Homosexuality and the Bible[W:223]

[Howler63]

Well if you don't believe in exicuting or alienating homosexuals, acceptance is the only other thing you can support. Well if you want to follow Jesus's teachings.

What about using as cautionary examples and, failing that, ignoring?

 

[Howler63]

I posted them right where you can click on them. Try that.

Actually, one of my sources is an anti-gay Christian, despite that he accepts the interpretation that Jesus was including gay people. Don't ask me how that one works in his mind, but there ya go.

No, no. Contemporaries. Of the Romans. Or even the Jews. Not modern fantasy writers.

 

[CLAX1911]

What about using as cautionary examples and, failing that, ignoring?

Yeah acceptance.

 

[Howler63]

If you a look at the letters from Paul in context, the 'inflamed with unnatural lusts', etc etc etc is the punishment for pagan practices. While obviuosly it is liked, it was the punishment for something else, not a specific prohibition.

Possibly. But also, since Jews had a prohibition on homosexuality, doubtful.

 

[Howler63]

Yeah acceptance.

I like ignoring better.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Huh, I wonder why they published the Ten Commandments then?

In the OT there are accounts of:

Child Sacrifice to God: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judg 11:30-39&version=NIV

God Sanctioned Child Rape and Genocide: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=numbers+31&version=NIV

Death to Infidels: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=exodus 32&version=NIV

Genocide including women and children: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy 2:32-35&version=NIV

To name a few literal God sanctioned crimes against humanity in scripture. If we encountered men who wrote the OT today, we would look at them the same way we look at Al Qaeda, ISIS, and murderous warlords and dictators. So what difference does it make why they thought homosexuality was wrong, by today's standards these were not moral people.

 

[RAMOSS]

I have studied it in it's original context. In it's original context, there were a coupe of instances where Paul was referring to temple homosexuality when discussing the "pollution" of the Church by the culture it was in, all the other references (except one or two in the OT) refer to a same sex relationship. The idea about rape vs. homosexuality is from a cultural concept that homosexuality was generally considered to be something you had to be forced into and wouldn't enter into willingly. Some homosexual apologist decided that was what was being referred to when the truth is that the Bible NEVER makes that inference and is clear about it being any same sex relationship.

Somehow, since you are so wrong about it, you are using a CHristian source , which is not really the original.

 

[CLAX1911]

I like ignoring better.

Call it what ever you like but if you aren't active you're passive. That's acceptance.

 

[JC Callender]

In the OT there are accounts of:

Child Sacrifice to God: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judg 11:30-39&version=NIV

God Sanctioned Child Rape and Genocide: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=numbers+31&version=NIV

Death to Infidels: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=exodus 32&version=NIV

Genocide including women and children: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy 2:32-35&version=NIV

To name a few literal God sanctioned crimes against humanity in scripture. If we encountered men who wrote the OT today, we would look at them the same way we look at Al Qaeda, ISIS, and murderous warlords and dictators. So what difference does it make why they thought homosexuality was wrong, by today's standards these were not moral people.

Child rape? I read the passage where they took the virgins, but where does God command them to rape the girls? And genocide? Have you heard of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki? In other words, who in your mind is pure enough to say what's right and wrong? Everyone sins. But going back to my previous question, why would these evil, genocidal child rapists want anything to do with the Ten Commandments?

 

[CrabCake]

Why do you believe the Bible considers homosexuality to be a sin?

I don't.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Child rape? I read the passage where they took the virgins, but where does God command them to rape the girls? And genocide? Have you heard of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki? In other words, who in your mind is pure enough to say what's right and wrong? Everyone sins. But going back to my previous question, why would these evil, genocidal child rapists want anything to do with the Ten Commandments?

God told them to kill every man woman and child and take the virgin girls (people were married at puberty back then) as spoils of war. You can't spin that any other way. Everyone sins, not everyone treats women as property, sanctions death to infidels, makes a raped woman marry her rapist (thats in the OT as well) and so on. These are the morals of peoples that did not have the kind of morals that we do today. As to the Ten Commandments, 4 of them had to do with God and not with morality at all, and the others were common to every people we know of post agricultural revolution. More to the point, just because someone recognizes that lying and stealing is wrong, does not mean they have some insight into morality.

By the way, since "everyone sins", does that mean you are not pure enough to judge ISIS and say what they are doing is wrong or right?

 

[Northern Light]

It's a sin to go against how God created you. When go run contrary to who you really are and what your true purpose is on this Earth, you're sinning.

