In the ongoing culture war, this episode is eloquent:
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — A megachurch canceled a memorial service for a Navy veteran 24 hours before it was to start because the deceased was gay.
Officials at the nondenominational High Point Church knew that Cecil Howard Sinclair was gay when they offered to host his service, said his sister, Kathleen Wright. But after his obituary listed his life partner as one of his survivors, she said, it was called off.
"It's a slap in the face. It's like, 'Oh, we're sorry he died, but he's gay so we can't help you,'" she said Friday.
Wright said High Point offered to hold the service for Sinclair because their brother is a janitor there. Sinclair, who served in the first Gulf War, died Monday at age 46 from an infection after surgery to prepare him for a heart transplant.
The church's pastor, the Rev. Gary Simons, said no one knew Sinclair, who was not a church member, was gay until the day before the Thursday service, when staff members putting together his video tribute saw pictures of men "engaging in clear affection, kissing and embracing."
Simons said the church believes homosexuality is a sin, and it would have appeared to endorse that lifestyle if the service had been held there.
"We did decline to host the service - not based on hatred, not based on discrimination, but based on principle," Simons told The Associated Press. "Had we known it on the day they first spoke about it - yes, we would have declined then. It's not that we didn't love the family."
Simons said the decision had nothing to do with the obituary. He said the church offered to pay for another site for the service, made the video and provided food for more than 100 relatives and friends.
"Even though we could not condone that lifestyle, we went above and beyond for the family through many acts of love and kindness," Simons said.
Wright called the church's claim about the pictures "a bold-faced lie." She said she provided numerous family pictures of Sinclair, including some with his partner, but said none showed men kissing or hugging.
Read more about what happened from the man's partner here: "I fully understand the church’s right to deny us the use of their facilities. I also served in the military, (US Army, 1987-2002), and I have fought to defend their freedom of religion and freedom of choice. . . . I loved Cecil truly and deeply, and I am sorry that anyone considers a truly heartfelt, emotional, even spiritual connection to another human being to be sinful, simply because that love is between two people of the same sex."
Under the circumstances, the man is far more indulgent toward the church than I would have been. I understand, while I strongly disagree with, the mainstream Christian view that homosexual acts are immoral. But I doubt the church refuses to bury people it also thinks have sinned, like liars, blasphemers, and adulterers. Holding a service for a person is not an endorsement of anything they did in life; it is an act of compassion toward the grieving family and a mark of respect for the deceased as a person loved by God. If the church was worried about the content of the service it could have discussed this with the family, rather than simply canceling the funeral at the last minute.
I was raised in a Christian home and nothing the church did here resembles the values of respect for human dignity, and for the life of every single person, that I was taught. The most loving, understanding, and tolerant people I have known have been Christians. And they have been loving, understanding, and tolerant not despite their faith, but because of it. The shameful behavior of this church does not obscure that and I hope some of its 5,000 members come forward to disavow what their leadership did.
As its web address suggests, High Point is a "church unusual." If its actions here truly reflect its values, let's hope that's always true.
UPDATE: A few commenters speculate that the church in question might similarly refuse to hold a funeral service for liars, blasphemers, adulterers, and other sinners, if they refuse to repent their sins before dying. That's not a very plausible explanation for what happened here. I doubt High Point Church leaders would evenhandedly apply this hypothetical principle to all biblical sins. Note their claimed fear of appearing to "endorse" homosexuality ("that lifestyle") merely by holding a single funeral for a gay person. This is obsessive fear, not principle.
Moreover, church leaders did not inquire into the state of Cecil Howard Sinclair's soul before deciding to cancel his funeral. As they tell it, all they knew about him was that he was gay based on some pictures they saw of him "kissing" and "embracing" another man. They allowed their horror at this singular fact to overcome compassion for his family or respect for him as a whole person.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I suspect the real objection to his service was not that he was gay or that he might be in some sense "unrepentant." The real fear was probably that somebody -- perhaps his partner -- would get up and speak postively about their love during the service. If that's right, given the late hour, church leaders had two humane and decent choices: allow the service to go forward as the family planned it and be more careful about such things in the future, or discuss the content of the funeral with the family to minimize any affirmation of homosexuality. On the facts as we know them, they did neither.
It might refuse to bury openly unrepentant sinners. I'm not claiming to know whether this man was or was not repentant of what that church considers a sin, but that's often the explanation I've heard from various churches.
It's important to discuss situations like this so that if they arise again a better decision can be made. It's ridiculous to demand that gays "stop whining," take their problems, and crawl back into the closet
I agree it's rediculous to demand gays stop whining, take their problems, and crawl back into the closet. When facd with serious issues like marriage, employment, housing, and violence they certainly should advocate, and I will join that effort.
But, I really don't care if this church never buries a gay, Armenian, or Eskimo. Nor do I care if they do bury murderers, rapists, and pedophiles. I'm not trying to define their doctrine. That comes along with our acknowledgement that people are free to worship as they choose. I think it might be time for some people to stand up and acknowledge that we really do live in a pluralistic society, and not everyone chooses to follow their lead.
And this "openly homosexual lifestyle" argument is superficial. Everybody openly violates Biblical commands daily. Unless each morning you give the shirt off your back to a homeless person. If so, I'll except you.
Jesus isn't reported to have said a word about homosexuality, but he did say that anyone who divorces and remarried is committing adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced person is committing fornication.
--Or could it be that the church's prejudices are causing it to pick and choose its sins?
I suspect that if they had seen photographs showing him lighting up a cross, engaging in group sex (with females), and there was clear evidence that these weren't in his dim, distant path, they would have responded the same way.
Homosexuality is very clearly a sin to Christianity (along with a number of other sins that the Bible lists--no worse, either). Expecting a church to perform a funeral for someone who continued to revel in his sin to death, and when the funeral is going to be performed at least partly for the benefit of his fellow sinners is comparable to expecting the NAACP to invite the Klan to have a cross-burning at their national headquarters.
A number of churches have also recognized that if non-Christians married and then divorced, that marriage wasn't a Christian marriage, and thus not subject to Jesus' teachings. It smells a little of rationalization to me, but it was not entirely without merit.
Let me emphasize that Jesus did recognize one legitimate basis for divorce: adultery. There are also a fair number of people, like one of our pastors, who didn't have any choice in the matter. The wife just decided, after 20+ years (and after he had made a pile of money in a startup) that she didn't want to be married to him anymore. He didn't have the option of staying married.
Ah, but homosexuality is NOT clearly a sin to CHRIST, who never uttered a word on the subject.
When Enron CEO and convicted criminal and faithful Christian Ken Lay cheated justice with his untimely death, did his church refuse to allow his corpse to cross their threshold? Would any church have done so? What is the "Christian" policy on deceipt, lying, theft, and moral turpitude in general?
I would think that such a person faces the same hard choice that an immutably homosexually oriented person faces: Lifelong celibacy.
Did you actually read the post?
"[Wright] said she provided numerous family pictures of Sinclair, including some with his partner, but said none showed men kissing or hugging."
Clayton wrote, as he misrepresented the text of the story:
In this case, a **principle** of discrimination.
"No Homosexuality" is not one of the 10 Commandments, and yet I suspect that the Church buries Decalogue disgracers all the time. Their Church is probably filled with covetous people and sprinkled with more than a few adulterers, liars and petty thieves--all of whom, I suspect, will be allowed services at the church. I'll even bet that some people wear linen with wool...
(Actually, Rev. Gary Simons may qualify as a liar for claiming that their discrimination is not discrimination. While the church has a right to discriminate he should at least recognize that that is what they are doing. You can call it a principle but so is discriminating against "race-trators" (and no, I'm not causing the Church of being Racist, but being a "race-trator" is an example of an action or belief--as opposed to something people are born with--that southern Churches have advocated against in the past..))
From the Catholic Encyclopedia.
Obviously, this policy can be hurtful to the family of the deceased. But the rationale might be that denying a Christian burial can be the only disincentive that will affect a person who thinks life is not worth living. Further, one can be pretty sure that a suicide victim didn't repent their sin since suicide was their last act. Any other type of sin, including homosexuality, leaves room for repentance.
Not if you are born, raised, baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church. The church is very clear that it is the one true church, and the one true path to salvation, all others are not.
Therefore, as a Catholic, you cannot and presumably will not just go to any old church that will accept you. Catholics, in the eyes of the church's own teachings, simply do not have that option.
What if you can't stop?
I mean, consider the kleptomaniac. He steals. He can't help it. He may feel bad about it. He may wish he could stop. But he has a fundamentally unavoidable impulse to steal. Is it still a sin?
I've heard two different viewpoints on this. On the one hand, to steal is a sin, but if you are repentant and honestly wish not to steal you will be forgiven. So the sin is still a sin, but the sinner is immediately forgiven because he is appropriately distressed by his sin.
On the other hand, it's not a sin at all, because the sinner does not intend to sin. He is merely required to obey the impulses of his diseased and malfunctioning brain, and the lack of intent to sin means there can be no sin.
I think both of these arguments can productively be applied to homosexuality.
Many homosexuals are distressed that they don't feel attraction toward women, and instead are saddled with this burden of homosexuality. The first argument can quite easily be applied to say that while they sin, their guilt and honest repentance causes the sin to be immediately forgiven.
The second argument might be applied to the "born that way" theory: if homosexuals are born homosexual, and their behavior is merely a reflection of an abnormal psychology, they do not sin because they cannot be held responsible for their compulsions.
I think the church could easily find a justification to forgive homosexuality and overlook that component of a parishioner's life, if they chose to do so. If the objection is to the mention of a life partner, or to the display of a photograph, you have a baby and bathwater situation. Perhaps the life partner could be called his closest friend; that's arguably true anyway. Perhaps the picture could be taken down. But to cancel an entire memorial over these things is simply too extreme a reaction.
Since almost all gay people are 'immutably gay" you are very quick to talk about how we should live our lives. How easy it is for you to just declare that we should never have experience the same sexual satisifcation that you have!
But this really bugs me on several levels. Let's accept that God made us gay, since we are 'immutable' as you call it. Then God says, you, alone among other people, must remain celebate.
Why would any sort of God do such a thing? If you believe in a fair and just God, then this is the most unfair and unjust thing that I can imagine. Therefore, God is NOT fair, good, and just, but is an arbitrary tyrant, and certainly not worth worshipping.
The only possible way this could be made fair, if you accept the precepts, is that he made us gay, and if we remain celebate, we will obtain rewards in heaven that exceed those of heterosexuals.
However, there is no mention that gays will receive any special rewards, or have a special place in heaven, if we remain celebate. (And I daresay, it would really grate upon many people if they were told this is so.) So we are back to arrogant arbitrariness again.
So think again before you start saying that gays need to remain celebate. There is no requirement for doing so, and no special rewards for those doing so. If there are, than God is a jerk and not worth two minutes of my time.
No it isn't. All sin involves the matter of choice. You can choose to sin or choose not to.
Sexual desires, however, are not a choice. You might be attracted to blondes, someone else is attracted to brunetts, someone else might find redheads are hot. I know some guys who think Paris Hilton is the hottest thing, and other guys find her not at all attractive.
Is any of this a choice? Of course not. You might as well say that attraction to redheads is a sin. Not only is it silly and that you cannot change who you are attracted to, but an attraction for redheads doesn't harm anyone.
Being gay is no more different that being lefthanded. And there was a time was being lefthanded was sin. (Literally: the word left was is the basis for the word sinister) Two adult men having consensual sex affects and harms no one or entity on the planet, or the universe. The only possible way it could be construed a sin is to say that God makes up stupid arbitary laws that must be obeyed (like 3/4 of the so-called sins in Leviticus that no one follows today).
Frankly, those are more the actions of the devil than any fair, just or good god that I was taught about.
So, just like saying that all lefthanded people must use their right hand or simply refuse to write just to conform to a ridiculous rule is bizarre beyond belief. Likewise with sexuality.
Any evidence that the family intended to 'hijack' the service? Or is this mere speculation on your part? Or should I say, mere homophobia on your part?
Ah, yes. Of course. Those darn homos. Even in death, they can't stop converting everyone else.
More than that, we believe that God (in the person of Jesus) died in agony to reverse the Fall and take on himself the consequences of our wrongs. Again, believe it or not, but it's the mainstream Christian position--not so much that God killed some innocent third party and let us off, but that God took on himself the pain of our sins. If true, and if believed, it's life-changing stuff, though in my experience the life change comes slowly and with bumps.
So lefthanded people were once 'fallen'? And then Jesus died for their sin of using the left hand?
Sorry, but this doesn't pass the laugh test.
" most of us Christians wouldn't say God made us the way we are (insofar as the way we are is bad). We believe in the doctrine of the Fall, meaning that the world and humanity that God created was "very good" (Genesis 2) until humans started doing wrong (Genesis 3)."
I don't intend to make light of your theology, but this still makes no sense whatsoever. So God created us good? But then someone did something wrong, like eat an apple. And then from that point on, every single person is made bad? Again, then is clearly an arbitrary and ridiculous rule. If you truly believe in sin, then we should be accountable only for our own actions, not those of someone's made thousand of years ago. We should be judged individually. If God won't do that, and he judges me based on what an ancestor did, then this is truly ridiculous.
If I were god, I would simply make everyone good. If they do something that actually hurts another being, like kill a person, I would give them a chance to repent. Otherwise, everyone gets to heaven. simple, no?
But a god like that would mean that no earthly church could use power and control over people to discriminate against them, and so we have to invent these stories. And the stories have been very effective in discriminating against women, blacks, gays, the poor and the powerless for at least two thousand years.
It's not me declaring this, but rather reasoning from the perspective of a fundamentalist who thinks both homosexual behavior and divorce contrary to God's will (things in which I personally don't believe).
I argued, to be consistent, one doesn't necessarily have to give an "out" to a person whose spouse left them unilaterally. They would still be married in God's eyes. And the spouse who didn't desire the divorce still need not be permitted to remarry in the eyes of the Church, simply because otherwise the results seem grossly unfair.
Implicitly, I was making a pro-gay point. These churches seem willing to saddle homosexuals with grossly unfair results, they should likewise saddle people who divorce with those same harsh results.
Nothing could be more clear than this. Why can't the church, which claims to follow his teachings actually follow his teachings?
And so you say that we shouldn't show love towards a dead gay man and his family. Why? Because you fear that they will hijack the services! BAsed on nothing more than mere speculation. Why can't you just follow Christ's teachings? It would actually be simpler, you know.
Thank you, Jon. I misread your message.
Notaalawyer: Well, homophobia means fears of gays. If you fear that gays will disrupt a church service, you pretty much meet the definiation.
Don't you see a big difference between a sexual desire, and acting upon it? I guess you do, because you earlier said:
Gee, why would a God who was nailed to a cross ask you to bear your own burdens and suffer alongside him? Yeah, it's really strange that God said "whoever wishes to be my follower must deny his very self, take up his cross each day, and follow in my steps... What profit does he who gains the whole world and lose his soul?"
Why instead couldn't have Jesus said, "if it feels good, do it." What a real theological stumper you've posed! Oh, the wit of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Sir Thomas Moore couldn't solve the query you've posed to denounce God....
Heh. Justice becomes whatever Randy wants to do at the moment. So a God of forgiveness is called evil, and Randy sides with a philosophy that eventually turns into "might makes right." What fools these mortals be.
One of those commands was a very unequivocal command not to lie with a man as a man lies with a woman, and there is no evidence that Jesus disagreed with that. The early Christian leaders were his closest foilowers, and there's no indication that they had a view contrary to the predominant Jewish view at the time, and Paul's letters explicitly reaffirm it with no indication that anyone else at the time disagreed.
Now it's true that Jesus didn't say anything particular about this issue in what we have from him. But that's not surprising in a context where it was already disapproved of by the people he was confronting. Predictably, when the Christian message went out into the greater Greek realm the issue did come up, as evidenced by Paul's reaffirmation of its wrongness. So Jesus' silence on the issue says nothing.
Whatever else is true, though, the Bible does not emphasize this as a sin that's so elevated that it dwarfs all the other ones listed in the same passages (which include greed, gossip, slander, lying, disobedience to parents, and murder). I'd be very surprised to see a church refusing to hold a funeral for the brother of a congregant just because the brother was a murderer. I'd have some harsh words for such a congregation, especially because a funderal (in the Protestant view) is not for the person who died (whose destination is already determined) but for the family.
Examples of what I do not mean:
I doubt that even the most socially conservative church would refuse to hold a funeral for someone because they heard that he had gotten drunk or gambled or whatever once or even many times in the distant past. Would they even do for a single recent lapse, if it was not part of a pattern? Suppose a parishioner goes to Las Vegas, starts gambling for the first time in his life, and has a fatal heart attack when he wins a large sum of money: even that would not count as habitual, and I would think it rather cheap to refuse a funeral in such a case.
Examples of what I do mean:
Suppose the pastor of a teetotalling church is asked to do the funeral for a liquor-store owner, a professional wine-taster, or the editor of Modern Drunkard magazine. How about the pastor of an anti-gambling church asked to do the funeral for someone who made his living as a professional gambler or bookie? A mullah who teaches that charging interest is a sin asked to do the funeral for a loan shark or the loan officer at a bank? The pastor of an anti-smoking church asked to provide a funeral for a Big Tobacco lobbyist? A rabbi or mullah asked to provide a funeral for the author of 101 Favorite Pork BBQ Recipes, Personally Tested by the Author. Would anyone here really be surprised or offended if they all refused?
