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Originally posted by BBBCanada

Maybe I'm off here, but it seems to me that the people who wrote to you via e-mail are apparitions to the rest of us that have posted to the boards. Therefore, they don't count. What good does it do to bring in "silent witnesses?" Therefore, honorman can make the kind of statement he makes based only on WHAT HE KNOWS which is WHAT OTHERS HAVE POSTED. And the majority, IT APPEARS, disagree with DLW.

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Originally posted by BBBCanada

And DLW, if anything, what our modern notion of homosexuality with all the scientific facts has done is help Christians better understand the homosexual and have compassion for him or her. It really doesn’t change the biblical understanding of human sexuality.

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Originally posted by BBBCanada

And it may not. Why? Because all you need is ONE person to say that they have changed (and I really mean to have done so, I’m not providing lipservice to this) and this will bring that understanding into question. Regardless, you said, “IN MOST CASES a constitutional homosexual orientation can't be changed” therefore there are some cases where homosexuals do have a change of orientation.

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Despite all of this, we need to differentiate a few things here. There is “fallen ness,” “sin,” and “condemnation.”

All of creation is fallen. At the end of God’s activity, at the consummation of the ages, creation will be liberated. This fallen ness extends not only to our ACTIONS but also BEYOND them to our bodies (which will be resurrected), and “disposition” (where we will transformed into the image of Christ at the resurrection as well). Having said that, fallen ness is related to “sin.” While sin can be used to speak of the dimensions listed above, however, we normally speak of sin in terms of actions that do not conform to God’s standards.

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Lastly, there is the issue of “condemnation.” On the one hand all that is fallen will come under judgment. On the other hand, condemnation, though related to fallen ness? Is normally used of SINFUL ACTIONS. Texts that deal with this are Romans 2:3, 2 Cor 5:10, Rev 20:12. Now, when we put these two together we can say that our fallen ness will be made whole at the consummation, whereas our sinful actions will be condemned. What this means is that we should differentiate between DISPOSITION and ACTION in the area of sexual preference AS IN EVERY OTHER AREA. This, to me, is generally where the problem lies at for most conservative Christians. Therefore, what this means is that one can be oriented a certain way but it is their actions that really matter.

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DLW,
#1. You're so hooked on this whole lack of celibacy capability thing. A reasonable Christian person cannot possibly believe that there are some people who cannot live their entire lives without having sex in some form. That's ludicrous. NO ONE needs to have sex at all. ALL OF US, EVERY ONE OF US, EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF HUMANITY is capable of living a celibate life. To think otherwise is to accept a lie of Satan. That's all it really is - a lie. If people really tried, they could control their sexual urges, otherwise there would be a lot more rapes going on than there already are. Some people, no matter how hard they try to get someone to marry them, will never be able to, and the only allowance God gives for sex is within marriage, so some people who think they cannot control their sex drive, will simply have to.

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#2. Where does this essay get its evidence from. Are they simply studying the differences in gay and straight people's prenatal history and concluding these things, or are they able to definitively prove that these conditions always cause gayness in people?

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#3. We know that oftentimes adults who are pedophiles were sexually abused as children, which shows that their sexual orientation is likely learned, or environmentally influenced. The same could be argued for some gay and lesbian people. I have often wondered if that's what causes me to have arousal towards women. The main focus of arousal for me is big breasts. My mom never breast-fed me or my brother when we were babies because that was what her doctor told her to do. At that time - the late 60's and early 70's - doctors were telling mothers that formula was healthier for babies and not to nurse. So, she did what they told her to do. She regrets it now, though. I wonder if there's a connection. My brother likes busty women also.

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But, I do believe that this article is probably correct that some people are hormonally influenced towards a certain sexual orientation. We are after all physical beings and sexual attraction is largely physical. But, some gay men and lesbian women have overcome their homosexuality and became straight, so we can't simply conclude that once people are gay or lesbian, that they always have to stay that way. It would be good if pharmaceutical companies would be allowed to develop pills that could repair the hormonal damage in the brain/body of the gay and lesbian person. Then, they would be healed of this birth defect. But, in today's politically correct climate, I doubt that a lot of people would stand for that.

