Keith and Company wrote:

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You [. . . ] Just explained that bad people don't go to heaven, and homosexuals are bad people by the Books standards.
That much we knew, and that much we tend to take issue with as a matter of justice.

Justice? I never could really make much sense out of the social issue of homosexuality from the perspective of the Biblical skeptic. If it is an issue of morality and therefore, in a sense, justice, it is a question of time and space. In this time and space it is increasingly considered acceptable to practice homosexuality. If, thirty years ago in the same place you and I were having this conversation you would be of a totally different perspective. Homosexuality would be unacceptable. If we were in some places in the world in present time it would be the same. Muslim countries, for example.

In this space and time pedophilia is socially unacceptable. Space And Time. You can say that the Bible is outdated but in the time of the Bible, as Deuteronomy 23:17-18 indicated in the OP, the term dogs applied to catamites, young boy prostitutes, so were they ahead of us in justice and morality because they were the people then more liberal regarding sexual practices? So really the issue of homosexuality isn't a new one, your perspective in the current space or society is.

Since the Bible disagrees with that perspective your desired effect is that those teachings are no longer tolerated. The intolerance of tolerance. This, too, has always seemed nonsensical to me. The Bible, you are saying, is wrong about its position against homosexuality. Its influence isn't appreciated in this stream of time. But really you are making the same types of decisions that the Bible itself has made and continues to make. This is interesting for two reasons. Time and space. Either you don't believe in heaven so it doesn't matter if homosexuals can go there or not. But if it is real then in the time and space of heaven in the future the justice and morality isn't for you to question. It has changed.

This means, as it almost always does I have found, it is a political issue. It is about the aforementioned influence the teachings have in our current society. Its temporal. Why, after all, isn't it an injustice to all of the other morally bad people - the liars, the whores, pederasts, sorcerers?

Keith - But the reasons that it's becoming more socially acceptable are important. it's not just a fad. With more mature and less emotional consideration of the condition, we ask why it was so bad before? What is the threat? What is the danger from someone else being homosexual? Society doesn't seem to be harmed by gay members. My marriage doesn't suffer if the neighbors are playing butt darts.

Daystar - Homosexuality is nothing new, nor is the acceptance of it. You can't say that it is a case of maturing of the human race. Perhaps a maturing of a specific people in a specific place. The decrease in emotional extremes has more to do with conditioning, but all of that is beside the point because we as a people have been down that road before.

To answer your question of why it was so bad before our time you have to take a look at who that question is directed towards. For most people in our place and recent time it was bad because it was. Morality is dictated through society in a basic sense, most of it in our recent past was due to tradition and xenophobia. We have lost our connection with that outdated tradition and have conditioned ourselves to be more accepting as a society in this particular regard. From the Bible's perspective it has always and will always be wrong because it is unnatural. We and sex were not created for that purpose. The law of the creator rather than the people. Had it been up to the people it wouldn't have been a law, for it was all around them.

The threat and danger was that the creator gave man the earth to subdue and fill it. They could have done so with homosexuality, unless it became the norm, but that wasn't really the issue. The unnatural abuse of sex was the issue.

Keith - Twenty eight years ago my chief had to order me not to attend a gay wedding between former shipmates. But maybe you'd be right if it was forty years ago. But then, i was a lot younger. And subject to the opinions of people that i've since rejected.

Daystar - Well, 30 years ago I was 12. I meant if as mature adults we were in a different time the conversation would be different.

Keith - Not space and time. I'd say the argument for at least a risk of harm from pedophilic practices is more demonstrable than from homosexual practices. I keep asking 'where's the harm?' in respect to gay marriages and i keep getting emotional response, not a list of problems.
The two are not comparable, but this does come up a lot. People want to use the slippery slope argument. The same argument that said if we let interracial couples marry, then that'll make it easier for gay couples to get married. Then people marrying their goats. Then dropping the legal age of consent to 4.

Daystar - Don't confuse the law of God to imperfect man with the xenophobic tradition that it has become.

Keith - But if the Books perspective is so subject to temporal fads, why bother with it today?

