Is homosexuality an abomination?

[anotheratheisthere]

Yes.

The Bible says that homosexuality is an abomination. (Leviticus 18-22)

On the same page, it uses the exact same word to describe eating shellfish. (Leviticus 11-10 and 11-11)


Please heed the word of God:

Being gay is an abomination.

Eating shrimp is an abomination.


Being gay is just as much an abomination as eating shrimp.

Eating shrimp is just as much an abomination as being gay.


If you ever ate a shrimp cocktail you committed as grievous a sin as the most pervert homosexual.

If you ever had gay sex, you committed as grievous a sin as the most pervert shrimp cocktail eater.


If you are a gay Christian who judges and condemns people for committing the abomination of eating lobster, then you're a hypocrite.

If you're a Christian who eats lobster and you judge and condemn people for committing the abomination of being gay, then you're a hypocrite.


Gay people and people who eat seafood are abominations! Both groups are disgusting! You make me sick! How can you POSSIBLY want to have gay sex and/or eat shrimp, clams, oysters and lobster? PERVERTS!

I think we should amend the Constitution to specify that marriage is between a man and a woman.

I think we should amend the Constitution to specify that anybody who eats lobster, shrimp, clams or oysters will be deported and/or waterboarded.

[GentleDove]

The Bible makes clear that sometimes a man should listen to his wife’s counsel/advice and sometimes he should not (Eve, Sarai, Jezebel, etc.). The deciding factor is whether the counsel she is dispensing is virtuous and contains godly wisdom or not.

I agree that the the writers of the Bible provide numerous examples where a husband did badly by listening to his wife. But where is it in the Bible that it is made clear that a man should listen to his wife's counsel or advice. I seem to have missed the reference.

Both by precept (it is good for a man to heed wise and virtuous advice) and example (the women in the Bible who gave wise and virtuous advice, whether or not the man in question heeded their advice, and the consequences that followed).

Wisdom (godly counsel) is personified in Proverbs 8 as a woman, and Proverbs 1:5, 15:31, 17:4, and 19:20, among many others, describe wise man who listens to godly (wise) counsel and ignores ungodly (foolish) counsel, precepts exemplified in Scripture by both men and women. The “Proverbs 31 ideal woman� speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

God tells Abraham to listen to Sarah (Genesis 21:8-12). God saved David’s life through the advice of his wife, Michal (1 Samuel 19:11-12), and God saved David from committing murder by sending Abigail to appeal to him (1 Sam. 25:18-40). Although Abigail was not then his wife, David did later marry her. When Amnon did not listen to Tamar (twice), he was killed (2 Sam. 13:1-33). Almost the entire book of Esther is about a queen who asks her husband to do things regarding in stately affairs, which he does, with good consequences. In Esther 1:13 we learn that “Since it was customary for the king to consult experts in matters of law and justice, he spoke with the wise men who understood the times…� and in Esther 9:11-14, the king is consulting his wife, Queen Esther about matters of law and justice.

I meant “listen to� in the sense of “hear out� or “consider the feelings/thoughts of.� That a godly (Christian) man should listen to, understand, and consider his wife is commanded in the 1 Peter 3:7 scripture I referenced:

You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered. (1 Peter 3:7, NASB)

I am familiar with this misogynist passage in the New Testament. It takes a bit of mental gymnastics to read this as the husband should ever take his wife's counsel.

There is nothing misogynistic about this passage. Women need to be protected, honored, and understood as the weaker ones. The denial of that fact is what is misogynistic.

It is impossible to “honor� or “understand� someone, if you do not listen to them or hear them out. Can you honor your parents but refuse to listen to them? Does a husband feel honored when his wife ignores what he says to her? It doesn’t take any mental gymnastics at all to know that part of understanding and honoring someone is to listen to or hear out that person.

In addition, the Bible (in 1 Peter 3, Ephesians 5, etc.) makes clear that marriage is patterned on the relationship between Christ and His Church, which is called “the Beloved.� Part of the relationship between Christ and His Church, is that Christ wants the Church to pray to Him, to go to Him with every burden and problem, to receive comfort, understanding, cherishing, and guidance from Him. Christ does not “obey� the Church’s prayers, but He does promise to always listen to Christians when we cry out to Him and to take our prayers into His consideration. This seems valid, especially given the 1 Peter 3:7 passage above. Peter is saying “if you won’t listen to (hear) your wife, don’t expect God to listen to (hear) your prayers.�

Does God take our advise? Does God heed our counsel? Are Christians not told to submit their will to the will of God? Then, if the man is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the man, as the New Testament teaches, what place has a woman's advice to her husband, according to authentic Christian teachings?

