Do you think Jesus told Paul his views on homosexuality in this vision? I highly doubt it. I think it’s VERY clear from reading Acts and the Epistles that Paul’s view of Jesus’ message differs greatly from Jesus’ vision. Paul is far more dogmatic and far less compassionate and forgiving. Once a persecutor, always a persecutor. I’m not a big fan of Paul.
Because you don’t have to be a Christian to argue Christian doctrine. My Old Testament lit prof in college was a devout atheist, and I bet he could take the Pepsi challenge with you on Scripture any day, as unlike Dr. Chuckie, he really did read the Bible in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. He thought people who took the Bible literally were doing the book a great disservice and failing to understand why it was written and by whom. A very interesting guy.
My opinion of Paul’s vision is that we only have his word on it, and one gets the feeling that that he took his liberties with it. Certainly much of what he writes about comes from the mind of Paul, not the mind of God. JMO, YMMV.
Let me point out that as a Christian I found Paul’s disagreements with Jesus’ actual teachings to be so jarring and so troubling that I seriously wondered whether I could best serve Christ by ditching Paul’s heretical works.
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*Originally posted by Rubystreak *
**Once a persecutor, always a persecutor. **
Funny, I thought one of the tenets of Jesus’ teaching was that people can turn over a new leaf and become new people. :rolleyes:
**
I disagree. Though I find, for example, Buddhist thought very interesting, you won’t see me in a thread on whether something is acceptable or not in Buddhism. Religions should be defined by their adherents.
It was, but I don’t think Paul turned over a new leaf, is what I’m saying. He was a rigid-minded hard case before the scales allegedly fell from his eyes, and that part of him didn’t change. He just redirected his energies, IMO.
Oh, disagree all you want, but the fact of the matter is that RIGHT NOW you are arguing Christian doctrine with a non-Christian. I know a hell of a lot about Catholicism, having been raised as one, having gone to a Catholic high school where I took Religious Studies for 4 years, etc. I can discuss it in great detail without being an adherent.
“Religions should be defined by their adherents.” Really now. I don’t think the Pope would agree with you about that. If that were the case, divorce would certainly be OK with the Catholic Church and so would birth control.
No, religion is defined by the men who are in charge of it, based on their agendas (which may or may not be godly), and what the adherents think seems to matter very little. But your point, if I understand it correctly, is that those of us who aren’t Christian can’t argue with those of you who are, simply because we are not Christians. That’s absurd. We can have and are currently having a debate about Christian doctrine based on the facts as recorded in the Bible and other documents that outline the dogma of the religion in question.
However, this is not the same thing as knowing Jesus as a real live flesh-and-blood human being, like Jesus’s disciples did before the crucifixion. Putting the one on par with the other denigrates the experience the disciples had with Jesus.
And there’s another issue here. Many people since the time of Paul have had visions of Christ. Many of them were just as convinced as Paul was that what they were seeing really really was Jesus. Yet in many of these visions, Jesus told people to do things that were completely at odds with the teachings of Paul. So … why do Paul’s visions of Christ get a huge chunk of the New Testament devoted to them, while others’ visions of Christ get ignored or treated as heresy?
As for homosexuality being a choice or not and about this ex-gay nonsense, the official teaching of the Catholic Church is that homosexuality is not a choice and that ex-gay ministries do more to harm homosexuals than help them.
I don’t know about any other branch of Christianity though.
UnuMondo you say that homosexuals should consider the seminary, but the Vatican says that homosexuals should not become priests. What should they do then?
ThoughtPolice, I have never claimed to be an expert on the Bible, so please do point out the exact chapter and verse in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, where Christ explicitly condemns homosexuality and/or fornication. I’ve read the Gospels quite thoroughly in my time, and I don’t remember seeing that. I also have a book containing various gospels which were not included in the Bible, such as The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (don’t ask!), so if it is apocryphal, I would very much like to see it.
Two statistics which get bandied about, unreliable though they may be, are that 10% of the population is homosexual, and half of all marriages end in divorce. While I may doubt those statistics, I have little doubt that there are more divorced people in America than there are homosexuals, yet I don’t hear an outcry against how we have to accept divorce.
Two points: one, the outcry is still out there. I attend a conservative Catholic law school, and I still frequently hear complaints about the “divorce mentality.” Two, I concur with you that the outcry is diminished, as I know a number of Christians who conveniently work around Christ’s “let no man tear asunder” statement (and these are among some of the biggest Bible-thumpers). It drives me batty, really.
Your point is correct to the extent that, from the Christian perspective, marriage would be threatened by both homosexuality and the prevalence of divorce, and it’s irresponsible and hypocritical to speak against one but not both. Having said that, I don’t like the “why aren’t you doing anything about this instead?” argument. I say that because, 1) it’s possible that some individual Christians are, in addition to campaigning against homosexuality, arguing against divorce as well, and 2) not everybody can do everything; you wouldn’t, for example, argue that someone crusading against child abuse shouldn’t be doing something about the environment instead.
Ah, the Gospel of Thomas. We could have some fun discussions about that one if I’m thinking of the story you’re thinking of…
I’d really like to know exactly HOW homosexuality threatens marriage? I’m not asking for vague generalities, I’m looking for specific, concrete examples of this.
Or exactly what is this Christian perspective that allows homosexuality to be perceived as a threat to marriage? Again, what is this threat? Can you give me concrete, specific examples?
That’s the Vatican. I’m Anglican, notice I said that in my post a page back. I just happen to agree with that particular point in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Also, what the Vatican says doesn’t necessarily coincide with the way the Church is run in the United States, where many Catholic bishops do not mind gay priests.
If you have so much love to give, why don’t you express it towards a community instead of a single individual? Love expressed nonsexually towards a community is a lot more beneficial for the world than loving just one person. That’s why becoming a member of the clergy shouldn’t be a problem, if you are honest about having so much love to give.
Government is for whatever the people decide it is for. Libertarians and Scandinavian socialists have very different ideas on what government is for, but it is decided every time election season comes around.
Can we get physical for a moment? In a course I took a couple of years ago in women’s studies, we read fiction & non-fiction by & about women who are straight, lesbian, married, single. I didn’t keep all the books I read – didn’t own all of them, we swapped books, used the library, etc. – but I was struck by the article by a female OB/GYN who said that a lesbian who has never had sexual relations with a man is a virgin, regardless of her experiences with women. She went on to say that lesbians can & do have very fulfilling sex lives, but that they simply do not have sexual intercourse with one another.
Those of you who insist that marriage is the union of a woman & a man must also agree that sexual intercourse can take place only between a woman & a man.
Therefore, in what way can lesbians be considered “fornicators?” While you are free to believe that homosexual behavior is sinful, you really can’t use the f-word about lesbians.
I’m neither a theologian nor an expert on gays & lesbians, but I do have a fondness for correct terminology.
This is getting ridiculous. Who says what “virgin” means anyway? Who says what “fornication” means? Surely the sin is the same no matter what word is used?