*The evidenc that Jesus approved of drinking alcohol is far stronger than the evidence that he approved of homosexual acts. He drank wine himself and even turned water into wine to facilitate the drinking of others.
I don't think these categories are mutually exclusive in the way Rev. Simons seems to think they are.
Anyone who is remotely familiar with Christianity will know how ridiculous and wrong Randy is, so I don't know if he expects that peddling this nonsense will gain him credibility or if he's just hoping to delude people who don't know any better. Gee, how could it be that Jesus didn't preach any commandments when he said "if your hand or your foot is your undoing, cut it off and throw it from you. Better to enter life maimed or crippled than be thrown with two hands or two feet into endless fire. If your eye is your undoing, better to gouge it out and cast it from you! Better to enter life with one eye than be thrown with both into fiery Hell."
Then there's Matthew 19:17-19, Mstthew 22:37-40, and its parallel doctrines in Mark, Luke, and John, where he basically re-states the 10 commandments and says in summary that the Greatest and First Commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and the Second is to love your neighbor as yourself, and that on these the whole law is based. (Hint: if you're supposed to love God, you're not supposed to break his laws).
Theology isn't necessarily logical and it would have been possible to give humans free will without making the options so disparate: eternal bliss or eternal torment. The argument from "free will" does not successfully counter the argument from evil.
If you are going to quote scripture and theology then I'd like to ask you about an analogy. Let's say I have a baby who is just crawling. I tell her, don't eat that apple sauce I've placed temptingly in the middle of the room. I leave and come back to find her sister helping her eat the apple sauce. Naturally, I then curse the baby for not knowing better, throw her out of my house, then wait till her children grow up, punish them, then punish her children's children and arrange for her decedents to be punished for all of eternity.
Why would that not be reasonable? After all, the baby had free will and I warned her! Oh, some would say that I, as the grown, up shouldn't have put the apple sauce in the room if I didn't want her to eat it and that she's a baby and doesn't know better. I respond that I had to give her free will! She disobeyed me and now must suffer the consequences.
Clearly my analogy is ridiculous, but only because the concept of original sin is as well, IMO. Adam and Eve were kept deliberately in ignorance of good and evil. Eve was incapable of recognizing the snake's true nature nor of realizing the possible consequences of her actions. What god would punish an innocent for being tempted by an evil that he allowed into the Garden of Eden and call it free will? And what all loving God would punish the children for the sins of the father and down the line for eternity?
I don't know, why would a God punish the decedents of and Eve for the sins of their parents for thousands of years but only forgive them by arranging to have himself nailed to across, given that he could have forgiven them at any time (even if he had no **reasonable** justification for punishing the decedents all along...in this case he is forgiving them for, well, nothing because they haven't **done** anything they are literally being punished for being born.)
Bottom line: if the church in question doesn't cavil at burying remarried divorcees (to say nothing of the other sorts of sinner mentioned in others' comments above), but does refuse to bury a gay person ... then they're bigots. Period. End of debate.
You certainly can choose whether or not to engage in homosexual conduct. If I give you $1,000,000 on any particular day to abstain from doing what you do for 24 hours, I would venture to say that you would feel differently about what is a choice. And Catholic Priests choose to abstain from sex for a lifetime, do you think that they are all naturally sexless?
I agree that many or most homosexuals do not choose their desires. Similarly, some people may have a genetic propensity for pedophilia, rape or murder and have no choice with respect to these desires (though like homosexuals they have the choice as to whether to act on it). Even if there is no genetic propensity to, say, murder, many murderers would say that when they committed their crime, they just felt the urge to do it and couldn't stop themselves.
You can of course distinguish homosexuality from murder, rape and pedophilia by saying that the former does not hurt anyone and therefore should not be a sin. That clearly would be a logical argument, even if not an argument that everyone would agree with. But I don't see any distinction that has to do with "choice" here.
Your irony knows no bounds. It is really more comparable to a white southern church having a funeral for a black person, of course you might argue that people don't choose their race...hey, I think there might be a comparison here... :-p
Depends upon whether the person considered his or her lying, blaspheming or adultery to be sins for which he or she later repented, for which he or she conceded they needed forgiveness. Such a person calls 'sin', what God calls 'sin'. The Church is obligated to forgive such a one and to treat the sinner (and we are all sinners) as a forgiven child of God, as John writes (1 John 1:9), "If we confess our sins, he [God] is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
On the other hand, the homosexual, although a member of a Church that acknowledges that the Bible calls his relations an abomination -- Leviticus 18:22, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination[]" -- considers his or her relationship as a God-pleasing one, then he or she is specifically contradicting the Church's understanding of God's word. He or she is calling 'godliness', what the Church believes and confesses that God calls 'sin'. To bury a known, unrepentant homosexual would be like burying a known, unrepentant adulterer. It would be like burying a man who openly cheats on his wife, a faithful member of the congregation. I could not and would not bury such a person unless, at the end of life, he had acknowledged his sin as sin and asked forgiveness of both his wife and his God.
Every Church member is a sinner whom we bury. Burying a repentant sinner who has died is what we do and burying a repentant sinner does not grant approval to his or her sin because the person, in life, confessed his or her sin as sin. However, burying an unrepentant homosexual does grant approval of his or her behavior. It tacitly proclaims that that Church is openly hypocritical, teaching that homosexuality is sin but granting the Church's approval to one who openly and, unrepentant, opposes God's own opinion of his or her behavior.
This man was not even a member of the church.
They were extending a courtesy to an employee who seems not to have a church. I expect that they turn a blind eye when burying members, but he wasn't. Holding a service for a member who is a sinner is a different order of magnitude of tolerance from holding a service for a non member who is a sinner. It certainly looks more like an endorsement of the sin when it's a non member.
Had he no church? Had his family no church? If they don't belong to a church, why would they want the service to be in one?
Those of us who do not find homosexuality wrong have no more right to impose that view on a church than a church has to impose their views on us.
The funny thing about homosexuality not the - we'll call it a "condition" - itself, but rather what it becomes associated with. Statistically, it is associated with much higher levels of drug abuse, insanity, partner abuse, self abuse, and general asocial behavior (seeking unsafe sex, multiple anonymous partners, etc).
The conventional wisdom is that all that destructive behavior is societally induced, because homosexuals are not not accepted. They then act out, engaging in risky behavior.
So, on a less fundemental level, I can then be excused for any antisocial behavior I engage due society's lack of acceptance of my "condition". Such as being a cranky middle aged white man, something my wife tells me I can't seem to control.
Whew, I feel so free now!
The Bible calls a lot of things an "abomination." The Bible says that handicapped and sick people are not allowed in church be cause they profane his sanctuaries. (Lev.21:17-23) And the Bible also says you must never wear linen and wool garments together (Deuteronomy 22:11) and that priests must wear only linen (Ezekiel 44:15-18).
Does the Megachurch allow sick and handicapped people in? Do they require linen and wool wearers to repent? Do the priests all wear linen exclusively?
The Church picks and chooses is prejudices. The Bible is like a "Magic 8 Ball," if you shake it enough times it will give you the answer you want.
It's the choice of the individual Catholic to do as he pleases. He is free to go to whatever church will have him regardless of his upbringing and regardless of the Catholic Church's tachings. This is entirely his choice. We see examples of this happening every day as people baptised and brought up as Catholics join other churches.
"In Adam's fall,
We sinned all."
A basic familiarity with the world would seem to confirm the conclusion if not the actual cause.
The question is, then, not whether we are sinners, but whether we are making a good faith effort, sometimes called "Struggling" against sin, particularly that sin which seems to afflict us particularly.
A kleptomaniac can't be judged for being a kleptomaniac. But he would be expected to avoid the occasions of sin--the Catholic Act of Contrition refers to that, and I understand Judaism refers to putting "a fence around the the law" which means not only don't eat the fruit, but don't approach the tree.
A klepto would be expected to get through life by, for example, asking friends or relatives to shop for him. To never go shopping without a clued-in companion.
Failing while trying is judged far less harshly than failing to try.
If the article is correct in that the pictures in question show contemporary behavior, then there is little evidence of trying.
I attended a church a couple of times whose membership pitch was we'd love to have you attend, take advantage of our ministries. But if you feel you're living in sin [not being the sinnner by the doctrine of original sin], we'd prefer you hold off applying.
Their membership growth is practically unsustainable.
This is a very important question in Christianity and I would suggest the issue is not the proclivity but the acts, and not the acts but the struggle.
The decedent didn't show any struggle.
I don't know. But to single out one small part of the population for extra burdens for no reason at all seems rather arbitrary and capricious.
Jesus said lots of things, but he was only asked about what his commandments were. He said very clearly he had none. He was quite familiar with the Ten Commandments no doubt. What he said otherwise may be teachings, they may be sayings, they may be parables, but commandments? No.
And so far, no a single person has given me an good reason why left handed people were considered sinners for centuries. Until the 1960s, nuns would beat students who tried.
I guess, sure, it's a choice for those lefties to use their left hand -- they could, with difficulty, use their right hand. But today, saner people have prevailed, and we now know that being left handed is not 'sinister', and using your left hand is not something you have to repent for.
"He is free to go to whatever church will have him regardless of his upbringing and regardless of the Catholic Church's tachings. "
I have a friend who, in the 1970s, wanted to attend the marriage of another friend, which would have been in a protestant church. He was told by his priest that even setting foot in another church is a sin. He went anyway.
Liam: If you really believe that gays people are drug addicted, insane, anti-social and so on, then you really have a problem with gays. Inner city blacks have much higher rates of depression, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity than the rest of the population. Guess you hate blacks, too.
But of course you don't. What you do is you find some reason to hate gays, and then once you hate gays, you can feel good about discriminating against them. That's your problem, of course, and not much can be done about it.
Oh, and by the way, the WHO has determined that 90% of all AIDS cases wordwide are heteros. So what's wrong with you people that you engage in such a destructive lifestyle?
Seriously though, I've seen the whole "sinner vs. sin" and "proclivity vs. acts" debate played out in countless threads. I find it very hard to believe that someone as smart as Randy R seems to be doesn't get it by now.
Try telling any teenager that he or she has a choice and can refrain from sex for the entirety of their lives. In fact, try telling any person that they must remain celibate every single moment of their lives.
Since even many priests can't do it, how do you expect any normal human being to do so? And yet, that's what you expect of gay people.
and for what reason? If God didn't want us to have sex, he would not have given us all the tools necessary for it, along with the hormones and the desires.
And I'll repeat it once more -- this prohibition against gay sex is ridiculous, stupid and silly. Any god who makes up stupid rules, just for the sake of rule-making, is an arbitrary and capricious god. He is by very definiation a Bad Manager.
If YOU don't want to engage in gay sex, that's fine with me. If you want to, fine with me again. I ask only that you give me the same respect.
While I understand that is a general principle of Christianity, I find such a tenant to be so completely arbitrary, capricious and unfair as to make the Abrahamic God seem rather unreasonable.
God really should have baby-proofed the Garden of Eden since Adam and Eve were complete innocents and lacked knowledge of good and evil. In a lawsuit I think God would be found 100% responsible for the "fall" given that it was completely foreseeable by a reasonable man, let alone an omniscient deity. Placing the Tree of Knowledge with in the Garden of Eden was completely unnecessary and constituted an attractive nuisance if not an outright danger. Further, allowing evil like the snake into the garden is like allowing wolves into a sheep pen. God had complete control and was negligent by allowing it to happen. Good thing for God that he's judgment-proof.
Not that God allows genocide, rape, disease, etc., but rather that God demands celibacy of homosexuals (and does not promise any special rewards) is the most unjust thing that you can imagine? Talk about petty human arrogance. Then again, such a limited imagination does make it that much easier for humans to make this a just world--and modern critics of religion seem to have an unlimited faith and hope that humans should and can make this a just world (as they arbitrarily define 'just').
Ah! A true beleiver!
Never said that I hated gays. Where did you read that? What I stated, indirectly, is that they gay lifestyle - which is not part and parcel of being homosexual - is a problem.
Being homosexual is condition which affects to less than 10% of the population. It is therefore not a "normal" condition of being human, statisticaly no more than a bump in the curve.
However, being gay is a choice people make. They choose to live a lifestyle (much like straight people who swing, engage in risky B&D behaviors, etc)which is either driven by, or creates other co-enabled destructive behaviors as enumerated in my prior post.
Blacks in our society are not universally poor/drug addicted. They can and do find ways out of the issues you enumerated. Homosexuals are not, oddly enough, nearly as disadvantaged as blacks are in this country. Gays however wish to be perceived as oppressed as blacks are/were. I loved Andrew Sullivan's hyperbolic imagery of Rosa Parks when lambasting those against gay marriage. Really.
I don't have to agree with someone's lifestyle if that lifestyle is non-destructive and doesn't scare the horses. Churches are arbiters of morality, and can make these judgements. The church in question, I noted in the AP article, went well past what someone who hated gays would have done. From the AP article:
"He said the church offered to pay for another site for the service, made the video and provided food for more than 100 relatives and friends."
That strikes me as a group trying to show compassion for someone. The issue here is that the church did not say he shouldn't be buried as a Christian, just not by their church. The odd thing about accepting someone's lifestyle is that if you accept the person but not their choices, you're construed as a "hater".
If people are going to use a book to prove the reasonableness of their actions then there is no reason that I shouldn't examine their proffered justifications and point out inconsistencies, irrationality, hypocrisies, prejudices and outright falsehoods where they occur. This is no different than I would behave in the forums about constitutional topics and I see no reason why religion should not be put to the same scrutiny that we apply to legal discussions. Religious tenants affect people's behavior, so it behooves us to critically examine religion especially when religion advocates actions that are not justifiable for any secular reason.
As to tolerance, well that's an ironic concept to bring up in this thread when the intolerance at issue is that of High Point Church. To try and suggest that a critical examination of their intolerance is "intolerant" is irony of the highest order.
Well, I guess that demonstrates that Catholics are free to go to whatever church will have them.
Randy R: "I don't know. But to single out one small part of the population for extra burdens for no reason at all seems rather arbitrary and capricious."
Of course it's arbitrary and capricious. So what? That's what freedom of religion is all about.
I've seen these stats you refer to and much of them are bunk. One thing I'd like to know: Many of these same right wing groups that posit this also turn around and argue that gays don't need antidiscrimination protection because they are better educated and have higher incomes. Honestly, I'm not sure of the veracity of those or quite frankly any social science on gays, which by the very nature of the phenomenon, will be quite contentious.
Though my anecdotal observations lead me to believe that gays, as a group, are not impoverished in the sense that blacks and hispanics are (in the sense that they are statistically underrepresented in wealth, education, income, and employment).
One thing I'd like to ask these anti-gay/social conservatives who push these stats is how is it that such a dysfunctional group like gays manage to be (or seem to be) so functional in our dog-eat-dog capitialist society where they, like Jews, make more money, become better educated, buy houses in nicer neighborhoods, all the while being subject to unpopular opinions.
I've seen some social science that shows when you compare true apples to apples, a gay man in an identical position is more likely to be discriminated against. But that's only when things like educational and credentials are controlled for (as they should be when you compare apples to apples). If gays, as a group, tend to be better educated, they would be a better crop of apples, even if such better apples are more likely to be discriminated against.
I was talking to a gay investment banker the other day about Fire Island, NY, which place, few people outside of NY realize, is mostly straight. He told me 2 out of their 12 beaches are gay. And he told me something that illustrates this phenomenon: He said real estate prices are much higher in the straight neighorhoods at Fire Island, suggesting discrimination. Still, Fire Island itself is one of the most expensive places of real estate in the nation (few ordinary people can afford to buy real estate in the cheaper gay beaches which still average probably in the millions). I also understand the Hamptons have a few gay beaches.
A typical gay person, for reasons yet unknown, seems much more likely to find himself living in an expensive neighborhood like Fire Island, NY, Dupont Circle, DC, New Hope, PA, San Francisco, Ca, etc. etc. than a typical straight person is likely to find himself living in Chevy Chase, Maryland, Princeton, NJ, etc. etc.
I'm on a confidential listserv with a number of prominent intellectuals where I asked whether my examples of real estate could be anecdotes that are exceptions to the rule. We tried to think of places gays tend to disproportionately congregate that were either poor, or modest. The only place that was found was Ft. Lauderdale, FLA, not exactly a cheap area, but more modest that Miami Beach, Provincetown, or Fire Island. And if you've seen some of the nasty things the mayor of Ft. Lauderdale has been saying about gays recently, I doubt it will be a gay hotspot much longer.
But back to the main point: if gays truly were dysfunctional as Liam Colvin seems to suggest, you'd expect their neighborhoods to look something like Newark, NJ and be dirt cheap places to live, the exact opposite of which is the case.
See also, Deuteronomy 14:9--10.
An earlier commenter mentioned lifelong celibacy as the only acceptable option for those who feel attracted to those of the same sex. If lifelong celibacy were a realistic option, at least one church (which in the global sense is the mega-est of megachurches) would not be facing humongous tort judgments.
Church says "no" to a non-member after it finds out non-member is contrary to church's doctrine.
We are talking about religion, not state laws.
Perseus: "Not that God allows genocide, rape, disease, etc., but rather that God demands celibacy of homosexuals (and does not promise any special rewards) is the most unjust thing that you can imagine?"
You are confusing two different issues. God does not allow genocide or rape, since those are called sins. And with good reason. I have no problem with that. Disease? God never promised that we would BE happy, but rather that we have the means to obtain happiness, even in the midst of disease. And in fact, Jesus cured the sick, right?. But today we know that disease is not something that God brings down upon us -- that's just superstitution. We know that disease is caused by germs, and if you eliminate the germs you eliminate the disease. Smallpox is officially eradicated from the planet -- does that mean we went contra God's will? Of course not.
