PDN wrote: » You are entitled to disagree with our beliefs as Christians, but all this load of tosh about homophobia only serves to hinder any sensible discussion about those disagreements.
Dublin_Gunner wrote: » So, let me get this straight. It nowhere states that marriage must be between a man & woman. Does it state anywhere that homosexual acts are a sin?
Jakkass wrote: » : Originally Posted by Genesis 2:24Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
at the beginning, the Creator 'made them male and female' and said 'For this reason man will leave his father and mother, and be united with his wife; and the two will become one flesh
Malty_T wrote: » Really, I thought it was...
PDN wrote: » LOL. A non-Christian asks a question, gets the answer they're looking for from an atheist with an abysmal track record of uunderstanding Scripture, and then accuses Christians of hypocrisy. Jesus on marriage: “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6) Anyone, other than a legalist looking for a non-existent loophole, will see that Jesus saw marriage as something between a man and a woman.
PDN wrote: » It is unreasonable to assume that he should insert an extra clause in there for the benefit of those 2000 years in the future when some people want to abandon a definition of marriage that has stood for millenia and replace it with something else.
PDN wrote: » No serious historian or scholar should entertain such a silly notion.
Jakkass wrote: » Two separate quotations. The first quote Jesus uses is from Genesis 1:26, the second is from Genesis 2:24.
Jakkass wrote: » The links you provided last time, merely showed that homosexuality takes place within nature, it doesn't prove that it is biologically determined. I find this quite dishonest. As for gay brains being structured differently, you are quite aware that ones brain structure can change without it being biologically determined?
Brain scans have provided the most compelling evidence yet that being gay or straight is a biologically fixed trait. The scans reveal that in gay people, key structures of the brain governing emotion, mood, anxiety and aggressiveness resemble those in straight people of the opposite sex.
Jakkass wrote: » That depends on how ambiguous you consider Pauline theology on homosexuality to be.
Malty_T wrote: » It sort of does that marriage must be between a man and woman, though.
robindch wrote: » The problem that I and no doubt many other non-christians have with christians' attitudes towards gay men and women is that christians want to apply rules which are specific to their religious denominations to people who are not members of their religious denominations. If christians said that is was morally wrong for chrisitan men to engage in gay sex, then I'm sure that most of the heat would leave the debate.
Dublin_Gunner wrote: » So I'll ask once again, if anyone knows, does it explicitly state, anywhere in the bible, that marriage MUST be between a man & woman, and secondly, does is explicitly condemn homosexual acts anywhere?
eightyfish wrote: » I'm more inclined to take a science magazine's view than yours. As to your first point - if gay sex exists in nature, this surely ads weight to the argument that it is biologically determined and anturally occuring.
Jakkass wrote: » I believe I also cited an article explaining different reasons why homosexuality might take place in nature. Increasing fertility was one of these reasons. You're being dishonest in saying that there is a consensus amongst scientists that sexuality is biologically determined. We really don't know for sure. I'm looking forward to see what progress research like this does make in the future.
Jakkass wrote: » You're being dishonest in saying that there is a consensus amongst scientists that sexuality is biologically determined.
Wicknight wrote: » Does it matter?
Dublin_Gunner wrote: » So I'll ask once again, if anyone knows, does it explicitly state, anywhere in the bible, that marriage MUST be between a man & woman, and secondly, does is explicitly condemn homosexual acts anywhere? I'm asking because I don't know, not because I'm trying to be a smart-ar$e. I just want to know why the Christian church seems to have their views on homosexuality.
PDN wrote: » If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)
lugha wrote: » Are you not being selective? You defer to the authority of the bible to acknowledge the sin but decline to adopt the recommended punishment. Or am I misinterpreting something?
