchfork as Satan, to scare pagans of Northern Europe into converting). It was to make it more like the pagan religions around. So, if you're gonna make accusations, make sure it's 100% historically sound before trying to kill another's beliefs. I understand you probably heard a version of it, but your incapacity to understand anything beyond liberal inhibited you from getting it completely right. @ OP: I hope all these comments haven't made you thing ALL Christians are completely mindfucked into intolerance. if you can't tell, I'm Catholic, and my priest actually counsels many gays and respects their life choices (or their biological traits, as many are making sure we get straight). So, most of us are actually tolerant of mostly everything. It's just those crazy Christians who believe anyone unlike them are going to hell, those Puritanical bastards ;) Actually, to be fair, it's all the atheists that seem less intolerant on this site than the religious "zealots" as one commenter went on to describe us as. Maybe you're the bigots/hypocrites.

@ #67: OK, I do agree mostly with what you had to say. Especially about understanding both (or multiple) points of views before making an ultimate decision about beliefs. I, personally, have done such a thing. The one thing that keeps throwing me back into Catholicism when I start to go atheist (which has happened many times to me) is that one question of "How the Hell do we exist?" I mean, granted, that's not a foolproof way to safeguard one's faith, and God willing (assuming he does in fact exist), but it seems to be doing fairly well for me. Anyways, regarding the rest of your post, you do realize that Christianity (or at least Catholicism) believes that bad things happen to good people because, believe it or not, or mortal life doesn't really matter to God all that much ever since sin entered the world (Adam and Eve story left out). Not saying God doesn't feel compassion for us even in our darkest hour, but sin is what causes evil in the world. You cannot say that God creates evil, because, as we believe, God is good. Also, God truly cares mainly about our soul, seeing as our flesh eventually does, in fact, decay. "Dust to dust". I do, in fact, know of someone in our parish who was taken by flesh eating bacteria, and the family of the infected was distraught. It got too far too fast before the doctors could do much. So, I do feel for you, but you must realize that terrible events are isolated to one person. Many can relate.

@#30: Ok, umm can I ask you one question? How do you believe life came into existence? I mean, without a supernatural cause, the only logical theory out there as of yet is the Big Bang Theory, which basically states that out of nothing, infinite NOTHING, a huge BANG (more or less an explosion of matter) came into being, creating the universe. And, from this explosion, by simple coincidence, the components necessary to not only create a biological life form of a unicellular being (DNA, RNA, whatever they would need), but also to provide the perfect ecosystem to allow said being to evolve over millions upon millions of years to where we are now were provided. Huh, yeah, that's sooo logical. Honestly, I believe in Darwinism with a Creationistic twist. God created life, life evolved. Simple as that. The Israelites who wrote the OT were known to exaggerate just a tad. Like, the Red Sea probably wasn't really parted, by a really long drought allowed Moses and his followers to pass, and, the Egyptians finally deciding to chase them, were drowned by a flash flood. But, of course, that's not logical now, is it? I mean, compared to the Big Bang Theory, it's like stating that pigs can actually spy, but their hiding it from us.

It's not more interesting, just more common, taking place much more often. And engineers rarely get together with pulitzer-nominated novelists, anyway.

my mom's the same, sadly.

YDI for being gay.

I'm a very conservative Christian girl. I am really actually offended by the stuff some of you people have posted. I don't hate anybody. My religion is the cause of that. Although I don't agree with homosexual practices, I do not hold anything against homosexuals. It is myyyy opinion, just like you have your own. Some people who happen to be Chrisian have been very vocal about their dislike of such things, as well as some homosexual people have been very vocal about Christians. Welcome to America! We have opinions! It happens! And just like everything else, homosexual practices have become more accepted. So lets be nice:) And don't be such Christian haters. This country was founded on Christian ideals. I love this country. So we can stop being America haters as well. Please try not to be judgemental. It isn't making any of you look very intelligent. Alright. I'm done:)