Does the bible condemn homosexuality?

reply to post by pause4thought

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and I appreciate you giving it even more publicity. I read the thread title, did you read my tirade in it's entirety? I suggest reading the book I referenced as well as it speaks quite clearly from an ordained Priest and a Psychiatrist towards the threat title.

Maybe we need one about why many Christians are so condescending, judgmental, ignorant, and think they are the crème' de le crème, and the rest of us all be damned! Just remember you make up such a small percentage of the world. A world where the majority continue to detest your brand of mythology and it's menacing hold on vulnerable minds.

Moreover, in lieu of you obviously refusing to address the credibility in terms of validity and reliability issues I raised regarding the bible, maybe you can address this issue: If Homosexuality is so horrid and hated by god who created people, and by the same logic also the homosexuals, and if he knew how his followers would torment and obsess with the topic, it begs the question why he did not address the issue in a major fashion? Could it be because it's [teaching that homosexualaty is not allowed] obviously not in congruence with actual teachings of Jesus???

As I said in my previous tirade, this continues to be a scarecrow issue used by the right wing Rovian Republican establishment to whip up support for McCain and the GOP. It’s right out of the GOP playbook, it happens year after year after year…then the poor brainwashed bigots who believe what they get out of a discredited book’s interpretations go around doing things just like we see here on ATS, towing the party line, willingly being a slave to a wicked system that then profits by the religious follower’s blindness assumes a role of power and then proceeds to screw us all in the hiney, and you don’t see them as the real sodomites!!! If this is what being a Christian is all about, I want no part of it.

We have much larger problems facing humanity such as oh POPULATION. You wouldn’t enjoy watching your grandchildren suffer starvation or radiation sickness would you? Homosexuals are not threatening the demise of the planet…Gay people are not reproducing. You aughta’ be happy about that (less people means less demand on energy and food, and more resources to go around), but you aughta’ be happy about others no matter who they love anyway and if you read what Jesus supposedly said, you sure as hell don’t find him saying to judge people negatively for being gay, or even see him say anything about gay people. Now if it were a serious issue, then why didn’t he speak about it? Perhaps he wasn’t who he said he was? Or maybe it matters not who one enjoys having an orgasm with or if it’s done missionary style or doggy style, or anyway you can imagine. If they are enjoying a moment of pleasure in a world filled with so much hardship, pain and strife, you would think people would support that, but no, here come the religious police saying "don't spill your seed" (yeah, if you follow that mess stricktly I guess masterbation is out of the question now too eh?") just live a misserable life, go to church every sunday learn about what a rotten sinner people are, give the church money, try not to feel guilty, reproduce because that's all sex is for and try not to smile while doing it, vote the conservative candidate and have a misserable sex life. Wow sounds like God might be a sadist? What a religion!

God, Sex & Money. The three ingredients you find in all human conflict, and it’s no surprise the church goers struggle with it too. It’s sad. For those of you who believe, pray for these poor people that they may find liberation from the madness!


[edit on 19-5-2008 by skyshow]

YES the BIBLE directly CONDEMNS Homosexuality over and over, there are many places it does this and if you all want I will place the BIBLE VERSES, the original languages, and the original meanings, particularly CONTEXT in the Hebrew. I find it interesting that the WORD OF GOD is coming true right before our every eyes in every sense.

I also find it interesting that everyone likes to post what the WORD says about homosexuals and not complete the verses, most of them do not only CONDEMN Homosexuals but Adulterers, Fornicators, Liars, murderers etc.. So let's not have the pot calling the kettle black shall we. Sex outside marriage is FORNICATION and GOD says it is equal to Homosexuality in his eyes, IT IS SIN. Un-repented sin puts ones soul in danger of Judgment, all of it not just homo's.

And they will call Evil Good, and Good Evil....

The GOOD LORD knows it all as he said I have given you the end from the beginning. I will check this thread later today and if someone wants verses and the correct context and translations and transliterations I will give them. But again I will warn those others feeling superior to those sinning Homo's, Homosexuality is but one of the ABOMINATIONS UNTO GOD. For instance, Christmas and Easter are ancient Pagan rituals of Baal/Mithra/Sun/Ra/Odin/ETC worship and God calls the celebration of Easter one of he Greatest Abominations to HIM, So be careful what you ask for you may just get it.

