Bible stuff

STaN

http://www.studylight.org/desk/?l=en&query=1+Corinthians+6%3A+9&section=0&translation=nas&oq=1%2520Corinthians%25206%3A1%2520-%25209&new=1&nb=1co&ng=6&ncc=6

I heard that there were 6 admonishments of homosexuality in the bibe and 389 of hetrosexuality

Personally i don't take the bible too seriously, just as a moral guidline as opposed to fact.

Can anyone else see them changing their anti-homosexual stance over time, as more and more people come out and as the people are become more and more asexual.

From what i understand their main objection is the spilling of the "seed" where it is not for procreation. But this is also applies to hetrosexuals though.

Any other refrences in the bible that you have found in relation to homosexuality or any thoughts on the bible/church and homosexuality.

solice

there has been many debates and threads on GayCork about religion, god and morality. the most recent is about the vaticans new campaign.

johnjay

According to the Catholic Church, even masturbation is “evil” – so we are all damned to hell anyway!!

No, I don’t think the CC’s attitude to homosexuality will change much in our lifetimes. Even when the current pope passes away, there are still many anti-gay’s left at the higher end of the church. We only have to look at the current controversy regarding the Anglican church’s stance on homosexuality to see what lies ahead for the Catholics – after all the Anglicans are years ahead of us when it comes to issues such as this, and its still threatening to break up their church.

There was a very funny article in the Sunday Indo this week regarding the Catholic Church’s position on gay marriges. It suggested that catholic priests should watch out for certain “signs” at weddings in the future, saying to watch out for facial hair on the bride, 2 male figures on top of the wedding cake, or even a bride wearing a pink dress!

I’m not a very frequent mass-goer myself, but I will be going much less in the future after the past week’s developments.

Zillah

To be technical the anti-gay stance of the catholic church is out dated even by their own definition. They believed that the 'seed' was essentially life and to waste it (ie masturbation or non straight sex) would be like murder. At the time they didnt realise that the women's eggs existed so the seed was a new person. We now know that an egg is also needed to be a person and so their stance is wrong, by their own definition.

I'm not sure how clear that was but you get the idea.

Yoda

Lordy. Sure, Leviticus 18:22 says "Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrance." And Leviticus 25:44 says "Such male and female slaves as you may have – it is from the nations round about you that you may acquire male and female slaves."

So long as people deceive themselves into thinking that the text in question is more than the account of a particular group of human beings who were writing down their history and customs, we will have to put up with those people trying to use it to justify hate, fear, and loathing of homosexuals.

solice

To be technical the anti-gay stance of the catholic church is out dated even by their own definition. They believed that the 'seed' was essentially life and to waste it (ie masturbation or non straight sex) would be like murder. At the time they didnt realise that the women's eggs existed so the seed was a new person. We now know that an egg is also needed to be a person and so their stance is wrong, by their own definition.

and if we were to take what they say literally and seriously, women will go to hell just for having a period. interesting, this implies heaven is full of men as all the women are in hell, interesting

Stark

Hasn't that been their stance all along? Mysognist bastards. Maybe they leave the women off with manslaughter or something.

claire h

"Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrance." Yeah, you bet it is. Uh, probably not for the reasons they're thinking, though.

See, the problem with taking the Bible literally is that there's all kinds of other nonsense in there that no one pays attention to anymore. To single out the anti-gay stuff and ignore the rest is ridiculous.

Lukin Black

Originally posted by claire h
See, the problem with taking the Bible literally is that there's all kinds of other nonsense in there that no one pays attention to anymore. To single out the anti-gay stuff and ignore the rest is ridiculous.

And yet various religions to do it all the time. According to Paul, no man should have long hair, and woman should have long hair so that their face is covered when they go to church. :rolleyes:

1 Corinthians 11:4 Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.
5 But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.

1 Corinthians 11:7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.

1 Corinthians 11:14 Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?
15 But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering

johnjay

…and from what I remember of all those holy pictures in my religion books in Skule, Jesus didn’t exactly have a No. 1 crop cut!!

ixoy

The Bible can be used to support any arguments. There is the site www.godhatesfags.com showing all the arguments against homosexuality in the Bible.
Then someone pointed out how you can say the same for figs and created the superb piss-take site of the original: www.godhatesfigs.com ... So it's all a load of crap

Yoda

One stands in awe of the glories of the Internet.

oneweb

OK, so it's been translated and adjusted and modified and updated to fit. Society needs some sort of direction and guidance. Unfortunately this has lead to many cases (not solely homosexuality) where people believe that the text is right in all it says, even though it was written around two thousand years ago!

IMO, it will take about 15-20 years before homosexuality becomes far less of an issue (there seems to be less of each generation following the church's teachings)

BTW, I've not read it a lot, but it isn't all bad.

JustHalf

Christianity does not preach hatred of homosexuals. This is a distortion of the claim that homosexual acts are a sin; though not all Christians preach what Christianity preaches.

Most Christians I know believe in a concept called "the equality of sin". This concept states that all sins are equally bad. Being disrespectful to your parents is as bad as murder, which is as bad as stealing, which is as bad as homosexual sin.

What is bad about sin is not the effect it has on other people, it is the effect that it has on your relationship with God. Christians believe that seperation from God is the most horrific thing that can happen to you, and that all people, through our sin (and we all sin, Christians included) we seperate ourselves from God, and the only way to repair this problem is to ask for forgiveness.

