Note to Dicky and other's who dismiss the bible out of hand: Everyone understands your position, it's not necessary to repeat it. i do not post this video in an effort to say "look how cool the bible really is" but rather, to say "within the context of a worldview which holds the Bible as authoritative, what does it actually say." It will be helpful if comments are within that context. ------------------ This may be the single best presentation on the subject I've ever scene. It's a bit over an hour long but the guy introduces every major relevant Scriptures and exegetes it in depth, referencing all the reasons why the traditional interpretation falls short. If you are interested in this subject it is very much "must watch" [yt=Good Stuff]player_embedded&v=ezQjNJUSraY[/yt] EDIT- Not sure what I'm doing wrong - here's the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ezQjNJUSraY when I posted this on Facebook, one person who's subscribed (apparently) to my posts (not a friend) replied with a ling to a "counter-point" sermon from widely respected Radio minister John MacArthur In the interest of fairness, I tried to listen to his (also hour-plus) video and got over 20 minutes into it and still hadn't heard the FIRST effort to address specifically what the Bible says. He barely took time to read the verse he had taken for his text and the rest of it was just a speech on John's opinion, filled with junk science and mythology (the most entertaining being the claim that the average gay person entertained 300 sexual partners A YEAR!) It was astonishing how the 20-something young man - maybe still a college student himself - was sticking almost entirely to the process of expounding on what the actual verse actually meant in context, and the venerated preacher with thousands of readers and listeners was basically just spouting off without ever addressing the verses. And make no mistake - if you ask MacArthur about salvation, or justification, or sanctification, he will be hip deep in Bible verses trying to give you his theology...but on THIS subject? Utter fail.
Why is this in any way surprising? Here's Skin's theory on homosexuality -- it's perfectly natural. You may not like why Skin thinks it's perfectly natural, but that would expose a rift between the "it's inherent" and "it's a lifestyle" camps. Skin believes it to be perfectly natural because it's an in-built population-control switch. Not as severe as the birth defects associated with inbreeding, but it's related. Too much genetic similarity causes the genome to flip a switch labeled, "DO NOT PROCREATE." (Metaphorically speaking, of course.) Now as unflattering as that sounds, the only people Skin would expect to object to it are those that, like Christian fundies, do see homosexuality as a "lifestyle choice." And, well, fuck them, they're holding back gay rights with their obnoxiousness as much as fundies are with theirs.
I will check out this video when I have time. I've actually gone back this year and started reading the Bible again from start to finish, and there are a lot of things I found in it that don't necessarily align with the rest of christiandom. Like, for example, what the Bible says about sex before marriage, and lesbianism. The answer might surprise a lot of people.
P.S. Nova, I think you may have embedded it wrong or something, 'cause it now says the video isn't available.
Correct. There are very few passages, the potential interpretations are, at the very least, multiple, and the historical record provides insight into the shifting manner in which the passages were understood. In short, the "God hates homosexuality" meme is a creation of human tradition based on culturally driven eisegesis (reading into the text what you want to find) not sound objective exegesis (drawing out of the text what the writer intended)
Ah, wouldn't surprise me in the least, misinterpreting text to support ones existing view is an age old behavior.
One thing I do know is that God loves everyone. Homosexuals included. You can spin the sin any way you wish and make it better or worse. That doesn't affect God's love however.
The Bible in unequivocally clear in it's statement that male homosexuality is forbidden and an abomination. There is no room for doubt or debate on that point.
I'm afraid I don't need a bronze age fantasy to impart morals for me. Homosexuality is......whatever. I don't care one way or the other.
If this is true, then God is an irrational and possibly evil deity who doesn't deserve to be worshiped.
Thankfully, none of it's true. You'd think that would be a freeing relief to more people, but the funny/sad thing is, it actually scares the shit out of them to even contemplate.
Don't care? Don't CARE?!?! That makes you one of the bad guys! If you don't vocally support the gheys, you're against them! The opposite of love is indifference! You're as bad as the Nazis!!
I can't listen to people talk about the bible for 13 seconds without wanting to rip my ears off. Anyhoo - I really don't care much about homosexuality. I long ago learned a guy isn't gonna rape me just because he's gay. And as someone pointed out to me once, it's actually fairly common in nature.
Saying that he hates gays is like saying that Doctors or Donors to St. Jude's medical research hate sick people.
No one is saying you need to worship God. Your future is entirely in your hands. That's the beauty of it.
That's a ridiculous comment. I do not. I simply don't subscribe to parts of the homosexual agenda. That equates to I hate in your opinion?
If it is, indeed, actually sin - that would be true. But for that premise to hold you have to first establish that it IS in point of fact a sin. Which cannot be conclusively done.
Have you availed yourself of the counter argument (conveniently collected in one place in the linked video) or are you simply content to take your pastor's word for it?
to be sure, anyone who literally doesn't care what the Bible says about anything at all would certainly need some other good reason to listen to someone who did take it seriously comment on it for an hour. I didn't really link it for the folks who don't care either way.
Back in the day TheLonelySquire, in between telling us about how he forced his wife to have sex with him, used to call gays "aids cocktails" and how he'd disown his child if it turned out he or she was gay. Can't you feel the love?
Don't have a pastor. Wrong religion. Actually, I take it from the bible where I have read the verse in question in both original Hebrew and English. You can argue whether the bible is real or if you believe in god, but you cannot argue with any honesty that the bible is not unequivocally opposed to male homosexuality. The verse in question:
have you availed yourself of the counter-argument, or are you simply taking your pastor's word for it? Oh, and for the record - conclusive means indisputable. By definition indisputable cannot be defined by one persons opinion. someone might say that it's indisputable that Bush lied about the war, another might say it's indisputable Obama is a Kenyan, another might say it's indisputable the moon landing was faked. And each be firmly convinced in their own mind that there is no reasonable counter-argument. But there will be thousands of others who are just as convinced each claim is false. In that situation, whatever else one might say of the claims made - one CANNOT (if one uses English properly) say that the claim is conclusive. Else there would be no rational counter-argument. so you can say "I am convinced" you can't say - unless you are just making up your own definition for the word - that the case is conclusive.