God commands Christians to pray to Him (out of love for us and for our good because we need Him), and He does listen to Christians’ prayers and takes them into account when making His decisions. As far as advice or counsel, specifically, God does not hear wicked prayers that revile Him, but only appealing prayers that remind Him of His covenant relationship and His good will and His promises. Often the answers to our prayers are “no� or “maybe, but wait,� but that is His choice to make, and we must submit to His will. (see also Gen. 24:44-46; Gen. 30:6, 17, 22; Num. 21:3; Deut. 9:18-20; 1 Sam. 1:10-15, 19-20; 1 Kings 9:3; 2 Kings 13:4; 2 Kings 20:5; 2 Chron. 7:12-15; 2 Chron. 33:13; Ps. 6:8-10; Ps 10:16-18; Ps. 22:24; Ps. 66:18-20; Prov. 3:32; Prov. 15:29; Is. 1:15; Jer. 29:12; Jon. 2:2; Matt. 6:5-13; Lk. 1:13; Jn. 9:31; Acts 1:24-26; 2 Cor. 12:8-9).

The husband is definitely the head of his wife, as Christ is the head of the Church. Of course, a husband is a sinful man (not Christ), and wife is a sinful woman (not a spotless Bride). But the covenantal relationship is similar, according to the Bible.

A Christian wife is also a “sister� in Christ to her Christian husband; so, although she will rarely give advice, she will—privately and in an appealing and respectful way—if she sees (or believes) that her husband is headed into sin (Lev. 19:17; Ps. 141:5; Prov. 27:5; Matt. 18:15; Lk. 17:3; Eph. 4:29; Jas. 1:19). This aspect doesn’t apply to the Christian’s relationship to God, because God does not sin. (A husband teaches, guides, corrects, rebukes, and leads his wife, gives her advice and direction, and “washes her in the word;� but I was just responding to the question of whether the Bible says wives should offer counsel to their husbands.)

Also, the nature of a wife’s relationship to her husband is that she is his helper, friend, and confidante who is loyal and faithful to him (the opposite of the adulteress of Proverbs). A husband and wife are “one flesh� and are intimate with their thoughts and feelings as well as their bodies. Any husband who considers his own thoughts, will also consider his wife’s thoughts. (see also Gen. 2:18; Gen. 2:22-24; Prov. 12:4; Prov. 18:22; Prov. 19:14; Prov. 31:10-12, 23, 26-27; Mal. 2:15; Matt. 19:5; Mk. 10:8; Eph. 5:31)

[GentleDove]

Otherwise, your point, it seemed to me, was that Jesus in His reply to the Sadducees was lifting the prohibition against sexual immorality, as defined in the OT. (Thus, implicitly, the prohibition against homosexuality is also lifted by Jesus.) However, Jesus did not do that. He was basically saying that it won’t even be an issue in the resurrection because there won’t be marriage in the resurrection.

Ehhhh... not exactly. Jesus was attacking the entire moral construct of the Sadducees (a moral construct which treated women as the property of some man or another), and was replacing it with a higher morality which was more centred on the content of a sexual relationship than on the form. It must be remembered that, unlike the Sadducees, Jesus saw men and women as equals.

No, I disagree. There is nothing in the text that implies that the “entire moral construct� of the Sadducees was being attacked and replaced with a different, higher morality regarding sexual relationships after the resurrection. Jesus did not come to overturn OT moral laws. The dispute here was over the resurrection, which the Sadducees denied. I believe you're reading much too much into this passage.

Where in Matthew 22:23-33, Mark 12:18-27, or Luke 20:27-40 (or anywhere else) does the Bible show that Jesus said that 1) the Sadducees were wrong about their views of sexual morality (rather than wrong about the resurrection), 2) the Sadducees believed men and women are not equal, 3) marriage was abolished in the resurrection because women are equal to men, and/or 4) there will be sexual relationships after the resurrection?

It’s not in the text of the Bible.

Well, homosexuality was prohibited (by God in the Bible) in the OT and the NT both, across thousands of years and different cultures. Homosexuality existed in both OT and NT times, and the Bible is consistent about calling it sin.

Child abuse—and homosexual behavior—was criminalized in those cultures that had a Biblical view of sexual crime, such as the United States and other post-Greco-Roman Western societies. However, with Biblical morality condemned as “oppressive� these last hundred years or so (and especially the last forty years) in the United States, we find child sexual abuse—and homosexual behavior—on the rise.

As with everything else in the Bible, though, context counts. Homosexuality was tied to paedophilia in the Pauline letters, and to idolatry and pagan rituals in the OT. Homosexual behaviour has, since those times, lost its association with child abuse and idolatry.