But surely, if God picked out you and you alone, and said that you have to be celibate "just because I say so" and that if you fulfull his wishes, you get absolutely nothing in return. Worse, everyone else can have sex, and they will be loved and treated no worse than you are by God, you would find that pretty darn unfair.
And that's okay, if you want to believe that. But then don't try to tell me that God is fair and just and good and all that.
Wow, think of all the other things that are not normal by that standard! Better start discriminating against left handed people (8-15%) and their choice not to use their right hands. (Its not the left-handedness I object to, its the left- handed lifestyle.
Yeah, that compassion ranks right up there with building special water fountains for black people.
What's funnier is that the anti-gay crowd likes to say that gays are only a tiny, tiny minority of the people, so laws protecting are nonsense, yet we are so many, and have so much power, that we were able to singlehandedly get the APA and AMA to remove homosexuality from its lists of mental disease, we have the entire Democratic party under our control, along with all the educational systems from K to grad schools, and we control the entire media and entertainment industries -- all this while being drug -addicted, and insane!
That wouldn't make any sense. The Old Testament dietary restrictions were rescinded in the New Testament.
"There is nothing unclean of itself. -- Romans 14:2"
"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils ... commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. -- 1 Timothy 4:1-3"
Otherwise, Christians couldn't eat ham.
However, I'm sure there are plenty of interesting things the church has to say.
I'm of the mind that the gay/black analogy isn't the best. Gays are a much closer analogy to Jews. If you listen to the arguments anti-gay forces use, they strikingly parallel arguments anti-Semites use agaisnt Jews.
I though only the Jews had that kind of power? I'd hate to see homosexuals and Jews locked in a all out fight for pre-eminence in the secret body which stealthily battles for world domination. Oh, wait, that's just Cheney. Never mind...
No it isn't, any more than being lefthanded is a choice.
" They choose to live a lifestyle (much like straight people who swing, engage in risky B&D behaviors, etc)which is either driven by, or creates other co-enabled destructive behaviors as enumerated in my prior post. "
Well, yes, some gays engage in destructive behaviors. Some don't. Some straight people engage in destructive behaviors. Some don't. It all depends upon the PERSON, not their sexual orientation. And if you were truly a religious person, then your compassion would be to help those who are truly drug addicted or insane, and not stand by and laugh at them.
"Blacks in our society are not universally poor/drug addicted." Neither are gays. And I didn't say blacks, I said blacks who live in the inner city are affected by all those diseases. And not all of them, but merely at a higher rate than everyone else.
"I don't have to agree with someone's lifestyle if that lifestyle is non-destructive and doesn't scare the horses."
Horses aren't scared by gay men. Would that you had the emotional maturity of a horse! Of course you don't have to agree with my lifestyle. My lifestyle is pretty much that I go to work daily, I participate in numerous professional societies, I fed my cat, pay my taxes on time, and try not to be too deeply indebt. I also go to the art museums, teach piano, and go to the theater a lot. Perhaps you don't approve of any of this, but you don't have to. I don't have to approve or your lifestyle either, but I'm pretty sure neither I nor the horses would be scared of you.
" Churches are arbiters of morality, and can make these judgements." As David Chapman says, this is about approval. Yes, the church can make such pronouncements, and such pronouncements are ridiculous, especially since so many of its priests are in fact gay, so they can now add the hat of hypocracy to their teachings.
But the sad fact is that many people still follow the church in it's teachings, and so we have the teenagers who are thrown out of their homes because the church tells the parents that gays are immoral and sinful.
For me, I don't personally care what the church teaches, but the Catholic church has been at the forefront of opposing any sort of gay rights measures. They were always in favor of sodomy laws, for instance. And since they are trying to push their views upon ALL of us in a secular society, they deserve scrutiny and condemnation.
You, of course, would do the same if in my position, I assume.
Burying a fallen gay soldier is the moral equivalent of "expecting the NAACP to invite the Klan to have a cross-burning at their national headquarters."
</blockquote>
Wow. Clayton Cramer manages to minimize the evil of the KKK and compare a committed, monogamous gay relationship to a cross burning in the same sentence. What a piece of work.
His comment shows one reason why the once-strong anti-gay majority is disappearing.
The church clearly has the legal right to deny burial to a veteran, but we can still condemn the pastor as a bigot.
Whatever happened to hate the sin but love the sinner?
God will throw the sinner into outer darkness, not the sin.
Actually, some churches do actively discuss "prohibition" and lobby for anti sodomy laws or enforcement of the ones on the books in southern states. Trying to frame the issue as one of mere "disapproval" is inaccurate and disingenuous.
Curiously, the anti-homosexual church crowd likes to concentrate on the evil specter of Gay Men, it being so much fun with the bible's exhortation "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." and with condemnation's of anal sex that they tend to forget that Lesbians are not likewise sentenced to death in the bible nor are they known for anal sex.
Although Rom.1:26-27 alludes to Lesbians:
It is notable that Paul refers to the "natural use of women" to be objects of sexual pleasure for men. Note also that this lesbianism was actually **caused by God**.
Ironically among straights, gays and lesbians there is only one group of couples who can't commit sodomy with their sexual organs--Lesbians. In fact, since straights out number gays by such a large percentage, it is probably safe to say that the majority of all sodomy is committed by straight couples. So, if the church is really against sodomy they should kick out all of those straight people, especially the straight men, with their potentially sodomizing genitals and recruit sodomite free lesbians.
Get what? That I am supposed to accept that I am a sinner merely because I'm gay? And that I should stop right now and throw out all my Judy Garland recordings, because those are part of the sinful gay lifestyle? And for what reason? Just because you don't like the fact I am gay?
"Yes, the secular society in general is truly victimized when a church refuses to perform a religious burial ceremony for its own reasons."\
Um, David? As I argued above, the church takes an active role in advocating against gay rights, or even the teaching that gays exist in our society and can lead perfectly norman lives (See the Montgomery County fight over the Sex-ed curriculum).
Secular society is harmed when a church asks society to discriminate against a minority for no reason.
And for those gay people who truly believe in the teachings of the church, they have this to deal with: "God will throw the sinner into outer darkness, not the sin"
Lively: "I don't see what the big deal is. Church says "no" to a non-member after it finds out non-member is contrary to church's doctrine."
Yup. But they had no problem with accepting his services as an employee for years. And isn't this the funny thing: He was perfectly acceptable in the eyes of the church UNTIL they found out he was gay, even though he was gay all along.
AND the best part is that lesbians have the lowest incidence of AIDS of ANY groups in America. And they often take in homeless cats!
Truly, lesbians are God's real chosen people.
That really sums it up, doesn't it. QED.
His brother was a janitor at the church. The dead man was not the employee.
"And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Matthew 25:30
I stand corrected on that point.
Again, my name is not David. What's the deal?
How does that sort of thing get decided? I mean, either God's Law is constant and unchanging, or it isn't.
That being said, I don't have any trouble with a chuch excluding people from its membership. If you want to talk about a choice, it seems to me that religious affiliation and church membership is far more malleable than sexual identity. If a particular religion or church condemns you as a Hell-bound sinner and wants nothing to do with you, why torment yourself when there are lots of other religions and churches that would greet you with open arms and make you welcome?
My only problem in this case is that the church cancelled out at the last minute. Never mind theology; it's plain rude. Inexcusably rude when dealing with a grieving family.
See my earlier post.
The dietary laws are one of the few things that are fairly clearly rescinded by the New Testament. The rest is much more debatable and there is no clear guidance that all Christians can agree on. Some churches enforce lots and lots of old testament exhortations others drop the Old Testament entirely. This is an old and continuing problem for Christianity and leads to what I think of as the "Magic 8 Ball" bible--just shake it until you get the answer you want.
As to God's law being unchanging, if that were true there wouldn't have been a fall from grace, a flood, a new covenant with Moses or a New Testament. Oh, and the **two** versions of the ten commandments would match.
I guess you are right. I don't honestly believe that my sexual orientation or behavior is putting my eternal soul at risk. And not everyone else does either, although many do.
But my question is this: WHY should my sexual behavior put me at risk? Just because God says so? There is no problem is examining the underlying arguments. It IS possible that these honest believers are in fact wrong, just there were honest believers who once though that lefthandedness put their eternal souls at risk. At one time, eating meat was a sin, too, but even the church has backed off on that one.
Seems to me that the sole basis of your belief is because of a few lines in the Bible. But there are many lines in the Bible that have declared eating pork and shellfish to be sinful.
And yet here is the difference: I don't see parents throwing their kids out of the house because they eat pork. I don't see any religious groups trying to pass laws against eating pork. When the Bible and your beliefs are used to bash me, make up lies about me (see that stuff about being drug addicted and insane), and prevent me from marrying a man I love, then, yes, I will examine the basis for such beliefs. And I will call them hypocritical and nonsensical unless and until you can give me something other than, well 'that's my honest belief." I can honestly believe in the flying spaghetti monster, believe that he wants all blue-eyed people flayed alive, and believe that your name is David, but that' doesn't make it right, moral, or just.
"my name is not David. What's the deal?" Opps! Sorry -- just typing faster than I should.
I don't know. Are people born professional gamblers and drunkards? Granted, the "you are born that way" has its limits since some people are born sociopaths, but should people be punished for being attracted to other races? Southern churches used to think so...
I wonder who would be arguing what if we were talking about Quakers who refused to bury a veteran (not a likely scenario for the Quakers. Maybe some more strictly pacifist group.)
While I generally support your positions I don't think this is a strong example. There probably are Orthodox families who would through out kids for being consistent pork eaters or bringing it in to a strictly Kosher household.
Nobody has to believe you until you put it in book form...a nice binding and thin paper wouldn't hurt. Be sure to leave some passages vague and contradictory...
You mean at the Quaker Mega Church?
It does seem unlikely. But I think you are right in one sense, the level of controversy and outrage depends on the reason for the discrimination and the perceived reasonableness.
Are the advoates of gay marriage calling on all churches in the nation to marry same sex couples? Is the ultimate goal of the gay marriage movement to have same sex marriages in all churches?
Do gay marriage advocates condemn churches that choose not to officiate at gay marriage in the same manner they condemn churches that choose not to officiate at gay burials?
Who cares whether people are "born" drinkers or gamblers, or gay, for that matter. The question is whether a church that forbids something that most of us find unexceptionable should be allowed to apply that ban when it comes to providing funeral services for people who aren't even members. Yes or no?
Also, please note that some of the examples I gave in my first comment are not so easily dismissed as drinking and gambling. Some sects -- including most Hindus -- preach strict vegetarianism. I would find giving up all forms of meat forever just about as difficult as 'switching teams' sexually, and I've never had much in the way of bisexual tendencies. I consider that I was born a carnivore and will die a carnivore: I simply can't help my urge to eat meat. Would my loved ones be entitled to complain if a Hindu temple refused to hold a funeral service for me on the grounds that I'm a life-long, avid, and unashamed carnivore? I think that would be absurd. Don't you? If not, why not?
And please try not to drag the discussion off the rails again into why you consider Christianity absurd. It has precisely nothing to do with the original topic.
I have watched you go around and around on this so many times, switching from one argument to another as each one gets shot down, only to come back to it again and again, that I conclude that you actually see yourself as a propogandist rather than a debater. Your purpose here is not to contribute to the debate but to sabotage it by taking it around in endless circles.
Whether he was a member or not is irrelevant. They WERE going to bury him and provide full services. It was when they found out he was gay that they decided not to.
"Would my loved ones be entitled to complain if a Hindu temple refused to hold a funeral service for me on the grounds that I'm a life-long, avid, and unashamed carnivore?"
Well, everyone is entitled to complain! But first, we would have to know if Hindu's believe you will be burning in hell for eating meat. That I don't know, but I suspect they don't believe that. Rather, it has more to do with your karma and wanting to move up the ladder for reincarnation. You move up faster if you are a vegan. AT least that's my impression, and I might be wrong. But Hindus don't say to people that you must be a Hindo and believe all tenets or you burn in hell. Christian religions are very different in that respect. Furthermore, we don't have Hindus saying that carnivores are drug addicts and insane and suffer from depression more because of their meat-eating lifestyle. In other words, they don't demonize people who might have a difference of opinion on matters. Christian religions, however, love to demonize other religions and other matters of conscience.
"re the advoates of gay marriage calling on all churches in the nation to marry same sex couples? Is the ultimate goal of the gay marriage movement to have same sex marriages in all churches?"
Well, it certainly is MY goal! I don't see why any church wouldn't marry two gay men. But that's a whole 'nother thread. However, all other gay activists and organizations have specifically stated that marriage should be a matter for the churches to decide, not the state, and that if church is against it, there should be no problems adhering to that.
Would refusing to bury divorcees the same as not granting an annulment? I think not. Kicking a dead human being out of your church on the grounds they are gay is not the same thing as having to marry men.
Well certainly if you were planing on catering the event with Bacon Cheese Burgers. Are vegetarians a class of people who are regularly discriminated against by religious bigots? Are meat eaters? I would say, generally, no. I don't find the analog to be sufficient.
Actually it has everything to do with the topic. And, I might point out, it was believers who trotted out scripture first. Should I tie my typing fingers behind my back on the presumption that religious claims must be universally accepted upon assertion? That would be ridiculous.
Now, back to religious analysis. To claim that the potential absurdities in religious text and tenants have nothing with the absurd outcomes of religious institutions is patently false. The whole reason we are arguing here is that a religious organization says that homosexuality is a sin--as supported by their religious tenants which are reasonable and righteous and on which basis they bounced a dead man's funeral out of their sacred halls on 24 hours notice for the sole reason that he is gay. This is **fundamentally** an issue of religious doctrine and the degree to which this doctrine is reasonable. We cannot debate this issue without debating the reasonableness of their actions an the tenants upon which it is based.
One way to prove un-reasonableness is to prove inconsistency. By examining whether the institution consistently applies the tenants the organization claims to hold dear we can examine the degree to which they are being ingenuous. If, for example, they justify the condemnation of gays based on Leviticus:
but does not call for the death of disobedient children and drunkards:
we can ask why this is. It calls to question whether it is the Bible they are faithfully following or if they are justifying a prejudices by picking and choosing convenient passages that conform to their preconceptions.
If, as you claim, this logical analysis may make some aspects of Christianity seem absurd, then that is a situation believers have to reconcile and justify. I've yet to see anyone in this thread successfully answer the inconsistencies I have posited, nor have you even attempted to do so.
Oh please.
But let's take you at your word. Can you separate the fact that you are heterosexual and that you engage in hetersexual behavior? No you can't. Or, at least the only you can is to say that you can be straight but be celibate for your entire life.
By saying that I can "be" gay, but I can't engage in gay sex is ridiculous. My only option is to be celibate. I'm not going to have sex with a woman because I have no desire to. And if I did, it would certainly not be because I'm in love with her, and it would be outside of marriage, and so would be a sin.
Your problem, Doc, that people like you consistenly refuse to see, is that sexual orientation is something that is not chosen, it just arises within the person. My only outlet for sexual activity is with myself or with another man. Those are my options. Your only options, if you are straight, are with yourself, or with another woman.
"No one is claiming that their own subjective preferences constitute an objective moral principle."
Really? Then I'm mistaken. I guess it is mere coincidence that people who hate gays also claim to have religion on their side. But please tell me what the objective moral principle is. Because whatever it is, I can easily quote plenty of other people who will disagree with the moral principle.
As for sinning behaviors, can you be more explicit? I need to know, for my own salvation. Is it that a man and a woman can give and receive oral sex, but two men cannot? Is it that a man and a woman can engage in anal sex, but two men cannot? From an "objective moral standpoint," please expalin the difference.
Lesbians, then, are off the hook, since their they can't engage in blowjobs or anal sex at all, right? So lesbian, no matter how sexually active, can be a sinner, right?
If these are God's rules, then why would God make intersexed people? it makes no sense, even according to his own rules.
Your argument can also be applied to lefties. It isn't being a lefthanded person that is sinful, it's his behavior! So stop using your left hand, and you are okay. Fortunatly, though, modern psychology has shown that lefties do much better in school if able to use their left hand. And yes, it WAS a sin, and their eternal soul was at risk. Today it isn't. Why the change? If God's rules can't be changed, then why did WE change them?
Why? Because we learned a little bit more about human beings than what they knew two thousand years ago, that's why. Same for sexual orientation.
Oh, I forgot to ask, is kissing men okay, or does that cross the line. I need to know!
While I don't know him personally, I've consistently found Randy R. to be patient, smart, honest, and much more good-natured than I would be were I in his shoes dealing with the anti-gay stuff one unfortunately routinely encounters on this site.
And for the record, as others have said, nobody wants to force this church to bury anyone. Rather, the point is to show that their belief in this regard -- however sincerely held -- is bigoted, or at least mean-spirited. The fact that bigoted, meanspirited acts and beliefs can be attributed to "religious" doctrine, as opposed to other types of political/moral thought, does not earn it a free pass from criticism.
No it isn't. Judy is very important to me, for various reasons. Sex with other men is very important to me, for various reasons.
For many straigtht men, football is the very fiber of their being. I'm not being funny about this, but actually deadly serious. Who are you to judge what is important to an overall person. Being gay is a part of who I am , but isn't my whole being, but it informs everything I do. It weaves in and out. Just like you, being straight means a lot of things to you, and it might be similar to other straight men, and not to others.