PDN wrote: » amuse themselves with vacuum cleaners
Malty_T wrote: » I was under the impression that Leviticus's so called "law's" weren't followed by Christians? Perhaps PDN will clarify, as my biblical knowledge is long gone, but I hope to revive it
Malty_T wrote: I was under the impression that Leviticus's so called "law's" weren't followed by Christians? Perhaps PDN will clarify, as my biblical knowledge is long gone, but I hope to revive it
PASSAGES 5 AND 6 1 CORINTHIANS 6:9 AND 1 TIMOTHY 1:10 THE MYSTERY OF "MALOKOIS" AND "ARSENOKOITAI" Now what do the writings of Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 say, first, about God, and then about homosexuality? These are the last two places in the Bible that seem to refer to same-sex behavior. We can combine them because they are so similar. Moses holding the ten commandmentsPaul is exasperated. The Christians in Ephesus and Corinth are fighting among themselves. (Sound familiar?) In Corinth they're even suing one another in secular courts. Paul shouts across the distance, "You are breaking God's heart by the way you are treating one another." Like any good writer, Paul anticipates their first question: "Well, how are we supposed to treat one another?" Paul answers, "You know very well how to treat one another from the Jewish law written on tablets of stone." The Jewish law was created by God to help regulate human behavior. To remind the churches in Corinth and Ephesus how God wants us to treat one another, Paul recites examples from the Jewish law first. Don't kill one another. Don't sleep with a person who is married to someone else. Don't lie or cheat or steal. The list goes on to include admonitions against fornication, idolatry, whoremongering, perjury, drunkenness, revelry, and extortion. He also includes "malokois" and "arsenokoitai." Here's where the confusion begins. What's a malokois? What's an arsenokoitai? Actually, those two Greek words have confused scholars to this very day. We'll say more about them later, when we ask what the texts say about sex. But first let's see what the texts say about God. After quoting from the Jewish law, Paul reminds the Christians in Corinth that they are under a new law: the law of Jesus, a law of love that requires us to do more than just avoid murder, adultery, lying, cheating, and stealing. Paul tells them what God wants is not strict adherence to a list of laws, but a pure heart, a good conscience, and a faith that isn't phony. That's the lesson we all need to learn from these texts. God doesn't want us squabbling over who is "in" and who is "out." God wants us to love one another. It's God's task to judge us. It is NOT our task to judge one another. So what do these two texts say about homosexuality? Are gays and lesbians on that list of sinners in the Jewish law that Paul quotes to make an entirely different point? Greek scholars say that in first century the Greek word malaokois probably meant "effeminate call boys." The New Revised Standard Version says "male prostitutes." As for arsenokoitai, Greek scholars don't know exactly what it means -- and the fact that we don't know is a big part of this tragic debate. Some scholars believe Paul was coining a name to refer to the customers of "the effeminate call boys." We might call them "dirty old men." Others translate the word as "sodomites," but never explain what that means. In 1958, for the first time in history, a person translating that mysterious Greek word into English decided it meant homosexuals, even though there is, in fact, no such word in Greek or Hebrew. But that translator made the decision for all of us that placed the word homosexual in the English-language Bible for the very first time. In the past, people used Paul's writings to support slavery, segregation, and apartheid. People still use Paul's writings to oppress women and limit their role in the home, in church, and in society. Now we have to ask ourselves, "Is it happening again?" Is a word in Greek that has no clear definition being used to reflect society's prejudice and condemn God's gay children? We all need to look more closely at that mysterious Greek word arsenokoitai in its original context. I find most convincing the argument from history that Paul is condemning the married men who hired hairless young boys (malakois) for sexual pleasure just as they hired smooth-skinned young girls for that purpose. Responsible homosexuals would join Paul in condemning anyone who uses children for sex, just as we would join anyone else in condemning the threatened gang rape in Sodom or the behavior of the sex-crazed priests and priestesses in Rome. So, once again, I am convinced that this passage says a lot about God, but nothing about homosexuality as we understand it today.
wolfsbane wrote: » Let me butt in. If the law was only in Leviticus we would question its applicability today. But the law against homosexuality is part of the New Covenant age just as much as of the Old, as PDN's NT texts show.
PDN wrote: » Christians view much of the Levitical law as fulfilled in Christ and therefore no longer applicable today. Pretty much anything that is obviously ceremonial (circumcision, dietary laws, sacrifices etc). For the most part these are specifically identified as no longer applying to Christians. Other parts of the Levitical law are obviously moral, for example ptohibitions against murder, theft, incest and bestiality. Again, for the most part we find these things are condemned and portrayed very negatively in the New Testament. So are homosexual acts to be considered a ceremonial matter or a moral issue? Obviously the New Testament will help us to understand that. Does the New Testament say, "Now that Jesus has gone to the Cross let no man judge you on matters such as gay sex." Or does it speak of homosexuality in negative terms? The answer, I believe, is clear to anyone who isn't trying to shoehorn the Scriptures into their own preconceived set of values, or just pursuing an ideological vendetta against Christians. As for the punishment side of things, that is straightforward enough. The laws of Leviticus were originally given to a desert people, surrounded by hostile enemies, and in a nomadic setting. So, while God's ideas of right and wrong don't change, people's circumstances do. So we do find the New Testament agreeing that children should be obedient to their parents. But nowhere do we find the New Testament advocating that disobedient teenagers should be stoned. So, the Christian approach to homosexual behaviour is entirely consistent with the principles of biblical interpretation that we apply to other areas. Non-Christians are entitled to disagree and hold different views, I wouldn't expect them to do otherwise, but I think accusations of selectivity are unfair and inaccurate.