As to organisations like NAMBLA, I'm sorry, but you lost all credibility there by trying to associate the entire gay rights movement with them. NAMBLA is nowhere near the mainstream of the gay rights movement - the opposition to legalised paedophilia from within the gay rights movement has been very well-documented; the Wikipedia article on NAMBLA even makes this clear.

I didn’t try to associate NAMBLA with the mainstream “gay rights� movement; however, they are a homosexual pro-pedophilia/pederasty group that is “coat-tailing� on the homosexual movement by attempting to further expand the definitions of “love� (sexual perversion) to include children.

In addition, even the mainstream homosexual movement has pedophiliac/pederast undertones. As I pointed out, the Chicago “gay pride� web site had a book advertised for sale called Boys and the Bees, so it doesn’t look as though they are distancing themselves from pedophilia as much as they could. (I just checked, and they've removed the book from their home page, but they still have a review of it on their site--don't worry, it's very sanitized or I wouldn't link to it.)

Yes, according to Wikipedia, there has been some opposition to legalized pedophilia from within the “gay rights� movement, especially from lesbians in the 1980’s, and especially when pressed politically in the 1990’s. It’s really not politically expedient at the moment for homosexuals to openly admit that they are in favor of seducing/having sex with underage children or teens; however, this is a significant subculture within the larger homosexual community.

The effort to abolish "age of consent" laws has been a long-time goal of homosexual activists. The 1972 Gay Rights Platform, for example, called for the abolition of all laws prohibiting sex with children. The platform demands: "Repeal of all laws governing the age of sexual consent." In The Gay Report (1979), homosexual researchers report data showing that 7 out of 10 homosexuals surveyed had at some time had sex with boys 16 to 19. A study highlighted in an article in the Journal of Sex Research found that although homosexuals are about 3% of the population, homosexual pedophiles commit about 30% the total number of child sex offenses. We're all aware that the Catholic Church has (finally) noticed a connection between homosexuality and pedophilia. The official party line doesn't always have the straight scoop (no pun intended).

It's not just homosexuals. The heterosexuals also have their sexual perversions, and the wider culture is expanding their definition of "free love" (sexual perversion) to include children--check out this article.

I don’t understand why you believe homosexuality is equivalent in some way to being poor. Biblically, homosexuality is a sin, and being poor is not a sin. Does this have something to do with "existential facticity"? Would you also say the poor choose to be poor, and therefore it would be wrong to try to help them raise their standard of living?

Protestant Christians (specifically those in the Calvinist strain) didn't always think so. For a very long time in Protestant Europe and in the United States, being poor was considered a sin! Indeed, it was for a very long time considered the outward sign of a reprobate and morally deficient inward nature, and that God had bestowed wealth upon the elect believers as a sign of his favour.

Even assuming this is true for the sake of argument, the Bible does not consider being poor a sin.

My point was just the opposite - homosexual orientation is not a choice. I didn't have a choice in the matter of being a heterosexual who is attracted to women, I simply am - that attraction is a factitious element of my existence. Homosexuals are cut from the same human cloth, with the same drives (just toward different people). What you do with those drives is a choice, though - and I see no reason to legally oppress anyone and limit their autonomy simply because they are different from me (whether they come from another race, class, gender or orientation).

Many people who now “identify� with being homosexuals were preyed upon by older homosexuals during their developing years. So many have fallen for the lie that homosexuality is an immutable characteristic, part of their identity (like skin-color), rather than a moral sin and behavior that can be changed by the grace of God. Having engaged in homosexual sex or lifestyle, they believe there is no hope for them to change and become former homosexuals.

IMO, the reason why you don’t see a reason to “legally oppress� anyone or “limit their autonomy� to sin, is that you don’t believe the Bible. According to the Bible, we all as human beings are born to sin, and we are all responsible before God for that sin. Sexual sin is difficult to overcome (whether it is a homosexual or a heterosexual committing the sin), but it can be overcome by the grace of God unto repentance and a new life. Telling homosexuals that their sin is a factitious element of their lives is to tell them they are definitely condemned—it’s the opposite of the gospel of Christ.

As I understand it, existentialism is a philosophy that begins with a sense of disorientation, confusion, and alienation in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world, beyond what meaning we give to it.

However, this is not the Biblical view of the world or the human being’s place in it. Biblically, the universe is meaningful and rational because the sovereign creator God, Who exists outside us as individuals, superintends it by His providence. God has not left us alone to determine our own identity in the universe apart from His objective standard. God, in His mercy, ends for the Christian the alienation from Him caused by our sin.

