Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Amaleq13 · 10-14-2006, 04:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Your faith is strong.

You are mistaken in attributing the basis of your position to my own. My conclusion is based on the experience and knowledge I've acquired over the past 17 years as a practicing school psychologist. No faith is needed to recognize reality, Roger, but it is required to deny it and to deny a biological basis for sexual attraction is simply willful ignorance. I know I certainly have no choice in my attraction to women. Do you?

seebs · 10-14-2006, 04:42 PM

I'm very interested in the question of what is actually said on this issue, and I must say, I've noticed a disturbing tendency for serious questions about the text to get handwaved away with emotive arguments.

How about, rather than arguing the moral question separately, maybe a bit of focus (this being AS:C&H) on the question of what the text says first?

Johnny Skeptic · 10-14-2006, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

You might try to get away with claiming that now you have no recollection of using any secular arguments in that thread, a claim which I doubt many people will believe, but you most certainly cannot hope to get away with claiming that during that debate you did not contradict yourself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

I proposed a secular argument. It did not fly (for obvious reasons).

That is fine, we all make mistakes. The problem is that in the other thread, which was many months ago, you claimed that the only evidence against homosexuality was the Bible, when in fact only days before, you used secular arguments. Then, in this thread, you said that as far as you recalled, you did not use any secular arguments in that thread, which I find to be quite strange since secular arguments are mostly what you used. You know very well what NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association) is, and you mentioned NAMBLA in a bogus attempt to link homosexuality with pedophilia. I must say that I am not convinced that you do not have any recollection that you used any secular arguments at all.

Now then, regarding homosexuality, what evidence do you have that the writers were speaking for God and not for themselves.

Please be advised that you need to have some discussions with Seebs regarding this matter. Seebs is a theist, and he does not believe that the Bible opposes homosexuality. The same goes for millions of Christians.

Angra Mainyu · 10-15-2006, 01:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Within the Jewish society governed by God, homosexuality is as serious a sin as murder and both are given the death penalty.

I disagree. No society was ever governed by God, but by people.

Would you argue that it was acceptable to kill people for their homosexuality?
Would you find it acceptable today?

Btw, a few countries (e.g., Saudi Arabia) still have that law, thought enforcement is apparently weak.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Actually, “not be allowed into heaven” is the idea that a person’s sin has essentially placed them in hell and there is a need to escape that situation. People are not sent to hell; people are left in hell. A person may think that hell is an atrocity, their failure to try to escape it would seem to mean that they do not object to it.

I disagree.

Assuming the Bible as literal for the sake of the argument, God created everything. He created Hell and the rule that says that people who engage in certain actions, or who hold some opinions, will go to Hell. People in Hell didn’t want to go there, and don’t want to stay, either. If God set up a force that puts them in Hell (i.e., laws of God’s designed universe that result in people “falling” into Hell), then God is sending them to Hell.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

I agree. People are free to listen to society and God is free to hold people accountable for doing so.

If God existed, He’d be free to do whatever He’d want to do, in terms of power.

However, He’d be very evil for punishing people for not following the Bible without evidence of it coming from God…or even if they had such evidence. In fact, if the Bible were true, God would be evil…can you mentioned a human criminal who would have caused a comparable amount of pain?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

The complaint appears to be that Christianity fails to adopt the vices chosen as a shibboleth by those in power in a particular culture at a particular date. Indeed so.

Well, there are many complaints about Christianity

, but just to point out one, a complaint would be that homosexuality is not a vice, and gay people should get the same rights as straight people (and, for in case of literal Christianity, there’s also the complaint it’s wrong to torture and/or execute gay people for their sexuality).

ScootyPuff Jr · 10-15-2006, 02:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

God is also free to do wrong things, which he does, and society does not have to endorse those actions. God says that killing people is wrong, but he routinely kills even some of his most devout and faithful followers, and babies and innocent animals. God is a hypocrite, and a liar. He says that Christians can ask for wisdom and receive it, but the Christian church has been in disarray for many centuries.

God has made certain that everyone is born with a sinful nature, thereby ensuring that everyone MUST commit some sins. In addition, God punishes people for sins that their grandparents committed, reference Exodus
20:5. God make people blind, deaf, and dumb, reference Exodus 4:11. Even in the New Testament, God killed Ananias and Saphira over money. Who knows how many more people he murdered?

And does God not have the right to take life away?

Clivedurdle · 10-15-2006, 02:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScootyPuff Jr

And does God not have the right to take life away?

Welcome, on another thread here you will find a discussion that the rabbinical view is that God does not have a right to do anything and that God laughs with pleasure that people have worked that out!

But

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/polit...922914,00.html

Johnny Skeptic · 10-15-2006, 05:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScootyPuff Jr.

And does God not have the right to take life away?

