posted
Yes, yes, but all that stuff is OT. It's just another part of the Old Law. Like not being allowed to eat pig, or seafood that isn't fish, or having to go out the prescribed distance from your dwelling before evacuating your bowels, or STONING people.
And quite simply, if you don't go after people for not doing all that other stuff, what right do you have to insist on the rest?
You can't go halfway on something like this, and say "well, I'm just going to pick and choose what parts of the law I follow." Is the Old Law still in effect, contrary to what is said in the NT, or not?
If it is, you must obey all of it, which includes trying to stone folks like me and Jubes. (ya see, if you read the thing, there are also commands it issues about what you MUST do to heretics, homosexuals and witches and so forth...)
If it isn't, they you must reject the prohibitions that go along with it as being no longer valid, just like we can now eat sausage and lobster, wear blended fabrics, and poop in toilets in our houses.
------------------ "When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"
posted
The only "unnatural" thing about homosexuality is that it doesn't fit in the evolution theory, since a homosexual couple do not have offspring by themselves. But that doesn't make it "wrong" and "immoral" does it?
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
RW: Uh...I go to a Catholic school, and I was taught in religion class that Catholics ARE tolerant of homosexuals. Although their sexual actions are not tolerated, just like premarital heterosexual acts are not either. BUT, they are not allowed to marry under Catholicism, which means homosexual actions will never be permitted.
Bryce: I know the Bible said homosexuality is an abomination. But an abomination = a sin. Keeping that in mind, who hasn't made an abomination?
------------------ "I would be delighted to offer any advice I can on understanding women. When I have some, I'll let you know." --Picard to Data, "In Theory"
posted
I'll be damned! (Figuratively, folks! FIGURATIVELY!)
I was researching a good answer to all of the above when I discovered what appears to be a very well-though-out, balanced, and biblically-grounded website that deals with Christianity and homosexuality.
I'm still reading the articles, so I can't say if I endorse this guy's views whole-heartedly, but he has things to say about both the Christian community and the gay community that seem to ring true. He does not appear to be trying to demonize anyone.
I don't plan on making any further comments until I have a chance to look up the references he gives, and examine the logic he uses. In the meantime, I recommend we recall the commandment Jesus said was second-most important: "Love one another".
If you care about someone, you will not try to enslave them to your doctrine, but will simply tell them the facts as you know then -- then you'll shut up and let them make up their own mind!
If you don't understand what you believe, don't wonder when others scoff at what you say -- you literally don't know what you are saying.
------------------ "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." --Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949 www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
ok... so we've already determined Homosexuality was a sin and I don't have to go into Biblical references and stuff so that's good.
So... homosexuality is a sin, so is murdering, so is lying, so is cheating on your husband right?
All of us have sinned. It's in the Bible. Romans 3:23- all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.
Alrighty... so all of us sin... like DUH! We're all human... BUT
3:24 says- and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemtion that came by Christ Jesus.
Ok... BUT ALL sins are justified when you are saved. ALL sins are forgiven if you accept Christ in your heart. And when you get saved, God puts the desire in you to want to be better and more Christlike. You then TRY to stop sinning. I dunno if a sinless life can be achieved, but for a Christian it should always be strived for.
Wow this is long... ANYWAYS... A homosexual is a person and Christ died for them. Because he loves them...(as should everyone by the way) and if a homosexual accepts Christ in their heart they should quit commiting homosexual acts.
Same goes with someone who is heterosexual... if they are commiting premarital sex, they should stop. Sex before marriage is all sin.
Since homosexual marriages are NOT recognized as two fleshes becoming one under God then homosexuals should NOT practice AT ALL.
I'm not going to go into whether or not people DECIDE to be gay or they are BORN that way... Either way, if they have no desire to be with a member of the opposite sex, then they can't really get married and have sex.
OH NO!!!! SOMEONE NOT HAVE SEX!!!! HEAVEN FORBID!
If God calls someone to remain "pure" for the rest of their life, then they should obey God. I know many Christians waaaaay into their 50's and have never had sex because they were never married.
Ok... well that was a Baptist view for ya!
------------------ ever wonder why abbreviation is such a long word?
posted
This is from a UMC website, the pastor who wrote it even lives in my conference.
If homosexuality, which was once regarded as deviant behavior, is now not only seen as acceptable, but good, then we have lost our ethic. If we have lost our ethic, and the authority of Scripture, then we can no longer delude ourselves into thinking we are still in the mainstream of historic, orthodox Christianity. If our ethic has lost its transcendent base and has now declined to the subjective level of consensual morality; if we have lost a universal, divine Savior and the accompanying universal standard of morality and decency, then we are subsequently bereft of the benefits of the faith �once delivered to the saints.� It has become a gutted Christianity which is Christian in name only.
If God is indeed evolving, and therefore his will and word are evolving as well, as the process theologians would have us believe, then actually this God is a product of our imagination � the collective will of society. If our morality is nothing more than an ambiguous niceness, or a call to be loving toward others without any specifics, then it has no substantive value.
