Clearing the air on homosexuality (from a Christian perspective)

Blue_Jay33
reply to post by Gryphon66

 

I get you disagreeing with the ideology, fine.

But it is what it is.

Know Your Greek

And some of these ex-homosexuals are in heaven today with Jesus, why because they changed and stopped.
They never tried to justify to continue to practice. Interestingly some of these former homosexuals who are now in heaven as angels will be judging homosexuals that are resurrected back to this earth during the thousand year reign of Christ in the future. And they will be in the best position to help them recover and stop, having real empathy for their struggles. But make no mistake, in time they will have to stop or be judged by their heavenly peers that did.

The term "arsenokoites" has nothing to do with Matthew 19, and was never used by Jesus Christ.

As for your statement about "former homosexuals as angels" ... are you saying that humans become angels in heaven? Do you have a Biblical reference (or any reference really) for that?

Gryphon66

Blue_Jay33
Some of the posts in this thread remind me of this scripture, and so if the shoe fits......

2 Peter 3:14-17

Therefore, beloved ones, since you are awaiting these things, do your utmost to be found finally by him spotless and unblemished and in peace. 15  Furthermore, consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote you according to the wisdom given him, 16  speaking about these things as he does in all his letters. However, some things in them are hard to understand, and these things the ignorant and unstable are twisting, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
17  You, therefore, beloved ones, having this advance knowledge, be on your guard so that you may not be led astray with them by the error of the lawless people and fall from your own steadfastness.

edit on 5-1-2014 by Blue_Jay33 because: (no reason given)

Me too! Like the ones that quote Leviticus, Romans and 1 Corinthians against Gay people and totally ignore what Jesus Christ said about loving others, judging not, and treating others with respect!

Amen!

I completely agree. This doesn't make homosexuality any less wrong, it does mean those people who call themselves christians need to be corrected.

Remember, many call themselves Christians .. few actually are.

OccamsRazor04
I completely agree. This doesn't make homosexuality any less wrong, it does mean those people who call themselves christians need to be corrected.

Remember, many call themselves Christians .. few actually are.

Remember, just because the Bible says something is wrong, doesn't mean it actually is wrong. Unless you can prove negative impacts of something, you're going to have a rough time convincing people that their primal instincts are morally wrong based on bronze-aged texts written by people who offered blood sacrifices to the sky where they thought God was.

Adultery, for example, has negative impacts on other people. You'd have to be brainwashed to think it's not worse than homosexuality. Homosexuality doesn't negatively affect other people.

Yet we have people railing against Gay marriage and completely ignoring that people who commit aultery are still allowed to be married. Why is that? Because they're using their faith as an excuse to indulge in classation of the righteous: allowing themselves to think that they are holier than others when they pick and choose. Plain an simple.

What do you think is more common, gay people, or adulterers?

reply to post by TheRegal


Your last two posts in this thread have been amazing

I want to ask any anti gay people a question....why is being Gay a sin? like regal says what actual reason is it being bad when it doesn't effect anything or anyone.

reply to post by TheRegal


Your post is a nice piece of obfuscation. Since people have tried and failed to say the Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality the goalpost is moved to the Bible doesn't matter. If the Bible doesn't matter to you then it doesn't, you have the right to your opinion. If the Bible is wrong and discarded that opens a whole other can of worms, but that's another thread, other people are doing a good enough job at derailing this thread they don't need my help.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


No I didn't say that Paul was gay. His gift, in the terms that Jesus used in Matthew 19, would have been in the third category of "made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake" or one gifted with the vocation of celibacy.

... now that you mention it though ...

Plenty of Bible scholars and laymen have mused about his sexual orientation over the years ... and that would actually explain a lot of his unique hang-ups, wouldn't it? Here's a few thoughts that others have put forth that I've found while doing research:

(1) Saul (or by his Roman name Paul(us)) was a Pharisee trained under Gamaliel (considered one of the greatest Rabbinical teachers of his age.)(Acts 26:4-5; Philippians 3:5) One only undertakes those long years of study to become a Rabbi. Yet, he never married according to the scriptures, and every Rabbi HAD to marry by the priestly traditions. He was not married (even though he was somewhere between 26-41 years of age at the time) at his Conversion on the road to Damascus.

(2) Paul complained that he was tortured throughout his life by a "thorn in the flesh." Saul asks God to remove this "thorn" and God finally replies that this "weakness" has been given to him to make him stronger. Several Church Fathers and commentators asserted that Saul's "thorn in the flesh" was a "sexual impiety" which makes little sense considering that the Bible says that he was given the gift (or vocation) of celibacy ... UNLESS ...