I cannot compartmentalize myself -- I am a whole being. What you are asking me to do is just that, and that is the very definition of mental illness. Ask any therapist. I cannot separate being gay and sexual behavior anymore than you can.
Point 2: Due to the privileged place that anything associated with "faith" holds in our society, trying to change a person's mind on a faith-based matter is even harder.
3. Freedom of association is a treasured value in this country.
4. That said, the church was shockingly rude to revoke its offer to its employee to allow him to bury his brother. I would have hoped that the values of charity and love would have outweighed the self-righteousness of denying the imprimatur of approval to the conduct of an unrepentant sinner.
Rather it was about the attempted gang rape of strangers, a brutal form of inhospitality.
That said, if this story really is how the Bible/Christians ought to think about homosexuals, then that's really sad for Christians, that they ought to think of homosexuals as human beings so depraved that they'd gang rape strangers at the drop of a dime. And that God, in his wrath, destroyed cities where just about everyone except Lot and his small family were homosexuals (you have to wonder how the cities populated themselves if everyone there were gay). Even were the story true -- which I don't believe -- human nature suggests that the overwhelming majority of the population there were heterosexuals (like it is everywhere in human nature) and that, like in prisons, these were heterosexual men willing to use homosexual rape as a weapon of violence.
But then again, if we are dealing with people who really believe that humans lived hundred almost thousand year lifespans, we probably aren't dealing with people who take science -- be it social, geographic, biological, or physical -- very seriously.
That leaves two possibilities. One is that he didn't think so, in which case he was ineligible under the church's doctrine. If he didn't think he was a sinner, why on earth would somebody want him buried with services by a church which did think him a sinner?
If he did think so, then he could be buried in his own church which, we presume, did not think it was inappropriate.
The Highpoint church offered to do a great deal for him and there are many churches (UCC) who would have had no objection.
What's the problem?
If he didn't have a church, he obviously didn't think a church was necessary or a good idea.
This was for his family, and the church's offer to do more than most churches would seems reasonable.
I need to address this because I see you use frequently.
Speaking for myself, I do not hate gays. I do not approve your lifestyle but I do not hate you nor anyone else.
I'm sure if I went down the line of posters here tonight, there could possibly be something that I do not agree with doctrinally. (The reverse is true also, i.e. people disagree with my life choices.)
The "hate" meme is pretty lame. Sort of like calling anybody who has a question about, say affirmative action a racist when the argument is not otherwise manageable.
He knows better. You should know that. Randy R. knows better.
It's a rhetorical scam.
The "hate meme" in this thread was not invented by Randy R. At the very least there have been numerous posts debating whether it is "hate the siner" or "hate the sin." Note the operative word hate.
Randy wrote:
He didn't explicitly accuse you or anyone specifically of hating gays, but posited that people who hate gays (and there are such people--don't pretend there aren't) claim to have Jesus on their side. Never mind that Jesus never spoke upon the issue of homosexuality.
Are you, Richard Aubrey, going to claim that gay bashing is a rhetorical scam?
Speaking of Rhetorical scams, here's one:
That wasn't an argument that was a rhetorical trick. You cannot decry rhetorical devices in one breath then use an empty one of your own in the next and expect to be taken seriously.
That first quote of mine at 9:28 pm should have been from Richard
Also of course it’s a choice, otherwise you couldn’t be sent to hell.
The fact that gay people can sincerely love each other is deeply, fundamentally frightening to the dogma of many people.
By that standard Gay hating Christians should support gay marriage and get gay men into monogamous relationships. But this really isn't a goal oriented dislike, it is a dislike with retroactive justification.
Re: the procreative marriage topic. A gay rights group has decided to make anti-gay marriage Christians put their money where there rhetoric is and proposed a state proposition that would void all marriages which do not result in the birth of a child within a specified period of time. If banning gay marriage is really about procreation, then all anti-gay Christians should support the proposition.
To this agnostic, the original complaint by Sinclair's family seems to have been, "Waah! He won't let us play with his imaginary friend!"
scote. Gay-bashing isn't words, or even an attitude. It's an action. You know better. What a lame, obvious, transparent, and failed rhetorical trick.
I think Randy R. knows better than the "hate" meme because Randy R. is capable of using the web. Thus, he is more than capable of knowing better. Yet he says what he says because he thinks it will disarm an argument which cannot be managed otherwise.
Unfortunately, some of the unwary, who think such accusations are made in good, if mistaken, faith, are distracted from the argument--which they were winning--to the "hate", "racist", "frightening" meme and defending themselves. That's the point of this rhetorical trick. Fewer and fewer people are buying it, I am happy to say.
I'm a pagan, but I find it to be the height of hubris for people to presume to judge the biblical God by the modern world's all too human--and hence all too soft--notion of justice. Alas, it is a vice endemic to certain strains of Enlightenment thinking.
That, Mr. Aubrey, is a doge not an answer. You haven't disproved "'The fact that gay people can sincerely love each other is deeply, fundamentally frightening to the dogma of many people."
For all your feigned indignation about rhetorical tricks, you seem to be rather fond of them.
More dishonest argument from the man who claims to abhor such. Gay bashing does not refer merely to those who actually physically abuse gays out of hate but also refers to the larger issue of verbal hate aimed towards gays.
You are trying Rovian attacks. You accuse your opponent of your greatest weakness. While that can be an effective, though dishonest, tactic it is not one that has anything to do with rational argument or reasoned discourse.
This is true. Searching on the word 'abomination', we find that God calls all of these things an abomination:
1. Cultic, relating to the genuine cult of Israel:
- eating the flesh of the sacrifice of one's peace offering on the third day (Leviticus 7:18);
- offering money earned through cultic prostitution (Deuteronomy 23:18);
- sacrificing an animal with a blemish (Deuteronomy 17:1);
- sacrificial offerings by the wicked (Proverbs 15:8; 21:27);
- even the prayer of one who refuses to hear the Law (Proverbs 28:7);
- refusing to repent of wickedness (Jeremiah 8:6-12);
2. Cultic, relating to the cults of the gods of the nations:
- graven images/idols (Deuteronomy 7:25-26) and worship of idols (Deuteronomy 12:31; 13:14; Isaiah 1:13; 44:9; Jeremiah 2:7; 32:35; Ezekiel 18:6);
- human sacrifice (Deuteronomy 18:10);
3. Occultic:
- practicing divination or sorcery (Deuteronomy 18:10);
- interpreting omens (Deuteronomy 18:10);
- practicing witchcraft (Deuteronomy 18:10);
- casting spells (Deuteronomy 18:11);
- consulting the dead (Deuteronomy 18:11);
4. Culinary:
- eating various kinds of animals (enumerated in Leviticus 11);
5. Dress:
- cross-dressing (Deuteronomy 22:5);
6. Character traits:
- pride (Proverbs 16:5; Ezekiel 16:49);
- haughtiness (Ezekiel 16:49);
7. Economic:
- usury (Ezekiel 18:8);
- failing to strengthen the hand of the poor and needy, although having plenty of food and leisure (Ezekiel 16:48);
- oppressing others (Ezekiel 18:7);
- not repaying debt (Ezekiel 18:7);
- withholding bread from the hungry (Ezekiel 18:7);
- using false weights and measures (Deuteronomy 25:13-16) and a false balance (Proverbs 11:1; 20:10,23; Jeremiah 6:13);
- turning away the neighbor in need (Proverbs 3:27-32);
8. Relating to the legal system:
- justifying the wicked and condemning the just (Proverbs 17:5);
- making false accusation (Proverbs 3:27-32);
- giving false witness (Proverbs 6:16-19; 12:22);
- rendering false judgment between man and man (Ezekiel 18:8);
9. Criminal:
- robbing by violence (Ezekiel 18:7);
- shedding innocent blood (Proverbs 6:16-19);
10. Ethical:
- speaking falsely (Jeremiah 8:6-12);
- leaving nakedness uncovered (Ezekiel 18:7);
- lying (Proverbs 6:16-19);
- rush into evil (Proverbs 6:16-19; also 12:22);
- stirring up dissension among brothers (Proverbs 6:16-19; also 12:22);
- speaking wickedness rather than truth and wisdom (Proverbs 8:7);
- acting according to one's own lights rather than according to the Law of God (Jeremiah 8:6-12);
- rejecting the word of the Lord (Jeremiah 8:6-12);
11. Intentional:
- covetousness (Jeremiah 6:13);
- plotting harm against one's neighbor (Proverbs 3:27-32);
- devising wicked schemes (Proverbs 6:16-19; also 12:22);
- those who pursue evil in their heart (Proverbs 11:18; 15:9,26);
- healing the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace (Jeremiah 6:13-15);
- that which is highly esteemed among men [said in the context of serving mammon rather than God] (Luke 16:15);
12. Sexual:
- forbidden familial sexual relations (Leviticus 18:6-21)
- bestiality (Leviticus 18:23);
- committing adultery (Ezekiel 18:6; 22:11);
- remarrying a wife whom one has once divorced and who remarried (Deuteronomy 24:4);
- having sex with a woman during her period (Ezekiel 18:6);
13. Relating to leadership/rule:
- kings committing wickedness (Proverbs 16:12);
14. Undetermined, possibly sexual:
- "committ[ing] abomination before [God] [Given that this is at the end of a list of the sins of Sodom, is it just my imagination that this might refer to the sin of the townspeople in seeking to "know" the angels who had visited Lot's house? If so, then this may refer to the same thing as Leviticus 18:22: laying with mankind as with womankind] (Ezekiel 16:49-50).
Of these sorts of abominations, some (1. relating to the genuine cult of Israel and 4. related to diet) related specifically to the Israelites. The New Testament has abrogated them. For example, the Apostolic council at Jerusalem decided that gentiles need not become Jews to enjoy the salvific benefits of being a disciple of Jesus (Acts 15). God himself, in a vision to the Apostle Peter, made clear that gentile believers were to be welcomed, though uncircumcised (Acts 10 &11). Also, Paul made clear that distinctions of meats and particular holy days were unnecessary (1 Timothy 4:1-6; Galatians 4:9-10). Sacrifice, even were the Temple still standing and the Levitical priesthood still identifiable, would not be necessary for Christians, for Jesus has sacrificed himself once, for all (Hebrews 10:1-10). As for the prohibition of permitting those with handicaps in the place of worship and clothing, these seem to be specific to the Jewish religion and, given the decision of the Apostles at Jerusalem, that they needn't be circumcised (become Jews) and that no other burdens be laid upon them other than that they "abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication" (Acts 15:29). Concerns about linen and wool, in light of this decision, seem misplaced.
There are still many areas where Christians may be accused of selectivity but I don't believe that things called 'abominations' is one of them for, except those that fall into the category of the ancient cult of Israel and the Israel-specific dietary laws, I believe all of those things called 'abominations' are still considered sins by most Christians; at least, by those Christians who consider homosexual sexual relations to be sinful.
As for what, specifically the megachurch referenced in this post believes and practices, I couldn't say, as I do not know. I am speaking generally.
So then, many of the things that God calls abominations in the Hebrew/Aramaic Scriptures are, by New Testament Scriptures, declared to be no longer in effect. The sinfulness of homosexual sexual behaviors, on the other hand, are not only not abrogated in the New Testament, they are repeated (Romans 1:26-27).
Lively: God will throw the sinner into outer darkness, not the sin.
(later) Lively: " I do not approve your lifestyle but I do not hate you nor anyone else."
Translation: No, I don't hate evil people who deserve God's scorn and wrath.
Thanks, but I can do with a little less of your Christian love. If I'm wrong, please correct me. And this got started because I said that people who DO hate gays always use their religion to back themselves up. Without fail. And we've seen it here.
Question: Masturbation is clearly a sin. Almost every male does it, so I presume that Messrs. Aubrey and Lively are sinners as well, who will be caste into the darkness. I don't hate you, cause apparently I will be seeing a lot of you in the future!
It also used to be a sin to have sexual relations between a white person and a black person. It was an issue of morality, too. It was even unlawful. Today it is not.
These are no longer considered sins or immoral. Why not? Because we have grown in our understanding of human biology and our own prejudices, that's why.
Since religions were wrong on two issues of sin and morality in the past, isn't there just a possibility that religion is wrong about the issue of whether homosexuality is immoral or sinful?
Finally, I need to address the issue of behavior vs. sexuality. Apparently, according to Doc, there is nothing wrong with being gay, but having sex (which no one has bothered to explain to me the questions I raised, I might add). But our society certainly does not differentiate between the two, as Doc would have it. In the military, if you are gay and open about it, you are out, regardless of whether you are celibate. In the Boy Scouts, if you are gay, you are out, regardless of your behavior. In 33 states, I can be fired simply for being gay, regardless of my actual sexual behavior. If I walk into a any of the conservatives churchs and declare myself gay, they don't bother to inquire about my behavior, they just show me the door.
Being gay and acting gay are part and parcel the same thing -- you can't separate them, and no one does. We all know that, except, perhaps, for Doc.
Then why bother listing all the sins? Why not just declare everyone a sinner, ask for forgiveness, and move on? That would be the simple way to take care of the matter.
But I was taught that listing all the sins was a a way to influence your behavior, so that you WON'T go around committing those sins in the first place. Obviously, with regards to masturbation, it didn't work at all. And of course, it never will. And it won't work precisely because God made masturbation so pleasurable. He didn't have to, of course, he could have made us like other animals who have orgasms only once in a while only for procreation. But he didn't -- he gave us the ability to have orgasms almost at will, then makes it a sin and says we shoudln't do it.
That's pretty much the definition of entrapment. And this is the God I'm supposed to worship and obey?
If the janitor had been a serial killer, unbeknownst to the congregation, his services would have been accepted and acceptable to the Church, presumably, even though he had been a serial killer all along. Would the church who unknowingly accepted the services of a serial killer in life be, then, obligated to bury the man, knowing that he had been a serial killer? Obviously not. By the way, I am not comparing homosexuality to serial murder. I am showing that the reasoning in the quote is faulty.
Homosexuality, however, is something (along with a number of other sins) that the New Testament condemns, and it does not matter whether you are divorced, married, whatever.
I have never suggested that you "worship and obey" the Christian God, just that you (a) stop trying to turn this into an argument about whether Christianity is true, which is irrelevant here, and (b) stop saying ignorant things about what Christians believe. You're in way over your head.
But being black isn't something that the Bible condemns; the New Testament is quite clear that ethnicity, slave status, male, female--none of these things matter. What matters are the actions that constitute sin, and homosexuality, along with adultery, murder, hatred, stealing, and a few other items constitute sin.
You may not like this. You aren't required to believe it.
Yup, Really convenient that straight males can always find a way to have sex.
Craig: :I am showing that the reasoning in the quote is faulty."
Good point, actually.
No it doesn't. You know quite well that there is a passage that religionists often use that lists all the people who don't go to heaven. The word in many modern Bibles specifically says 'homosexuals', though sometimes the phrase effeminate men' is used. I don't know the citation, but it is in the NT, and people (I believe wrongly, of course) use that to say that gays can't get to heaven, regardless of their actual behavior.
"You may not like this. You aren't required to believe it." I'm sure you didn't like it when the church said that interracial marriage was a sin, and lefthandedness was a sin, either, but you nonetheless believed it because the church told you so.
Or maybe you didn't and you actually thought for yourself and considered that those things can't be sin. No reason to quit now!
Thanks.
It works the other way, too. If a husband divorces the wife for someone else, he has committed adultery, and she is free to remarry.
Randy R. is one of the many homosexuals whose frequent comments here persuade me that the New Testament's condemnation of homosexuality is spot on. He's pretty typical of homosexuals with whom I have interacted over the years.
1. Refusing to bury a divorcee is not the same as not granting an annulment. One is a burial. The other is an annulment.
2. I agree kicking a dead gay out of the church is not the same thing as having to marry two men. (Note the dead gay in question was never in that church.)
3. However, the question was ragarding the goal of the gay marriage movement. Is it's ultimate goal to have all churches in the nation willing to marry two men? Should all churches both marry two men and bury them? If you think he church should bury them, why shouldn't it also marry them?
4. Randy tells us, "However, all other gay activists and organizations have specifically stated that marriage should be a matter for the churches to decide, not the state, and that if church is against it, there should be no problems adhering to that. That's interesting. Are burials also a matter for the church to decide? If not, why not?
I've never seen any Christians make that claim. EVER. You are just making this stuff up. Christianity teaches that every person is a sinner; every person is in need of Jesus's forgiveness. Homosexuality is no different from any other sinner. We all struggle with temptations. Even straight men who are married to knockout beauties (and straight women who are married to handsome guys) are tempted. To dwell on that temptation is sin; to follow through on it is sin. The homosexual is in the same situation.
You have a very warped and false understanding of Christianity. You might want to actually learn a bit about it before blathering on.
Interracial marriage was illegal in much of the country from the 17th century onward; I'm not aware of too many churches that treated it as a sin. If they did, they were ignoring many centuries of Christian doctrine that treated interracial marriage as unremarkable.
I am aware that there was a medieval notion that left-handedness was sinister. If the Catholic Church grabbed onto this idea at some point, I would not be surprised. But it isn't based on the Bible.
Your ignorance of Christianity is astonishing.
Freedom, homosexuality: pick one.
In 50 states, you can be fired for behaving in the workplace the way you behave in your comments. Do you want that to be illegal too?
