Variety in Nature & Religion & People
Variety in Nature
I knew everyone's fingerprints were different and no two snowflakes were alike as a boy but as I taught Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy; I discovered that no two items that appear alike are alike.
One day I had a professional Astronomer speak to my Astronomy class. Her expertise was White Dwarf Stars. By the end of her presentation she had convinced me and my class that no two Dwarf Stars were the same.
Today detectives without finger prints can use practically any physical feature (eyes, nose, ears, freckles, etc.) besides teeth and DNA to identity a person.
One may say there are three states of matter (solid, liquid, gas) but in Astronomy there are several more like plasma (Ionized Gas), the Bose-Einstein Condensate, neutron-degenerate matter, and quark-gluon plasma, strongly symmetric matter, Bare Nuclei, and Nuclear Fragments. If you get right down to it though there are actually an infinite amount of states of matter (example: is glass a solid or a liquid, how many different types of glass exist do you think? Just each type of glass is its own state of matter!)
In Astronomy the Hubble Deep Field photos have showed us glimpses of just how unbelievable the universe is. No matter what direction you look from Earth into the cosmos you see vast numbers of stars, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies and yet no two views are alike. What blows my mind is that you could place yourself anywhere in the Universe and what you would see in the Universe around you would not change as far as the vast numbers of stars, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies.
The final concept that blows my mind is that space is by far mostly empty. Even the densest object we know, the nucleus of an atom, is mostly empty space. If we start putting in order what exist in the Universe the top two things are the void of space and second dark energy & dark matter. What is dark energy & dark matter? We don't really know but we know that it exist and makes up over 95% of what is something in the Universe and yet we cannot see it. We know it exist because of how the matter we can see behaves.
Variety in Religion
When people ask me about my religion, I simply say I am a Christian and I trust that the Lord places me in any given Christian church that He currently wants me to be a member of No Matter whether it is Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Assembly of God, Baptist, etc. (Mark 2:17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. ) So I should not complain whether the Lord puts me in a "dying church" or an "alive church". (John 13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.)
The main point I am trying to make is God created unbelievable variety in the universe why not in religions and churches. And as far as Gays & Transgenders are concerned, they are part of the unbelievable variety. Galatians 3:28 (There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.) If these souls are place in our lives to love as Christ loves them. It is part of His variety. (Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.)
However, what did Jesus do when He confronted a sinner? If they believed in Him, He healed them, THEN said, "Go and sin no more."
When I had poison ivy covering my body (I thought I was not allergic to poison ivy so I cleared several major areas of poison ivy so my friends & family could set up their tents on the island of the Mississippi River) so I felt like a monster but I was the same person inside. I was dying of dehydration during a 10K run on the hottest day of the year but I was that same person in my almost dead body trying to think what I could tell the doctor to keep others from getting into my situation. I tutored in the jail once a week for three years so prisoners could obtain their GED in order to get into a technical college, learn a trade, and change their circumstances (hopefully keeping them out of jail in the future). Those prisoners were no different than the people outside the jail. (Many of the apostles spent a lot of time in jail.) Many of these prisoners would not even be in jail if they lived in a different state where their offense is legal. God did not destroy the angels that turned on Him in heaven, instead He simply separated them from heaven. Even after the separation from heaven occurred God allowed communication with these beings He created (examples: Job, and Jesus temptations after fasting 40 days & nights.)
However, what did Jesus do when He confronted a sinner? If they believed in Him, He healed them, THEN said, "Go and sin no more."
When I had poison ivy covering my body (I thought I was not allergic to poison ivy so I cleared several major areas of poison ivy so my friends & family could set up their tents on the island of the Mississippi River) so I felt like a monster but I was the same person inside. I was dying of dehydration during a 10K run on the hottest day of the year but I was that same person in my almost dead body trying to think what I could tell the doctor to keep others from getting into my situation. I tutored in the jail once a week for three years so prisoners could obtain their GED in order to get into a technical college, learn a trade, and change their circumstances (hopefully keeping them out of jail in the future). Those prisoners were no different than the people outside the jail. (Many of the apostles spent a lot of time in jail.) Many of these prisoners would not even be in jail if they lived in a different state where their offense is legal. God did not destroy the angels that turned on Him in heaven, instead He simply separated them from heaven. Even after the separation from heaven occurred God allowed communication with these beings He created (examples: Job, and Jesus temptations after fasting 40 days & nights.)