Existentialism is a philosophy that begins with the subject - the individual human being together with all its feeling, thought and action and with all its flaws and failures. Existentialism arose from Christianity as the rejection of the idea that humans can attain perfection merely through rational thought, without attending to all the other commitments of which the human soul is capable.

Existentialism did not arise from Christianity. It’s an alternative to Christianity. At best, an existentialist must mythologize the Bible.

And if you think that God hasn't left us alone to determine our own identity in the universe, you haven't been reading Genesis carefully enough! God did not prevent us by force from eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil - God allowed us the freedom to choose. (It is also worth noting that after eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, Adam and Eve experienced this very disorientation, confusion and alienation from God.)

God did not leave us alone; we rejected and abandoned Him. It’s true that God did not prevent us from rejecting Him by force, and I agree that our sin alienates us from God. However, God does still communicate with those who will hear in the Bible, and in it we learn that we are to repent of our autonomy, of going our own way, disobeying His commands, whether they be His commands regarding our sexuality, or any other command.

According to the Bible, we as individuals do not create each our own reality of “god� (even if we decide to “choose� the Biblical God) by imposing our idea of him on our construct of reality. No wonder an existentialist has so much angst, if his response to and responsibility for the projection of the “god� he chooses in an attempt to impose meaning on the universe all lies on his shoulders! That’s too heavy a burden to bear, in my view.

And if “god� is just a willful imposition of one’s “god�-idea, which only exists as something meaningful to that individual in a meaningless universe, then it’s just a sham. He’s his own “great and powerful Oz� behind the curtain, pulling the levers, and on some level he knows that. (Of course, an existentialist would just carry on through the absurd meaninglessness of his own attempt at creating his own meaning.)

You may find it too heavy a burden to bear, but it is only the burden of being human. It is only as heavy or light as you choose to make it.

No, this is the burden of being a human existentialist. On some level, even if he chooses to ignore it, the existentialist knows that he is only projecting a god. A human Christian does not bear this burden.

The Christian in modernity is often forced into viewing her own religion (and thus, herself) as an artefact, as part of some larger, grand scheme - and will often do this to appease and justify herself to a worldly establishment which is hostile to what she has chosen. Existentialist neo-orthodoxy provides this individual Christian an answer: what she has chosen leaves her free from justifying herself to a 'rational' order outside of her - only to the living God in whom she can rest transparent along with all of her choices and flaws and errors.

God reveals to Christians the “larger, grand scheme� of which we are a part. God reveals that He justifies us and we are to fear God rather than men. God reveals to Christians that we are to proclaim God’s word, His commandments, statutes and His glorious gospel, being always ready to give an answer to anyone who asks us the reason for the hope that we have. God in no way indicates that we are to remove ourselves from worldly hostility in the extreme autonomy of existentialism.

At this point, I'm not sure how you define God, but I just want to make clear that I'm arguing for the non-mythologized Biblical God Who is separate from His individual creations and Who revealed Himself in the all of the Scriptures.

The Gospel cannot be justified in rational terms. There is no external reason to which the Christian can appeal to force non-believers to accept Christ as Saviour and as the living God made manifest in human history - and any attempt to force others into such a false external reason merely demonstrates the weakness of her own faith. This is all that existentialism claims.

I agree—conversion by force is not possible in the Christian worldview. Only God can convert a sinner. He chooses to do so by the proclamation of His word and the Holy Spirit working in the sinner’s heart. But the Bible tells me that—I don’t need an existentialist paradigm to know “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.�

The Gospel is that God loved us and chose us, not that we loved and chose Him.

And what is greater demonstration of God's love of us and his choice of us, than that we are free to choose?

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)

But the Bible deals with truth, and it is not objective. Torah is worthless without its chosen people to read it and call it their own. Likewise, the rest of Scripture is worthless without an audience, and the Jesus of the Gospel is always asking the reader, 'who do YOU say that I am?' - the Christian must view Scripture, and his fellows in interpretation, as his ready interlocutors. Viewing Scripture as an artefact to be dissected (as too many liberals do) or as an idol to be bowed to (as too many conservatives do) is ABUSE of Scripture, and such abuse is always to the detriment of the (potential) believer.

These definitions of “truth� and “abuse of Scripture� are not scriptural. According to the Bible, God is not a “buddy,� contributing one point of view in the Scripture, and inviting your debate and interpretations of Who He is. He proclaims truth to us, and He gives us the faith and fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge.