As usual, you are making this up as you go along. Any church that I have ever attended the pastor would probably ask:
1. Are you tempted towards homosexuality, or are you engaging in homosexuality?
2. Are you concerned about your sinful behavior? What can we do to help you?
3. If you don't consider it sinful, I would be more than happy to discuss why it is contrary to God's law.
About the only thing that would get you shown to the door in any church I've ever attended would be if you started to scream, "I'm gay, I'm proud of it, and you're all homophobic bigots for thinking otherwise!" (Which is essentially what you do every time you comment here.)
Oh, I suppose if you showed up at the church dressed for the San Francisco Gay Pride parade in the style of say 1990, you would be shown to the door. But you would also be arrested for public nudity and lewd conduct as well. (Yes, I'm thinking of the naked gay men sodomizing or at simulating sodomizing other naked gay men on top of the parade floats. Yes, you're just like straight people, except for who you love.)
Do you have any evidence that "the church" (whatever precisely that means) ever considered left-handedness or interracial marriage a sin? You keep saying it, and I don't doubt that many Christians in the past have enthusiastically opposed left-handedness and interracial relationships, but when was opposition to either an actual doctrine of the Christian church(es), as opposed to a social custom that lazy or bigoted pastors encouraged or at least failed to oppose? Perhaps you could quote a Papal encyclical or two denouncing lefties or miscenegators?
Are you under the impression that 'sin' and 'sinister' are etymologically related? Your 2:44pm comment seems to imply that. If so, you're wrong: the words are unrelated.
Not even close. "Gay bashing" is physical assault. You and other activists haul in words--and presumably attitudes--for two reasons. One is to punch up the reported numbers and at the same time leave the unwary with the impression you are talking about physical assaults only.
The other is to preemptively discredit any argument you cannot in a legitimate way manage.
You're a smart man. You must be able to think of something less obvious, even if no more honest.
Because I've been told so many times by priests and ministers that burial rights are more for the living than the dead. The dead man is gone -- I'm sure he really doesn't care anymore about earthly concerns, nor should he. But the ceremony is primarily for the departed's loved ones. To deprive THEM of the comfort that religion is supposed to be at this sensitive time is nothing less than cruel. That's why so many cultures around the world have developed their own ceremonies to deal with the loss of death, and they want the assurance that there is life everlasting.
I have never seen or heard of church refusing to bury someone in modern times because they committed adultery, stole from a bank, started a war, had sex outside of marriage, was prideful, or owned graven images. But for some reason, being gay is the ONE sin that is singled out. If it wasn't such a great sin as to merit a place on the Ten Commandments, then why is it such an issue for the this church? If you aren't going to bury unrepentant sinners, then they church would have to turn away a lot of dead people.
Furthermore, people here keep saying that being gay isn't the sin, it's the behavior. How do any of these people know that the dead man actually had sex with his partner? Maybe he did, but he repented for it? Nope -- it's not about behavior, it's about just being gay that made them reject the man.
We are all born equal, and we die equal. If we are all sinners, as some of claimed, then we should all be treated equally. God himself chooses not to judge a man until he reaches the pearly gates, yet everyone here presumes to judge a man before God gets to do it.
Really? Do you apply the same standard to "Bush bashing"?
(pause)
... I'm thinking it over!
Freedom, heterosexuality: pick one.
Oh, right. You can't pick your sexuality. When did you pick what gender you were were attracted to Clayton?
From a lawsuit filed in 1978: Plaintiff, Lois L. Long, attended the Holy Rosary Boarding School in the Pine Ridge Reservation. Because she was left-handed, her educator accused her of Satanism and attempted to "cure" her by tying her left hand which caused permanent physical injuries. She was repeatedly stripped and beaten by nuns. During baths, the nuns would fondle her and attempt to"wash the devil out" of her.
I haven't found anything online that says it was a sin, but I know that my uncle was lefthanded and went to a catholic school and in the 1950s was beaten if he used his left hand. (He was indeed lefthanded). The nuns told him it was sinful.
Is that enough for you?
Bob Jones University considers interracial marriage a sin, and even dating is prohibited today. It was much more common for southern churches to preach sinful sexual relations between the races prior to the 1960s.
I, for one, am not judging anyone. I've been discussing whether a Church is under any obligation to bury someone who was not a member of the Church and whose sexual behaviors that Church accords itself with the judgment of the Bible, which is, at least in the opinion of the Church, God's Word. What God says or does regarding human beings at the judgment is his business. What he has already said and done is ours.
Yeah, sorta like calling homosexuality 'sinful' and thinking that ends the argument.
The irony of the situation is that the priests are saying "No, you shall not partake of the fantasy." The dude is dead. If he were alive he would say to his loved ones "Move on, enjoy life."
I avoid people who smoke or are overconfident or are born with a cruel nature. I don't hate them unless they've acted cruelly toward me, but I do make moral judgments about all sorts of things which others might judge differently. I'm not so childish or against free will as to think that private organizations and even the law would embrace a matching set of beliefs.
I've also gotten over those who rudely warp/insert words of hatred and bigotry into others' mouths and belief systems. Frankly I see a lot more judgment against religion here than against gays. Patronize another church or start your own myth if you wish. The best idea will shake out in the end.
Gee, I dunno, Doctor. All though the 19th century and into the last half of rhe 20th?
Sheesh. Miscegenation was not merely against the law in the South, it was actively preached against by just about all the churches. Religion is as believers do.
You're going to have a hard time finding, eg, a statement of the Southern Baptist Convention (to which nearly half of white Southerners adhered, one way or another, in my boyhood) chiding the legislatures for such an unbiblical or unchristian law.
Does that make it 'doctrine'? Close enough for me.
Yes, the Bible forbids that as well as any other mixing of fabrics.
On another issue; it sure seems like many of those who preach about tolerance never seem to have any for Christians.
Tolerance doesn't mean an exemption from critique.
Any "Christian" who thinks a gay marriage is even remotely comparable to a Klan rally has no sense of proportion, decency or justice, as well as an Al-Sharpton-like victimhood complex. How many gay marriage ceremonies end with the lynching of a Christian?
As many others have pointed out, following the sin-is-a-sin-is-a-sin doctine consistently would mean no one would be buried in that cemetary. We all do sinful things for which we do not repent before dying. That's the idea behind God's Grace.
Randy R. Even dumber than comparing Che and conservatives.
He is referring to a Klan rally and a monogamous gay relationship.
Let's push his argument only a little bit further: Stealing a candy bar, a sin. Murdering six million Jews, a sin.
Maybe Cramer will dispatch the Simon Weisenthal Center to deal with the shoplifter in aisle two. Such Crimes Against Humanity must be stopped. After all, "from the standpoint of Christian doctrine, they are [both] sins."
In a sense, I think this is correct. We do sinful things that do not go specifically repented. The Bible speaks of "secret sins", that is, I think, secret even to ourselves. If a specific enumeration of every thought, word, and deed that in any way is specified as a sin were necessary for forgiveness, it is probably true that none would go to heaven. Thus, one lives one's life sinning throughout the day by thought, word and deed and daily repenting, repeatedly repenting to God for those things that one recalls as one's sins and those things that one cannot recall. One develops an attitude of humility toward God.
One does not go out and participate in the annual "Adulterer's Pride" parade.
There is a vast difference between a flitting thought of lust that I do not later specifically recall and confess, and my deliberately committing adultery, knowing the injunction against adultery but, nevertheless, saying: "My extramarital relationship is not sin; it is God-pleasing and good and beautiful. I shall not stop nor consider it wrong."
No, my friend. The truth that you posit is hardly a refuge for an adulterer who knows the commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery" and, nevertheless, commits it openly, brazenly, proudly. Nor is it a haven for a gay who knows the statements of Scripture, repeated in both Testaments, against laying with one of one's own gender as one lay with one of one's opposing gender. It is hardly possible, in this day and age, in this society, to not be aware of the Bible's stance toward either adultery or homosexuality.
I am a retired Pastor but if I lived out my days in open, proud adultery and, after my wife divorced me, fornication and died unrepentant, no Church would bury me, let alone one to which I did not belong, had never had any spiritual authority over me, and in whose community my profligacy were a byword. I would not expect any Church to bury me, not even if I had been a member from infancy.
This is incoherent. If the laws were "unbiblical" and "unchristian", how can they be doctrine? And since when is doctrine defined as what believers do? To take a contemporary example, it is Catholic doctrine that birth control (other than the 'rhythm method') is sinful, most Catholics use it anyway, but that does not affect the point that artificial methods of birth control violate Catholic doctrine.
Of course, a Catholic priest asked to do a funeral for a nonparishioner would very likely cancel the service immediately if he found out that the dead man was an abortionist or head of the Birth Control division at a major pharmaceutical company.
And Bob Jones U. no more defines Christian doctrine than Rev. Fred Phelps does. The only time that I hear fundamentalist Christians discuss Bob Jones U., it is to express disapproval. Steve Taylor is a Christian musician whose satirical songs were quite popular some years; see "We Don't Need A Color Code" lyrics.
It was? I would like to see some evidence of that. But again, if some churches misread a cultural quirk that has NO basis in the Bible, that means no more than the Episcopal Church ordaining homosexuals.
I'm a conservative. I am comfortable enough with it that I can live with others holding different views, as long as they don't try to force their views on me.
Homosexuals no longer have any laws that impose anything on them. You won't go to prison for being homosexual--and even when the laws were on the books, they weren't often enforced for private conduct.
Yet Randy R. and hundreds of thousands like him don't like there to be any reminders that not everyone shares his views about homosexuality. That's why in more progressive countries, people get hauled into court for expressing disapproval of homosexuality.
Just like not to long ago, interracial sexual relations were sinful, end of story.
But for us, it is not. I can't change being gay -- you will at least accept that notion, won't you? Therefore, I cannot love a woman like hetero men do. But I do love men they way hetero men do.
I'm not currently in a relationship, but I have been in the past. And I have plenty of gay friends who are in relationships as well. All these relationships are no different from others -- they are loving, and caring, deeply devoted to one another. What's is so horrible about that? I"ve been taught that God IS love. Well, if that's true, then we find God in the loves of our lives -- sometimes they are friendships, sometimes they are romantic relationships. Where we find God, we find love.
Adultery is bad -- yes, because you pledged your love to one, and then you reneged on it. You hurt someone. Where is the hurt when I love my boyfriend? If anything, it increases the amount of love in the world.
I understand you probably dont' understand that, and that's fine. But perhaps you should look not so much at the text of the Bible, but the meaning. There are textual admonisions throughout the Bible on all sorts of things. I bring up masturbation sometimes, or the wearing of mixed fibers, but we see these sorts of things as silly and ridiculous. Any God who is really upset for us for doing these things is, in my mind, a ridiculous God, and one not worth worshipping.
But there is another God of the Bible, the one Jesus talked about -- the one about forgivemess, hope, charity, and above all, love. I mentioned earlier that when Jesus was asked what he commandments were, he said he had none, but if he had one, it would be to love one another.
Are people so crabbed and small-hearted that they bury their nose in a book, just looking for ways to trip up others? There are over 350 directives against heterosexual sex vs. about three against gay sex. Are you going to enforce all those equally, or is only gay sex that get's you the Hell Card?
If God didn't want me gay, then why did he make me gay? It's a simple question, and one that churches simply won't answer. At best, they say well, you just have to be celibate. But as I've explained above, it's not possible to tell someone that if they love another man, they cannot express their love in the way that God granted them.
People complain about the intolerance here, as though criticism is being somehow intolerant. I'm not advocating the banning of any churches I don't like, but many churches advocate the banning of my right to live my life as I see fit. That is intolerance.
George Will, the conservative author, and no friend of gays, said that his daughter has told him that being gay is regarded no differently by her generation as being lefthanded. And so my little obsession with the lefthanded issue.
Why do we have Gay Pride Parades? Why are there not Adulterer's Pride Parades? Craig, it's obvious to me that you have not spent much time with actual gay people. I suggest that you stop in at a PFLAG meeting sometime, and meet people who are parents and family of gay people. See how much they love their kids, and why it's important to support gays. Suicide is the leading cause of death among gay teenagers.
Now, the crabbed and shrunken hearts use stats like that to say, see what a horrible lifestyle it is. But again, we don't choose to be gay. Suicide is common precisely because kids are taught that gays are damned to hell, that God hates them. Even today, many parents are not 'cool' with their kids being gay and turn against them. I know several people who have not spoken to their parents in decades, and that wears heavily upon them.
All this hate against gay people is rooted in church teachings. As I said earlier, people who hate gays always use the Bible to back them up, without exception. (That's not to say that all people who use the Bible hate gays, okay?)
And it hurts religion too. Gay people and their families have lost respect for religion when they hear pastors who are ignorant of their lives. Many black churches rail against gays, and that leads the gay men to go on the 'down low' and that hurts a lot of people. (and the down low isn't confined to blacks, either -- it's quite common).
Anyway, just a few thoughts for Sunday morning!
You repeatedly ask "Why did God make me gay if he didn't want me gay?" Well, why did God make any of us sinners? It's one of the classic religious paradoxes. You don't think God KNEW Adam and Eve would sin? Why didn't he stop them? Why didn't he make us incapable of evil? Take a look at the Egyptian plague story sometime and all those "But God hardened Pharaoh's heart..." lines. You are not special, but I hope you find the answers you're looking for someday soon.
Oh, and by the way Randy... I think you're horribly, horribly wrong, I think you look a little foolish trying to carry this argument on, I think what you do in the bedroom is wrong, and I think the fact that you're trying to normalize it is worse, but I don't hate you.
Perhaps I can answer that. It is a little frustrating -- I go about my life in the usual way, then you hear about this church not burying a man simply because he is gay. Then I hear about gay marriage, and I argue that I want it, but other argue that it will destroy our society and so on.
The reason why I care is because I actually care very deeply about spiritual issues. Even more than that, however, I care very deeply about how gay people are treated. Since I was a catholic, I was told that being gay is bad, hated by God, damned to hell, all that. I grew up hearing those sermons.
And so I tried very hard to be straight. It was, of course, a disaster, and didn't work. So I thought very low about myself. I was kicked and beaten up by other kids for being a fem, a fag -- I know every single epithet you can call another gay kid. I was terribly lonely because I had few friends, and I thought I must be the only person in the world with attractions towards guys rather than girls. I fought it as much as I could, but it only put me deeper in depression. I had many thoughts of suicide because I could see no way out. I wasn't kidding anyone, of course, everyone knew I was gay, but me!
Then I finally got the message, and instead of fighting it, I embraced it, and then my life finally started to become something. It's like opening a door from a dark room and having the sunlight stream in. Finally, I could be myself! I could finally realize the potential that God had put inside me.
So I realized all those sermons were lies. All those people who said gay was bad were at best ignorant, and at worst evil people. So I hope that no other person will ever have to go through what I went through.
But it still goes on. SMYAL is an organization that helps gay teenagers, and they can't keep up with the demand, because so many kids are kicked out of their houses. Just a few weeks ago, a halfway house opened in the city of Washington to help transgendered kids, and the demand far exceeded the expectations that they ran through their years budget in half a year. They didn't want to turn anyone away, and now they really need money to remain open.
I've been told that life is precious by all these churches, yet they have no problem with throwing away the lives of their gay flock. Their concern for you as a human being ends at birth -- after that, if you are gay, at least, they couldn't care less about you. In fact, as the High Point Church has clearly stated, they don't want you. Your life literally has no value to them. That a very strong message to send to people, and it makes me angry, and so sometimes my anger spills out on this pages.
I have a friend who worked on a campaign in Michigan, and he found a teacher who's son is gay. This teacher had a student in his class who was a real problem. Finally, the teacher confronted the student in class, and the student said, "If God says we can kill gays, why can't I?" The teacher abruptly quit his post and moved to a remote part of Michigan so that his son wouldn't be in danger.
Think about that for a moment. "If God says we can kill gays, why can't I?" Where do you think this attitude comes from? And that should answer your question.
You have reduced us gay people to a mere sex act. In my previous post, I tried to explain that being gay is actually about loving another human being, wanting to spend your life with that person, just like you do. It's not about sex, but about love. We express our love through sex, just as you do. So what gets you so angry isn't that we give each other blowjobs -- after all, most hetero couples do that, but the fact that two men might actually love and care for each other. And gays have been doing that since the beginning of recorded history. Yet life has proceeded onward.....
Loving another person is the most normal thing in the world, and it happens whether you approve of it or not. That's the funny thing about love -- it often springs up to make things most difficult for others! If you understand what love is, and understand that we find it in our hearts, then you will have no problem with my loving another man.
I suppose it's my own fault for adding that last paragraph... I wonder if you will even remember the rest of it in an hour.
Always? As in, since the beginning of recorded history or such a concept, no one has ever understood hateful words spoken to or about homosexuals about their gender-preferences to be gay-bashing? Always until when, I wonder. When was the term gay-bashing first understood by someone to include words? I'll bet that person was gay and I'll bet it was right early in the history of the concept of gay-bashing. It seems to me that, even if you're right -- and I know of nothing that would confirm your assertion -- words mean what people mean by them, not what you or anyone else has "always" understood them to mean. Anyone who has had verbal abuse inflicted upon them can attest to the fact that words can and do hurt. The saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" is a way of reminding oneself that hurtful words are only words and that the psychic hurt that they inflict will only last as long as we grant validity to those words. It is also a way for one to walk away from a verbal confrontation with one's head held high, however terrible one feels inside. As a statement of fact, however, it is nonsense. Words can hurt like hell.
