I see that from your quotes from the Old Testament that you are pretty arbitrary as to which parts of it can be discarded and which have to be followed.
By the way, Oddball didn’t answer my question: how many of the verses he cited discuss homosexual acts as a sin to be avoided, and how many cite homosexuals as persons to be punished? He claims Jesus saw a distinction (“love the sinner, hate the sin”), but even if we limit ourselves to his cites from the New Testament:
Romans 1:18-32 : 18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
1 Timothy 1:8-10 : 8 We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. 9 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 : 9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a] **10 **nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Jude 7 : In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
I’m not getting a “love the sinner” vibe from any of these. The overall stance seems pretty hostile, truth be told, and directed toward the so-called sinners and not to the people who don’t love them enough.
On a personal note, Romans 1:26 alludes vaguely to lesbianism, which I find mildly surprising. I hadn’t known there were any such references.
“Religion” is a very broad term. I suppose “religion” has indeed changed in the way modern people interpret it. I base my religious beliefs on the Bible. The Bible has not changed, although I do not pretend to understand all of it.
Don’t worry about me taking it, You can make all the contemptuous remarks you wish.
Maybe I do not understand what you are asking… So who do you think is committing the sins? It’s the sinners. Not just adultery, but all sins.
The ten commandments are just that, commandments, not the ten suggestions.
I’ll just settle for matching you one for one. I believe it’s your serve.
Well, you’re claiming a distinction exists between sinner and sin, such that you love the former and hate the latter (or perhaps more accurately, you believe that God hates homosexuality but not homosexuals). This distinction is sufficiently stark to you that when you describe homosexual acts and theft as sins, you strongly deny that this is like comparing homosexuals to thieves.
There’s nothing in the ten about homosexuality. I’m not buying the linkage to adultery.
I’m getting the impression your understanding of your own scripture is limited, if not childish. I get that you want to try to carve out some kind of seemingly-civilized compromise, i.e. because the bible says homosexuals should be killed, you feel confident in calling homosexuality a sin but even though you claim the bible is authoritative, you don’t plan to kill any homosexuals… it seems to me the more rational and adult view would be to recognize the bible is outdated and could not be a literal guidebook to life in a modern society.
I don’t feel I’m being insulting to you in pointing this out - you’re citing books that are 1500 to 2500 years old. No matter how well-written, there’s no reasonable expectation that they would be broadly applicable now. There are books written less than 100 years ago that are painfully socially obsolete.
Your religion, as you describe it, seems to be commanding you to keep thinking in the Iron Age while reality compels you to live in the Information Age. It is extremely easy for us to find and point out the conflicts this creates.
The bible has not changed in hundreds of years, but that is the problem; this is one reason why even a few theologians are telling us that the bible is a dead book. One way around that problem is for believers to note that it is only dead if one ignores the spiritual angle. On a less dogmatic frame of mind many do think that one has to look at the tales of the bible as mythology. That is not really a bad thing to take into account, it is an acknowledgement that if one looks at the symbolism it does not mean that it has no power. One is more likely to get crazy if one only looks at the bible in a literal sense and to ignore its symbolism.
And indeed that was one of the main reasons why the book of revelation was added to the bible, if it was taken literally the problem was that the church had already defeated [del]Babylon[/del] Rome and the end of the world did not take place, the solution by Saint Augustine and others was to approve the book by taking into account its symbolism and not what it literally said.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/explanation/brevelation.html
So yes, the bible has not changed, but after we decided to dump slavery it is already clear for many that to go forward a lot needs to be reinterpreted or just plainly ignored.
There is however in the very ten a tacit acknowledgement that slavery is not a problem for the good lord. ** Oddball_92 **would had to wonder why there are no more slaves around so as to allow all to follow the old rules.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/sla_bibl1.htm
What we do now is to realize that the ones that wrote the bible were also flawed individuals and a lot has to be ignored nowadays.
Thank you. This post reminds me of the scene in Airplane when Barbara Billingsly volunteered to translate Jive.
Do you believe in an eternal Hell?
Genesis 19:1-11 doesn’t make it clear what the Sodomites are being punished for. They’re attempted rapists; why can’t that be the sin, here?
Leviticus 18:22 doesn’t make clear what the sin is.
**Leviticus 20:13 **also isn’t clear, and demands death for whoever acts upon it.
Judges 19:16-24, again, is rape - although if we’re to take it at face value, man-on-woman rape is a-ok if the man of the house allows it!
1 Kings 14:24 and 15:12 and 2 Kings 23:7, again, unclear. Is prostitution the sin? Male prostitution, specifically?
Romans 1:18-32 appears to be God specifically intervening in order to make people gay, which is interesting. However, it’s treated as though that is the punishment - not the initial sin. And if it is a sin, it’s God’s sin in this case for causing it.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 is a strange one for you to cite, given your POV on homosexuality being adultery, since “men who have sex with men” is specifically differentiated from “adultery” and, for that matter, the “sexually immoral”.
1 Timothy 1:8-10 likewise separates out “the practice of homosexuality” from the “sexually immoral”. It also isn’t a condemnation.
Jude 7, again, doesn’t say what “sexual immorality” they’re referring to, though luckily taking those other parts of the Bible into account we know that it cannot be homosexuality since they’re clearly split up.
I have to admit I’m impressed that the very first quote in your linked article is Jesus saying that “whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him”. So there actually isn’t any issue with homosexuality at all! I’d be remiss not to point out that Jesus appears to be talking about food, but the standards he provides work just as well for sex as they do food.
The article also says that the Law of Moses “generally, has been fulfilled and finished”. Why is there an exception for the Ten Commandments, which you still seem to hold to?
There’s also a hilarious final point where God sets out the laws on eating meat with blood still in it, which is apparently counter-acted by… people wanting to compromise for the sake of earthly matters. I didn’t realise we could just do that, but it’s good to know that’s an appropriate and reasonable standard to ignore God’s law.
Another interesting thing about Christians moving away from the Mosaic laws of cleanliness is… Unclean food is still “unclean.” And mixing two fabrics was “an abomination.”
God may have changed the rules so that Christians don’t need to cut off their foreskins… But how is an “abomination” suddenly made okay?
If you get your linsey-woolsey, we get to love people of the same sex.
Sure. And none of the NT references are from the 4 Gospels or even the 5 Gospels (incl Thomas).
Jesus said nothing bad about homosexuality or abortion for that matter. He did have quite a few words to say about sanctimonious pricks and came flat out against stone throwing.
Christian scripture with regards to homosexuality is surprisingly complicated. Leviticus is pretty harsh, but it also denounces wearing multicolored clothing. Which is perfectly sensible in a way: it makes it easy to spot fundamentalist hypocrites.
ETA: Mixing 2 fabrics is not an abomination, though it is forbidden in the OT: Deuteronomy 22:11 Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.
Does god ever change his mind? I think the bible has a few examples of that.
Jesus didn’t speak about homosexuality, and Christians maintain that the Old Testament does not apply to them. But homophobia has one last bastion left: Saint Paul. Paul’s epistles are considered to be binding for Christians. Never mind that Paul has never met Jesus, and was a prime rate hypocrite, impostor and opportunist; Christians still put much stock in his word. So, as long as Paul has any relevance for the church, there’s no way to persuade any devout Christian to tolerate homosexuality.
OMG! I don’t have tassels on the corners of my garments!! I am SO F–ed!! 
There are 612 other laws in the OT!
And all of them except for the Ten Commandments and the ones against homosexuality are wiped from the books! Are there any other exceptions to the “God’s Rules Don’t Change!” statement, Oddball_92?