Fish Out of Water: The Gay Gospel [W:42]

I recommend "For the Bible Tells Me So."

The Baron said:

No. Sin created it. That's what I've been telling you.

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Sin created sin? You said God did not create sin. Who did?

Bob Blaylock said:

We're all this way, in one way or another. Not all the same way, of course, but every last one of us is subject to temptation to do different evils. Some of us may be more subject to the temptation to steal, or to cheat on our wives, or to abuse our children, or whatever.

It is absurdly simplistic to say that God is evil for creating us with free will, and to leave us subject to temptation; and such a position demonstrates massive ignorance of God's plan and purpose for us. We were not created as mere puppets or pets, for God's own amusement; we are literally his children, his heirs. We could never hope to fulfill the potential that he intends for us, without the ability to experience both good and evil, to make choices in accordance thereof, to experience the consequences of our choices, and to learn and grow therefrom. Each of us has a different set of challenges that we must face and overcome. An inclination to homosexuality is just one such challenge, that a few of us have, and most of us do not.

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It's still evil, assuming he knows what we're going to do. If you knew your kid had trouble not stealing candy, would you bring him to a candy store? If you could completely rule out the possibility that your son would have the urge to steal anything, would you not? If you could make it such that no one would have to worry about homosexual urges, would you not? You argue free will, but theoretically God could create us without these sins, still make us happy, and have us know everything we need to know. Also, you say we're his heirs. Are you saying he's going to retire at some point? Presumably God would have no need to retire. He'd have no need for us to do anything. He could just make it so.

The Baron said:

Douglas said:

There is more than enough evidence to support that the translation between the Hebrew and Greek bible was chock full of errors.

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Then you won’t have any problem providing examples to support your rather spurious comment.

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Here are five:
Dr. Joel Hoffman: Five Mistakes in Your Bible Translation

The Baron said:

Christians are held to the Old Testament covenant of the Mosaic / Levitical law. The design for marriage was established prior to the establishment of “the law”.
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So I would expect them to know that the Old Testament law was done away with by the New Testament covenant of grace.

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Please explain the difference between the 'Old Testament covenant of the Mosaic/Levitical law', and the 'Old Testament law'.

The Baron said:

So another poster recommended I watch a film called A Fish Out of Water and said they would be interested in my thoughts on the film. The film documents a young woman’s journey of discovering exactly what the Bible has to say regarding homosexuality. It is a subject very close to her as she is a lesbian, herself.

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For those interested, I recommended the film. I am glad that you watched it.

The film employs a number of biblical “scholars” including Bishop John Shelby Spong who is the author of The Sins of Scripture which is a book about the hateful verses in the Bible and its impact on the environment, over breeding, sexism, birth control and, of course, homosexuality, etc. His views are those of a lunatic and don’t resemble anything biblical, much less, Christian. Among his baseless claims in the book is that the Apostle Paul was a self-loathing and repressed homosexual.

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I didn't really have a problem with Spong, but I had a BIG problem with what he said about Paul. Idiotic and hateful, it caused me to pretty much negate anything he said in the film.

For “balance”, the film utilizes Fred Phelps to represent the traditional “Christian” view of homosexuality. For those who don’t know, Fred Phelps is a hateful, hate-filled, gerbil-headed butt-nugget whose views--like those of Spong--are neither biblical nor Christian.

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No, that is NOT why the film used Phelps. The film used Phelps to show an EXTREME and completely absurd position, but how something like that could be taken from the anti-gay rhetoric that is presented by folks who claim to know the bible. In no way did I see that Phelps was being presented as "mainstream".

Essentially the film is another regurgitation of the “gay gospel”. The message of the “gay gospel” is effectively that the Bible has been interpreted incorrectly over the last several thousand years with regard to homosexuality and it’s only been in the last decade or so that people have only properly understood these verses which, when understood correctly, do not condemn homosexuality.

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No, the film does exactly what I have been doing. Showing accurate and contextual interpretations and translations of the bible, interpretations and translations that have been been ignored for a long time for many reasons, both scientific and social.