Words can also be a precursor to more physical types of bashing as I experienced personally. One evening, a friend of mine, having imbibed liberally of spirits, my friend decided to walk me home from my house to help hold me up. In fact, we held each other up until we almost reached my house. At that point, we were met by two other guys walking in the opposite direction. One looked at the other and said, "Let's roll us some fags"...which they proceeded to do. Now there is no doubt that what happened that night would meet anyone's definition of gay-bashing -- never mind that neither of us is gay, facts weren't important to these two -- but the more important issue, to me, was this: how much verbal gay-bashing had those two engaged in to arrive at the point that all it would take to get them to physically attack two guys who were holding one another up with nothing more than, "Let's roll us some fags"? Thus, words can not only inflict psychic harm, they can also be preparatory to the sort of mindset that would set two big, tough guys to beating the crap out of two straight friends because they happened to be walking down arm-in-arm in drunken reverie.
You have your reasons for thinking words do not properly constitute gay-bashing. Others have their own reasons for thinking that they do. These are mine.
First of all, the condemnation of laying with one of one's own gender as one lays with one of the opposite gender is not found only in Leviticus, or, even, only in the so called Old Testament. It is repeated in Romans 1:26-27, as I pointed out above.
Also, as I pointed out above, the Apostles, in the first Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15) determined that it was not necessary for gentiles to become Jews in order to enjoy the blessings of faith in Jesus, thus freeing gentiles from being burdened with the many laws relating to the cult and culture of Judaism. That did not, however, abrogate the moral law. Thus, Paul, writing to the gentile believers at Rome, reiterated the moral judgment expressed in Leviticus.
So if your ex-wife just decided to be celibate, you have to be also? (This also reminds me that in the middle ages, following an annulment granted by the Catholic church, the ex-wife nearly always would join a convent. The man usually re-married ASAP...
This sounds like something Randy R. should keep in mind. If "their" notion of God seems silly, inconsistent, and prejudiced, why should you care that you aren't welcome in their church? Find one that fits you better.
As far as the legal issues go, religious freedom quite necessarily includes the freedom to be irrational and inconsistent. Of course, the first amendment also gives the rest of us the freedom to make fun of those silly, irrational, and inconsistent doctrines.
To me, this says that they abrogated much of the Levitican law, but Paul arbitrarily picked the prohibition of homosexual intercourse to be carried forward. Or are you trying to make a distinction between the "moral law" (such as the ten commandments), and all of those rules that mainly served to keep the Jews distinct (circumcision, dietary restrictions, etc.)? If so, why would homosexuality come under the moral law? Is there a circular argument buried in there somewhere?
You asked if antimiscegenation were church doctrine.
Yes, it was.
Your citation of American Roman Catholics and birth control was exactly on point, only in the opposite sense from how you meant it. Yes, the doctrine of the American church is pro-birth control.
But if you can find me any examples of a priest refusing communion to any parishioner because of using birth control, I'll change my mind.
You may be confusing doctrine with dogma. They are not the same.
Leviticus speaks only of men sleeping with men. It says nothing about women. Therefore, even according to your own interpretation of Biblical law, lesbians are fine.
MarkM: " Find one that fits you better." I do. However, for teenagers, choosing a church different from their parents is often not an option.
Daniel: " I think what you do in the bedroom is wrong, and I think the fact that you're trying to normalize it is worse."
And no doubt you do things in the bedroom that I think is wrong. The difference is that I don't care and I don't preach against it.
There are thousands and thousands of hetero couples 'living in sin." Yet, I hardly hear anything about how those people are condemned by God. We used, in the 70s or so, when it was fairly new. Now it's common place, and no one really cares. I can't think of single instance of a man being fired by his boss when the boss finds out he is living with a woman without benefit of marriage. Yet that same boss can and will fire a person simply because he is gay -- even if he isn't living with another man!
So do those people have 'Living in sin" Pride parades? No. Because they don't have to. Because society accepts them and doesn't really care about it anymore. Someday we will be at that point as well.
As for normalizing us, of course we want to normalize being gay, FOR gays! We don't want YOU to have gay sex (although if you have ever glanced at Craig's list, you will certainly find plenty of married men looking to hook up for gay sex. I don't really approve of that, but I don't care either.) But we want gay people to live normal healthy lives, and if they find someone special, then why should they turn that person away?
Which is why I have argued about the churches. By now, everyone should know that sexual orientation cannot be changed. So you can preach all you want against it, but it won't make me straight. And I tried! It's a ridiculous waste of time. So who is really being preached to? It's the straight people -- they are taught that gays are sinners, deviants, immoral (see above postings). And what is the ultimate point of this preaching? Craig, can you answer that?
Whatever the point, the end result is that the straight people are taught to hate the gays. To reduce us to a mere sex act, and characatures of drug addicted, insane and diseased. (And yes, of course, sex is an integral part of being gay, as sex is an integral part of being straight. But it isn't the only thing in either).
As someone else pointed out earlier, all the preaching against gays today is quite similar to how people used to talk about jews in the 19th and early 20th century.
God doesn't see us as part of a group -- he sees us as individuals. Some of us are kind, some are jerks, some rich, some poor, some celibate, some whorish. Kinda like you straight people.
And yes, there are plenty of churches that disagree with your interprestations of the Bible, and the do not see being gay or having gay sex as a sin. I agree with those, and those churches are growing in number. So one preacher or church does not have a lock upon the truth. Thank God for that!
During the last election cycle, at least two catholic bishops stated that anyone who supports a pro-choice candidate should be refused the communion, and that any elected official who is pro-choice and pro-gay marriage should be refused as well. Whether they carried through on the threat, I don't know.
You wrote:
Arbitrarily? Arbitrary in what sense? What makes you think it was arbitrary?
In any case, as an Apostle and, thus, an authoritative teacher in the Church, his teachings are, for the most part, well, authoritative for Christians. Some times, however, he speaks simply for himself. Other times he speaks for the Lord. See 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul speaks sometimes on the Lord's authority (verse 10), sometimes not (v.12), and sometimes gives advice that one might follow or not. Also, sometimes he teaches from nature, as in 1 Corinthians 11:14 "Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?" Well, since men are, by nature, capable of growing their hair long -- I once knew a guy whose hair was so long that he had to take care not to sit upon it -- I guess I'd have to take exception to that particular teaching. For example, how long is unnaturally long? At what point does "nature" kick in and teach that long hair is a shame to a man? Highly doubtful but, since he teaches this from nature, I feel free to think differently about what nature teaches.
Yes, I am distinguishing between moral law and those rules that mainly served to keep the Jews distinct. I don't think it is a circular argument. At Romans 1:26, Paul, speaking of gay and lesbian sex, speaks of "vile affections". Now those words speak more of moral judgment than being comparable to avoiding pork. Those words sound more resonant with Jesus' teaching, at Matthew 5:27-28, "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart[]" and Matthew 15:19-20, "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man". At this last, he is specifically teaching against the Pharisees, who had taken offense at his disciples for breaking specifically just the kind of rules that were set in place to separate the Jews from the gentiles: eating without washing the hands first.
1. In many ways, marriages are also for the rest of the community. The are a public acknowledgement by the community that a couple is joined in marriage. The couple doesn't need it; they are free to privately commit to each other.
2. Does this mean marriages are a matter for the church to decide, but burials are not? If burials are not a matter for the church to decide, then who should decide for the church? Who should determine the doctrine and beliefs of the church, if not the church?
Actually, in terms of the decision to administer religious rites and ceremonies it does end the argument. Religious freedom recognizes the church as the sole authority for its doctrine. The church is free to declare that being gay, Armenian, Eskimo, left-handed, or married to someone of another race is a sin.
Outside the confines of church doctrine, I would agree that the accusation of sinful conduct has no meaning. But this issue rests squarely within those confines.
You wrote a lengthy comment to me at 11:20am on 8.12.2007. There's lots there. I'll try to address your comments as best I can.
You wrote:
Not really the end of story. For me, all of life is sinful for all human beings. That is to say, Jesus, the "other" God of the Bible, as you put it below, summed up his moral teachings thusly: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect[]" (Matthew 5:48).
If that's the moral standard, I am no less sinful as a heterosexual male than you are as a homosexual male. I can no more not sin, even when I'm having relations with my wife than you can (I'm speaking from my religious perspective, understand) when you are having relations with your partner. This is because, try as I might to remain alone with my wife in our sex, in my mind, I cannot help but populate our bed and our relations with other people, real or imagined. Jesus spoke of looking at another woman, to lust after her, is already committing adultery with her. While I would not cheat on my wife with another woman in the real world, in my mind I commit adultery a lot. This is sin and is why I think that it is wrong to say that Jesus had no commands. The fifth through the seventh chapter of Matthew contain many commands, the ultimate of which is, as I said, "Be ye perfect..." I can't. No one can. It seems foolish to me, therefore, to talk about gays being sinful while straights are not. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
The reason, then, that saying that homosexual sex is sinful is not the end of story is because all of life for everyone is sinful and all of life is a struggle against sin, confession of one's sinfulness, and dependence upon God for forgiveness for Jesus' sake. Saying that homosexual sex is sinful is, therefore, just the beginning of the story for me.
Yes, well, race-relations in this country are so skewed that it is hard to keep separate racial hatred from Biblical injunction because people with racial hatred who are Christians will often try to justify their hatreds by the Bible. The Old Testament has several stories where people are forbidden from intermarrying with the gentile peoples around the Jewish people. I categorize these injunctions in the category of 'rules to keep the Jews from being tempted by the worship of gods other than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob' rather than moral or universal law.
I have no difficulty with that concept. I've known and befriended quite a few gays and had long, heartfelt talks with them about their sexuality. It seems ludicrous to think that gays are really just straight people who, although as drawn sexually to women as I am, choose to have sex with men out of some perverse delight in doing what God forbids in spite of the social pressures and hatreds and even violence and murders perpetrated against them for the gender of sex partners that they prefer. I accept that your gender preference/attraction is not a free choice but neither is my fantasy life-adulteries. For me, sin is doing what God forbids or not doing what God commands and whether I feel free to avoid the one or to do the other has nothing to do with it. What matters is that God said, "No!" and I did it anyway. Given the pervasive nature of sin in me, Jesus is the sweetest name I know. It is through him alone that I am made right. Not by being straight or by being faithful (outside the confines of my mind) to my wife. Jesus says, "Be perfect." The only way to be perfect is to be cleansed by Jesus blood.
That accords with my experience in conversation with other gays.
Except that God calls it 'abomination' several times in Leviticus and 'vile affection' in Romans, nothing.
I've been taught that God IS love too but that doesn't mean that he finds all things wonderful. He makes distinctions. Sometimes those distinctions seem arbitrary. He doesn't always explain the reasons for those distinctions. He says, "Do this." "Don't do that." "This is right." "This is wrong." In response, I can decide to agree with God or to disagree with him. It would, believe me, be much easier to say to God, "You know what? I'm going to decide from now on what is right and what is wrong. What I'm going to do and what I'm not and, by the way, no more of these guilt feelings when my "right" and "wrong" don't quite match your judgments on those matters, okay?" It doesn't seem to work. I feel guilt when I do what God says is wrong, whether I think it should be wrong or not.
Adultery is bad -- yes, because you pledged your love to one, and then you reneged on it. You hurt someone. Where is the hurt when I love my boyfriend? If anything, it increases the amount of love in the world.
Well, I gotta go out. I'll have more, maybe, later. Ciao!
What I find so weird about this thread is with so many things for good Christians to be worried about (high divorce rates, high rates of conception outside of marriage, poverty, environmental destruction), so much energy is focused on homosexuality.
If all the preaching against miscegenation was based on a misunderstanding of proper doctrine, how are we so sure that the preaching against homosexuality isn't incorrect also?
Q. If you asked a bunch of people if "gay-bashing" meant physical assault, how many would agree?
A. As many as possible.
The moral authority presumed to come from victim status is so useful that, among other things, seeking it generates fake hate crimes.
And, it generates the deliberate conflating of non-violent interactions as "bashing" presuming the unwary will consider the ramped-up numbers to be solely physical assault. After all, you can't get much policy change by complaining of dirty looks.
I think this post has reached "echo chamber" status... there's nothing useful to be gained by reading or replying at this point. Bye.
I'd say it is a close call. But in modern times it is pretty clear that the contempt comes first and the "Magic 8 Ball Bible" doctrine comes 2nd. We can see this by the arbitrary way the exhortations in the old Testament are applied. Exhortations to kill gay men are reveled in (Lev.20:13) but exhortation to stone disobedient children to death are ignored (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
As to the above inconsistency some people try to say that the Old Testament doesn't apply, having been supplanted by the New Testament. Craig R. Harmon likes to point out that even the New Testament hates gays. This does not clear up the inconsistency as, I think, almost all Christians exhort the Ten Commandments as being a key tenant of the faith, but they are part of the Old Testament.
Some Christians pick and choose who they want to hate and then selectively pick and choose the Bible parts that back them up. They ignore the order to stoning to people to death for not keeping the sabbath (hopefully (Numbers 15:32-56)) but keep the stoning people to death for gay sex (Lev.20:13). In the New Testament the ignore that rich people cannot be admitted to heaven (Matthew 19:23-24, Mark 10:23-25) and latch on to gay affection as a vile affliction (Rom.1:26-27)*
**Rom.1:26-27
Note that **God** specifically made them attracted to one another. For God to then punish them for being gay is like a bully saying "Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself! Hiting yourself is a sin. Now I'm going to punish you for hitting yourself, too!"
Is that the sound of birds chirping? I think the sun is rising! There is so much more color in the world.
Of course, you are right about the point of futility having been reached. I think that we are lucky that the discourse has been as relatively sedate as it has been, though I would have like to have seen some more intellectual honesty...
I should clarify, for those not familiar with this tradition, it is actually the bully that is causing the victim to be struck.
The idea that God would "afflict" people with same sex attraction and then punish them for having same sex attraction is ludicrous.
You asked and answered (I guess you weren't really interested in what I had to say):
Well, if you asked me that question, I'd agree. It's not the only question, though. You could ask, "Do you consider words that demean, degrade, belittle and dehumanize gays to be 'gay bashing'? I'd say yes. I doubt I'm alone.
But your answer is, to be honest, pretty hard to take seriously. "As many as possible"? The answer literally makes no sense in this context. I imagine that pretty much EVERYONE would agree but the question is not whether people think that actually assaulting gays is gay bashing but whether verbal abuse is also understood to be gay bashing and, by analogy to 'Bush Bashing', which absolutely no one thinks of as physically attacking Bush, I think there are many who would say that words can constitute gay-bashing.
Now whether they think verbal gay-bashing should be punished or censored or constitute an aggravating factor that enhances the penalty of another crime (so called 'hate crimes'), is another story. There are many people that DO think that. I don't but that's a different argument from whether anyone legitimately considers verbal abuse of gays (or blacks or women or children or men, for that matter). You're free as a bird to think that illegitimate. I don't. I think it makes perfect sense.
Really? Here it is!
The full text of the American Standard Version reads:
"Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God." (emphasis ours)
Unfortunately, the two behaviors shown in bold above are ambiguous. The meaning of the original Greek has been lost.
The list of activities that will eliminate any possibility of salvation has been expressed by various English translations as:
American Standard Version: unrighteous, fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with men, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers or extortioners.
Amplified Bible: unrighteous and wrongdoers; impure and immoral, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuality, cheats (swindlers and thieves), greedy graspers, drunkards, revilers and slanderers, extortioners and robbers
The Answer: people who do wrong; sin sexually, worship idols, take part in adultery, male prostitutes, men who have sexual relations with other men, steal, greedy, get drunk, lie about others, rob
The Authentic New Testament: evil-doers; immoral, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, userers, drunkards, foul-mouthed, extortioners
Christian Standard Bible: sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, revilers, or swindlers
The Jerusalem Bible: people who do wrong; people of immoral lives, idolaters, adulterers, catamites, sodomites, thieves, usurers, drunkards, slanderers, swindlers
King James: unrighteous; fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners
Living Bible: going to outside judges, immoral, idol worshipers, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, greedy, drunkards, slanderers, robbers
The Living New Testament: those doing such things, live immoral lives, idol worshipers, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, slandermongers, robbers
Modern Language: unrighteous; profligates. idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, avaricious, drunkards, slanderers, robbers
James Moffatt: wicked; immoral, idolaters, adulterers, catamites, sodomites, thieves, lustful, drunken, abusive, robbers
New American: unjust; fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, boy prostitutes, practicing homosexuals, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, slanderers, robbers
New American Standard: unrighteous; fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers or swindlers.
New Century Version: people who do wrong, sin sexually, worship idols, take part in adultery, men who have sexual relations with other men, steal, selfish, get drunk, lie about others, cheat
New International: wicked; sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexual offenders, thieves, greedy, drunkards, slanderers, swindlers
New Living Translation: those who do wrong; those who indulge in sexual sin, idol worshipers, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, greedy, drunkards, abusers, swindlers
New Revised Standard Version: wrongdoers; fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, greedy drunkards, revilers, robbers
New Testament and Psalms: (3) wrongdoers; sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, thieves, greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers
New World: unrighteous; fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, men kept for unnatural purposes, men who lie with men, thieves, greedy persons, drunkards, revilers or extortioners.
The Promise: evil people; immoral, worships idols, unfaithful in marriage, pervert or behaves like a homosexual...thief, greedy person, drunkards, anyone who curses and cheats others.
Revised English Bible: wrongdoers; fornicator, idolater, adulterer, sexual pervert, thief, extortioner, drunkard, slanderer, swindler.
