Dear Jay:

Any posting to these forums is subject to publication. We do not do private conversations. Thus, either the post is published, or it is rejected for publication without comment.

I will respond to this posting, but this must be the last time for a while.

I am sorry that you are losing your faith, but then I am not surprised. Your understanding of Christianity is virtually non-existent. Since you have no understanding of the Christian faith, even it its most simple and fundamental points you can be nothing other than confused.

Let me go through some of the issues you present:

1) "What you hold true on earth, I shall hold true in Heaven."

I think you are referring to Matthew Mat 16:18-19 in which Jesus said: "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Jesus is referring to the authority of the Pope and the Magisterium of the Church to govern and make decisions about the the discipline of the Church and about faith and morals.

God was not so cruel to leave us to the whims of personal opinion. He gave us the Church to guard the faith so that the faith would not be contaminated or altered. But, even the Church, not even the Pope, can change dogma. Dogma CAN NEVER BE CHANGED, and has never been changed by any Pope. The Pope guards and protects dogma. Dogma is determined by God, not by man. Dogma is not man-made rules.

2) "Faith limits people."

This idea cannot be more wrong. Faith frees people, not limit them. Faith brings us to Truth, and as Jesus said, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."

True freedom is only possible when we are in friendship with God and living consistently with the Truth of Divine and Natural Law.

The only people who think faith limits are those who want to do whatever they want without regard to God or to the truth. Well, actually, you have the complete freedom to do anything you want. But, to do anything you want does not actually give you freedom. Rather, "do what they wilt, is the whole of the law", brings one into the slavery of your passions, ego, and pride. Following God and His Truth allows one to be all they are meant to be as human beings made in the image of God.

What people need to do is decide how they want to live and then be adult enough to accept the consequences of their actions without whining. God does not force anyone to have faith or to follow the truth, but is you choose against God's wisdom then you will suffer the consequences whether you like it or not.

3) "It gives us vague answers hoping that our blind faith will accept it and never question it again. I am not an easy person. I want legit answers and no one is willing to provide."

Jay, I have given you specific answers, but you are not willing to listen. I have given you answers and then you come back and repeat your misconception again as if I never gave the answer.

Christianity does not teach blind faith. Jesus never asked us to have blind faith. Our faith is based upon the evidence that God gives us, his Revelation, and upon the documentary evidence of the experiences of the Christians over the last 2000 years, and our own experience that confirm what God's Revelation has taught us. The veracity of the Bible is proven as well with documentary evidence more than sufficient to trust it to give religious truth.

No one can give you answers that you will accept when you do not wish to hear the truth.

4) "Gnostic Gospels"

The Gnostic Gospels were rejected by the Catholic Bishops who determined which manuscripts were to be included in the New Testament because they contradicted the teachings of the Apostles. If we found a document that said that Thomas Jefferson advocated the new country of the United States to have a monarchy, that would contradict everything that Thomas Jefferson wrote and we would know that such a document is false. Thus, such a document will not be included in the canon of American founding documents.

That is the same with the Gnostic Gospels and other similar documents. They are not Christian, they contradict what Jesus and the Apostles taught, and thus they obviously will not be included in the Bible. And, to attribute these documents to one of the apostles, such as the Gospel of Thomas, is fake. St. Thomas would never teach these heresies, anymore than Thomas Jefferson would teach that the United States should be a monarchy.

5) "I am simply looking for something that I most likely will never find. Why are there no answers? Why do I have to accept things just because no human can provide me with what I need to know?"

This is untrue. God is not so cruel as to make it impossible for you to find the answers you need. Jesus said, "Seek and you shall find." But, God will not force, you have to be willing to accept the truth, which it appears that you are not.

You have the answers. The apostles who wrote the New Testament are humans and they provide you with what you need to know.

