another gay thread, cause I know u all love it!

[Turbo]

perhaps you might clarify your objection and reveal how you've understood my comment before I validate your sense of entitlement to a response.

The comment in question:

how often did Jesus mention [homosexuality]?​

In my experience, when people point out that Jesus is not recorded as specifically mentioning homosexuality in Gospels, their goal is to suggest that Jesus did not regard homosexuality as sinful, or that at worst it was an insignificant offense. (Take HerodionRomulus, for example.) Not only is that an argument from silence, but during Jesus' earthly ministry He upheld the Law as a whole. And since Jesus is the Living God who inspired Moses and Paul, of course He agrees with what He inspired them to write regarding lying with someone of the same gender: that it is a vile perversion and that those who do it are worthy of death.

Did you mean something else by your comment/question? If so, why didn't you just explain yourself instead of inviting me to guess what you meant?

 

[Turbo]

noneoftheabove,

Have you noticed that there aren't a lot of threads about bestiality here at TOL? Why do you suppose that is? Can you venture a guess?

asilentskeptic answered:

None of the bestiality types are doing things the homosexuals do. They aren't going to court asking for "equal rights" or animal-human marriages. They aren't holding marches and protests or putting bumper stickers on their cars. They aren't trying to get bestiality into the schools. Basically, they aren't "in your face" about it. In fact, they probably try to hide it! I wonder why THAT is?

In reference to TOL though, you don't have a lot of pro-bestiality types trying to argue their side. Things get discussed on TOL when there are people on BOTH sides that want to discuss it. It is a hot issue in society, a hot issue in the religious world, and therefore, an issue that is probably worth discussing. There are a lot of abortion threads on here for that exact same reason.

Good answer, asilentskeptic. :up:

Bestiality is still stigmatized in a big way in our culture. There is almost no one practicing it, let alone openly advocating it. How often do you hear anyone speaking out against bestiality? Almost never! Because it's a non-issue to us. I think it ought to be a capital crime, but whenever I list crimes that deserve death, I tend to forget to list that one. And it's not just me; in this thread the opening post asked which crimes should be punishable by death. Not one of the responders, myself included, mentioned bestiality.

How many times do the Gospel writers record Jesus speaking out against bestiality? None! And it certainly isn't because Jesus approved of bestiality or regarded it as an insignificant offense. It was for the same reason bestiality is seldom mentioned today in our culture: it was so universally stigmatized that it was a non-issue.

And among the 1st-century Israelites to whom Jesus was sent (Matthew 15:24), the same was true of homosexuality.

However, that wasn't true of the surrounding pagan cultures to whom the Lord sent Paul to preach, which is why Paul did speak out against homosexuality in some of his epistles.



Urizen's post is similar to what I was getting at:

How often did he need to when speaking to a society which already regarded it as sinful?

...Honestly, in that he was always speaking to a society which regarded homosexuality as an abomination wouldn't you expect that if he disagreed with that premise he would say so? He certainly never hesitated to chastise the Pharisees when their rules went beyond the scope of those things with which God was actually concerned with as being immoral....

:up: Good points, Urizen!

 

[Turbo]

Whoo eee, like your rebuke means anything.

So be it.

I didn't mention any names. Rush Limbaugh is a practicing adulterer and has a far larger audience than the wolf you referenced.

Not among TOLers.

I guess you want to kill the man whose video you linked? You support the death penalty for adulterers.

Yes I do submit to God's judgment that adultery is a capital crime, and so does Enyart. But your reasoning is flawed:
1) I am not a governing authority and as such I have no authority to punish any criminal myself.
2) Adultery is not currently a captial crime in our country, and laws are not to be enforced retroactively. If adultery became a capital crime today, it would not be just to execute people who committed adultery before today. It would only be just to execute people who commit adultery after the law is enacted.
3) Good laws, properly enforced, prevent crime (Deut 19:19-20, Eccl 8:11). If adultery were a capital crime, many people would be deterred from committing adultery and thus they would be less likely to destroy their families.

Jesus said if you divorce and remarry you commit adultery. Period NO exception. "

Actually, I quoted Jesus mentioning an exception, and you dismissed it.

But you seem inclined to exceptions and circumstances.

I'm in good company.

Maybe you'd like to consider the probematic nature of the alleged verses used to justify hatred and destruction of gays. Leviticus is not about sexual orientation, neither is Corinthians.