Revised Standard: unrighteous; immoral, idolaters, adulterers, sexual perverts, thieves, greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers
Rheims New Testament: unjust; fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, liers with mankind, thieves, covetous, drunkards, railers, extortioners
The New Testament: lechers, idolaters, adulterers, effeminates, pederasts, thieves, covetous, drunken, abusive, rapacious (Translated by Richmond Lattimore)
Today's English Version: wicked, immoral, worship idols, adulterers, homosexual perverts, steal, greedy, drunkards. slanders, thieves
The United Gospels New Testament: unrighteous; fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortione
That sounds like a fine doctrinal basis upon which to found another church. You could set it up any way you want, even excluding straights, Armenians, Eskimos, left-handed, and those married to someone of a different race. Ain't this a great country?
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
However, God DOES make arbitrary distinctions. And if they seem arbitrary, then perhaps he should explain why they are not. If they are arbitrary, then to me that's simply ridiculous. If it's so clear as to what God say, then why are there literally thousands of different religions in the world? If God can't be clear about what his intentions are, how are we supposed to be clear about following them?
Just something as basic as thou shall not kill. Does that mean you no capitol punishment? That you can't kill even in war? Or self-defense? (Jesus could have killed the Romans that crucified him in self-defense, but he chose not to. So one could assume that even self-defense killing is not justified).
Even something as basic as that, and God is not clear. And scholars have debated so many phrases of the Bible and wondered what they truly mean. It would be arrogance to think that one person can understand everything in the Bible, and understand what God truly meant about every thing.
That's why we had Jesus come to us and say, that really loving one another will solve just about any problem or settle any issue that comes along. If he could love and forgave even those who killed him, why can't we love another? And if we are capable of that, surely God is.
So, no, I can't believe that God would actually hate anyone so much as to put them into internatl damnation. like you said, we all make mistakes, we all are learning. It would be a shameful God to punish people for simply making mistakes.
Really? On a post of this topic, I would find the introduction of those other topics to be intruding irrelevant topics into the discussion. The post is about a Church that, first, agreed to perform the burial of the relative of their janitor, and then, finding out that he was gay, refused to perform the funeral. How on earth would those other topics be, in any way at all, relevant to the post? Place a post about high divorce rates, high rates of conception outside of marriage, poverty, environmental destruction and we can talk about that. For the record, I think all of those are worthy topics of discussion from a Christian (or other religious and non-religious) viewpoint. They just have no place in THIS discussion.
The discussion is driven as much by critics of the Church's decision as it is by defenders, so I don't think it's particularly fair to blame just the Christians for discussing this topic at such length. We're discussing it because critics are challenging us to. As with all discussions, this one is at least a two way street.
You wrote:
You're welcome.
Well, that's the prerogative of being the omniscient Lord, God, almighty: such a one gets to say what goes. Such a one doesn't HAVE to answer why. The answer is, because I said so, just like many parents tell their two year old children...because they can.
Someone might exclaim: "I simply refuse to believe in such a god." Well, that's fine but fat lot of good that will do that person in the judgment, assuming that this God IS, indeed, the God of heaven and earth. Refusing to believe in such a god does not make God disappear. Ever hear of the phrase, "shooting oneself in the foot" or "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face"?
Well, one possible answer to the question of why so many religions, given from a Christian point of view, might have to do with the nature of man as portrayed in the early chapters of Genesis. Man is created for communion with God and with the rest of creation but he and she are no automata, programmed to process data in just this or that way but, rather, people with the ability to question, the entertain alternate views, to choose between alternatives as seems best to them. Why? I can only speculate. God wanted willing obedience rather than programmed servants. Well, we all know how that worked out. A people left with a choice to obey God -- "Of that tree you shall not eat!" -- or not -- "You shall not surely die!" -- they chose what seemed to them the more attractive alternative. Well, how long are a people like that going to not just not remain faithful to God but actually create gods to take his place? My guess is, not very long. Is this God's fault? I guess so but, well, how interesting would life as an automaton be, everyone always arriving at the same solution to problems with the same variables?
Of course, the naturalistic answer is, not understanding the dangers presented by a chaotic world, where predators might drag off your offspring in the night, fires might come from the sky and burn half your clan, the rains might dry up and nothing grow and many of your people starve, the earth might shake, the sky might darken, etc., etc., etc., what is man to think but that there is some big boogie-man in the sky and he's angry. The details would be up to each to fill in as his imagination might suggest.
I agree that "Thou shalt not kill" is not overly precise in answering the questions that you raise. Most people seem to take it to mean, "Don't murder" by which they mean, "Don't kill people outside of judicial due process (variously defined), just warfare, or defense of self or of another. The totally pacific view, "Don't kill", period, seems to be a minority view, yet one that, if taken to mean "don't purposely kill another human being under any circumstances", is probably defensible as Jesus's own view. One of the features of human beings is a conscience and the ability to fill in the blanks according to one's own lights and Christians, to a greater or lesser degree, allow for individuals following their conscience in matters where there is less than crystal clarity or atomic specificity.
But the interesting thing, in relation to this discussion, is how clear the Bible is about its rejection of homosexual sex. After all, as roundly as the Bible's opinion has been panned here by multiple critics, I haven't seen anyone say of either Leviticus or Romans, "But that's so opaque" or "That's susceptible to so many different and contradictory interpretations, how can anyone say what it really means?" The complaint is that the Bible SAYS what it says so clearly or that clear disapprobation shouldn't be applied today for one reason or another.
Well, that's clearly true. But that's true with any text, ancient or recent. There are many interpretive theories today applied to literary works and critics will often argue over the meaning of a recent novel or poem or play or, even, works of non-fiction. The problem is exacerbated in the case of ancient texts. Being so far removed from the place and time and thought of ancient peoples, it can often be difficult to arrive at consensus on how to interpret passages or, even, the genre of an entire body of work is to be understood as. However, see above about the clarity of the disapproval of homosexual sex in the Bible.
Well, it's doubtful that we ARE capable of that, though I wouldn't argue that Jesus was or that God is. The question is not whether God is capable of loving or forgiving sinners, the question are, it seems to me, what does his love look like and under what conditions will he forgive?
Is God's love mushy, as when a parent says, "Oh, isn't he cute?" as her child is beating the snot out of the neighbor's child or is it more like the love that says, "You knew it was wrong. You knew the consequences. You did the crime. Now do the time!" In my view, the biblical God is susceptible to the criticism that he is (at least to our eyes) arbitrary and he staunchly refuses to explain himself to our satisfaction. In my view, he is susceptible to the criticism that he gives us desires (such as strong sexual attractions) and then lays so many rules down that it is impossible to satisfy those desires without running afoul of one or more rules. Who can be perfect? Only Jesus but that's where redemption comes in. Jesus's sacrifice is the provision which God makes for sinners to come clean and trust in Jesus's sacrifice for forgiveness is the means of our cleansing. This is the exchange: perfect Jesus dies for sinners so that those who believe may be perfect in God's sight. [Okay, I'm evangelizing. Sue me!]
That would be a convenient out if refusing to believe a thing made the thing not so. But, then, we're all free to believe whatever we want.
Anyway, thanks for the pleasant conversation.
Exactly! Whichi is why anyone should be very careful before condemning the actions of another person. Earlier today, I posted various versions of a Biblcal passage. You can see the degree of disparity just on that one part alone! The Bible has been translated so many times from various languages that much of it is unreliable.
In fact, the King James Version was based on a copy from Erasmus, which modern scholarship has determined is highly unreliable and has numerous mistakes. Whole part of it where made up. For instance, that parable about he who is without sin may cast the first stone? It simply doesn't exist in the bibles from the first few hundred years. It was placed in there several hundred years afterward -- so that story -- one of the most moving and quoted, was simply invented several hundred years after the NT was written.
There are, in fact, several books written, by actual biblical scholars, who argue that the Bible is not at all clear that homosexuality is forbidden. I've asked you about lesbians, and you haven't yet responded, but that's just one part of it.
"Well, that's the prerogative of being the omniscient Lord, God, almighty: such a one gets to say what goes."
Okay, fine -- it's a perogative of God to make arbitrary rules. Then dont' preach to me that he is fair, just or good. He is, in fact, no better than those meddlesome gods of the ancient Greeks and Romans. If our eternal salvation is dependent upon following certain laws, then it certainly is within the capability of God of making those laws clear. He hasn't, even with something as simple as killing. And that one about graven images I've never understood. Tell me, has anyone ever confessed to you and asked forgivenness for holding a graven image?
You can't have a God who is unfair and then say we must worship him because he is fair. If you think God is arbitrary, that he gives us deliberately vague laws seemingly designed to entrap us so that we will sin regardless of our best intentions, just so that he can throw us into hell -- well, that's actually a pretty good definiation of a devil, not a god.
"The problem is exacerbated in the case of ancient texts. Being so far removed from the place and time and thought of ancient peoples, it can often be difficult to arrive at consensus on how to interpret passages or, even, the genre of an entire body of work is to be understood as."
Exactly. And in ancient times, they had no concept that homosexuality was something you were born with. You could hide it, refuse to see it and marry a woman and have children (like Ted Haggard), but that doesn't change who you are. And that's a concept that wasn't understood until the 20th century. (Some people still refuse ot believe it!)
Remember: The Bible was interpreted to support slavery, to discriminate against women and all other sorts of minorities, to keep certain classes apart, to keep certain races apart, to slaugher and fight against other people, to convert undert torture people of other religions. And each one of them was absolutely sure that the bible was clear about this matter. Killing another person in the name of God requires clear evidence, and people had no problem finding that. Galileo was condemned based on the the surety of the Bible.
We realize today that they were nuts, but that's not because the Bible changed. (well, actually, it has -- so many versions are out that you can find a version that supports just about anything). But the greater reason is that we have reason today, and we have advanced in our thinking that every person is precious and all life is precious. This is very different from the middle ages, for instance. And it informs our thinking.
I know you mean well, but I really sorta resent people who say that I'm just going around picking up what I like and don't like, and ignore biblical truth to fit my life. But the same can be said of you. perhaps you know more about the bible than everyone else, but there are plenty of wellmeaning scholars who in fact disagree with you. (Source: What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality)
"Is God's love mushy...." And this, I think is the heart of our disagreement. There is only one kind of love, and that is unconditional love. All other love is a false love. To say, I will love you only if you follow my rules, isn't love -- it's control. Any parent who says, I will love you if you go to law school, or I will love you once I see that you hold down a steady job. That's false love, and not love at all. IT's using love as a mechanism to get another person to do what you want them to do.
You mentioned free will. yet, you make a mockery of free will. Suppose I said, you have the free will to select orange juice or a glass of wine. Go ahead -- your choice! But I say, if you drink the wine, I will cut off your hand. What sort of free will is that? It isn't. You really have no choice.
So to say I have free will to love another man, but if I do, I will be condemned to hell, makes a mockery of free will. It's a joke. In fact, God is tricking us, thinking, maybe these people are so stupid they will fall for this joke of free will. Again, this is no God worth worshipping. And if that damns me, I'll at least be in very good an numerous company!
Nope. I believe God gave us free will, and he meant it. I believe that God loves us with unconditional love, and he meant it. Unconditional love means exactly that -- without conditions. That means he loves Hitler and Stalin just as much as he loves George Bush, Pat Robertson, Hillary Clinton and you and me. Everything you said earlier makes sense only if you believe that God's love is conditional and can be withdrawn. We don't have to do anything to earn God's love -- it just exists.
When I see a mother who has a child, I see absolute and unconditional love. There is nothing her child must 'do' or not do to earn her love. It just is. Can you reallly believe that any mother is capable of a greater love than God has for her children? (And yes, since God can take any form, God can be female, a rock, the wind, a teacup, a symphony, a rocktune or anything else, right?)
If you offer free will, you must accept the fact that people will do things that you might not like or approve of. But that's part of the deal. If God didn't want us to masturbate, he could have easily created us so that we can't. Maybe he doesn't want us to jo, but then he can hardly be angry with us if we do. And I certainly don't believe he is.
God needs nothing. And she certainly needs nothing from us. That means she doesn't need obedience from us. Perhaps it's a desire on her part, but it isn't a need. Only a tyrant or an insecure ruler needs strict obedience, and I don't see God as that.
So you see, Mr. Criag, my theology is actually pretty well thought out. You may disagree, but it's not simply a matter of me picking and choosing what I want. I have thought deeply about such matters. But I'm not at all interested in what the bible has to say about most matters. The earth and its people are much older than the bible, and out of the 5.3 billion people on earth, only a fraction have even heard of it. God has a serious distribution problem!
Even as I child I thought that tribes in Brazil who have never heard of the bible or Christianity don't deserve to be driven into hell for not followin his orders. But according to you, they are of course violating all sorts of laws, not asking for forgiveness and so condemned to hell -- for something that is not their fault! Any god who would throw people like that into hell for something beyond their control is again, an unfair, unjust, tryannical God.
How about a compromise. I'll continue to live my life as I see fit, trying my best to live the golden rule and love another, and then on my deathbed, I'll ask for forgiveness for all my mistakes. That way everyone is happy. And this way you won't have to worry about me falling in love with another man.
The trouble with that argument is that as well as masturbation it covers things that are bad by anyone's standards. God could have created us so that we wouldn't murder. Sometimes people do murder. But the argument "if murder was wrong, God wouldn't allow us to do it" holds no water.
Any god who would throw people like that into hell for something beyond their control is again, an unfair, unjust, tryannical God.
God creates earthquakes and hurricanes. He's responsible for cancer and Alzheimer's disease. Sending gays to Hell doesn't seem all that much more tyrannical than giving good people cancer.
Now, they also don't let gay people get married (to someone of the same sex), so I guess they're kind of screwed (unless they're following the rules).
I'm also sure that people of all the people living unrepentantly in sin, practicing homosexuals are probably excluded more often than others. But every priest I know would have refused to marry a straight couple that was "living in sin."
...and if such a god is going to be arbitrary and capricious then it doesn't necessarily deserve our respect or love.
If an ordinary human can be more consistent and logical than God than there is a problem with that god--at least if you want to call that god perfect, all loving, all knowing and all powerful.
Well, actually, if your god is proven to be arbitrary and capricious there is no reason to assume that you will be admitted to heaven just because you follow the tenants of your religion, or, for that matter, that any such thing as heaven exists. For once you posit that God is unknowable, mysterious and unpredictable you lose all pretense to claim you know his will and to claim you can predict his actions. For truly, what could be more arrogent than to claim to know the mind of god? To say "If I do this then god will give me eternal life and happiness" is to claim to know what god will do. Such a claim is impossible if god is unknowable.
Got it?
"Gay bashing" may be defined by you for purposes of this discussion as everything from assault to dirty looks.
But in the wider world, the numbers of dirty looks, bad words and whatever else can be ginned up will be promoted as if it's all, every last one, physical assault.
Hence my Q &A. "As many as possible."
An earlier poster said the best thing for the church to have done, finding out as late as it did, would be to take its lumps and go ahead. Sounds reasonable.
Problem is, in this world are attorneys. And if the church took its lumps, that would set a precedent dearer to an attorney's heart than pure gold. It is painful to imagine the number of horrid things the church would be forced into doing by virtue of the precedent.
So, if you're wondering why the church didn't take its lumps, it could be because they accidentally had the Yellow Pages open to "A". And got a cold chill up their corporate spine.
Sure it does. The Bible was written after the dawn of man, not the other way around.
God could still have given man free will without the ability to cause horendous pain in others. He's all F'ing powerful! There is nothing he cannot do!
If the goal of a free society is to balance the rights of individuals to live free in there right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness to the extent that right doesn't interfere with the rights of others, God should have done better job of doing that for the world at large. God's need to grant people the free will to sin should not need to extend to allowing men to kill millions of people. That's going just a little too far to prove a point, especially when you are allow powerful and could simple have stopped it. Free societies recognize the need to balance the rights of individuals, why doesn't God?
No, you're right, it doesn't. Sending gays to hell and causing needles and arbitrary suffering and death when it is in your effortless power to prevent it is quite Tyrannical.
You have just compounded the problem of evil, not exonerated it. There is no "free will" purpose to earthquakes and disease and sending people to their doom for arbitrary and inhumane reasons is unworthy and inconsistent with the idea of an all loving god. Clearly god is not all loving if the concept is to have any meaningful definition.
Law of unintended consequences. It appears to me that I have unintentionally angered you so let my try to put things aright. I did not intend to say that your position was less than well thought out or that it was the result of picking and choosing or ignoring those things that displeased you. Your positions appear to me to be well thought out, reasonable and well defended. You are obviously well informed. My apologies.
Not being a scholar, I am not up on the scholarship that you referenced which calls into question that the Bible disapproves of homosexual sex. I would be glad to read up on it, though. Would you be able/willing to tell me the titles? Are they readily available? I would be glad to read them if they aren't very expensive. I am not averse to being argued out of my position.
You mentioned the many translations that you posted. I read that comment and, indeed, the translation of some of the words are quite diverse. I made a similar search of numerous translations of Leviticus 18:22 &20:13 and Romans 1:26-27. The translations do not vary much at all so that, as a test of the reliability of these verses does not seem to help much, at least so far as I can see.
As far as the King James (Authorized) Version, the greek from the latter chapters of the book of Revelation were back translated from the Latin vulgate and, so, as you say, are not based in that portion on a reliable text. That was with respect to the 1611 edition. It was, indeed, based upon a late, inferior text in the New Testament. This would not, however, effect the Leviticus passages. Nor does it seem to effect the Romans passage since none of even the very recent translations evidence a different text. In fact the only variants in those two verses are poorly attested in the manuscripts so that there is not any doubt, in my opinion (and my facility with the NT Greek and with the textual criticism is very good, though, again, not a scholar), the text used in the KJV for those verses is identical with the text used for all translations.
