Not to speak for CM, but he’s posted before that he believes homosexuality is a choice. Of course, we all know that the only people who could believe that are bisexuals.
Meh, so is eating shellfish. Frankly there are so many mundane and ridiculous things that are considered sins, it’s a wonder anyone presently believes in that nonsense to begin with.
And I know this isn’t what the debate is about, but homosexuality isn’t a choice. I, a heterosexual, can’t choose to be attracted to males anymore than homosexuals can choose to be attracted to people of the opposite sex. To say it’s a choice to what your body and mind subconsciously finds attractive is ridiculous.
You are so young to be so thoroughly programmed into bigotry.
Is not the prohibition of having slaves work on the Sabbath meant to protect the slaves, or at least to make sure they day of rest mandated for freemen is extended to them as well?
No one’s really addressed why homosexuality is considered a sin in Judeo-Christian law, so I’ll give it a shot from what I understand:
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Homosexuality is an aberration of God’s principled ideal of love, along with pedophilia, necrophilia, etc. (Because 4-year-olds and cadavers can reciprocate conjugal love)
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The development of transgender traits in homosexuals indicates overwhelming spiritual influence from the opposite sex. (Yes, I’ve heard this)
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If there were only homosexuals, the human race would die off in a couple of generations. (A bastardization of Kant’s categorical imperative?)
But there is choice. As long as you chose to deny your attraction to men, as long as you chose to be married to a woman, as long as you chose to ignore that nagging sense that something is misaligned with your life, then you are not really a homosexual and can continue to believe the nonsense you grew up learning in your Pentecostal church about sin and God and everything.
It was all a choice you made to follow God. It did not matter one whit that this caused you all kinds of inner torment. It did not stop the attraction, but you could write those off as Satan tempting. And most of all it means you’re saved!
But then you make the “mistake” of trying to reconcile the two - not for yourself, mind you, but for some gay friends whom you could not believe were Evil. Before long you had to reject the Pentecostal church as inauthentic Christianity and have a go at being a Methodist. Well, the problem just continued there as even the preacher was willing to explore the meaning and context of the scriptures and come to the conclusion that homosexuals are the Children of God and worthy of love and acceptance, even the “practicing” kind.
Once you get to studying the scriptures that closely, it gets rather obvious that some of it is just bunk from the get-go. And some of it just doesn’t make any sense. And then you start to question the idea that God inspired the damned thing at all. And furthermore, God doesn’t even make sense.
Before long, you’ve come out of the closet as both gay and an atheist.
And that’s why being gay HAS to be a SIN. Full Stop.
Or at least that’s how my story went.
Kant was a twit and a jackass, and only my congenital laziness and the laws of physics keep me from tracking him down and kicking him in the balls.
Even if I were to pretend that the categorical imperative is anything but a load of self-indulgent claptrap whose main purpose is to encourage passivity, I’d say that applying it to criticize homosexuality is an error.
That’s when it usually starts and is the most effective.
Some choice. They will not answer one of natures greatest drives, to take their DNA into the following generations. In a sense to live past your time. The drive to have children and raise them is primal.
Then to be ostracized, beaten up and discriminated upon by the religious and the bigots, is a horrible thing to face. Who would make such a choice. Saying it is choice is just plain stupidity.
The casual approving of slavery is what’s bothering me with that commandment. But I’m sure you got that 
I don’t think we’re in any different position compared to anyone else as far as believing that goes.
By the terms of my bargain with Polyhymnia, I must now allude to South Pacific.
Claimng it is a choice is the only way you can bypass the cruelty of discriminating against 10 percent of the population. You could hardly claim to be a good religious person if you approved of mistreating so many of gods children. So rather that take responsibility for their bigotry, they find it handy to claim that they are not really gay, but choose to do perverting acts. It is insulting and obviously wrong. But it is an escape hatch they require.
Oh, Curtis, don’t get too worked up over it. It’s just a bunch of old space-ghost stories.
We’ve done several thread on this, and I’ve explained the Greek extensively before. Polycarp has done a lot of the work here already, but I’ll try to provide a little more detail.
The two words often (mis)translated as “effeminate” and “homosexual” (or some other variation on same), are malakoi and arsenokoitai respectively. Those are plural forms of malakos and aresenokoites.