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17)

What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every man a liar. (Rom. 3:3-4a)

Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. (2 Cor. 4:2)

The Gospel is all about overcoming the “factual conditions� of our sin through faith in Jesus Christ (faith which God gives us) (1 Jn. 5:4), not through faith in one’s self, one’s existence, one’s freedom, and one’s responsibility, and all the consequences—even hell—no matter how existentially “authentic� that would be.

Existentialism would have it - and Christians must have it! - that faith is choice. Belief in Jesus Christ is meaningless if it is not of one's existence and one's freedom and one's responsibility - no one else can believe Christ for you, and no one else can have a relationship with Christ on your behalf.

Yet, the Bible makes clear that we would be unable to choose Christ without God working in our hearts. In other words, Christians are able to choose Christ because He chooses us first.

Being black or being poor is not immoral, unlike homosexuality (according to the Bible).

It cannot be moral or immoral if it is a fact of existence which is not of our choosing. As I said before, I did not choose to be a heterosexual; that's a natural element of my existence which I can't change and no one - heterosexual or homosexual - will convince me otherwise. You can't choose to be homosexual, any more than you can choose to be black or choose to be born to poor parents. Indeed, I think that those who fear homosexuality are merely demonstrating their own insecurity in their sexual identities, to everyone's detriment but most grievously to their own.

I do not agree, because the Bible does not agree, that being a homosexual is an immutable, amoral characteristic. I’ll trust God’s assessment of what constitutes sin (and repentance and salvation) over anyone else’s.

[GentleDove]

From Page 8 Post 76

I'm arguing for an equal standard of judgement. Where the state issues privileges it should not discriminate based on religious notions of what one's (unprovable) god thinks.

I am also arguing for an equal standard of judgment. I think we both agree with “equal;� we just don’t agree on the standard.

But why “shouldn’t� the state discriminate based on religious notions? How do you prove the morality of that statement?

Here disallowing gay marriage (and with the OP in mind, really a few other points folks don't need to be told automatically), is discrimination based on who someone loves.

From a Biblical Christian point of view, it is discrimination based on immoral behavior. However, even if it were discrimination based on who someone "loves," you haven’t shown why that would be morally wrong, so much as simply asserted it.

There is a moral position in the Constitution alone that says all men are created equal. With this in mind, doesn't it seem unequal for the state to determine who gets to declare their love for another?

Assuming the moral position of the Constitution is the correct standard (which you haven’t shown), then the civil government should protect the law-abiding and discriminate equally against immoral behavior, regardless of the sex, race, money, status, or circumstances of the person engaging in the immoral behavior, including whether he or she acted immorally out of what he or she calls “love� or not.

This is exactly what some theists are doing to others - forcing their opinion onto them, but in a discriminatory fashion.

And you’re discriminating against theists by "forcing" your opinion onto them (that they “may� not discriminate).

How does gay marriage discriminate against you adhering to your religious beliefs? No one is asking you to be the preacher.

Christians shouldn’t approve of or condone or legitimize something that is immoral and will harm our society, whether the Christians are lawmakers, judges, voters, preachers, county clerks, taxpayers, wives and mothers, or fathers, or in any capacity. From the Biblical Christian's point of view, it would be sinning to approve the immorality, in part because it would restrict the Christian's free speech to proclaim the gospel of Christ.

Yes, you would be willing to have the state intervene in such a “marriage,� because to allow it to happen or continue , even in someone else's "marriage," would violate your moral standards.

Do you think it rational to think dogs and small children actually understand what all is involved if they were to get married to today's grown adults?

What I’m pointing out is that you don’t only think it is irrational; you also think it is immoral.

Why should your pious, self-righteous, own personal, subjective opinion about “informed consent� restrict other peoples’ sex lives?

I contend we place the least restrictions, and still have a world where grown people are not abusing others.

By whose definition of “abuse?� Of course, the definition of "abuse" varies from person to person because inherent to that word is morality, a standard of right behavior and wrong behavior.

My answer is: No, I don’t think an 8 year old girl could give informed consent. However, as a Christian, that wouldn’t be my basis, or at least not my sole basis, for thinking such a “marriage� wrong.

Thank you. Can we say we can agree as grown adults that there is something acceptably odd about adults and children, and so such is no longer an issue regarding grown adults and gay marriage?

No, I still believe adult “gay marriage� is immoral, even though adults marrying children is immoral.

Yes, we do all do that. And then civil government should equally not be tied to your (or anyone’s) unprovable claims of what “morality� is, including who should and should not be discriminated against.

Exactly. However, doesn't it stand to reason that allowing a grown adult to marry who they love, but preventing another from doing so is inherently unfair?

Everyone, including even a criminal, believes his morality is “reasonable.� Morality is not based on reason, but is a reflection of the condition of the heart of a person. Someone can be very rational and intelligent and reasonable, but still wicked and immoral. For example, Ted Bundy or Joseph Stalin or Margaret Sanger.