What new revelations that have led to this “correct” understanding of these Scriptures are never addressed. Nor is it ever discussed why only the verses on homosexuality are the only verses that have been interpreted incorrectly? What about the rest of them?

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Actually, I'd imagine that many things in the bible have been misinterpreted. However, the focus for this film was on homosexuality. Further, since it is folks on your side who overfocus on the biblical implications of these passages, trying to use them to shape CURRENT social policy, it is appropriate to solely focus on this issue. Also, your comments above echo the comments that my side makes towards yours on why you all don't support slavery, the subjugation of women and many other things that the bible supports. You only focus on homosexuality.

The film examines seven verses in the Bible that condemn homosexuality and discuss why the traditional interpretations of these verses are wrong. I will provide their arguments and explain why they are wrong.

Genesis 1
The “Christian position” as presented by the film is that homosexuality is wrong because homosexuals can’t procreate. The pro-gay scholars in the film then explain that the logic of argument is wrong as any heterosexual union would be considered sinful if they (the heterosexual couples) failed to procreate.

This is a straw-man argument. While I’ve seen posters here at DP adopt this position, this has never been the complaint in any serious discussion. The Christian position of Genesis 1 is one of God’s created design…not procreation.

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No, the position that the film takes is accurate. I have seen SCORES of posters at this site take the position that because homosexual coupling cannot procreate, homosexual unions is sinful. I can link you to many, many posts that say this.

And as you said, since we know that procreation is not the position here, using it... which MANY do, is inaccurate. As I said, the film is correct.

Genesis (Chapters 2 & 3)
The “Christian position” presented by the film is that marriage should only be between one man and one woman. The scholars in the film state that the error with this view is one of translation. The claim of the scholars is that while Adam was, if fact, presented with a woman (wife), the Scriptures--when originally written--used the words “ezer kenegdo” which literally means “suitable helper”. A woman was a “suitable helper” to Adam but argue that a “suitable helper” for a gay man or woman would be someone of the same sex. Since the Scriptures don’t specifically state that it has to be an opposite sex partner then there is no sin.

And the film is correct. The Christian position does state that Genesis defines marriage as being between one man and one woman as this is God’s design. This position originates with God in Genesis 1:27 is reiterated by Christ in Matthew 19:4-6 and reinforced by Paul in Romans 1: 26-27.

By the way, Genesis 1:27 & Matthew 19 are Scriptures the film ignores.

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This further supports the position laid out in Genesis 1. Again, the film is on target.

Genesis 19 (Sodom & Gomorrah)
The scholars of the film state that the “sin” of Sodom & Gomorrah was not that of homosexuality but one of inhospitality.

The film goes on to say that as all of the men of the city came down to rape the angels in Lot’s care, Lot came forward and offered to let the crowd rape his two virgin daughters who he--later in the story--got pregnant and that is the real sin of this story.

And their position is--in part--true. The wickedness of Sodom included many things and was not limited to homosexuality but homosexuality was a part of it as evidenced by 2 Peter 2: 2 and 6 and Jude 1:7-8.

Once again, the film ignores these Scriptures, as well.

It also ignores the fact that their rather recent “revelation” of the story of Sodom & Gomorrah not having anything to do with homosexuality means that literally millions of people over the course of thousands of years have been wrong in their interpretations of these Scriptures which are being properly understood for the very first time right now.

Yeah, right.

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The film is right on target with this one. The issue in the story of Sodom and Gommorah is as it said. I have treated this myself in posts. It is about hospitality and intimidation. And yes, this has been misinterpreted for thousands of years, mostly for social reasons.

Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13
The argument from the pro-gay scholars is that while these Scriptures prohibit homosexual sex, they also prohibit the eating of shellfish and wearing of garments made from different fibers. As such, modern Christians are simply “picking and choosing” the laws they wish to follow.

What these “scholars” don’t seem to know is that the Old Testament law was done away with by the New Testament covenant of grace. Modern day Christians aren’t picking and choosing anything. The Scriptures call homosexual sex an “abomination”. And since God does not change (Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 13:8 and James 1:17) we can be confident that His views on the subject have not changed.