C. Sigler

I don't consider it a "liberal stance on morals". I consider it a simple issue of Constitutionally-guaranteed Human Rights for a group of people who are, in Fact, BORN the way they are just as someone of X race is born as they are.



I don't care to twist "scripture" because I don't believe in it. As far as whether it is "factually" fictional (impossible to prove one way or the other) or correct is irrelevent. In the United States of America we have a Constitutional Separation of Church and State. We have freedom OF religion, which MUST BY NECESSITY include freedom FROM religion, AND which is supposed to guarantee that public policy decisions are based on Fact and not on someone's personal belief in the Supernatural, whether or not that person happens to currently be in the Majority. Ergo, Homosexuals MUST be granted the right to marry and adopt and enjoy all the other rights most of us take for granted.



There was a time being Black was a sin, something that made one less than human. Some folks still can't get over that mindset, they just move on to someone else. Just HAVE to have someone to discriminate against.



Salvation from what? Genetics?



To HELL with "Godliness"!!! The Constitution DEMANDS Equal Rights Under the Law for EVERYBODY. When the Law takes away those rights it is against the Constitution. The Bible, or Christianity, or any public decision, as it regards to the granting or witholding of rights, based primarily on Faith, is anathema to Freedom. Not everyone is a Christian or wants to be.



Because it is illegally used as a justification for un-Constitutional public policies.



Then God Himself is a BIGOT. He holds bigotry toward beings He (supposedly) CREATED the way they are. If God exists it's like He singled out a group of people, decided their lives weren't going to be hard enough already, and threw an extra ingredient in the mix in order to set them up to fail in His eyes. And, if God exists, He's been doing this to Mankind since we fell out of the trees (or were molded from Dirt if you believe the silly, stolen "Creation" myth).

God, quite frankly, is a Jerk.

reply to post by The Nighthawk

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You have misunderstood the Biblical perspective. Not surprising seeing as you become highly rancorous when people try to explain it. But even if you do not wish to give fair consideration to a position other than your own, others may at least be prepared to seek mutual understanding.

Those who experience temptation to engage in homosexual relations have not been singled out by God. Those of heterosexual orientation face very similar struggles. It is not God who is responsible for the fact people go against His Law and their consciences - the responsibility lies with a principle of moral weakness within human nature. The Bible refers to this as 'the flesh'.

You certainly do not have to accept the Creation account in Genesis as literal in order to appreciate the theme: namely that God made man morally flawless, such that he enjoyed peace and blessing in God's presence. That was then lost. Man has been at enmity with God ever since (as your own expletives illustrate) and has consequently lost the moral fibre to keep His Law and follow his conscience, which is only achievable when His Spirit - which dwelt in our original ancestors - returns to the heart of man, creating love for God and His ways.

Since the tragic split between God and Man, God has not left us without witness to who he really is and what he is like. He therefore did not leave mankind guessing what it is that displeases Him about our behaviour: He revealed what is morally right and morally wrong. Those to whom he revealed His message for the sake of all mankind consistently testified throughout the millennia, until the Bible was completed, that all sex outside male-female marriage constitutes immorality. (This is just one aspect of God's blueprint for Man, but it is what we are examining here.)

People by nature rebel against God's Law and prefer to gratify their lusts. Thus all mankind is by nature alienated from God. Notice I say by nature. The accusation you are making is that God should somehow answer for the lusts within certain people because it would be unfair for them to be singled out. But note:

a) all people inherit a nature that inherently rebells against God's ways, and

b) God did not make them that way; He originally made them morally perfect, but the subsequent loss of moral innocence resulted in all following generations not conforming to the original paradigm

You have asked why people of homosexual orientation inherently want to do something for which they are liable to God's judgement, suggesting it is unfair. The Biblical response is that people of heterosexual orientation are in the same boat, because gratifying lust, whether in thought or deed, outside marriage leaves them likewise liable to God's judgement. And who of us can claim to be innocent before God? Not one.

Moreover people of heterosexual or any other orientation accumulate moral guilt throughout their lifetimes in myriad other ways, quite independent of sexual morality. God's Word in no way singles out or victimizes any section of society - but neither does it pull short of saying what God has revealed to be right and wrong, no matter who is offended. That is why those who gave us these writings were mistreated, and those who have borne witness to them ever since are often railed against. Not to mention how people rail against God Himself.