 

[JC Callender]

God told them to kill every man woman and child and take the virgin girls (people were married at puberty back then) as spoils of war. You can't spin that any other way. Everyone sins, not everyone treats women as property, sanctions death to infidels, makes a raped woman marry her rapist (thats in the OT as well) and so on. These are the morals of peoples that did not have the kind of morals that we do today. As to the Ten Commandments, 4 of them had to do with God and not with morality at all, and the others were common to every people we know of post agricultural revolution. More to the point, just because someone recognizes that lying and stealing is wrong, does not mean they have some insight into morality.

By the way, since "everyone sins", does that mean you are not pure enough to judge ISIS and say what they are doing is wrong or right?

Your point in taking bits and pieces of the Bible, some out of context, is to prove that they were too immoral to be considered credible. You assume that God meant that the victors were to take the virgin girls and rape them and that there's no other way to spin it:

Later, when Moses meets the returning Israeli army he was angry because he saw the Medianite survivors. "The Midianite women, he said, should have died because they were directly culpable in Israel’s sin at Baal of Peor. All the women except the virgins were then sentenced to death along with all the boys. This insured the extermination of the Midianites and thus prevented them from ever again seducing Israel to sin . . . The virgins were spared because they obviously had had no role in the Baal of Peor incident nor could they by themselves perpetuate the Midianite peoples."1 Why were only the virgins left alive among the Midianites? | Virgin Midianites spared

And when someone realizes that lying and stealing is wrong to the point that it's etched in stone in one of the most profound moral statements in history, then I'd say they might have a little insight into morality. As to your last point, I never said that a person shouldn't be able to judge based on certain moral decisions, you said God and the Old Testament prophets shouldn't though. I even gave the Hiroshima/Nagasaki example of what could possible be considered genocide, especially the way you've taken things out of context. If those bombings were genocide, Americans, according to your logic, shouldn't have the right to deem right/wrong morally either, right?

 

[Fearandloathing]

God told them to kill every man woman and child and take the virgin girls (people were married at puberty back then) as spoils of war. You can't spin that any other way. Everyone sins, not everyone treats women as property, sanctions death to infidels, makes a raped woman marry her rapist (thats in the OT as well) and so on. These are the morals of peoples that did not have the kind of morals that we do today. As to the Ten Commandments, 4 of them had to do with God and not with morality at all, and the others were common to every people we know of post agricultural revolution. More to the point, just because someone recognizes that lying and stealing is wrong, does not mean they have some insight into morality.

By the way, since "everyone sins", does that mean you are not pure enough to judge ISIS and say what they are doing is wrong or right?

In more liberal interpretations of the Bible, this story is there to demonstrate how low the Nation of Israel had fallen, not a referendum on genocide or rape. Anyone who comes to the table with the idea the Bible is there to teach right from wrong is in for a big surprise. Much of it shows just how beastial is man throughout history. The message here cries for a sermon on mercy, and how wrong were the Israelites

 

[Josie]

Call it what ever you like but if you aren't active you're passive. That's acceptance.

What did Jesus do when he encountered an adulterer or thief?

 

[CLAX1911]

What did Jesus do when he encountered an adulterer or thief?

told them to go and sin no more

 

[Josie]

told them to go and sin no more

Is that "acceptance"?

 

[Risky Thicket]

1. Celibacy is an unnatural act.

2. It is. I'm sorry for those of you who disagree, but it is.

3. To my knowledge there is no prioritized biblical sin list. The 10Cs? You could argue that, but I would disagree. No matter, there is nothing in the 10Cs about homosexuality.

4. It is completely misguided for a fat assed virgin and/or a straight Christian with their arm in a bag of potato chips, while simultaneously eating a bacon cheeseburger and a mega order of fries slathered in catsup, to point a finger at a non-married non-virgin and/or a lesbian or gay person and tell them they are sinning and going to hell.

5. The obsession of people on this board with other people having lesbian or gay sex feckin amazes me. It you are one of those people, get help. DP isn't the place to get the counseling you need. But the obsession with homosexuality here never stops.

WTF? Who gives a ****? Unless you are sexually confused - and many people on DP seem to be - let it go. Let people be who they are.

6. I have never seen people outside a McDonalds or a Dunkin Donuts protesting fat assed sinners and damning them to hell.

 

[CLAX1911]

Is that "acceptance"?

No but that isn't what he was talking about doing, so what's your point?