The Scholars also go on to claim that the verses do not prohibit all homosexual sex and explain that men used to have sex with women because they were the property of men. They explain that all these Scriptures prohibit is men having sex with other men who are their “property” (slaves, war prisoners, etc.).

The problem is that their claims are simply not supported by the Scriptures themselves which explicitly condemns all homosexual sex between men.

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Again, you are incorrect. Firstly, it is picking and choosing and since I do not recognize the NT as scripture, I ignore anything from there. Further, as we have discussed, this part of Leviticus is about purity codes; the bible discusses acts that pagans do that God does not want the Hebrews to do. It discusses non-consensual sex acts with men or ritualistic sex acts. NOT consensual sex acts. These non-consensual acts would be about prisoners, property, etc...

So again, the film nailed it.

Romans 1:26-27
The argument here is that Paul knew nothing of sexual orientation and so “his” prohibition against homosexual sex is a “cultural” view and not a “natural” view as we can see homosexuality displayed in nature.

1) Paul’s language is rather specific and emphasizes biology. He is saying that homosexual sex is biologically unnatural.

2a) You will also find in nature animals eating their young and killing their mate after sex. Are we to justify these behaviors in humans as well? After all, they are found in nature. Obviously not! We do not judge human behavior based upon the behavior of wild animals. We judge human behavior based upon moral and societal standards like those set forth in the Bible.

2b) Just because an animal tries to hump something of the same sex does not mean that animal has a homosexual orientation. The animal may be trying to show it dominance or simply relieve its most base urges. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that any animal has a homosexual orientation.

Bishop Spong goes on to say that Paul is saying that homosexuality is a punishment from God and he’s only saying that because Paul himself is a repressed, self-loathing homosexual. However, there is simply no evidence to support his claims…at all.

1 Timothy 1:9-10
Here the scholars claim that the term used by Paul, “arsenokotai”, does not condemn homosexuality. It’s a simple matter of a mis-translation. Paul could not have known about anything about homosexual orientation. He would have known about male temple prostitution and that is what he was condemning.

Actually Paul is referring back to the Holiness Code in Leviticus 20:13 which, in the Greek, reads, “hos an koimethe meta arsenos koiten gynaikos”.

For the record “arsenokotai” is the literal translation from the Hebrew “mishkav zakur” which basically means “lying with a male” which is how they used to refer to homosexuality back in the day. But the film won’t tell you that!

1 Corinthians 6:9
The film complains that this is the verse that Christians use to say that Homosexuals are going to burn in Hell. To the best of my knowledge the only “Christians” saying that are Fred Phelps and his band of misfit, back-water, in-bred, hate-spewing, non-Christian, unbiblical, bone-headed losers and this film quotes Phelps often.

And this film simply ignores what is probably the best know Bible verse today known to both Christians and non-Christians--John 3:16. And it states that “everyone” that believes in Christ will be saved. Period!

Jesus Was Silent
Another claim of the movie is one that I hear all the time here at DP. The claim? Jesus was silent about homosexuality so obviously he didn’t have a problem with it.

1. As the last few verses of John’s gospel makes clear, the gospels are not exhaustive. We simply don’t know all of the things that Jesus said and did so we don’t know what Jesus said about homosexuality, if anything.

2. The only sexual relationship that Christ did endorse was that between one man and one woman (Matthew 19:4-6). In fact, that is the only relationship in which sex is allowed throughout the whole Bible. It’s consistently is noteworthy.

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Didn't really attend to these as they are not in my book.

In summary, Fish Out of Water is simply an unintelligent film that appeals more to emotion than facts. The gay-gospel fails here for the same reason it fails as an argument anytime it’s used. And that is because it attempts to make the Bible say what it does not while trying to convince you that it doesn’t say what it clearly does.

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The film nailed it and demonstrated precisely how many of the so-called "clobber" verses have been inaccurately translated and/or interpreted for centuries. It shows how what folks have claimed that the bible says is NOT what it actually says. Homosexuality and homosexual consensual sex is not prohibited in the OT.

Now, for my next project. To find out why the Church would misinterpret/mistranslate these verses. My guess is that religion reflected the human reaction to the statistical strangeness of homosexuality, and the lack of scientific enlightenment of the time. I'll do some looking into this, though.