(3) Paul describes himself as a tortured man, morally split in two (perhaps based on his sense of perfection from his training as a strict Pharisee coupled with his "Thorn") with his internal sin making him do things he doesn't want to do (Romans 7: 15-24): It is painfully obvious in those verses that Saul is wrestling with some kind of strong desire that he is repressing, that he does not want to feel. The language he uses is convoluted, repetitive, and riddled with self-contradictions.

(4) Saul is noted in several places in the New Testament as being unimpressive as a public speaker in person. He is said to be weak and unconvincing. He is often ridiculed. He lacks authority and is considered "weak." Some have speculated that this might be because of a lack of training of a speech impediment, like a stutter. Could it also have been because he was very soft-spoken or spoke with an effeminate tone? (1 Corinthians 2:1 and 2 Corinthians 10:10; 11:6)

(5) Paul categorizes women in general as inferior or subordinate to men while at the same time maintaining apparent close friendships with many. (1 Corinthians 7:1; Numerous)

(6) Paul has a very intense and intimate relationship with a young Greek man named Timothy. No more suggestive detail here to avoid mere prurience.

I am not maintaining here that St. Paul was homosexual, because there is no way to know that, or even offer convincing proof. I have merely presented here some of the common “circumstantial” peculiarities that are commonly brought up in this regard by scholars and thinkers.

reply to post by TheRegal


Bravo! I see none of the Christians bothered trying to reply to you, probably because you make too much damn sense.

If two consenting adults having sex is somehow wrong then what gives anyone the right to have sex at all, gay or straight? Whoever condemns homosexuality is a hypocrite, plain and simple. Humans aren't the only species to show homosexual behavior, over 1,200 species of animal show homosexual tendencies as well. Did they also "choose" to be gay like humans supposedly do? If so, for what reason? The idea that being gay is a conscious choice is really retarded, and I don't use that word very often.

In my opinion, the verses in the bible supposedly condemning homosexuality have been totally misinterpreted. Like Jesus says, let no one separate what God has brought together. What God has brought together or "married" is the Spirit and body, which are the "male and female" aspects of God that Jesus speaks of. For a man to lie with another man as with a woman is to separate these two aspects of God and replace the Mother (female) aspect with religious dogma, a.k.a. adultery.

No one can truly separate these two aspects but they can give the illusion of separation through religious teachings. Religion has removed Earth from the heavenly equation and have replaced it with "man"made concepts and dogma, or "man lying with another man". Funny how the "Bride" of Christ (the church) is run by men. No, the true Bride is Mother Earth, the church and its teachings commit adultery everytime they spew their nonsense.

Don't let anyone stop you from being who you are, be proud of who you are. Anyone who tells you that you shouldn't be proud of the way you were born is only projecting their own insecurities onto you. They believe they're "sinners" so they have to project that insecurity onto others.

reply to post by boymonkey74


Obviously god wants us to overpopulate the planet and have as many debt and sin slaves as possible. Seems like god works for the people at the very top doesn't it?

I honestly think homosexuality is an important part of the ecosystem, it keeps the population numbers down a little bit. Not sure if this is true or not, but maybe the larger the population the higher the homosexual percentage rate. Just a wild theory, probably not true.

OccamsRazor04
reply to post by TheRegal

 

Your post is a nice piece of obfuscation.

Obfuscation? Quite the contrary. It's plain clarity. Your religious stubbornness is obfuscating your understanding too much to see it.

Funny how I asked a question in it that you failed to answer. Instead you inserted this strawman:

Since people have tried and failed to say the Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality the goalpost is moved to the Bible doesn't matter.

Point me to where I move the goalpost. I joined this thread about an hour ago and all that I've said has been completely consistent. I only tell people that there's a log in their eye when they're having trouble aiming those stones in the right direction.

When they say that homosexaulity is a sin and act like it's an issue that needs to be cleansed, it brings emotions out of me from what I remember as a 14 year old gay boy listening to my father say these things and feel completely worthless. That concatenated with the gay teen suicide statistics makes me not hold back on you losers. Shut the f&%k up already; the world has had ENOUGH of your NONSENSE. Do you really think that nobody has heard this before? If you want to say something that is causing peoples' children to commit suicide, you best back it up with some damned compelling evidence or not say it at all. You people are so much more morally repugnant than homosexuals, and I really don't know how to make that any clearer to you.

You can't even give me one logical reason that homosexuality is immoral; not ONE. And BOOM, 16 more gay teens just killed themselves since my last post due to your "opinion". No big deal, right? You're free to believe what you want and say what you please regardless of any societal consequences? Real Christ-like.

