Can it, Kirkland. Your screaming hissy fits aren’t helping. If you look again, I’ve addressed His4ever directly and calmly, but because you’ve chimed in with your histronics, she’s responded to those with the expected “oh poor me, I’m being attacked for my beliefs” mantra and avoided the direct questions. Don’t give her that out. Stay rational and debate with logic, instead of accusations of bigotry (save those for the Pizza Parlor and the Pit).
I challenge you again, His4ever. Address my comments about the real sins of Sodom and the meaning of Paul’s terms.
Excsue me??? I don’t agree with you so I’m a hateful cultist? Sounds like you’re the one being hateful. And by the way, just because I believe homosexuality is a sin DOESN’T mean I advocate attacking or beating gay people. This is still a free country and I believe what God says about this subject, like it or not, and have tried to share it in a nice way. There will be no reconciliation of beliefs on this subject. I was asked and gave my opinion. It’s you who is being hateful because you don’t like what the Bible says. Sorry, I can 't help that.
The sins of Sodom were their sexual wickedness. How else can you interpret it when the men of Sodom wanted to have sex with the angels that came to remove Lot and his family before God destroyed it. Lot pleaded with them not to do this wickedness and even offered the men his virgin daughters as replacement. And where do you think we get the word “sodomy”? And to me, Paul’s words in the first chapter of Romans mean just what they say. God game them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves, verse 24. How else do you interpret "For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even the women did change the natural use into that which is against nature, verse 26. And likewise the men did the same thing, burning in their lust for one another, verse 27. You can interpret it in some other way if you want, that’s your right. But millions of Christians take it for just what it says. I’m aware of the tactics people use to justify their sins, twisting and misinterpreting the Scriptures to make Christians look like idiots. I’m not good at debating these things so you’ll probably succeed in making me look stupid, but my opinion on this subject stands. I repeat, let’s just agree to disagree and leave it at that. I may be the odd person out here ut there are many other Christians who agree with me on this issue, they just aren’t on this board.
—How else do you interpret "For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even the women did change the natural use into that which is against nature, verse 26. And likewise the men did the same thing, burning in their lust for one another, verse 27.—
Actually, as far as the women’s case goes, it’s much more likely that Paul was talking about women having anal or oral sex with men than sex with other women. That’s what the “likewise” means. Most modern readers read the “likewise” as meaning that the women were gay “like” the men, forgetting entirely that back in Paul’s day, there was no concept of “homosexuality” that conceptually related the sex acts of two women to the sex acts of two men. Sexual immorality in Paul’s day was based on particular immoral ACTS, not sexualities or sexual attractions (there was no concept of “sexuality”)
Sexual immorality in the Biblical sense is pretty much all male-centered. Women may be used improperly, i.e. men may soil themselves with the improper sexual use of women (say, when they are unclean), but if a penis isn’t involved, the Bible doesn’t really seem to have anything to say. It’s not even clear that women having sex with other women is something that Bible writers ever even conceived of happening. Sex? Without penises? How is that even possible?
“Lesbians,” in the sense of women actually having relationships, is a modern concept.
—I’m aware of the tactics people use to justify their sins, twisting and misinterpreting the Scriptures to make Christians look like idiots.—
Wait, so let me get this straight. What you are saying is that your reading of scripture is unquestionably correct, and therefore what you say is sinful is sinful, and thus anyone who argues otherwise is just creatively justifying sin. Seems like you’re getting a little ahead of yourself, assuming that you are correct, no matter how poorly your arguements for correctness might be. Esepcially since in most cases it’s other Christians who disagree with your interpretations (since they are the ones who care)
If there’s only one possible way to interpret the Bible correctly, His4Ever, why are there so many different religions based on it? Why so many denominations of Christianity?
And… which one is right? How do you determine that?
How ironic. Your Lord God Jack T. Chick calls the Catholic Church a cult all the time, and you still back him up. Don’t like having your own rhetoric thrown back at you, do ya, bigot?
There you go again, equating what YOU BELIEVE with the WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS. Far smarter and more godly people than you can look at the Bible and come away not thinking what you do about homosexuality. Stop being so bloody arrogant as to think that God doine came right on down and hand you yer interpretation.
Here in Central Florida there is a proposal before the Orlando City Council that would ban discrimination against gays in employment, housing and public accommodations. A bunch of local churches have all banded together to protest the proposed ordinance, as the Orlando Sentinel reports. Of course there is one denomination mentioned that backs the ordinance, the United Methodists. So yes, at least in Central Florida (an area so profoundly conservative that even the Episcopals are against the ordinance, the UMC appears to be on the forefront of Not Hating Gays.
As this is not the pit, I will not spew forth the bile that rises in my throat at the way (the rest of) these Christians “show love”. I’ll just leave my comments at this:
“We think it should be perfectly legal to fire you, deny you housing, and keep you out of our hotels and restaurants. By this we show you the boundless love of God.”
Mm hmm.:rolleyes:
On Preview: Kirk, I am solidly in your corner, but your excellent points are overshadowed by your abusive words, and you convince no one of the validity of your position that way. Is that what you want?
Kirkland, will you please shut up and sit down? You are an embarrassment to the gay folk who want to show His4Ever her errors in theology through the application of sweet reason, not screaming hysteria. All you are doing is causing His4Ever to respond to your vitriol (inappropriate for GD, by the way), thereby deflecting reasonable debate.
Have you examined the original Hebrew texts? You will ifnd that the simplistic anti-gay message that has been told you is not what the authors of Genesis intended.