Andalublue said:

Here are five:
Dr. Joel Hoffman: Five Mistakes in Your Bible Translation

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So the five “errors” your article mentions is:

1. "In the original Hebrew, the 10th Commandment prohibits taking, not coveting."

In the original Hebrew the word is transliterated “chamad” and means to desire, covet, delight in.

2. "The biblical Jubilee year is named for an animal's horn and has nothing to do with jubilation."

So how does this make the Bible wrong?

3. "The pregnant woman in Isaiah 7:14 is never called a virgin."

The pregnant woman is Jesus’ mother, Mary. And she is, in fact, called a virgin in Luke 1:27.

4. "Psalm 23 opens with an image of God's might and power, not shepherding."

It opens up with “The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I lack.”

5. "And the romantic Song of Solomon offers a surprisingly modern message."

So it has a “surprisingly modern message”. How does it make the Bible wrong?

Bottom line? Your article sux.

Care to try again?

The Baron said:

Romans 1:26-27
The argument here is that Paul knew nothing of sexual orientation and so “his” prohibition against homosexual sex is a “cultural” view and not a “natural” view as we can see homosexuality displayed in nature.

1) Paul’s language is rather specific and emphasizes biology. He is saying that homosexual sex is biologically unnatural.

2a) You will also find in nature animals eating their young and killing their mate after sex. Are we to justify these behaviors in humans as well? After all, they are found in nature. Obviously not! We do not judge human behavior based upon the behavior of wild animals. We judge human behavior based upon moral and societal standards like those set forth in the Bible.

2b) Just because an animal tries to hump something of the same sex does not mean that animal has a homosexual orientation. The animal may be trying to show it dominance or simply relieve its most base urges. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that any animal has a homosexual orientation.

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Oh, the irony.

The phrase Paul uses is "para physin" which doesn't refer to biology at all in Greek. It refers to character. It means something like "uncharacteristic" or against social norms or against one's internal nature (not biology). Thus, Paul applies para physin to God when he says in Romans 11:24 that it was unnatural for God to bring Jews and Gentiles together. He applies it to himself in 1 Cor 15, when he talks about how his apostleship is "unnatural" because he didn't know Christ before the resurrection.

So ironically, the idolaters in Romans 1 could not have been homosexuals, since it was "out of character" for them to have sex with men -- they were in other words straight males whom God punished by forcing them to have sex out of character. Weird, but there it is. The very example of anti-gay agitprop used by Christian homophobes is in fact an instance of straight men having gay sex.

There really is no dispute about this. No Greek scholar would translate para physin in a modern biological sense.

Chalk up another instance of bad scholarship for the homophobes.

The Baron said:

1. For example, I have a niece that at the ripe old age of 15 was raped. Having never been with a man before she got pregnant and had an abortion. The baggage that this poor child is going to end-up with is simply overwhelming. However this rape / abortion ends-up manifesting itself in her life is the result of sin. It's just not her sin that created all of this. Such is the nature of sin.

2. The argument for years has been that people are born gay due to genes or hormones or whatever the junk-science is claiming at the moment. However, there has never been any proof of it. Any claims that people are "born gay" have been discredited.

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The genetic relationship to homosexuality is well established, as is birth order. The explanation for this is pretty well attested.

This proves my point that bad science and bad Christianity go together. You've got both wrong.

The Baron said:

God did not create sin. And if sin is the origin of homosexuality then He is not the author of it.

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Pssst: Read Romans 1 again, this time with feeling!

Paul says the sin is idolatry, and the punishment is homosexual acts. Weird, but there it is. Stop making stuff up to suit your biased worldview.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

head of joaquin said:

Oh, the irony.

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I thought you were banned.

You should go back there.

The Baron said:

My observation that the film didn’t explain why only the verses on homosexuality in the Bible are wrong and not the rest of them is hardly limited to the film. This is true of every publication I have seen in which the “gay gospel” is promoted.