Homosexual desires are sinful just as adulterous desires are sinful. Actually acting out either desire is a crime.

Jonathan loved David.

Yes, but they did not have a sexual relationship of any sort. You are a pervert for suggesting that they did.

Romans is about pederasty,

Romans 1
24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.​

Note that Paul did not write, "men with boys."

Judges 19 about heterosexual evils. .

There are heterosexual evils recorded in Judges 19, sure, but did you miss this part?:

Judges 19
22 As they were enjoying themselves, suddenly certain men of the city, perverted men, surrounded the house and beat on the door. They spoke to the master of the house, the old man, saying, “Bring out the man who came to your house, that we may know him carnally!”

23 But the man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them, “No, my brethren! I beg you, do not act so wickedly! Seeing this man has come into my house, do not commit this outrage.​

I looked thru the top two pages of politics and religion and saw NO topic on adultery, or divorce or malice or envy or hypoocrisy. But lots of gay hating by avowed Christians. That is the point here.

Why haven't you started any? Why is it that these topics only become important to you when the topic at hand is homosexuality?

I don't think you really give a rip about divorce or adultery; you just want to distract

Can you show me the thread devoted to the condemnation fo the practicing adulterer Ronald Reagan.

You mean you have never started one? :shocked:

Uh... Ronald Reagan is not a practicing adulterer. He's dead.

I'm not aware of any affair Ronald Reagan had an affair on Nancy.

Imperialism? George II of course.

I don't know of anyone who both approves of Bush's foreign policy and judges him as an imperialist.

 

[Turbo]

HerodionRomulus, I had asked, "Do you regard homosexuality as sinful?"

Though you did not answer directly, you did attempt to dismiss Scriptural passages that condemn homosexuality, and you falsely accused David and Jonathan of being homosexuals:

But you seem inclined to exceptions and circumstances. Maybe you'd like to consider the probematic nature of the alleged verses used to justify hatred and destruction of gays. Leviticus is not about sexual orientation, neither is Corinthians. Jonathan loved David. Romans is about pederasty, Judges 19 about heterosexual evils.

I'll take this as a "No" to my question, "Do you regard homosexuality as sinful?". Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.

Are you a homosexual?

 

[Wessex Man]

Turbo why is homosexuality immoral?Apart from religiously,
In a secular state why should it be illegal?

 

[Turbo]

Turbo why is homosexuality immoral?Apart from religiously,
In a secular state why should it be illegal?

Because it leads towards death. It is extremely destructive to the participants themselves and to society as a whole.

That's the short answer. Here is the long answer.

 

[noneoftheabove]

The comment in question:

how often did Jesus mention [homosexuality]?​

In my experience, when people point out that Jesus is not recorded as specifically mentioning homosexuality in Gospels, their goal is to suggest that Jesus did not regard homosexuality as sinful, or that at worst it was an insignificant offense. (Take HerodionRomulus, for example.) Not only is that an argument from silence, but during Jesus' earthly ministry He upheld the Law as a whole. And since Jesus is the Living God who inspired Moses and Paul, of course He agrees with what He inspired them to write regarding lying with someone of the same gender: that it is a vile perversion and that those who do it are worthy of death.

Did you mean something else by your comment/question? If so, why didn't you just explain yourself instead of inviting me to guess what you meant?

You said, "[homosexuals] are worthy of death."

Correction, "[all] are worthy of death."

Stop making particular what is universal as if the disproportionate crusade against homosexuality isn't a cultural choice you are making.

 

[noneoftheabove]

Right, but interestingly enough once we see Paul taking the message of Christ of to the Gentiles who didn't have the same beliefs on homosexuality as the Jews, we see it very directly condemned.

This is the strongest part of your argument in response to the "Chirst didn't say anything about homosexuality" objection.

Isn't it natural when reading anything to consider both the background of the author and the audience it was initally written/spoken to?

OK, I agree.

In the end, however, I still believe the anti-homosexuality stance as evinced on TOL is a cultural artifact, not a divine edict. Is homosexuality as urgent a cry in heaven right now as war is, for instance, and the poverty, imprisonment, famine, and death that war causes?

 

[Wessex Man]

Because it leads towards death. It is extremely destructive to the participants themselves and to society as a whole.