Although you are appealing to reason, you are at the same time arguing for a certain standard of morality—“loving� anyone sexually is fine as long as both or all parties are consenting adults. However, that standard is immoral, in God’s opinion, and by His grace, in my opinion. Obviously, you don’t agree with my standard, any more than I agree with yours.

I understand your opinion, but I’m not persuaded by your unproven opinion of morality regarding marriage, discrimination, or my God. So I’ll stick to my “unproven� opinion. Looks like a stalemate.

Perhaps for us two. Part of my intent here is to help the observer see that "God don't like it" can't be shown to be a true statement.

Moral questions aren’t “proven� or “disproven;� however, they are very meaningful. The fact is no one can show his morality is “true� independent of a given worldview.

I was pressing you to examine your own notions of universal morality, which you do have, even though you might not explicitly admit it.

And you press well for a theist. I don't contend my morality is 'universal' so much as I appeal to common decency in our relations with one another, and in respect to our government's relations to its citizens.

Okay, I’ll take “common decency� instead of “universal morality.�

This is what we find in reality, not “no morality,� which is all that could possibly derive from a godless and amoral universe.

This is really a sad way to look at those with whom you disagree.

I'm not advocating for the complete removal of moral concepts from society. What I am arguing for is these concepts to be the least restrictive possible.

I was not arguing that atheists do not have morals. I was arguing that atheists cannot account for the morals which they have. They just have their own arbitrary opinions with no accountability or any way of proving one personal relative moral standard is correct over another. The Christian worldview is very different, because, within the Christian worldview, God's standard is not arbitrary or subjective.

Oh, the fact that we don’t find utter chaos around us, which is evidence the Christian God exists. One example of order, assumed by both Christians and non-Christians is the principle of induction, or the uniformity of nature.

Order, and "uniformity of nature" are wholly relative positions, dependant on human interpretation.

That’s an interesting perspective. How does the scientific method work if order and “uniformity of nature� is dependent on relative human interpretations? How can we trust the findings of science, then?

Your “alternative morality� is nothing more than personal preference, so I am under no obligation to subscribe to your personal moral preference, any more than, in your view, you are under any obligation to subscribe to what you view as my personal moral preference.

So don't you see that preventing one from marrying who they love is inherently discriminatory?

Yes, it is discriminatory against immoral behavior. As everyone discriminates, even if it is according to a lower (less restrictive) standard, such as “informed adult consent.�

If you mean provide evidence which you will accept that the Bible is the Word of God, then I can’t provide that evidence.

And therein lies the rub. Why would we discriminate against our fellow humans on the basis of the opinion of someone we can't show exists?

If one doesn’t believe in God, then he wouldn’t discriminate against a fellow human being on the basis of God’s opinion (or claimed opinion). But that same person might discriminate against a fellow human being who defined marriage as “one man and one woman for life,� if he believed his opinion regarding “gay marriage� was morally superior to the other’s opinion.

Yet you do seem to believe your opinion is a basis for the claim that calling homosexuality an abomination is wrong.

Not abomination as "handed down from God", but something I don't personally seek to engage in. What grown folks do on thier time is on them.

I wasn’t claiming that you held the opinion that homosexuality was an abomination (for everyone). Of course, I know you weren't arguing that. I was just pointing out that you were arguing against following someone's (alleged) arbitrary moral opinion when your own moral opinion is at least just as arbitrary.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Page 9 Post 83:

From a Biblical Christian point of view, it is discrimination based on immoral behavior. However, even if it were discrimination based on who someone "loves," you haven't shown why that would be morally wrong, so much as simply asserted it.

Because it affords rights and privileges to one group while withholding from another.

Assuming the moral position of the Constitution is the correct standard (which you haven't shown), then the civil government should protect the law-abiding and discriminate equally against immoral behavior, regardless of the sex, race, money, status, or circumstances of the person engaging in the immoral behavior, including whether he or she acted immorally out of what he or she calls "love" or not.

I base my claims of morality here on the logical position that to allow one group to do something, while preventing another, without a reasonable purpose, is a discriminatory act. I can't offer any means for verification beyond appeals to folks' innate sense of what is fair.

How does gay marriage discriminate against you adhering to your religious beliefs? No one is asking you to be the preacher.

Christians shouldn't approve of or condone or legitimize something that is immoral and will harm our society, whether the Christians are lawmakers, judges, voters, preachers, county clerks, taxpayers, wives and mothers, or fathers, or in any capacity.

I don't think you can show gay marriage as a harm to society, or that your god has an opinion on the matter.