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Think about the opposite scenario, what if they did? If they picked apart the bible until it's practically just historical parables, would they even still be Christian? A certain amount of faith is required to be a Christian, including faith that the majority of the text is infallible. I'm a bit of a buff on religious studies, but I'm an atheist; I have no faith in the scriptures and they are all suspect in my eyes, that being the main reason I'm an Atheist and not a Christian. The gay gospel can only exist if they don't go after the entire scripture; if they did, they'd probably be Atheists, like me.

Of course God designs us. We are made in His image. But to say that who we are as individuals is limited only to God’s design in to ignore our experiences, education, religious beliefs, culture, environment, etc. And to state that God designs some of us to be gay to is to state that God designs some of us to sin and that is simply not true.

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The way I've always understood Original sin, god makes everyone a sinner at birth. Not everyone believes in Original sin, and it's falling out of style for most denominations. But, whether you do or don't agree with the concept of being born with Original sin, we still have a consensus that Homosexuality is not a choice. Whether it's actually at or before birth, or due to subliminal messages during the formative years, it's all a moot point; there's no valid reason to think anyone would "choose" to be gay, in a society that has this many problems with it. In context of "God's design", I'd say god creates all people with flaws and tendencies to sin, as a test of faith.

The Bible documents many things simply because they happened and not because they are endorsed by God. Examples of this include lying, murder, rape, incest, bestiality, idolatry, child-sacrifice, etc. God gave us a design for marriage and anything contrary to that is simply not what God intended.

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I'm fairly certain that incest isn't considered a problem in the bible. That aside, sure I have few problems with that. In practice, I only ask that Christians understand that not everyone believes in all the laws of the bible, especially "victim-less" ones; although you're going to be hard pressed to find anyone in support of any of those particular sins, most Americans have no problem with same-sex marriage. 52% for vs. 43% against a law to legalize it in all 50 states according to recent Gallup polls In U.S., 52% Back Law to Legalize Gay Marriage in 50 States . When even a small minority of Christians support laws to enforce a biblical brand of morality, it really makes you guys look like tyrants (not a personal jab, or to all Christians, mostly a jab at guys like Fred Phelps).

Then you won’t have any problem providing examples to support your rather spurious comment.

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A couple posters already provided some good links, but I'd also post something so simple as this question; how many times does the word "hell" appear in the bible? Depending on which translation you use and how much it draws from the Hebrew or the Greek, it's as high as 54 for the King James or as low as 0 for every translation that predominantly used the Hebrew. 16. Hebrew and Greek words mistranslated to mean Hell

Let me help you out, here. The original Hebrew says “helper”. And that “helper” was a woman / wife for the man.

Probably having something to do with the fact that the “suitable helper” for the man was a woman.

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If it said helper, it meant helper; there were words for "woman", they could have been more specific. But, I'm not of the opinion that it means anything other than the traditional understanding; one man, one woman. Of course, I'm still against the Christian view itself, so it's a moot point in practice. I'm not a supporter of putting any moral code above any others, or legislating morality. If you're not hurting me or mine, it's none of my business.

Not exactly. Christians are held to the Old Testament covenant of the Mosaic / Levitical law. The design for marriage was established prior to the establishment of “the law”. The New Testament covenant of grace did not abolish God’s design for marriage. A design, point of fact, that was reiterated by Christ, Himself.

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Not every Christian agrees with you on this; what is binding to Christians depends on which one you ask. Again, I'm not really against you that much on this, but it's no more strange for a sect of Christianity to support Same-sex Marriage than any of the other different things you guys fight over. It's small potatoes if you ask me, I think you're all wrong.

So--according to you--nothing in the Bible is binding?

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Christianity means to follow the ways of Christ. I'd say that nothing except the teachings of Christ as reiterated by the Apostles or through his own words, is actually binding. I've always understood the Old Testament to be completely unbinding, used only as a contrast to accentuate what Jesus had changed or ended. The local Church gives out free bibles, but only the New Testament.

So if normally heterosexual people used to go around raping people of the same-sex all of the time then why did God only pick on Sodom? Why not the rest of the cities?

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That's not what I said, you might want to re-read that; I only accentuated that this is not Homosexuality as we now know it. Also, he didn't just pick on Sodom, he burned them all. Four cities were burned that day, all for being judged as wicked. There isn't much known about the other 3 cities but, they are only referred to as wicked, never as practicing rape like the Sodomites. That doesn't specifically mean that they didn't, but it seems like a big thing to leave out.