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Finally, the Bible, no matter what the cause is for any sin, is clear that no sinful action is excusable in God's eyes. So, allowing gays and lesbians to "marry" would never be God's Will, as the very act of gay and lesbian sex actually harms and destroys the human spirit, unlike the heterosexual sexual union in marriage that builds up the marriage and union of the straight couple.

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Originally posted by PotOnWheel

The thought to include this quote on this board grows out of the contrasting proposals, opposite, that God CAN and CAN'T empower humans for holy living.

The quote is by a 1850s (pre-Am-Cival War) preacher for South Africa, Andrew Murray.

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This hearing the voice of God is something more than the thoughtful study of the Word. There may be a study and knowledge of the Word, in which there is but little real fellowship with the living God. But there is also a reading of the Word, in the very presence of the Father, and under the leading of the Spirit, in which the Word comes to us in living power from God Himself; it is to us the very voice of the Father, a real personal fellowship with Himself. It is the living voice of God that enters the heart, that brings blessing and strength, and awakens the response of a living faith that reaches the heart of God again.

It is on this hearing the voice, that the power both to obey and believe depends. The chief thing is, not to know what God has said we must do, but that God Himself says it to us. It is not the law, and not the book, not the knowledge of what is right, that works obedience, but the personal influence of God and His living fellowship. And even so it is not the knowledge of what God has promised, but the presence of God Himself as the Promiser, that awakens faith and trust in prayer. It is only in the full presence of God that disobedience and unbelief become impossible.

WITH CHRIST In the School of Prayer: Thoughts on Our Training
for the Ministry of Intercession
BY REV. ANDREW MURRAY
Lord, teach us to pray.

NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
Publishers of Evangelical Literature.

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It is faith in THIS, and the active experience of it that leads several on this board to believe that every moment it is possible for one to live holy. In focusing, in that way, on the Person of the Father...through the Son...in the Spirit, that life becomes a matter of individual moments. Not a theoretical "whole life" to about which supposed "inevitable" failures are to be statistically considered.

Murry can be considered a Godly prophet in this regard.

Let me point you to several FREE books online by Murray.

• http://www.ccel.org/m/murray/
  List of books...........



• http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/prayer.html
  Several formats for: With Christ in the School of Prayer



• http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/deeper.html
  Several formats for: The Deeper Christian Life

Blessings.

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Originally posted by PotOnWheel

The Church and life in Christ is an indwelling of Christ in us by His Spirit. ("May Christ dwell in you richly...") Not rules.

It is an attempt to rebuild a Pharisaical system, to confuse "order" with spirituality and faith-driven obedience.

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Originally posted by PotOnWheel

The Church and life in Christ is an indwelling of Christ in us by His Spirit. ("May Christ dwell in you richly...") Not rules.

It is an attempt to rebuild a Pharisaical system, to confuse "order" with spirituality and faith-driven obedience.

Here are LINKS to a great spiritual guide:

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Originally posted by PotOnWheel

The thought to include this quote on this board grows out of the contrasting proposals, opposite, that God CAN and CAN'T empower humans for holy living.

The quote is by a 1850s (pre-Am-Cival War) preacher for South Africa, Andrew Murray.

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This hearing the voice of God is something more than the thoughtful study of the Word. There may be a study and knowledge of the Word, in which there is but little real fellowship with the living God. But there is also a reading of the Word, in the very presence of the Father, and under the leading of the Spirit, in which the Word comes to us in living power from God Himself; it is to us the very voice of the Father, a real personal fellowship with Himself. It is the living voice of God that enters the heart, that brings blessing and strength, and awakens the response of a living faith that reaches the heart of God again.

It is on this hearing the voice, that the power both to obey and believe depends. The chief thing is, not to know what God has said we must do, but that God Himself says it to us. It is not the law, and not the book, not the knowledge of what is right, that works obedience, but the personal influence of God and His living fellowship. And even so it is not the knowledge of what God has promised, but the presence of God Himself as the Promiser, that awakens faith and trust in prayer. It is only in the full presence of God that disobedience and unbelief become impossible.

WITH CHRIST In the School of Prayer: Thoughts on Our Training
for the Ministry of Intercession
BY REV. ANDREW MURRAY
Lord, teach us to pray.

NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
Publishers of Evangelical Literature.

---

It is faith in THIS, and the active experience of it that leads several on this board to believe that every moment it is possible for one to live holy. In focusing, in that way, on the Person of the Father...through the Son...in the Spirit, that life becomes a matter of individual moments. Not a theoretical "whole life" to about which supposed "inevitable" failures are to be statistically considered.

Murry can be considered a Godly prophet in this regard.

Let me point you to several FREE books online by Murray.

• http://www.ccel.org/m/murray/
  List of books...........



• http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/prayer.html
  Several formats for: With Christ in the School of Prayer



• http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/deeper.html
  Several formats for: The Deeper Christian Life

Blessings.

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Shadow Syndromes: People with Mild Forms of Serious Disorders
by John J. Ratey, M.D.
Editor's Note: You may distribute this content electronically or in print if you include the following statement at the top of the article so that it is visible to all readers.

Terms of Use: This educational material is made available courtesy of the author and Attention Deficit Disorder Resources, a non-profit organization based in Tacoma, whose purpose is to help people with Attention Deficit Disorder achieve their full potential. We have numerous materials as well as a quarterly newsletter for sale. Phone: 253-759-5085
Address: ADD Resources, 223 Tacoma Av S #100, Tacoma WA 98402
E-mail: office@addresources.org; Web Site: www.addresources.org

Neuropsychiatry has undergone a major conceptual shift since the 1960s. In those days everyone was speculating about neurotransmitter levels in mental illness. (Neurotransmitters are the chemicals, like dopamine and serotonin, that carry messages between the brain's nerve cells). Researchers focused upon neurotransmitters—or, rather, the breakdown products of neuro- transmitters that can be found in blood and urine—because, given the technology of the day that was what they could study. Blood, urine, spinal fluid: these were the substances researchers could actually collect and measure. We could not look inside the skull.

The advent of the brain scan changed everything. Brain scans allow neurologists to move inside the skull: to look at the brain's structure and watch the brain in action as it processes thoughts and emotions. We now have available anew echo-planar magnetic resonance imaging technique that can capture an image of the brain changing every twenty-five milliseconds. In the words of Dr. Joel Yager of UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute, soon we will actually be able to watch the "mind boggle."

Thus far, this approach has been enormously fruitful. Alan Zametkin of the National Institute of Mental Health has discovered certain areas of the brain involved in attention deficit disorder, areas that appear to be metabolizing glucose too slowly compared to normal brains; others have found the areas affected in obsessive compulsive disorder—areas which, in this case, appear to be metabolizing glucose too quickly.

Now that we can actually look at the brain in action, we have begun, inevitably, to think in termsof brain geography as well as chemistry. In the future we will speak of certain areas of the brain, areas we call microenvironments, and we will think of medication in terms of its ability to target those locations. We will also be adding the elements of time and recursivity to the mix: the way in which a change in one location of the brain, over time: filters out to cause changes in other locations. These downstream changes feed back, in turn, into the original site of alteration, affecting it once again. This does not mean that all talk of chemical imbalances will fade away, but instead that the notion of a chemical imbalance will become more precise as neuroscience advances

Prozac, for instance, is known to raise serotonin levels in the brain, so naturally psychiatrists concluded that it is the rise in serotonin that relieves the depression. But in fact this rise takes place the first day a patient takes the pill, yet the depression does not lift until three to six weeks later. Obviously, something else is going on—something that has to do with the brain's geography and timing, with the particular areas of the brain in which Prozac does or does not find docking sites, and with feedback loops between and among these areas.

Thus, in the future we will see the language of "brain chemicals," "imbalances," and "levels" joined, and sometimes replaced, by the language of microenvironments, timing, and recursivity. Already, psychiatrists talk about "frontal-lobe types": these are the sticky people we can't get off the telephone. Such people often have problems involving differences in the frontal lobe, hence the nickname. It is a population that has become known by the place in their brain that is not working properly--not by the neurotransmitter that is "out of balance."


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Normal People and Their Problems
When you think about life in terms of the brain's geography, you quickly develop a real appreciation for Freud's dictum that normal people are not all that normal. The brain is infinitely complex, and a difference in just one tiny area can produce major differences in behavior and emotion—either for good or for ill. Because everyone's brain is different, it is easy to see why all of us may end up with our own particular brain-based emotional difficulties, as well as with our own unique talents and strengths.