Your argument is invalid, your religious beliefs are likely false, and you hide behind them to appropriate hate speech. Most of all, you probably struggle to believe them yourself half of the time. That's why you can't even answer a simple question.

How can something be immoral if it doesn't negatively affect anyone, and how is it held as more immoral than things that do negatively affect other people?

If the Bible doesn't matter to you then it doesn't, you have the right to your opinion.

That's not even the point. But I will say that so much of the Bible has been disproven, even by biblical scholars whose best interest was to prove it, that judging people for acting on their natural feelings based on this book is ridiculous. You can't use a book as evidence which has been so consistently on the losing end of peer review an plain truth for such a long period of time. That's not intellectual at all, and the nonsense will absolutely be rejected -- consistently and rightfully.

Pick up your mat, and go home.

boymonkey74
reply to post by TheRegal

 

I want to ask any anti gay people a question....why is being Gay a sin? like regal says what actual reason is it being bad when it doesn't effect anything or anyone.

Expect no answer, especially not a serious one.

Logic scares fools away.

The best answer you'll get will be "it rots the soul -- the Bible said so".

They don't realize that their perpetual intellectual worthlessness will be perptually worthless.

reply to post by TheRegal


Gonna make a thread with the question lets see If anyone comes up with a decent answer.

reply to post by Gryphon66


You mention 1 Corinthians in post, I quote the Greek word used in the verse, and then you say you were talking about Matthew and it was irrelevant because it wasn't Jesus who spoke those words. Nice deflection.


Dude, just say you disagree and be done with it, but don't say it's isn't there, because it is and that is a fact.

The same Greek word is used in this scripture too, notice the groupings of sins are very similar, it baffles me how some will try to illogically extrapolate ONLY the homosexual part of these verses, this applies to both non-Christians and Christians alike.
1 Timothy 1:8-11

Now we know that the Law is fine if one applies it properly, 9  recognizing that law is made, not for a righteous man, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, ungodly and sinners, disloyal and profane, murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, manslayers, 10  sexually immoral people, men who practice homosexuality, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and everything else that is in opposition to the wholesome teaching 11  according to the glorious good news of the happy God, with which I was entrusted.

Greek To English

As to your question about deceased humans becoming angels that is another topic, suffice to say some do, but not all, here are 2 scriptures to consider, and interestingly one of them is in the verses preceding the verses about homosexuality - 1 Corinthians 6:3, another is Revelation 20:6

reply to post by Blue_Jay33



"Dude" ... my most recent post was about Matthew 19 as far as I could tell. You just linked to a lexicon website (not a very good one, by the way) and hoped that would make your point for you. It didn't. You might want to do more research on arsenokoites before cherry-picking your evidence too hard.

Why are you muddying the water? I have clearly said that the only verses in the New Testament that are used to condemn gays were written by Paul the Pharisee, the co-founder of modern Christianity. Some scholars even have doubts about the Pauline authorship of the Timothy epistles. However, the most commonly-used bashing scripts are in Romans and 1 Corinthians that are fairly unquestionably the work of "Paul."

As to your "humans turn into angels" theory ... I really have nothing positive or on-topic to say.

reply to post by schadenfreude




I am always so confused when someone uses Bible scripture to try to make concrete fact out of an area that is so gray, there aren't enough shades of gray to cover it. The Bible is rife with symbolism and metaphor. The entire text is basically symbolism. People take things so literally, they cannot see the forest for the trees. Hence, centuries of murder and destruction in the name of God. Frightening.

It is along the same lines I think of when I think of Mary Magdalene. There was never any proof that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. Not even in Luke 7, when he spoke of Jesus forgiving the 'fallen' woman who washes his feet. Mary was the apostle whom Jesus loved the most. And if one studies the Lost Scriptures and Scrolls, I think they can see where so many things in the Bible have the hand of man all over it. There was a reason the ancient texts were hidden and buried. Truths must be protected at all costs from human tendency to re-write history. And religion.

It also riles Christians when it is suggested that Jesus may have been married. No one can prove that he he was or wasn't. But Jesus was a practicing Jew. It seems quite a logical possibility.

Who is to say what is sin, and what isn't. The alleged greatest commandment was not homosexuality. It apparently is 'Love thy God, with all thy heart and soul.' I think I don't understand where homosexuality has become the epitome of 'sin.' I would like to think that Jesus' greatest teachings were that of love. All and every thing love.

But maybe I'm thinking of another religion?

reply to post by Gryphon66


Oh you are not getting away that easy.
You want to argue with Strong's G733 and it's clear definition.
It's not even an opinion, it's black and white.