Yea, it does. But since the story, itself, isn’t enough to convince you read 2 Peter 2: 2 and 6 and Jude 1:7-8.

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Neither of those passages actually define the sin they're referring to. Jude 1:7 comes closest, by referring to it as going after strange flesh. That is what Orthodox Christianity has always used to connect Sodomy with Homosexuality, but it's only a circular argument; the term "strange flesh" isn't defined much further. Many theologians believe "strange flesh" literally meant knowing the flesh of strange people, illicit sex with strangers.

Except that the literal translation from the Hebrew “mishkav zakur” means “lying with a male” which is how they used to refer to homosexuality back in the day and is where we get our modern day translation of the passage.

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"mishkav zakur", is never associated with the Sodom story. I'm not trying to refute that Homosexual sex is a sin in the bible, it is, but Sodomy is never connected with the passages referring to men lying with men as women. They're separate sins, referring to separate acts. When it comes to an Old Testament story, I'm going to trust the Jews on knowing the meaning, and they say the sin of Sodomy is that of selfishness.

Nobody has argued that Sodom & Gomorrah were destroyed solely for homosexuality. Far from it. But to deny that homosexuality didn’t play a part ignores the story as told in Genesis 19, as well as, 2 Peter 2: 2 and 6 and Jude 1:7-8.

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That's fine, but it's problematic when all the other stuff is put by the side. The story of Sodom should be used as a parable for the mandate to love thy neighbor, to give to the needy, and against sins such as lying or theft; to focus on the smallest flaw of the city is counter-productive. This is self-evident; the typical "lovey dubby" Christians accentuate the Wickedness of the Sodomites and counter it with the various virtues of loving thy neighbor and the like; the "You're going to Hell!" Christians take every chance they can to call Homosexuals "sodomites" and seem to forget all that Jesus-loves-you stuff.

(continued, on next post)

(continued)

And all those who thought that the Earth was flat were proven wrong. It is no less than the Bible, itself, that is proving you wrong.

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Most flat-earthers use the bible to validate their claims. The bible isn't proving my interpretation of the bible wrong; if you've already decided that you're right, then why even read it?

Well, I certainly wouldn’t argue that. However, the people presenting the gay gospel in the film were presented as learned theologians. Scholars. So I would expect them to know that the Old Testament law was done away with by the New Testament covenant of grace.

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(snip)Christians are held to the Old Testament covenant of the Mosaic / Levitical law.(snip)

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Now I'm confused, you say it's not binding but then say they're held to it? What's the difference?

Nobody is claiming that the Old Testament doesn’t matter. It matters a great deal as it tells us much about God. Like how He views the homosexual sex act to be an abomination.

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That's fine, but not everyone gives it the same weight. Most Christians I know give exceptionally little weight to it. Of course, I give no weight to it. But, in the context of the Old Testament, yes the physical act is an abomination.

I am using all of it. If you’ll go back and re-read my original post you’ll see that the only one guilty of cherry-picking were the supposed “scholars” in the film.

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Oh, I didn't say the film didn't cherry pick, too. They were not a good reflection of the Orthodox, traditional, or literal view of the bible. But, I'm an atheist; I support their right to interpret the scriptures as they see fit, it's what everyone does.

Be consistent. If you’re going to blame the New Testament on some kind of Jewish conspiracy then blame the Old Testament on them, too. Jews wrote all of it, as well.

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I don't see it as quite a "conspiracy", but I'd like people to remember that they could only write what they knew; if Jesus didn't give them something new, then they'd repeat the old. That's not taking into account the possibilities that a major scripture is missing, possibly along the lines of, "and then Jesus said, the gays are ok." (Even I think that's pushing it, though)

And I really have no idea what “Christians” you’re talking about. As one, we look at the whole of the Scriptures. The things that Jesus said carry no more weight than other things in the Bible as we recognize that the whole of the Scriptures is inspired by God.

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You should debate more of them. Although I've conversed with others that think the way you do, plenty of Christians give essentially no weight to the Old Testament, and less weight to the apostles over Christ.