 

[ALiberalModerate]

In more liberal interpretations of the Bible, this story is there to demonstrate how low the Nation of Israel had fallen, not a referendum on genocide or rape. Anyone who comes to the table with the idea the Bible is there to teach right from wrong is in for a big surprise. Much of it shows just how beastial is man throughout history. The message here cries for a sermon on mercy, and how wrong were the Israelites

But according to scripture, God told them to do it:

Numbers 31 -

"The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”

It then goes on to say that what they did was "as the Lord commanded."

What the Bible does is reflect the morals and beliefs of the men that wrote it. Like any tribal group back then, whether their actions were what we would consider just today or absolutely genocidal, they attributed them to be the direction of God. That is common to all pre-axial age peoples.

Which brings me back to my original point. Why do we care what they thought about gays, women, or any number of issues that we know today they were wrong about? Morality has advanced quite a bit in the last 2500 years.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Your point in taking bits and pieces of the Bible, some out of context, is to prove that they were too immoral to be considered credible. You assume that God meant that the victors were to take the virgin girls and rape them and that there's no other way to spin it:

Later, when Moses meets the returning Israeli army he was angry because he saw the Medianite survivors. "The Midianite women, he said, should have died because they were directly culpable in Israel’s sin at Baal of Peor. All the women except the virgins were then sentenced to death along with all the boys. This insured the extermination of the Midianites and thus prevented them from ever again seducing Israel to sin . . . The virgins were spared because they obviously had had no role in the Baal of Peor incident nor could they by themselves perpetuate the Midianite peoples."1 Why were only the virgins left alive among the Midianites? | Virgin Midianites spared

Which is the very definition of genocide. Moreover, it states of the virgin girls "but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." What do you think "save for yourselves" means?

And when someone realizes that lying and stealing is wrong to the point that it's etched in stone in one of the most profound moral statements in history, then I'd say they might have a little insight into morality. As to your last point, I never said that a person shouldn't be able to judge based on certain moral decisions, you said God and the Old Testament prophets shouldn't though. I even gave the Hiroshima/Nagasaki example of what could possible be considered genocide, especially the way you've taken things out of context. If those bombings were genocide, Americans, according to your logic, shouldn't have the right to deem right/wrong morally either, right?

I am saying that a pre-axial age people has basically nothing at all to teach us as to gays, women, and numerous other issues that we no today that they were not just wrong about, but horribly wrong. For example, we don't consider women property anymore. The bombings of Hiroshima / Nagasaki were not genocide because they were not intended to wipe out the entire Japanese people. Thats the the difference.

As to knowing that stealing is wrong. People figured that out long before the Ten Commandments were recorded. The Sumerian's had written laws against stealing and lying 2000 years before the 10 Commandments were written.

 

[D_NATURED]

So who do you believe made up all of these Biblical figures?

Most of the magical qualities and life events attributed to Jesus were also possessed by previous gods. They are stories that date back into antiquity and there's no way to really know the first person who made it up. It is thought that the resurrection story is intended to be a sort of calendar, reminding people when to plant, when to harvest, ect. The new testament, itself, was assembled by the Council of Nicea, drawing from all of the available "gospels", choosing which accounts fit their desired narrative.

I really don't mind that these stories remain. I mind that modern humans still take them seriously as some sort of divine communication. If God's words must be interpreted through a political lens by the power hungry elite, He has allowed His message, whatever it might have been, to be corrupted, irreparably, by greed, lust and ignorance. To persist in a tradition with such questionable roots is to declare a complete apathy to the truth and, instead, make the desires of the faithful take precedence over the physical needs of everyone else.

 

[faithful_servant]

Somehow, since you are so wrong about it, you are using a CHristian source , which is not really the original.

Actually, I use the Encyclopaedia Judaica as my primary source, along with a couple of others (I'd have to go through my library to find them, but I know one of them is "Jewish Life"). Amazing how truth can jump up and bite you in the butt...

 

[roguenuke]

Did Romans AND Jews use this distinction? Where are homosexuals EXPLICITLY mentioned? Are there any passages or texts that codify this apparent vernacular stretch?

Homosexual is a very new word, that was not used in the past. The very concept is not even really thought to have existed then. It is hard for us to conceive this particular point because we recognize the concept of homosexuality, sexuality in general. In the past, they didn't. They didn't view things like we do.

 

[chromium]

5. The obsession of people on this board with other people having lesbian or gay sex feckin amazes me. It you are one of those people, get help. DP isn't the place to get the counseling you need. But the obsession with homosexuality here never stops.

WTF? Who gives a ****? Unless you are sexually confused - and many people on DP seem to be - let it go. Let people be who they are.

it's always the non gay posters making threads like this too. It's like they want permission to try it once or something