I will now get to the point. Despite our differing perspectives I agree with Howie47 that God's Law "exposed men to be sinners, which brings them to the Lord for Salvation." I can see that he and I also agree that the Law was given with this purpose very much in mind.

It is utterly paradoxical: God gives us His Law to open our eyes to our corruption so that we might become aware of our spiritual poverty and what?.. - sink into utter despair in the depths of our guilt and shame? No, so that we might experience love of a quality and power that this world does not offer: 'you hate me, but I give what is most exquisitely precious to Me, even My own dear Son, to overwhelm your opposition with the force of my love - come home: I am your Father in Heaven'.

He then cleans out the accumulated guilt and shame and fills the renewed heart with love a) for God and b) for other people. He fills the person with a new principle that is more powerful than the principle of moral weakness we all inherited ('the flesh') - namely, His Spirit, Who fills the heart with a longing to be like God, morally pure. This person - no matter what their past - now has new tastes and desires. The old has gone, the new has come. How does he/she know what to do? Enter the Sermon on the Mount: Matthew chapters 5 to 7.



Now I don't know about you, but I hear the voice of Heaven here, and it brings a tear to my eye. God is beautiful, and His ways are beautiful.

We are sinful, ALL of us. But he takes even the most wretched, even me, and makes us into lovers of God.

Oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

Yeah ,, thats it, Gods a jerk but only for making some of the people who make silly posts about genetic excuses for sin.

Got anything like proof of the gay brain guy? You know that thing evolutionists always claim they have a mountain of but never quite seem to know where the damn mountain is.

Then after you show me that you can tell me where in the constitiution says freedom from religion. I know it says freedom OF religious expression. How you get the word FROM religion Ill never know unless you think the framers actually wrote that but they did NOT and you know why? One would cancel out the other thats why.

You join a thread that makes a an argument regarding biblical issues then go into a tirade about what it says when anyone answers to the fact that the Bible makes no concessions for a gays "so called" ordained right to have butt slam sex, it just makes no provisions for such things nor does it have sympathy for any others that use the same argument for having sex with children. It just assumes that would be common sense but it is the same asinine argument NAMBLA uses for the genetic excuse.

Biggotry? HA HA HA yeah try to equate this with racial struggles guy. This is about the indulgence of sex and nothing else so get off it.

I can't condone it nor have sympathy for your so called troubled lifestyle if that is what you are saying. Life was given you free so it doesn't owe you a damn dime and the LAST thing anyone owes you is our sympathy for sin. You can argue for the religious ceremony of marriage in one hand and the Governments separation powers in the other all you want, you can call it biggotry all you want but that won't change what the bible says and that is what ther thread is about so try to keep that in mind before you start going off on those that know what the thread is arguing and what the book says about it. Here maybe you should just do this.

BAD BIBLE! BAD! BAD! BAD!

There that ought to help huh.

- Con

Hello Neo



I think you missed this one "Philia"

"phil", from ancient Greek phileein to love, and so a 'philia' is a special love, affection, attraction or preference for a certain type of thing

david

God (IF He exists) is a Jerk for creating a race of beings who could never live up to His standards and then punishing them for it. I don't give a damn what Scripture specifically says, it all comes down to the simple point that God created Man, Man failed as God's pet project, Man is punished unless they blindly accept God and do as He says--and through it all He supposedly loves us, even the ones He sends to Hell. Yeah, it's more complicated than that in the language of Scripture but I don't care. It's a fantasy story made from bits of other fantasy stories that came before mixed with a few quasi-verifiable archeological events and astrology, all designed to put intellectual shackles on mankind.



The mountain is building. Maybe you can point out exactly where on Mount Ararat the supposed "Ark" is? Without resorting to the "findings" of proven charlatans?



They do NOT cancel out. No, it's not directly stated in the Constitution, because the Founders expected people to be smart enough to understand that one CANNOT have freedom OF religion without freedom FROM religion. It's basic logic that one cannot be free to pursue a certain interest unless one is free from the undue influence of another interest; i.e. one cannot choose to become Catholic if the State enacts laws stating one must be a Southern Baptist. You are not free to make a choice of what religion you want if the choice is made for you. This, coupled with the Constitutional statement that the Congress cannot pass laws establishing religion, means that those who choose NO religion have every Right to do so--and it also is interpreted to mean the State cannot pass laws based solely on religious doctrine. Objection to rights for homosexuals comes directly from Religion. There is NO OBJECTIVE LOGICAL BASIS to withold rights from homosexuals, including the rights to marriage and adoption. And don't play the tired "What about propagation" game; millions of Americans choose not to have children, or can't for medical reasons. No logical basis for objection + existing objections stemming from religious doctrine = no Constitutional authority to withold rights.