The biology of the brain's development in early life also points to the possibility that all of us may end up with our own unique mental issues. At the moment of conception tiny differences in genetic endowment from one child to the next will result in major differences in their fully developed brains. Then, as the fetal brain grows, small differences in the biology of the mother's womb (due to hormones, nutrition, viruses, drugs, cigarettes, etc.) will also produce significant differences in the finished brain. In short, the very- complexity of the brain's development makes it likely that all of us end up with parts of our brain that "grew well" and parts that did not grow so well. Every brain is unique, and every brain is going to have its talents and its problems. From the outside those problems are going to look like emotional issues, or cognitive deficits, or both.

Even if you were lucky enough to come into this world with a brain that processes informationand deflects stress with the best of them, there is No guarantee of making it to middle-age with those capacities intact. One of the important truths in life—a truth that is sometimes lost in the rush to the new biology—is that the biology of our brains is not fixed at birth. The brain develops in response to its environment, which means that painful life experiences leave their mark. We now- possess a fair amount of evidence indicating that psychological trauma actually alters the physical makeup of the brain, that a single episode of major depression in response to a devastating life event scars not only our souls but our gray matter as well. Moreover, some psychiatrists now speculate that, like the long-distance runner's knees, the brain's capacity to handle stress may decline with age. In short, even the golden babywho begins life with a happy face and bright eyes is likely to acquire a few dents and scrapes along the way.

Thus, whether for reasons of inborn genetics or reasons of the inevitable wear and tearof life, we may all have our mental "weaknesses." And until recently, these weaknesses were seen simply as personality flaws that we, typically, blamed on our parents. The man who can't talk about his feelings, the mother who screams at her children one moment and smothers them in kisses the next, the wallflower. the loner, the needy neighbor you can't get off the telephone: the absent-minded professor, the confirmed bachelor, the overprotective mom who won't take her children to the park for fear they might catch a bug, the husband who tantrums like a four-year old while his children cower before him, the gifted person who cannot seem to live up to his or her potential—all of these "types" have always seemed to be just that: types. The thought that such ordinary, everyday phenomena as a bad temper or an "inferiority complex" (a popular problem back in the 1950s) might have a biological basis has, until recently, not crossed our minds.

But neuropsychiatry is now discovering that a great deal of what we thought was due to (poor) upbringing in fact is heavily influenced by the genetics, structure, and neurochemistry of the brain. Every one of the troublesome personalities made famous by our popular press likely has its roots in an unsuspected brain difference: the "Peter Pan syndrome," the "Cinderella complex," the "women who love too much," the "men who can't love," the "codependent"—the list goes on. All of these people are doubtless going to turn out to have brain differences that contribute to their Peter Panness or their Cinderellaness or their co-depen- dentness —differences that may also contribute to higher levels of creativity or energy or personal magnetism in their lives as well.

Of course, differences in the brain cut both ways: as studies of artists with manic- depressive illness have shown, a brain difference that handicaps us in one realm may also endow us with greater capacities in another. Our purpose in writing our recent book, Shadow Syndromes: was not to pathologize every nook and cranny of everyday life, but to offer help for those areas in which our brain differences do hurt more than help. Until now there has been no biologically based help for the difficult personalities among us because no one has suspected that their problems might have biological facets.


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Shadow Syndromes
In order to take a closer look at normal "craziness," we can learn from the kinds of "craziness" that are not so normal. When we speak of schizophrenia or severe manic-depression, there is No question in anyone's mind that the person is ill. And it is easy enough for us to believe that these illnesses are biological in origin (though it was not so long ago that these illnesses, too, were blamed upon bad parents.)

The confusion begins when you see patients who do not fit the classic categories, but who nevertheless have very real difficulties in life. Are these difficulties due entirely to upbringing and environment, or do they, too, have some basis in the brain's biology? Modem psychiatry has been struggling to make sense of these people for fifty years. Doctors diagnose their patients accordingto the syndromes described in the DSM-IV, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fourth Edition.A syndrome is a set of behaviors that consistently appear together: a set of behaviors the patient,the doctor, or the patient's friends and family can observe and describe.