From the Biblical Christian's point of view, it would be sinning to approve the immorality, in part because it would restrict the Christian's free speech to proclaim the gospel of Christ.

No one is asking you to keep silent on the issue. You are free to continue preaching against it. I would contend you shouldn't be free to enforce a religious position, informed on much that is unprovable, on everyone.

I don't think you can offer verifiable evidence your favored god has an opinion on the matter.

Do you think it rational to think dogs and small children actually understand what all is involved if they were to get married to today's grown adults?

What I'm pointing out is that you don't only think it is irrational; you also think it is immoral.

Based on informed consent, not the unproven wishes of a god I can't show exists.

I contend we place the least restrictions, and still have a world where grown people are not abusing others.

By whose definition of "abuse?" Of course, the definition of "abuse" varies from person to person because inherent to that word is morality, a standard of right behavior and wrong behavior.

Society's definition. This is why I seek to have gay marriage considered a non-abusive act, while marriage to those who can't give informed consent as abusive.

I understand the uphill battle faced here, but I still seek to ensure the maximum amount of freedom for the maximum amount of people. Especially so when prohibitions are put in place because someone's unprovable god has an unprovable opinion.

Can we say we can agree as grown adults that there is something [un]acceptably odd about adults and children, and so such is no longer an issue regarding grown adults and gay marriage?

No, I still believe adult “gay marriage� is immoral, even though adults marrying children is immoral.

I won't address bestiality and pedophilia anymore. Hopefully we've put that angle to rest.

Everyone, including even a criminal, believes his morality is "reasonable." Morality is not based on reason, but is a reflection of the condition of the heart of a person.

If you're going to say morality is not based on reason, I would contend you have no basis to say it's a reflection of an organ whose function is to pump blood.

Reason is all we can base morality on, until such time we can show a given god exists and has an opinion on what constitutes moral behavior.

Although you are appealing to reason, you are at the same time arguing for a certain standard of morality - "loving" anyone sexually is fine as long as both or all parties are consenting adults. However, that standard is immoral, in God's opinion, and by His grace, in my opinion.

Don't you see it is your opinion that God has an opinion on the matter?

This is why I contend we should not allow the government to discriminate against consenting adults, at least until such time it can be shown someone's favored god has an opinion on the matter.

Obviously, you don't agree with my standard, any more than I agree with yours.

And so we debate the issue. I think you've come about your position in an honest fashion, and I wouldn't want to prevent you from marrying (another consenting adult) according to your wishes.

I don't seek gay marriage for myself, I'm a heterosexual who loves his independence, but I seek to prevent what I consider religious based discrimination enacted through the government.

Moral questions aren't "proven" or "disproven;" however, they are very meaningful. The fact is no one can show his morality is "true" independent of a given worldview.

Exactly. This is why I ask folks who say such as "God don't like it" to offer some means by which we can verify He really don't.

Okay, I'll take "common decency" instead of "universal morality."

My point being we can't show morals to be universal, unbending rules we are compelled to live by.

We must then appeal to that sense of right and wrong within each of us.

I was not arguing that atheists do not have morals. I was arguing that atheists cannot account for the morals which they have.

Sure I can. It basically boils down to not harming others because I don't want to be harmed - a social contract required for a stable society.

They just have their own arbitrary opinions with no accountability or any way of proving one personal relative moral standard is correct over another.

And we admit that. We don't use a god we can't show exists to "back up" our own personal opinions.

The Christian worldview is very different, because, within the Christian worldview, God's standard is not arbitrary or subjective.

Then why was he once cool with bashing babies against rocks?

Order, and "uniformity of nature" are wholly relative positions, dependant on human interpretation.

That's an interesting perspective. How does the scientific method work if order and "uniformity of nature" is dependent on relative human interpretations? How can we trust the findings of science, then?

Randomness defeats claims of uniformity. We only trust science insofar as the data, and conclusions thereof, it presents.
I trust the theory of gravity, but I ain't gonna test it by jumping off a building.

So don't you see that preventing one from marrying who they love is inherently discriminatory?

Yes, it is discriminatory against immoral behavior. As everyone discriminates, even if it is according to a lower (less restrictive) standard, such as "informed adult consent."

Exactly. So I contend we seek to be the least discriminating we can be.

If one doesn't believe in God, then he wouldn't discriminate against a fellow human being on the basis of God's opinion (or claimed opinion). But that same person might discriminate against a fellow human being who defined marriage as "one man and one woman for life," if he believed his opinion regarding "gay marriage" was morally superior to the other's opinion.

I fail to see how allowing gay marriage discriminates against opponents.