If you mean death in a religious way then of course I reject that and that shouldn't matter in a secular state.
In you mean hiv,then that is not limited to homosexuals,in fact while male homosexuals may be slightly more at risk than heterosexuals,homosexual females have a basically zero risk of transmission through lesbian sex.

That's the short answer. Here is the long answer.

This is nothing more than bigotry,hyperbole and falsehood.

 

[HerodionRomulus]

I never said Reagan had an affair while married to Nancy.

I meant, he divorced his first wife then married Nancy. According to Jesus that is adultery.

Just as Bob Barr, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and other wolves have committed divorce and practice adultery by remarrying.

 

[Delmar]

.... Is homosexuality as urgent a cry in heaven right now as war is, for instance, and the poverty, imprisonment, famine, and death that war causes?

Yes, without question!

 

[Wessex Man]

Yes, without question!

Man how do you get christianity so wrong.

 

[Turbo]

Man how do you get christianity so wrong.

...said the formerly-gnostic agnostic. :freak:

 

[Wessex Man]

said the formerly-gnostic agnostic

Firstly I was never a gnostic,but i still think they're closer than fundamentlist,
and secondly just reading the gospel you can see how forgiving and compassionate Jesus is

 

[noneoftheabove]

The thing is I don't see this as an either/or proposition. You're quite right Christians need to be providing moral leadership and practical solutions on the full spectrum of moral issues such as poverty, our poper stewardship of the earth, unjust wars and their resulting suffering and the like, and I think our failure to do so is part of what makes it easy for people to ignore the church when we start talking about other issues such as homosexuality and abortion. Where I get a bit leery though is when it's taken a step further and then implied and therefore we should stop talking those issues entirely.

Definitely so. Is it not even more complex than the Body's nearsightedness, lack of agility in addressing broad but equally urgent concerns, or whether we talk too much of one thing or another?

The metaphor of the body is apropos, I think: how hands do what hands do and feet what feet and so forth and so on. While everyone in the Body of Christ does not need to function in the same way, as the metaphor suggests, is there not the suggestion of some necessary body politic that must be understood in a better way? In other words, if one body part is overworked because another part is lame, one voice too loud while another equally important voice too low, is not the body malfunctioning, or the actual body politic of the Body of Christ misunderstood?

Does God think we should overemphasize homosexuality and underemphasize war? Or that we should not temper the overemphasis for fear that the pendulum will swing the other way? Is God blind to the far more devastating impact to us of war than that of homosexuality in the physical universe? Or are you prepared to argue that in some other realm homosexuality stacks up to the grievances of war: mass death, mass poverty, mass imprisonment, mass famine, destruction of the earth?

By that logic, what is so shocking then of a Holocaust or of a Darfur or of a Rwanda? if Homosexuality is on even keel for God's attention as mass graves, ovens cooking Jews, children carrying AK47s and so forth, how are you prepared to argue for that? For a level, uniform economy of sins in light of what you concede is, I paraphrase, a lame body politic? Because I think that's what we need to talk about: the body politic of the Body of Christ, and the economy of sins in God's eyes. Two worthy theological pursuits, n'est ce pas?

I'm only asking because I'm interested in your response. I am Platonic insofar as I believe that the good is atrracted to the good, because all good is in motion towards the greatest good, which is God. Which is not to say I flatter myself when I think of your thoughts worthy.

Peace.

 

[Daniel50]

Bible supports homosexual partnerships, says bishop.
One of the country's most senior bishops has reignited the Church of England row over homosexuality by claiming that same-sex partnerships are supported by the Bible.

The Rt Rev Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford, said that traditionalists in the Church needed to be "converted" to see that homosexual unions are confirmed by the scriptures.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/28/nchurch28.xml

 

[meL999]

Abortion, homosexuality, .....a Christ has no abortion, homosexual problems

FLUSH the problems.

i asked a most beautiful gay man to escort me into a real hot gay pickup place.
i wanted to confront any hurting men that might be in there.
i thought He might enjoy and He would be a good distraction......i dont go gay.....
We could look like a couple for a while, while i investigated the scene.

 

[meL999]

p.s.
i am the Christ.

THIS is Heaven.
Remember when JC said "heaven is at hand"....that means NOW.
.
.

 

[Turbo]

meL999, watch your language. I deleted part of your post because it contained implied profanity.

 

[Turbo]

Firstly I was never a gnostic...

Then why do you call yourself "NuGnostic"?