Not if he says that killing people is wrong and kills people, including some of his most devout followers, and babies, and innocent animals, and not if he punishes people for sins that their grandparents committed, reference Exodus 20:5. Do you believe that God has the right to make people blind, deaf and dumb? Exodus 4:11 says that God makes people blind, deaf, and dumb. If any God has the right to do whatever he wants to do, and the possible creator of the universe is actually evil, and plans to send everyone to hell, might makes right is not really that attractive a concept after all, eh?

Gamera · 10-18-2006, 01:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Certainly, the Bible refers to activities that are consistent with homosexuality and condemns those practices (i.e., You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.) even if people dispute whether it refers to the term, "homosexuality."

The deciding point is not whether the relationship is "loving." A "loving" relationship that is a homosexual relationship would not be right and can be called a sinful relationship.

You have confused the Hebrew scriptures, which explicitly outlaw homosexual behavior (at least between males, not females) under the Law, and Christian scriptures, which explicitly reject the Law as a means of defining sin.

Surely you are aware that Christains are by definition "not under Law," that means not under any proscription of the Law, period, whether it's eating lobsters or having gay sex.

The law of liberty, as James calls it, depends on Jesus' exhortation that we love one another, and thus conduct ourself accordingly. Christians don't avoid killing people because of a commandment, the avoid killing people because that's hardly a way of showing love. Indeed Jesus teaches that if you don't kill somebody, but harbor hatred for him, you're just as guilty of murder as a murderer.

Matthew 5:22 - But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be liable to the hell of fire.

Do I really need to provide the voluminous NT verses that say this explicitly over and over again?

Thus, your claim about the "Bible" banning gay sex is really a claim about the Law, and as a Christian, I am not under the Law.

So you'll need to come up with a better argument than that.

rhutchin · 10-19-2006, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera

rhutchin
Certainly, the Bible refers to activities that are consistent with homosexuality and condemns those practices (i.e., You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.) even if people dispute whether it refers to the term, "homosexuality."

The deciding point is not whether the relationship is "loving." A "loving" relationship that is a homosexual relationship would not be right and can be called a sinful relationship.

Gamera
You have confused the Hebrew scriptures, which explicitly outlaw homosexual behavior (at least between males, not females) under the Law, and Christian scriptures, which explicitly reject the Law as a means of defining sin.

Surely you are aware that Christains are by definition "not under Law," that means not under any proscription of the Law, period, whether it's eating lobsters or having gay sex.

The law of liberty, as James calls it, depends on Jesus' exhortation that we love one another, and thus conduct ourself accordingly. Christians don't avoid killing people because of a commandment, they avoid killing people because that's hardly a way of showing love. Indeed Jesus teaches that if you don't kill somebody, but harbor hatred for him, you're just as guilty of murder as a murderer.

Matthew 5:22 - But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be liable to the hell of fire.

Do I really need to provide the voluminous NT verses that say this explicitly over and over again?

Thus, your claim about the "Bible" banning gay sex is really a claim about the Law, and as a Christian, I am not under the Law.

So you'll need to come up with a better argument than that.

If we say that the Christian is no longer under the law, we can take the example of murder (as you did). If the Christian is no longer bound by the law that says "Do not kill," is he then free to kill? Obviously not. Similarly, if the Christian is no longer bound by the law that says "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman," is he then free to lie with a male as with a woman? I think the answer is, No. Thus, as you say, and I agree, the expression of love results in a person not wanting to kill another person and not wanting to lie with a male as with a woman.

Is there still a role for the law within the life of the Christian? The purpose of the law is to lead a person to Christ. It identifies those things which are contrary to God's ways so that the person will know not to do those things. Paul, at one point tells the Christian to flee fornication. Why would he do that if the the law has no purpose?

A person who has been influenced and trained by the world accepts many things that seem right to him but in God's eyes, they are wrong. The person would not know this except for the law. As the law identifies those things that are wrong in God's eyes, the Christian expresses his love for God by turning away from those things.

The Christian is no longer under the law but under love. So, would a Christian do those things that God says are evil? Not unless he were ignorant of evil. The law helps remove that ignorance.

Clivedurdle · 10-19-2006, 12:02 PM

Another verse in the Bible comments about taking the plank out of your own eye. I really must ask what is it about homosexuality that provokes such strong reactions! I don't notice people complaining about mixing fibres in clothing or eating shellfish - what other things have death sentences on them?

And what if David and Jonathan and Ruth and Naomi are homosexual love stories?

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10-14-2006, 04:42 PM	#32
seebs Contributor Join Date: May 2002 Location: Saint Paul, MN Posts: 24,524	I'm very interested in the question of what is actually said on this issue, and I must say, I've noticed a disturbing tendency for serious questions about the text to get handwaved away with emotive arguments. How about, rather than arguing the moral question separately, maybe a bit of focus (this being AS:C&H) on the question of what the text says first?

10-19-2006, 12:02 PM	#40
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Another verse in the Bible comments about taking the plank out of your own eye. I really must ask what is it about homosexuality that provokes such strong reactions! I don't notice people complaining about mixing fibres in clothing or eating shellfish - what other things have death sentences on them? And what if David and Jonathan and Ruth and Naomi are homosexual love stories?

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