I'm unaware of anyone enacting legislation preventing gay marriage opponents from getting married.

...I was just pointing out that you were arguing against following someone's (alleged) arbitrary moral opinion when your own moral opinion is at least just as arbitrary.

And so we should offer danged good reasons for the government to discriminate against folks.

I contend that until such time God can be shown to exist, and to have an opinion on who marries who, the state should not discriminate against its own citizens in this regard.

[Nilloc James]

My opinion is that a government should never create laws based on the beleifs of one religion. If there is common ground between all citizens religous and not for a law to exist. (ex. no murder, dont have to be a christain to be against that).

However any relious beleif that is based on bigitism and depriving people of rights should never be allowed to become law. Actually any law should follow the "all people are equal" bit of the charter/constituion.

[Pastjosh]

I must say you have done well for reminding the world of the "Sin of Homosexualism", however, not all Christian are expert in Biblical matters, it is therefore reasonable that you use simple language in giving out Scripture references in support of your argument.

Spare the reader the hustle by giving them direct and exact reference to Scriptures verse which support your argument than ask them to do the research for themselves.

So please, give the readers the exact Scripture reference which forbids the eating of Lobster.

Thank You

[East of Eden]

Forget shrimp.

Give me a bucket of steamed clams and a tub of melted butter.



I will note that OP does not seem to have a question for debate, although I guess we can take the title as such.

My own view, as a Christian, is that the various books of the Bible should usually be considered with respect to the audience to which they were first addressed. The Mosaic Law was given to the ancient Israelites. The purposes and content of the law reflect their view of God and other aspects of their culture.

The NT basically allows that we who are Gentiles are under no obligation to follow the Mosaic Law. In fact, Acts Chapter 15 records the early church leaders making a decision to exempt Gentiles from all of the Mosaic law except . .

19"It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.

So, shrimp is OK, but lay off the blood pudding.

Now, a counter argument could be made that this would still include the sexual laws of which bans on "man lying with man" are a part. However, if the sexual laws are equated with these two food laws, most people today, even Christians, wouldn't find these any more reasonable than the seafood laws.

In addition, I would make the case that if the Apostles are free to make such a judgment for the Christians under their leadership, we can take this as a precedent for us today that we have the same freedom.

Most Christians voluntarily belong to a given church or denomination. They decide whether they will follow the teachings of that leadership, or if they will change churches or denominations or simply follow CHristianity "under their own authority." Thus, I do not see that Christians in general (and certainly many of us do not) need to consider homosexaulity as an "abomination."

Well put.

My original post is meant to indicate that all those who use Leviticus as evidence of God bing against homosexuality are patented hypocrits who deliberately cherrypick Bible passages, deliberately ignore passages on THE SAME PAGE which use the exact same language, and deliberately twist the word of God to fit their agenda.

Nonsense, you're confusing the eternal moral law (which doesn't involve shrimp) with the Jewish dietary and ceremonial laws. If I was a member of the bronze-age theocracy of Israel you might have a point.

If you don't like the Old Testament laws against sodomy, can we use the New Testament ones?

[East of Eden]

My opinion is that a government should never create laws based on the beleifs of one religion. If there is common ground between all citizens religous and not for a law to exist. (ex. no murder, dont have to be a christain to be against that).

However any relious beleif that is based on bigitism and depriving people of rights should never be allowed to become law. Actually any law should follow the "all people are equal" bit of the charter/constituion.

Despite what the homosexualists say, there is no Constitutional right for people with same-sex attraction to marry. Even Elena Kagan thinks so.

Three of the 10 Commandments are law (four if you're in the military), does that mean we have a theocracy?

[Goat]

I must say you have done well for reminding the world of the "Sin of Homosexualism", however, not all Christian are expert in Biblical matters, it is therefore reasonable that you use simple language in giving out Scripture references in support of your argument.

Spare the reader the hustle by giving them direct and exact reference to Scriptures verse which support your argument than ask them to do the research for themselves.

So please, give the readers the exact Scripture reference which forbids the eating of Lobster.

Thank You

Most certainly.. Leviticus 11:12

11:12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.

[Goat]

Nonsense, you're confusing the eternal moral law (which doesn't involve shrimp) with the Jewish dietary and ceremonial laws. If I was a member of the bronze-age theocracy of Israel you might have a point.

If you don't like the Old Testament laws against sodomy, can we use the New Testament ones?

The law is the law. There is no difference in Scripture from 'moral' law and 'dietary and ceremonial law'. That is just a later addition to make excuses.


Sure. let's look at the 'New Testament ones' IN CONTEXT. We must remember, it has to be in context..