So what we are faced with is the core of our faith � whether this is indeed a revealed religion from a transcendent, holy God who holds us accountable, or merely something we make up as we go along. Our calling is to reach a culture in crisis, and to do so we must present a relevant Gospel, but the way to do that is to change our methods not our message. It is important that the church has become more open and accepting of homosexual persons, but which is more compassionate: to say that persons of homosexual orientation cannot be any different and must therefore continue to live out the impulses which drive them, or to introduce them to the power of God which is able to control and even change our natural inclinations? It is precisely because we love homosexual persons, as we do all people, that we offer them hope. The steep decline in our membership should be dramatic proof that we have lost our message of supernatural grace. The message of the Gospel has been changing lives for thousands of years among every race, tribe and culture. Our concern is not so much whether our culture will find our God relevant, but whether our God will find our culture acceptable. Those given the responsibility of holding the light are especially accountable.
posted
So. When Paul had a vision of all sorts of (Biblically) unclean edible things descending from heaven on a cloth, and God told him to "Eat.", was God telling Paul to sin? Or was he just communicating that nothing is sin if God says it isn't?
The greater sin is continuing to persecute the saints because they don't adhere to your doctrine. It's God's (and the individual's) job to correct others' behaviors, not mine. It's my job to show what Christ is, not by my words, but by my actions.
The arguments shown at that site are logical and well thought-out. Nowhere does he call upon the traditions of man to justify his position. I'm afraid I'm gonna have to come down on the side of "preference isn't sin, but licentious behavior is" on this one. If I'm wrong, I'm certain I will discover valid reasons to change my position. I will not waver on any mortal person's say-so.
To put your faith in anything without proving to your own satisfaction that you can trust the source is foolish at best. Thomas may have been a doubter, but he was no fool.
--Baloo
------------------ "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." --Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949 www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
[This message has been edited by Baloo (edited June 27, 1999).]
Your right I think, but if we don't advise people on their problems, who will?
I orginally came to these boards to discuss Trek, but resently I've come to the conclusion that I must be here outta God's will because everybody needs to hear the Word of God.
The reason I sometime sound crued is because I'm tired of pastors who tip toe aroung important issues.
About bryce's sermon: Excuse me? We are always changing and evolving. In biblical times women were considered properties. Not two hundred years ago, people in this country owned slaves and prayed about them in church. Morals ARE made up by people. You can say the Bible is the word of God, but SOMEBODY had to write it.
------------------ "I would be delighted to offer any advice I can on understanding women. When I have some, I'll let you know." --Picard to Data, "In Theory"
Certain things in the Bible are cultural. (i.e.) Paul told the women of Corith to stop talking during church because the men where getting upset. Not because women are mindless
------------------ I love Zilla's lips !
[This message has been edited by bryce (edited June 28, 1999).]
posted
bryce, my personal life is none of your damned business, and wether or not I am sinning ANY sins is none of your damned business, too.
Take the log out of your eye before you start looking for splinters in mine. Thank you.
As for knowing wether or not it is wrong: It isn't. End of story.
As for accepting Jesus into your heart, and not being homosexual after that: My bet gay friend accepted Jesus into his heart 7 years ago. He's still gay. He's very happy with his gayness. And I see the fruit of Jesus in his life every day, so don't throw the bible at me about that.
As for not "committing homosexual acts": My god people, you make it sound as if we were rapists or something! "Homosexual acts" ?! ... *shakes her head* No. These people should not stop doing what they feel as completely natural just because a few Christians have a stick up their butts about it (read: a FEW christians.. I realize not all of you are like this!).
And I'd like to state that the Bible was WRITTEN BY MEN. No matter how divine it is, or how many times Jesus was quoted ... HE WAS QUOTED. That means, THERE IS ROOM FOR ERROR. THERE IS ROOM FOR MIS-UNDERSTANDING. THERE IS ROOM FOR INTERPRETATION. The bible was re-written MANY DIFFERENT TIMES, and Interpreted from it's origional language many different times as well. What does this mean? It means that ANYONE could have ADDED SOMETHING IN about that, thinking that it, too, was wrong and needed to be listed as an abomination ... when in reality maybe Jesus didn't say that.
I know this for a fact: I WAS BORN BI-SEXUAL. Kissing a girl is completely natural to me. So is kissing a guy. And when I finally stopped kicking myself for what I thought was a sin, and finally listened to the Lord, I discovered something very important: He loves me. God doesn't care about it! He MADE me this way, and I highly doubt that God creates abominations, now does he?
------------------ Cherish your visions; cherish your ideas; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for if you remain true to them, your world will at last be built.
posted
Uh...I was trying to distinguish between heterosexual sexual acts and homosexual sexual acts without using as many words as you see here. I'm sorry if that sounded bad.
------------------ "I would be delighted to offer any advice I can on understanding women. When I have some, I'll let you know." --Picard to Data, "In Theory"
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