(in the context of evidence for homosexual animals)I’m not. Post your evidence to support your claims. I’m glad to take a look at it.

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Dolphins Engage In Bisexuality And Even Homosexuality: Study
Can Animals Really Be Gay? | Popular Science
http://endo.endojournals.org/content/145/2/478.full.pdf+html (8% of sheep will pick Homosexual partners when given choices)

But, it's all a moot point. If I prove it is natural, you guys say, "But, we're not animals". If I don't, you guys say, "See, even animals don't do it."

Holy Crap! We agree on something!

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I only post what I truly think; I'm seriously not trying to disagree with you.

I’ll pray for you.

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I'll give you a good ol' Atheist nothing.

Let’s see if I can remember all of this correctly…

There are about 25,000 known manuscripts (about 10,000 of those are in Greek) from which modern Bibles are translated today. Not only can we be confident about what the Bible says but confident that we have a “complete” Bible.

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But, that's only complete if you define it as complete, essentially what "canon" means in context of the bible. Look up the Apocrypha gospels; the original New Testament gospels as recorded and indexed by 1st and 2nd century sources was many times longer than the current version. Most of these texts aren't lost, they just fell out of favor; you can find them online or at Christian libraries. Some of the indexed gospels aren't considered to be valid or truthful, mostly the lost ones. But, some of them were considered to be truthful eye-witness accounts of Jesus and his teachings, and yet have been lost. We've recovered many of them over the years, and it's completely possible that there are more to be found.

Of course, if you've just defined the Bible as correct, then it wouldn't matter how much evidence there is for new material. The lost or non-cannonical biblical texts aren't considered valid because they aren't considered valid, it all comes down to faith; I can't disprove a belief, only facts. They're only of interest to Biblical scholars, Theologians, and guys like me.

If you’ll remember (if you’re old enough to remember) there was no debate on this topic. This was a huge non-issue as everyone agreed that homosexuality was an aberration. Then there was AIDS and homosexuality and the “normalizing” of homosexuality in our culture (and, really, around the world) was pushed to the forefront.

Now everybody has an opinion.

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Uh... no. There was no debate because it was illegal to be Homosexual; how were there supposed to be a debate? Normalizing in this case means loving thy neighbor. God didn't say to just love people without sin, he said there was no such person and to love everyone as yourself. If you ask me, open acceptance of Homosexuality is the most Christian thing we've ever done. (Of course, Secular Humanism approves of loving thy neighbor. Just plugging my own system...)

The 10 Commandments hold no more weight than any other commandment in the Bible. And I think the attention that it’s getting has to do with “push back”. For example, it never dawned on me that someone would actually read the Bible and believe that it doesn’t condemn homosexuality. But somebody did. They even made a movie about it.

And now I’m here pushing back.

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Push all you like, it's your right. I'm not so certain that the gay gospel is trying to disprove that homosexuality is a sin, they're just trying to put it in perspective. The Bible absolutely does condemn the Homosexual act, but it doesn't make it any worse than any other sin. It goes back to my last post; Christians should start worrying about the self-evident wrongs, like murder, lying, and theft, instead of the gays. Which do you think I want to live next to, a Homosexual or an Axe-Murderer? (I live in a gay neighborhood, it's a moot point.) Of course, it'll just be my luck when I get killed by a gay Axe-Murderer.

1. Just because there are Christians that accept the gay gospel doesn’t mean the gay gospel doesn’t fail. It just means that some Christians are stupid.

2. What points did they address that you thought were “legitimate”.

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1. To say that everyone that disagrees with you is stupid is short sighted and close minded. You might be wrong, you could change your mind. In either case, I still think you're all wrong.

2. That most Christians have taken the translation of the bible for granted. In particular, why is the King James edition more valid? It seems arbitrary, and begets a lot of errors when compared to the Hebrew. Most Christians seem to take their preacher's word at face value and don't actually verify it or compare it between translations; if they don't care if the word is correct, then how can they worry about what other people do? That's the "legitimate" point the film made, people need to ask more questions.

The Baron said:

I thought you were banned.