A syndrome is not at this point, a physical marker like the positive result on a test for HIV antibodies that establishes a diagnosis of HIV-positive. When a psychiatrist diagnoses the syndrome of panic disorder, for example, he cannot—yet—perform an MRI magnetic resonance imaging) that tells him whether the patient does or does not qualify for the diagnosis (although we may be closest to such a test for this particular disorder). Instead, he looks for symptoms: a pounding chest, rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath or hyper- ventilation, sweating or coldness and changes in temperature regulation, the fear that one is having a heart attack, sometimes a feeling that the person is going to pass out, sometimes a feeling that he or she is going to go crazy. This is the set of symptoms that make up the syndrome.

The problem is, every patient is different—including every patient with the same diagnosis. Asa result, the number of syndromes recognized by practicing psychiatrists has leapt in the 40 years since the first edition of the DSM appeared in 1952. That volume described 8O categories of abnormal behavior. DSM-II, published in 1968, more than doubled this number to 145 syndromes, and DSM-II raised the total to 230. DSM-IV, which appeared in 1994, lists 410 in all. What the ever-increasing number of possible diagnoses means is that a person who comes into a psychiatrist's office complaining of being "depressed," for example, could be categorized as belonging to one of four major categories —bipolar disorder, major depression, "other specific affective disorders," or "atypical affective disorder"—with several subcategories included within each of these main categories. A patient diagnosed as bipolar could then be further characterized as mixed, manic, or depressed, for instance.) It is a complex business.

As time goes by, we find that the art of diagnosis grows ever more fragmented; seemingly sound diagnostic categories keep breaking down. Emotional problems do not fit the "concrete blocks" of the DSM-I, -II, or -III; real people come into the office with bits of this and pieces of that. A patient might show signs of panic disorder, signs of major depressive disorder, and signs of a narcissistic personality disorder all in the same package. He or she may have parts of a whole array of syndromes, and yet not suffer from all of the symptoms of any one syndrome. Or he may fit every aspect of a syndrome down to the smallest detail and yet be so mildly affected compared to either people suffering from that problem that even a good therapist might miss the diagnosis. Finally, a patient may exhibit only one or two symptoms from a particular syndrome, a condition long known as a forme fruste in conventional medicine.

A patient with a forme fruste of Graves disease, for instance, might have the bulging eyes without the sweaty hands, rapid heartbeat, irritability, and weight loss that accompany a full-fledged case of the illness. A forme fruste is an incomplete expression of an illness, though the term is little used today. The phrase "shadow syndrome" is substituted because the meanings of the word "shadow," both literal and metaphorical, capture the nature of a mild mental disorder. In the literal sense, a shadow is an indistinct form of something all too vivid and real, just as a shadow syndrome is an indistinct and seldom obvious form of a severe disorder. And metaphorical shadows cast a pall (cast a shadow) across a day that might otherwise be sunny and clear. This is what shadow syndromes do in the realms of work and love: they cast a shadow.

As the diagnostic categories splinter, inevitably the line between normal and abnormal begins to blur. Sooner or later the classically trained psychiatrist begins to notice that not only are there a number of very troubled people who do not fully fit the DSM categories: there are also many, many not-so-troubled people who do fit these categories, to some degree. When you look at everyday people wending their way through everyday life you notice that most people seem to have minor bits of this syndrome, small pieces of that. In a way, the very mildness of his illness adds to his prob- lems because it is likely to go undiagnosed. The "subsyndromal" person, the person who is only a "little bit" manic-depressive, or a "little bit" clinically depressed, is likely to struggle on alone, wondering what is the matter with him—or, all too often, what is the matter with everyone else.

The new neurology can affect our sense of who we are. Where once we thought of ourselves asthe victims of dysfunctional families, some of us are beginning to see ourselves, instead, as the "victims" of dysfunctional brain chemistry—and our parents as, perhaps, victims of the same chemistry themselves. We are beginning to understand ourselves in new ways, not just as a collection of personality traits, but as a collection of biological traits as well. In this new under- standing we can begin the journey out from the shadows and into the clear light of day.

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