I am a Christian. I certainly don't hate homosexuals. Besides, if we were called to hate all those who sin, we'd hate everyone (including ourselves). Yet we are called to love all, and have compassion on all people; just as God loves all his people, and has compassion on them.

Personal hatred is a wholly destructive force; it has no good qualities, no features of redemption. It is not to be praised or respected, but combated.

Now, you may decide that engaging in homosexual acts is not wrong. That's your choice, you are free to believe what you believe. Anyone who uses the Bible to justify the hatred of homosexuals is missing the point, though there is a massive difference between hating a person and dissapproving of their actions.

Here's a Bible verse that deals with judging others, which is applicable to those people you all seem to be talking about.

Luke 6:37-42
"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

He also told them this parable: "Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

Yoda

In 1981 when I was a senior in US high school, after the Senior Prom (more or less equivalent to the Debs here) a friend and I ended up in an intimate encounter in the Arizona desert. It would have been unthinkable then and there to have been open about this in school. Twenty years later, my friend's son went to his own Prom, at which there were a number of openly same-sex couples in attendance. I don't know what's going on in Irish society these days for that segment of society, but I suspect that it may not be as much as 15-20 years more here for "normality" to be perceived in gay pairings. I certainly would expect civil-union rights for same-sex couples to be introduced long before that.

Yoda

Originally posted by JustHalf
This is a distortion of the claim that homosexual acts are a sin [...] Being disrespectful to your parents is as bad as murder, which is as bad as stealing, which is as bad as homosexual sin.

In the first place, I don't think that Jesus (the source of the Christian revelation) pronounced against homosexuality. What one finds in Leviticus and the writings of Saul (> Paul) demonstrates more about the tastes of those particular authors than it does of "the Will of God". What is particularly peculiar, insidious, and, indeed, hurtful if not hateful, is the excuse that many Christians make about this matter (just as you have done here, JustHalf). This is the premise that God gives some people a homosexual nature, but considers that if they do anything about it; that if they express the Love given to them (by touching the body of a person of the same sex), then they are "sinners" and worthy of God's wrath and displeasure, and in need of "forgiveness".

Long ago, when I was 16 and in love with my best friend – ah the first flush of love – I thought deeply about this question. At the time I was a Christian. (Subsequently I determined that Jesus' message made real sense in comparison with that of Gotama, but that makes me what I am now – a Buddhist – and did not obtain at the time.) I realized (it was 1980) that society at large and certainly some Christian sects considered my feelings to be "wrong". I thought. I prayed. I felt. And I knew that my love was love, not some "perversion". Not something "sinful". Not something requiring abstinence and "forgiveness". (My friend was straight, and is both straight, and my friend, to this day.)

(I consider myself lucky. I think, in part, it was due to my being an avid reader of the X-men comics when I was much younger that I realized that "being different is OK". I know that many young gay men – in the US as well as in Ireland do not have such basic conceptual support, and I grieve that many of them commit suicide because of the societal pressures put upon them.)

I reject utterly any suggestion that Jesus, or God, could be so small-minded as to worry about what people did with their genitals. The suggestion that a Being that could set Physics, Quantum Physics, Time, Space, Action, Inaction, and all the rest of the incomprehensible Hugeness of Existence into motion could possibly be concerned with What I Do With My Willie is not only ludicrous, but deeply insulting.

Can a homosexual person be accepted for having his or her natural feelings, but be condemned as a "sinner" for engaging in homosexual activity which gives expression to those feelings? Only by people who engage in uncritical acceptance of the writings of other human beings, imputing to those writings an "authority" which is not merited by the content of those texts themselves.

I do not wish to make you an enemy, JustHalf. I wish to encourage you to think, deeply, about the texts which you use to base your views upon. I may fail. You may continue to believe that homosexuals are OK as created beings, but that it is not OK for them to act according to their nature. Such a view I would consider to be untenable. But then, it was such a view that I considered to be untenable more than two decades ago when I examined the truth of my own feelings as a human being.

yellum

Originally posted by Yoda

I reject utterly any suggestion that Jesus, or God, could be so small-minded as to worry about what people did with their genitals. The suggestion that a Being that could set Physics, Quantum Physics, Time, Space, Action, Inaction, and all the rest of the incomprehensible Hugeness of Existence into motion could possibly be concerned with What I Do With My Willie is not only ludicrous, but deeply insulting.

Post of the week. Well said Yoda.

STaN

Originally posted by Yoda
In 1981 when I was a senior in US high school, after the Senior Prom (more or less equivalent to the Debs here) a friend and I ended up in an intimate encounter in the Arizona desert. It would have been unthinkable then and there to have been open about this in school. Twenty years later, my friend's son went to his own Prom, at which there were a number of openly same-sex couples in attendance. I don't know what's going on in Irish society these days for that segment of society, but I suspect that it may not be as much as 15-20 years more here for "normality" to be perceived in gay pairings. I certainly would expect civil-union rights for same-sex couples to be introduced long before that.

From my own personal experience, i went to a guys debs and there were many open expressions of this relationship. Nothing was said, everyone watched and we were even offered coccaine for some reason :eek:

And this debs was for one of the thoughest schools in the dodgiest of areas in Dublin and no problem. Even got a few appraisals. One of the best nights of my life!