You should go back there.

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You've lost another argument and can't respond. Got it.

Meanwhile, you've mistranslated "para physin" according to every Greek scholar. I guess you've been so rebutted you can't even pretend to argue anymore. I love that.

head of joaquin said:

You've lost another argument and can't respond. Got it.

Meanwhile, you've mistranslated "para physin" according to every Greek scholar. I guess you've been so rebutted you can't even pretend to argue anymore. I love that.

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No, I'm just not interested in debating with you. You're simply too unpleasant.

The Baron said:

1 Timothy 1:9-10
Here the scholars claim that the term used by Paul, “arsenokotai”, does not condemn homosexuality. It’s a simple matter of a mis-translation. Paul could not have known about anything about homosexual orientation. He would have known about male temple prostitution and that is what he was condemning.

Actually Paul is referring back to the Holiness Code in Leviticus 20:13 which, in the Greek, reads, “hos an koimethe meta arsenos koiten gynaikos”.

For the record “arsenokotai” is the literal translation from the Hebrew “mishkav zakur” which basically means “lying with a male” which is how they used to refer to homosexuality back in the day. But the film won’t tell you that!

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No Greek scholar accepts this nonsense.

First, arsenokoitai doesn't appear in the Septuagint. It first appears in Paul's writing. Twice. That's it.

Second, it only appears rarely thereafter in Greek (about 80 times). Sometimes its meaing is clear . Philo for instance uses it to mean a temple prostitute. Others use it to mean an exploitative relationship between an older man and a boy, i.e., pederasty (that's probably what Paul meant since he saw enough of it in the Greco-Roman world). Otherwise we don't know what it means. It seems associated with economic crimes (which may mean prostitution or pederasty again). But it's obscure.

Third, what most scholars agree on is that whatever it means, it doesn't mean homosexuality. The usage doesn't support that, and during the time the word was use, there was no social/sexual category for homosexual. That's not how the ancient world divided up sexuality (as Foucault's groundbreaking study, the History of Sexuality, shows).


In short this is the worst type of ignorance that flies in the face of scholarship and misstates the Christianity message by making false claims.

Arsenokoités and Malakos: Meanings and Consequences | CLGS

The Baron said:

No, I'm just not interested in debating with you. You're simply too unpleasant.

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You've lost on the merits. And everybody can see that. Sorry, you post nonsense and false scholarship, and I'm going to point it out. That's what this forum is about.

I've shown that your use of the words arsenokoitai and para physin are incorrect and unscholarly. If you have no response, that doesn't surprise me.

head of joaquin said:

that doesn't surprise me.

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What surprises me is that you're not banned anymore.

I can't tell you disappointed I am.

The Baron said:

No, I'm just not interested in debating with you. You're simply too unpleasant.

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OH this is beautiful, head of joaquin is "too unpleasant" to the person who does nothing but personal attacks in every theological debate with him or myself. I'm sorry but you never have the right to talk about "politically correct liberals" or "Bleeding heart liberals" if head of joaquin's reasoning, logic and bible knowledge offends you.

The Baron said:

The Old Mosaic / Levitical Law that brought the Jewish people into a covenant relationship with God was done away with by the New Testament Covenant of Grace. As such, we are no longer under the Old Mosaic Law.

God’s design for marriage was well established long before Moses ever came on to the scene. So when all of the Old Covenant Laws were done away with the design of marriage was never affected as it was never part of the Old Covenant Laws.

Does that help?

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It does. So, any laws or covenants created before Moses are still valid and binding. Got it.

The Baron said:

1. For example, I have a niece that at the ripe old age of 15 was raped. Having never been with a man before she got pregnant and had an abortion. The baggage that this poor child is going to end-up with is simply overwhelming. However this rape / abortion ends-up manifesting itself in her life is the result of sin. It's just not her sin that created all of this. Such is the nature of sin.

2. The argument for years has been that people are born gay due to genes or hormones or whatever the junk-science is claiming at the moment. However, there has never been any proof of it. Any claims that people are "born gay" have been discredited.

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No, it's not "junk science". Currently, there is no evidence of what causes any type of sexual orientation. That's where current research stands today.