Daystar - It isn't the book that is subject to temporal fads, it is tradition and society. You wouldn't ask the same question of society so how relevant could it have been had you applied it to 'the Books?'

Keith - Not at all. I'm a past champion of people's right to hold the Book's teachings to their hearts. I just get upset when people who hold the Books in high regard trying to make those who do not hold it in regard live by it as if they did.


Daystar - Now you are getting at what is really the issue. The most important part of this discussion from your perspective should be this. I see the atheist position against homosexuality as an emotional one because of this. Earlier you said we are more mature and less emotional, but that isn't the case. Consider the perspective of all who are involved now.

The Xian
The mainstream Xian thinks from the position of a misguided tradition. The Law of Moses applied to ancient Israel until Christ and the Christian prohibition simply forbade the practice of homosexuality, not of homosexuals. It didn't allow for political dictation against homosexual acts in the world. In fact it made it pretty clear to have no more to do with the world than they have to. That would logically include legislation and contention. In other words Jesus didn't come to our attention so that we would fix the world, he came to warn us not to be a part of it's destruction.


The Atheist
Taking your position against the stupidity of unscriptural, politically active Xianity is an emotional reaction that misses the obvious point you should have gotten out of it and used to your advantage.

The trouble is that that is as useless a position as the other (Xian position). That is what amuses me about it. You are against religion but in fact you just lost the political game. You say you don't like it when Xianity tries to dictate to you the Biblical law against homosexuality but the only alternative is that you dictate the opposite to them. Why? Because it is a political issue, not a religious one. Why would you object to the Law of Moses position on ancient Israel? You wouldn't. Why would you object to a prohibition on homosexual practice of Xians? Only because they are politically active and impeding the rights of practicing homosexuals. How did they do that? With the Bible? Hardly. They beat you at the political game. It isn't religion, it is politics.

The Homosexual
The Bible says, in a basic sense, that homosexuality is a sin and that at some point sin will end. Thus homosexuality will end. It is also reasonable to conclude through scripture that heterosexuality will end at some point thereafter because the earth will be filled and its purpose no more. Along with sin and homosexuality the world, or current order of things will end. The homosexual, along with the pederast, the adulterer, etc. have a choice to make. To be destroyed with the world or live forever beyond its destruction. Who are you or I to question the decision of those making either choice? It is up to them.

Keith - Of course it is for me to question. Part of the issue about whether or not i accept the constant assertions that there is a god involves accepting the listed rules by which He is supposed to be judging us. Even though i'm not gay, by accepting Gawd into my heart, i'm accepting the idea of eternal punishment for finite crimes, crimes that i don't find to be criminal.
I don't believe that he exists, but even if i did, i don't find him to be a particularly worship-worthy individual.

Daystar - Well, don't worship him then. That is your decision. You have already made your mind up about God, that has nothing to do with it. I am almost absolutely sure that you have read my post on eternal punishment for finite crimes and you can't refute it. It has nothing to do with it.

Keith - Who says it isn't? You put it under homosexuals because you wanted to talk about homosexuals. Wanna talk about injustice, now?
'Kay.
What's morally bad about sorcery? Why is it just to put sorcerers in hell?

Daystar - I didn't put this topic under homosexuality, the SAB did. Hell has nothing to do with it. If you are talking about sorcery it is the same as any of the other crimes. God says that upon the destruction of earth we can live on according to his rules. If God doesn't exist or if the morality of your specific time and place is dictated to you by a God that never existed the end result is the same. Politics. If God, then, is real, you have rejected him but the world is still yours for a while. Maybe your entire life. You will miss only a new heaven and earth you want no part of. If God isn't real you are still stuck with the politics of the world.

wickle wrote:

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GAds, all the space taken up , just to have Daystar pose the premise that it is BAD cause God says so.
Unnatural?? Is it supernatural , then?

Are you pouting, is that what you're doing? The SAB is very open and encouraging to opposing responses, Wickle. That is what these forums are, at least in part, devoted to. I am trying to move away from the stupid personal discussions. I, uh, I think that we are past that now, don't you?

Hello? Wickle? C'mon, now. Lets see a smile!

Thats better!

Have you anything to add?