First off, I notice your primary objection is against gay men. I see nothing in your post against lesbians. I actually notice this alot, screaming about gay dudes and "butt slamming" while at the same time wishing two women would get it on because that's HOT. Quite the double standard.

Second, you go right to the old strawman of NAMBLA and lumping homosexuals with pedophiles. Bad form. What consenting adults do in each others' company is so fundamentally different from raping defenseless children I shouldn't even have to tell you how wrong you are, but apparently you either lack the perceptive and logical talents to tell the difference or you know it and just don't care because of your bigotry.

Third, my argument is valid in this thread about Biblical demonization of homosexuality (or lack thereof) because my POINT is that in the public policy debate about gay rights, the Constitution is what matters, and ANY argument made from Scripture is rendered null and void by the Separation of Church and State.



You prove my point again. Why are you so afraid of homosexuality? Unsure of a few things, are you?



Wow, such a Christian response: So non-judgmental, so forgiving, such bullcrap.



I'm getting married in three weeks, to a wonderful woman, and it's a non-religious State-based ceremony. Marriage is not just about one's religious doctrine toward the union of two people, it's about other rights like joint insurance, the right to see one's partner in the hospital, etc. Marriage as purely a religious ceremony is very narrow-minded.



Then the Bible is a book of bigotry. It's certainly used as such by many people. Bigotry against gays, against women (in setting a patriarchal standard for religion, faith-based governments, etc. and robbing women of rights), against Jews (the Bible is often used to justify anti-Semitism because Dammit, they just won't accept Christ as the Messiah!!). Need I go on?



I know EXACTLY what the thread is about. My point, and I've made it repeatedly, is that in terms of Constitutionally-based public policy the Bible means Jack and S###.

Click here for more information.

reply to post by Neo Christian Mystic

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Nope, thats God's job

See Sodom & Gomorrah

When will people ever "get it"? The Bible doesn't single out gays. Of course homosexuality is condemed in the Bible! In fact all sexuality except between a man and wife is condemed. It's all whoredom outside of marriage period.

It's just another sin. Just because you might be inclined to it "naturally" makes no difference. It's not about your feelings or enjoying your life. It's about God and the eternal. In light of eternity the struggle against sin will be well worth it.

Well,, whammy, ya know what their biggest problem is?

They need absolute PROOF so they can make a safe fair exchange for the sacrifices they would otherwise be enjoying in the form of carnal lusts and depravity as sin is often very enjoyable. It is just that those damn Christians have a way of being the wrench in the works and if they didn'ty know we are right they wouldn't be getting so angry about it.

People that really ARE oblivious to the awarness of a creator, wouldn't be arguing like this but rather have better things to do and do them guilt free.

So what they do is try to cram as much of lifes sultry indulgence into this life as they can. The thing is, if they are right, they won't miss out on a thing when they die whether we made it too unlawful or not. In fact they may as well know they would'nt be aware they were ever alive at all.

Ya don't take a thing with you when you die, not even the memories.

So much to agree with when we live like knowing there is more to this short life than who dies with the most toys thinking they win somehow some way.

It's just pointless even if

it were true.

Con

its sex outside of marriage thats a sin... not homosexuality..

i think most dont want it admitted because they might find that the reason, for the statements in the bible is because the people of that time would have sex with same sex partners and opposite partners outside of marriage.. and it was considered that any sex outside of marriage was sinful.. so many tri to put things in the bible that dont exsit then try to use it as justification to belittle others and feel superior ..

reply to post by theindependentjournal

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i,ve seen those verses and most of it has been atribited to what the current church as added, mistranslated, and outright falseified...

reply to post by Blue_Jay33

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and again sodom and gomora was about thier inhospility, and the fact that they had no problems with rape.... period. its os typical of the christian religion to blame the innocent just to condem them

oh wait.. thats how they used to convert others... this is the way it is or die..no matter what the truth really is...dont believe me.. ask the native americans, the aztecs, ect....

and what was it that jesus said...hmmm.. oh yea. before u complain aobut the spec in my eye. remove the beam from you'rs.. or close to that anyway...