More Greek
G733

But you have already showed your true colors by discounting all of Paul's writings in your last post.
As those that are losing the debate always do. Cherry picking the bible, have fun with that.

For the record I do think homosexuals are picked on unfairly more than any other "sin" category we have discussed, this has created a sort of social and cultural "blowback". And so we see the divide more clearly. I don't think this was such huge issue with the first century gentile Christians, we have a different culture because of the puritan form of Christianity that developed much later.

reply to post by Blue_Jay33


There has been no discounting of any of Paul's writings here, in fact, Paul was given proper credit as one of the two co-founders of Christianity. It was noted (and this is the second occasion) that the only condemnations that are used against Gay people are in 1) the Old Testament and 2) the writings of Paul.

Does that site you referenced only use Strong's in its displays? Are you sure about that?

Again, have you bothered to review any modern scholarship, or do you have all the data you require to maintain your belief?

Strong's Concordance was originally published in 1890. (Yes, there was a 2012 edition, but often the reference material is basically unchanged since original publication except for errata -- that's one of the problems with it, despite the assertions in its Preface)

Here's a general disclaimer on Strong's that you might want to consider before you equate it to holy writ:

"Strong's Concordance is not a translation of the Bible nor is it intended as a translation tool. The use of Strong's numbers is not a substitute for professional translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into English by those with formal training in ancient languages and the literature of the cultures in which the Bible was written.

Since Strong's Concordance identifies the original words in Hebrew and Greek, Strong's numbers are sometimes misinterpreted by those without adequate training to change the Bible from its accurate meaning simply by taking the words out of cultural context. The use of Strong's numbers does not consider figures of speech, metaphors, idioms, common phrases, cultural references, references to historical events, or alternate meanings used by those of the time period to express their thoughts in their own language at the time." (Reference for quote

All that's factual and probably irrelevant.

Crowing about winning a debate is ... cute.

reply to post by Gryphon66


Ha, more deflection on the language aspect, as expected.
Maybe this screen shot will help you understand

reply to post by Blue_Jay33

I'd agree that the word is much disputed, and the translation has its apologists and detractors (ourspiritnow.org...).

It remains a late 19th century word however, and a Greek-Latin mess.

Nevertheless, for me it meant my first identification with a broader gay community and the realization that I was not the "only one" as a youngster.
Even while stigmatized, it was a political identification of a type of person rather than some act, and thus I'm a bit ambivalent about the historical significance of putting such a word in the Bible.

Before an open and visible lbgt culture in SA existed it was a word of political resistance to myself, but now I can also see how it hurts people who don't want to resist anything, but they just want to be good Christians, but they constantly face rejection by others and (more importantly) their own self because of that word in the Bible.

I'd just say that in a democratic system no religious group or book can tell you what to do or believe about yourself.
Nobody can force a young adult to be a member of fundamentalist Christianity, Judaism, radical Islam or ISKCON (for example).
If you don't like your church you can be free to move on.
Isn't that freedom wonderful?
You don't have to be a convert to something you don't like.

reply to post by halfoldman


Even if that was not the case, the Greek word "porneia" is used in a broader sense and is all encompassing and would include all hetro and homo engagements viewed as immoral as stated even by Jesus in the Gospels.

Porneia

Of note - promiscuity of any (every) type.

Interestingly under the Mosaic law judgement could differ on this, Adulatory and Homosexuality had the death
penalty, really nasty if you made a mistake in a moment of weakness. But if two unmarried people had sex they didn't have a death penalty put on them, they were forced to marry however, under threat of death.
So when a couple of teens did it, they had to marry and that was it.
Can you imagine if that was the standard today ?
Teenage marriages would be crazy high.

reply to post by Blue_Jay33

I think one still finds marriages like that in many cultures and sects.

One example would be the gypsies and travelers on reality TV, and the girls are married off very early, and their education (outside cooking and cleaning) is regarded as unimportant.

I won't generalize about this group or that group, but I wouldn't like to live in a society where girls mostly don't get educated, and they're just seen as vehicles to have babies from the moment they physically can.
According to some South African tribal customs, parents may also marry off girls to much older men if they can afford the bride-price.
Now that would be allowed according to the OT.
Imagine your sister who's 12 or 13, or even 16 having to marry a man who is 40!
And she can never get divorced or commit adultery until he dies.
Then his eldest brother might inherit her, which is also Biblical.
Just imagine that!
What a terrible life for that girl or woman.

Technically it's illegal, but there's very little the law can do if entire communities support such traditions.
The parents will simply send the girl back to the man because he paid the bride-price.