Regarding females laying with females, the Romans passage under consideration indicates to me that Leviticus was applied to both male-male and female-female pairings in the first century and I don't find the lack of a verse specifically to female-female pairings to be particularly troubling. After all, if every law, command or rule were repeated to apply to both males and females, the books would be much longer. To take just one example, Exodus 22:1 reads, "If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep." Does the lack of a repetition of this verse mean that a woman may steal an ox or sheep, kill it or sell it without penalty? I don't think so.
More in a bit.
Ah, the Bible. It isn't just a perfect arbiter of morality and a science text book any more, now it is a consumer protection guide and quality control manual!
An exhortation is an exhortation. One can just as easily argue that the ban on eating "unclean" animals is the same thing, and there is some debate on that matter. I don't imagine Jews who keep Kosher are going to slap their foreheads upon hearing this and say, "Doh!"
The product quality commandment idea doesn't address why, in the preceding line, the Bible says this:
Perhaps plowing with oxen and donkeys produces an inferior form of, er, plowing?
It could just be that the Bible says a lot of arbitrary stuff that people kind of have to be contortionists to explain away as being reasonable and consistent...
One thing you are missing is that the the Bible says:
This doesn't mean mixed fiber yarn it means you can't wear an outfit consisting of wool and linen items.
Note the discussion of the idea of a consistent wardrobe is echoed in Deuteronomy:
I don't think you are going to get far arguing that the Bible is consistent or rational. You might wish to follow in the example of some earlier posters who admit that god can be arbitrary, but simply maintain that is the right of god.
BTW, it doesn't matter whether synthetics existed since the bible is a work of all knowing God. Since this is the unerring word of God for time immemorial He could and should have included guidance on the synthetic fibers He knew would be invented. To do otherwise might let people think the Bible was merely a book written by men with only the ordinary knowledge of men at that time. To excuse the Bible as being old and outdated seems contradictory to saying is is the perfect word of God.
Well, yes. But I was responding to someone who *did* believe in a good God, but didn't think that sending gays to Hell was consistent with it. He already thinks that the Problem of Evil has a solution; he already explained to his own satisfaction why God makes cancer. I just pointed out that whatever his explanation is (I certainly can't think of one myself) it equally well explains God sending gays to Hell.
Saying "oh, God sends earthquakes and tidal waves, causes droughts, inflicts diseases on people... yeah, that's fine... but I can't believe he'd send gay people to Hell" seems as absurd to me as it does to you.
I wasn't aware that I had.
I didn't mean to imply that our salvation depended upon following certain laws. I intended to say that our salvation depends upon looking to the sacrifice of Jesus for forgiveness and salvation. The law shows us that we cannot be righteous by our own efforts. It turns us away from reliance on doing right and being good enough for God apart from Jesus' sacrifice. It is that sacrifice that secures for us our salvation and eternal life. What is posed by the law, especially as extended beyond the outward act and to the intention behind the act, is not the answer to the question, "What must I do to be saved?" but, rather, the assertion that we can do nothing to be saved of our own efforts. Salvation, in my view, is by faith, our trust that for the sake of the death of Christ, sealed by his resurrection, our sins are forgiven and we are made fit for heaven.
I said that the law doesn't answer the question, "What must I do to be saved?" but it does answer the question, "What would God have me do? How would he have me live? What attitudes should I have as a believer?" and so forth. To me, I can never achieve, in this life, the perfection that Jesus holds out for me to strive for and to the degree that I fall short, I confess my failure to God, trusting in the cross that Jesus' sacrifice makes up the shortfall.
As to the lack of specificity or clarity regarding "Thou shalt not kill", we do have guidance as to what it means and how it applies. It does not seem to apply to wars, necessarily, for God directed Israel to make war, for example, to take the land of Canaan, knowing that killing would ensue. It does not forbid capital punishment, it seems, since the Bible designates that those who break the command, on the testimony of at least two credible witnesses, murderers were to be put to death. If the defensive wars that were fought by the Jews can be extended to individual acts of defense, and I think they can be for if a nation may defend itself and its people, individuals should be able to also, then it would seem that self-defense and defense of others was not intended to be prohibited by the commandment. At least, this is my view. These seem to be reasonable deductions.
I think I mentioned somewhere above that I do accept that notion of homosexuality being innate, tied to who one is rather than just to what one does and with whom. I don't think that they had a concept of being a homosexual and, so, none of the verses that appear to speak to the matter at all, speak directly to a person's being but speak to the activities, engaging in physical intimacy between two people of like genders, and to the desires directly involved therein.
Now I don't know how you would view that. Perhaps referring to the desires, the passions for one of like gender is, in your view, fairly indistinguishable from your conception of being gay or maybe not. I think, for me, the fact that my passions, my desires, are directed at members of the opposite gender is at least a significant part of what it means for me to be heterosexual. If so, then the Romans passages might be read to describe at least a significant part of the concept of being gay without having a separate vocable for that concept. However, as I mentioned above, my own relations with my wife are plagued with sin in so far as I fail to live up to the ideal that Jesus sets out in Matthew 5:27-28 about lusting after other women.
Some thing, spurred by that last sentence, is tickling my brain. I'd rather not continue for the time being until I think about it more.
But for all us starving pink minnows, Romans 14 is pure fish food -- hagia sophia flakes.
14:12 So then each one of us will give account of himself to God.
14:13 Therefore let's not judge one another any more but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block in his brother's way, or an occasion for falling.
14:14 I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself; except that to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.
What other part would there be? If you desired the opposite sex but were celibate your whole life (e.g. killed in an accident at 18, became a Catholic priest, stranded on an island somewhere etc.) would that mean you weren't heterosexual?
I sometimes forget that Randy R is a theist. I think Randy R was speaking of the inequity and injustice of the idea of a god who would punish children to hell for never having heard the word of god--something that is entirely out of their control and not a matter of free will. I wold agree that would be barbaric.
I respect Randy R and his even tempered tenacity in fighting for acceptance. I, with him, cannot respect a god that would send gay people to hell for being gay or acting on that fact. But I take that one step further and cannot respect a god that would allow disease and "acts of God" to kill people and cause suffering for no purpose. I find the "problem of evil" to be a wholly convincing refutation of the idea of an all loving god who is also all knowing and all powerful.
So I guess I'm agree with you, Ken Arromdee, that believing that god does not punish the innocent (gays, people who haven't heard the word of god) is inconsistent with the other factors in the "problem of evil" such as disease and natural disasters, if, in fact, that is what you were saying...
Generally, though I agree with much of what Randy R says. I feel reluctant to find fault with his theological position because he generally seems fairly reasonable and the pro-discrimination forces seem like bigoted bullies, even if they are only advocating the right to discriminate and not directly advocating discrimination.
If only all the bible were like that and every one could agree that passage had precedence over all the other stuff.
I was thinking as I wrote that but I hadn't taken the time to examine the idea all the way through to a conclusion so, rather than saying that that was the whole of being a heterosexual, I wrote that it was at least a significant part. Even at that point, though, I was inclined to agree with you. I did wonder if he might think that being homosexual involved more than just homosexual sex and the sexual desires directed at same-gender persons. For example, would companionship, intimate conversation, mutual support, quite apart from sexual activities also be a significant part of being either hetero- or homosexual? In that sense, using the words heterosexual and homosexual in this context of being might, in itself, cause one to focus only and unjustifiably upon the sexual aspects of being either heterosexual or homosexual? I don't know but I do think the terms themselves are too cramped for use when discussing one's being either. Perhaps one should, when discussing what it means to be either, one should use the terms gay/lesbian or straight. That might help to broaden one's thinking about what it means to be who one is, no matter how one identifies in the realm of sexual identity/attraction. After all, how much time does one spend having sexual relations or lusting to have them. There's a lot more to life, to being, than just sex.
So I guess, that's my answer to your question: "What other part would there be?"
the point is that male homosexual couples are two MALES.
it's pretty well accepted that in general, women are the great restrainers and civilizers of male behavior. in effect, women provide a civilizing influence on men. one need only look at crime stats or suicide stats to recognize that men commit more self-destructive and other-destructive behavior than women. similar to how men, moreso than women, seek to schtup everything with a pulse, whereas women are more prone to accept the whole monogamy thing. this is hardly a new concept. it's been remarked on for many thousands of years. i mean seriously. men start acting responsibly when they get married (iow, the difference is more severe) or at least in a monogamous relationship.
i personally don't feel that there is anything wrong with homosexuality from a moral standpoint, but i also recognize that a couple consisting of two men does not have the civilizing/restraining influence of a woman, although there is an argument that many gay couples have one male that acts more the traditional woman's role vs. the other one.
a lot of evolutionary psychologists explain the recklessness of men vis vis the whole "spreading their seed" thing on the man's side (he can impregnate dozens of women in a short period of time and thus pass his evolutionary code on to many) vs. the woman side - who can only get pregnant every so often and ultimately only share her DNA once every so many months, so she HAS to be more choosy. she can't spread her 'seed' (so to speak) to dozens in the course of a week like a man can, so it pays her to (try to) civilize the one she "catches" so to speak.
I agree completely. Actually, I am pleasantly surprised. This thread showed all the signs of disintegrting into various rants, but instead has beome a thoughtful discussion of the issue.
Also, for the record, I do support gay rights. That doesn't mean we can force churches to do things they disagree with, however.
While observant Jews don't have a problem with people saying, "This is a good law because it protects against disease/protects consumers/etc.," that's not the Jewish belief as to why Jews must follow these rules. The rules exist, in Jewish belief but contrary to Randy's notion, precisely "because God said so."
As an aside, on Randy's views on unconditional love, I think I side with Ayn Rand on that point (though certainly not all points): what value does that have? Something you have to do nothing to earn is worth nothing. If God loves Hitler as much as he loves me, who needs that love? It's meaningless and worthless.
I seriously doubt that the church believed a "truly heartfelt, emotional, even spiritual connection" between Sinclair and Wagner to be sinful, even though it was "between two people of the same sex." I strongly suspect that what they thought was sinful was the genital acts between them.
But I doubt the church refuses to bury people it also thinks have sinned, like liars, blasphemers, and adulterers
Canon 1184 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law provides that "Church funeral rites are to be denied to the following, unless they gave some signs of repentance before death:
1/ notorious apostates, heretics and schismatics;
2/ those who for anti‚christian motives chose that their bodies be cremated;
3/ other manifest sinners to whom a Church funeral could not be granted without public scandal to the faithful."
IIRC, the Church has notoriously denied Christian burial to some Mafia figures in recent years, on the grounds that they were "manifest sinners" and that the funeral would cause "public scandal to the faithful."
Even to the point of not holding funerals for Jews in Christian churches, I suppose. Oh, the humanity!
Yep.
Therefore, as a Catholic, you cannot and presumably will not just go to any old church that will accept you. Catholics, in the eyes of the church's own teachings, simply do not have that option.
So let me see if I've gotten this right: You accept the Catholic Church's teaching that it is the one true church, and necessary for salvation, but you reject its teaching that sodomy is mortally sinful, and that avoidance of deliberately willed acts of sodomy (and repentence of those that happen to be committed) is (at least part of) the true path for salvation?
I would have thought that if the Church were authoritative on the matter of its own authority, it would perforce be authoritative on its moral teachings.
See the aforementioned Canon 1184 § 3. IOW, if the remarried divorcee gives some reason for believing he's repented (see, e.g., Lord Marchmain in "Brideshead Revisited"), then Christian burial would be OK. Without such an indication, not so much.
That may be true; but is that therefore reason to bar gays, particularly gay men, from marriage? If anything, barring gay men from marriage -- an institution that has as one of its prime objectives to tame male lust -- only exacerbates the promiscuity that may more naturally come to gay male relationships given they involve two naturally promiscuous men, as opposed to hetero relations where one gender is typically monogamous and demands monogamy from the naturally promiscuous partner.
Regarding the one male acting the part of the "woman" in gay relationships, it's nonsense. Typical gay male psyche is not "female" or "queen" as some crudely attempt to characterize, but, I'd argue, is not quite the same as a heterosexual male's either. A gay male psyche is more of a mix of stereotypical male and female elements so that in any gay male relationship -- you still have the male/female yin and yang dynamic, it's just that the male and female exists within each partner.
"I am sorry that anyone considers a truly heartfelt, emotional, even spiritual connection to another human being to be sinful, simply because that love is between two people of the same sex."
No one I've ever met (and I've met quite a lot of Christians) would fit that statement. An "emotion, even spiritual connection"? Not a problem - in fact, a good and desired thing! A SEXUAL connction? Oh, yeah, well, that might have a little something to do with it...
I have emotional and spiritual connections with members of my own sex regularly. Oddly nough, none of them involve sex. Just a thought.
(What a tool.)
Are you wilfully blinding yourself to that fact that Eros involves an "emotional, even spiritual" connection, even without sexual behavior that consumates such love. Does traditional Christianity have a teaching on homosexual Eros? My understanding, after Richard Posner's, of Plato's Symposium is that the book is one big defense of homosexual Eros, as though the philosophers defending such concept didn't necessarily gung-ho defend homosexual behavior.
It's silly to assume that EVERY SINGLE FREAKIN LAW in the legal code of a theocracy has to do with morality and morality alone. The theocracy needed laws not just to keep the people on good terms with God and in rightful relations with each other, but also to address practical issues relevant to building and maintaining a civilization. Thus the Law addresses stuff like health issues, ranching and garment manufacture. Civilizations are more than just temples - ask Sid Meier :-)But the nation for which the law was crafted died in 597 BC, long before synthetic fabrics were invented.Well, yes - and apparently some cultures need to have it pointed out:Yes, the Law of Moses is not all neatness and bullet points one you get past the Ten Commandments. Why, I don't know. The Law was read aloud regularly to the populace; maybe its occasionally unpredictable format made it friendlier to the listeners' attention spans. At least it's more orderly than the average state constitution.
Interesting stuff.
OT:
I think it tends to point out the Bible as a mere book written by men rather than the perfect word of god and the perfect moral guide. An all knowing god could have written a book that was more timeless than to include tips for living that are only appropriate in 557 BC. As to the unpredictable format, I think we know that has more to do with the Bible being cobbled together from multiple sources.
As to this case, regardless of their beliefs, the church acted rudely to a family in grief. There's nothing illegal in this, but it is shameful. And the fact that they tried to do it through a series of lies before finally admitting to their discrimination (while trying to claim that it wasn't really discrimination) makes it worse.
It is very true that not all Christians are of the same opinion in this (or much of anything else). For my part, my comments are my thoughts on the subject. Obviously, no other Christian is bound to agree with my point of view any more than any non-Christian is bound to agree with me, except in so far as they find my argument convincing.
You think they acted rudely. I don't. If it had come out that the dead man had been a serial killer in life but that knowledge came to light only after they had agreed to bury the man, would you say that it would be rude for the Church leadership to step in and say that they would not bury someone who had been a mass murderer? No. Being a Homosexual is by no means comparable to being a mass murderer. The point of the question is not to compare those two but, rather, to focus attention upon the fact that the Church agreed to bury the man BEFORE they knew he was a homosexual and withdrew the offer AFTER that became known. Had they known that he was gay from the start, they would not have offered to bury him.
The man's sister disagrees with what I just wrote but the only evidence the article presents that the Church knew that the man was gay is contained in this paragraph:
Well if the only evidence the woman has that the Church knew the man was gay is that the leaders had seen many pictures, some including the man's partner but that none of the pictures showed any signs of romantic involvement, what sort of proof is that that the Church knew that the man was gay? Did she TELL them that he was gay? When she showed them the pictures, did she tell the Church, "This is him with his gay lover X"? She doesn't say so, at least the article presents no evidence that she ever told anyone at the Church that he was gay before the Church agreed to bury him.
That is not proof that the Church did not know but it is good enough for me. I see no reason to doubt the pastor when he said that no one at the Church knew the man was gay before agreeing to bury him. Why in God's name would they agree to bury someone who was not a member, did not attend that Church, and whom they knew lived a life of which they disapproved, only to later withdraw the offer and bring the Church the negative attention that the Church has, in fact, attracted? It makes no sense.
I'm not saying that the woman is lying when she says that the Church knew that the man was gay before offering to bury him. I just think that she thinks that the Church should have drawn a conclusion from the pictures that, in my opinion, because those pictures showed no signs of physical intimacy, the Church really had no reason to draw.
And, yes, I would expect the church to carry through if it were a murderer, as well. A funeral is not a referendum on the life of the deceased, it is to ease the grief of the survivors.
And though I am not at all religious myself, the one thing I remember from my youth in the Congregationalist church was that when advised not to go among the outcast by his Apostles, going among the outcast is precisely what Jesus did. (My memory of that is directly tied to my atheism, for it was when the well-off suburban parishioners of my parent's generation voted our minister out because they felt he was too "negative" because he "always talked about poor people" that my growing disbelief in any deities fused with a distaste for stifling emotional cruelties and preening vanity of organized religion as actually practiced. However, I do recall his last sermon, recounting that very incident.)
And, contrary to what you write, the minister seems to be reveling in all the negative attention, saying: "With all the negative e-mail we are receiving right now, it seems that the homosexual community, God bless them all, are very organized. Before, when you type in 'Gary Simons' and 'High Point Church' in a Google search, you know, you could find us. But now, you really could find us."