Malakos literally means “soft.” It had a broad range of meaning, and could mean morally soft or undisciplined, but there is no evidence that it denoted effeminacy or homosexuality. More often (and I understand it still has this meaning in Modern Greek), it refered to profligate masturbation – basically an equivalent to “wanker.”
Arsenokoites is a term not found in Greek literature before Paul, and it’s exact meaning is unknown. The roots of the word break down to arsenos (“male”), and koites (“bed”), resulting in something like “male bedder.”
It was fairly common for Greek compound words using koites to be used in denigrating fashopn – “mother-bedder.” “whore-bedder,” “horse-bedder,” etc. One important thing to note about these features is that it alway denotes only the active, penetrating partner, not the passive. So whatever an arsenokoites is, it’s only someone who pitches, not catches.
Most other uses of the word found after Paul are found on vice lists which give little or no context. The very few uses which give context are not particularly useful either. One use refers to Zeus raping Ganymede, another refers to sex between men and their wives. Philo uses it to refer to temple prostitutes. I believe there is at least one use which refers to male prostitutes who service women.
The most likely intention was probably either to refer to male prostitutes or (in my opinion more likely) to the practice (widespread in Corinth, which in Paul’s time was known for vice and prostitution – kind of an ancient as Vegas) of men consorting with young male prostitutes (usually slaves). In other words, paul was most likely condemning pederasty which was common and open in the city he was addressing.
In any case, wheteher it refered to Johns, prostitutes or something esle (and the meaning probably changed over time), it cannot be said that anyone knows for sure what it meant, and it can’t be said that “homosexual” is an acccurate definition. It almost certainly is not.
Curtis: You know, I really don’t give a rat’s ass what the Bible says about my sexuality. Even if it’s totally explicit and unambiguous, my only response is: Whoever wrote it was ignorant and wrong. Any debate about this is insulting.
Perhaps the reas “sin” is believing everything you read.
Oh and Curtis…the proof that homosexuality isn’t a sin? Not all deonominations/ churches view homosexuality as a sin. Heck it’s a HUGE mainstream debate…and I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years mainstream Christianity looks on this debate as rediclous as the debate on integration or slavery. Forty years ago Christians thought that blacks and whites togehter weren’t what God wanted. Heck…the Bible has been used to prove that a lot of things were a sin.
Yes indeedy.
As a sociologist Paul was commenting on the social conditions of his day.
The translation of homosexual prolly arose back in the days when ALL sexual deviants were lumped in together. If you’ve ever read some of the fundie christian propaganda about teh evil homaseseskshuals, that’s basicly what people thought.
I’m gay, so I have my own perspective on this.
I notice that despite the careful explanation of Malakoi, it got twisted back to ‘effeminate = homosexual’. This speaks volumes. The thread contains an element of cherry-picking that gay people are quite used to when it comes to Biblical interpretation. Homosexuality is an abomination in Leviticus. But so are wearing clothes of mixed threads, eatng shellfish, getting a haircut, etc. But strangely, only one of these is still seen as ‘Toevah’ - an abomination. And conveniently the words that follow toevah are not even touched on…haGoyim - of the Gentiles. Leviticus is a code for Jews, to keep them separate and holy.
The loaded use of a word of indeterminate meaning, ἀρσενοκοῖται/arsenokoitai, is another example of cherry-picking by some. Conveniently it contains in transliteration, the letters that make the English word ‘arse’, which seems to convey to some a subliminal affirmation of what they want it to mean.
Given our present lack of definite knowledge as to what this word means, the honest thing would be to say that we simply do not know, and leave the matter at that. Instead, from my perspective, the same prejudice that mistakenly and wilfully misreads the sin of Sodom (despite Jesus and Jeremiah) sees what it wants to see. This is the same prejudice that, since the time of Justinian, on the basis of ignorance and irrational fear and hostility, condemned sentient fellow creatures to the agonising horror of being burned alive for a condition they could not help. And all in the name of a merciful god.
In conclusion, I find the need to prevent others sinning to be arrogant and hypocritical in the extreme. I would expect no less from whited sepulchres. Motes and Beams mean anything?
Just to waste some of my own breath, I’d like to see why the OP thinks that Paul, a historical actual commentator person, gets to set his theology by printing some of his letters.
Also, I’m drunk right now, and also lusting after the flesh of my live-in boyfriend, who is unfortunately in an evil Halloween play tonight. And you’re worried about the guys down at the Leather Den?
So this means lesbians are in the clear, right? Except the effeminate ones?