6) "God is love, right? Love is unconditional, right? Then why is it so conditional? I can not believe that God gave man so much power and then doesn't allow him to use it. Sure, He took away our immortality, but we are immortal still. We have the power to create (to an extend), we have the power to controll (also to an extend). We are an inferior race, yet Angels are forced to serve us. I cannot grasp the consept."

Yes, God is love. But, love rejoices is truth. If you do not rejoice is truth, then you do not love. Jesus said that if you love him you will follow his teachings.

Doing whatever you want is not love, it is indulgence. Love does not demand its own way. (Read 1 Corinthians chapter 13 for a definition of love).

Love is to be in communion with God, to embrace oneself in Truth. God's love is unconditional. He loves you even if you reject him. Even if a person ends up in hell, God still loves him.

But, love is not homosexual. This is a false love. Homosexuality is a disorder and homosexual sex is a violation of love, of natural law, and is actually a form of self-hatred.

God did not make you homosexual. God does not create disorder or in a way that violates the natural order of things. There is no evidence that anyone is born homosexual, but for the sake of argument, let us say that one can be born homosexual.

I am fat, I could say I was born that way. But, even if there is a genetic connection to fatness, which by the way, science is discovering is true, that does not give me the excuse to eat 25 eggs and a pound of bacon for breakfast every day. That is not genetics, that is a choice.

Even if you are born is the disorder of homosexuality, having homosexual sex is your choice. You are totally free to have sex or not. You cannot say, "my genes made me do it."

Those born with disorders, birth defects, or congenital conditions must learn to live within their limitations of their disability or conditions. And, one is still obligated to follow the moral order. I cannot use genetic fatness as an excuse to commit the sin of gluttony, and you cannot use some genetic homosexuality as an excuse to commit the sin of fornication.

Why are there genetic abnormalities? It is not God's fault. God created us with a perfect gene pool. It is the sin of men that lead over time to mutate genes so that we now have many congenital conditions.

If Adam and Eve had not chosen to sin, we would still have a perfect gene pool. Sin, for example, causes diseases. Some of those diseases cause chromosomal changes, which leads to a contaminated gene pool.

St. Paul said it, Romans 1:26-27 "For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error."

Disease is the natural result of homosexual sin, but also to all sin.

Your problem is that to understand these things is not convenient for you. If you were to suspend your ego, passions, and pride long enough to let these Truths sink in you would have to change your mind and behavior. That is scary.

There are some things, however, that you will never understand until you give yourself to God first.

(1 Corinthians 2:14) "The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned."

God also tells us in the Bible: (Romans 8:6-8)  "To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God."

(Romans 8:13)  "for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live."

(Galatians 5:19-24)  "Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."

It appears Jay, that you do not have the Spirit and thus cannot understand most of these things. You need to take the leap to just God FIRST, and THEN you will begin to understand these things. Do not let your fear, ego, passions, and pride (all things that enslave you) get in your way to the glory of the Freedom granted to you in Christ.

It is a fact of life in many circumstances that have nothing to do with religion that we must act without knowing or understanding everything first. If it unmitigated pride to say, "I must understand all to act." Sometimes in life we must take the risk and act first and understand later. If people did not do this many inventions that we enjoy today would have never been invented.

In this situation, you will have to trust God first, and understand later. Sometimes we must let go and then God can help us.

There is a story told about a man hanging onto a branch off the side of cliff. He cries out to God for help as the branch is breaking and he will fall to his death.

He cries out but no one answers. He cries out again, "Lord save me, the branch is breaking and I will fall to my death." No answer.

He cries out a third time and this time God answers him. "Is that you Lord?" the man asks. "It is I your Lord," God answers. The man pleads with God, "Lord, please save me. The branch is breaking and I am about to fall to my death."

God answers, "Son, let go of the branch."

The man thinks a minute and then looks up to heaven and says, "Is there anyone else up there?"

The moral of the story is that if we hold on to the branch we will fall. Instead, we must let go of the branch FIRST, and THEN God will catch us.

You need to let go and offer yourself to the Lord. You will be surprised what God can do for you if you do this.