So then you’re saying that the authors of Isaiah and Ezekiel were wrong about the reasons they list? It’s funny that you keep saying that we the scriptures “mean just what they say”, yet when the scriptures don’t say what you want them to, you add a little eisegesis.
Do you not understand that the original was written in Kione Greek and therefore, the words he used must be translated into English. Whenever there is a translation, you have to decide between meanings of words. The translation can cause a subtle or striking difference in meaning. That’s why there is a debate over what Paul meant by his choice of words.
And Jesus, when He and His disciples were not welcomed and listened to in one town, said, in essence, “Truly, I tell you, it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than it will be for {that town}.” The implication here is that they were inhospitable and would not listen to God’s word, not that they thought that Jesus and the Twelve were studmuffins and were hitting on them!
Jesus expects a high standard of morality from His followers – but He does not sit around judging their sex lives. Rather, He expects them to behave in accordance with some stringent rules of humility, compassion, and if necessary self-sacrifice. It is only those who feel it incumbent on themselves to sit in judgment over others who reconstruct Scripture into naming particular sins.
Question of the Christians here: Are you good people? Are you following God’s Law to get to Heaven?
I notice that HIS4EVER has declined to answer the questions HOMEBREW and PLDENNISON posted. I am interested in hearing her response. I will rephrase: HIS4EVER, do you keep kosher and keep your head covered and in every other way observe the law as set forth in the Old Testament? If not, why not? How do you justify failing to follow “God’s law”? Surely you are not just “picking and choosing” what you will believe?
PLD and POLY – Yeah, that was a whopper of a typo. :o
And another thing – If you give such credence to the words of Paul, do you also wear a head covering, remain mute in church, submit yourself to your husband, and consider yourself, as a woman, to have been made for the glory of men (while men were made for the glory of God)?
Because if you do not “pick and choose” the validity of the teachings of Paul – whose letters are not part of the Gospels – then you consign yourself to the role of womankind that Paul advocated and endorsed – and Paul, bless his mysogynistic little heart, did not like women. At all. So don’t you tell me what I, as a Christian, have to believe. Because if you waved the flag of Paul in my face, and I were a man (which I am not), I would tell you to shut your female pie hole, sit back down, and stop presuming to correct your betters.
That may work for you as a woman, but it sure as heck doesn’t work for me.
Sorry, gobear and Homebrew, but you’re wrong. Try it on in a different size: what if a white supremecist popped into a thread and said, “Black people are inferior to whites. I’m sorry, but that’s just my opinion.” Would you classify a vigorous defense from a Black doper as an “attack” on the racist? I hardly think so. Insofar as you treat the two scenarios differently, you support and encourage homophobia.
From another perspective, H4E has chosen to reduce her understanding of the universe to that as promulgated by the tiny, tiny mind of Jack Chick and his ick. Sorry, his ilk. Then she makes her way to SDMB, and unbeknownst to her (she still thinks hunching over her keyboard in the dark is still a state of isolation and protection) she has entered into a larger world. Her mindset will not fly here. This then becomes an opportunity for her to learn that it’s a much bigger, messier world out there than her little fiction allows for. She will learn, for example, that she can’t minimize a fellow human’s humanity without being called on it. She will learn, ultimately (one can hope) that the tiny, hermetic world as allowed her by a sinfully reductive and dehumanizing reading of her Bible is a fiction; is, in fact, a fiction entirely antithetical to the true nature of Christianity. She will learn (keep hope alive!) that she has been tempted to accept a sinfully twisted charicature of Christianity, and has succumbed to that temptation, to the peril of her own mortal soul.
I work with LGBQ youth, at a center that provides them with services and counselling and referrals. Many of the volunteers who also contribute their time to this place do so specifically as an act of Christian charity. Members of local churches provide meals (many of the youth who come here are homeless; families who have succumbed to the same kind of temptation to hate that H4E has often kick their gay children out into the street to starve and die: as much as 30% of my city’s homeless youth are gay-identified; up to 40% of teen suicides are gay-identified), take groups on skate outings, and volunteer their time to provide an adult presence at the center. These are Christians who have taken their Bible, as a whole, to heart, rather than carefully selecting and decontextualizing certain passages in order to rationalize their irrational distaste for others of God’s creatures.
Our apporach, adn that of other posters is rational discussion ot show His4Ever her logical inconsistencies and theological errors. Gandhi said, “The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend.”
Of course if you think hysteria and namecalling are more effective tools of persuasion, go right ahead.
Gobear, may I applaud that, and as a small note point out that Gandhi quoted Abraham Lincoln, who is also on record as having said it earlier than Gandhi.
I trust, from the tenor of your response to my post in the “Georgia” thread, that you understood clearly that my initial remarks were a verbal reversal of the stance you appeared to be taking against DDG, and in no way a slam of you personally. Like you, I much prefer to apply reason and an understanding of the stance of another in debate.
lissener, thank God for people like you and the Christian and other volunteers you mention. This is exactly the sort of thing that the “sheep” in the parable are noted as doing.
His4Ever, Dreamer and others who view the passages in Leviticus and Paul’s letters as castigating gay people, what do you consider your duty towards them as a Christian? (This is not asked sarcastically – I’ve had people explain their stances in a context based in (their understanding of) Christ’s commandments elsewhere, and I’d like to see yours.)
. . . . So I ask again: Do you follow the edicts of Paul as set out in the New Testament?
'Cause, see, I had two separate posts up there, which made two separate points – one for the OT and one for the NT. Having responded to the first – which I appreciate – now kindly respond to the second.
