To christians that bellive in homosexuality.?

Question

Please tell me why you believe its alright to live a homosexual lifestyle when the bible condems it multiple times. Please don't tell me because they're born that way because we're all born sinners and this doesn't mean we have to act on our urges. If I had an urge to sleep with multiple women since I was a teenager should I? Thank you and may God bless you.

Answer 1

Here are my thoughts on it. Every person is born into sin, and we live in a sinful world.
For example - if I have sinful thoughts of stealing, and ask God for help in dealing with the thought - especially when the thought occurs, I am not sinning, but if I actually steal something, I am sinning. Same for homosexuality.
What is it the bible says? No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

Answer 2

I don't have a problem with homosexuality because it is a personal lifestyle that does not promote violence. If people want to love each other in "other" ways, that's fine with me.

Why do I tolerate it even though it says in the bible many times that it is a sin?
Well first, its only a sin in the old testament. Jesus never said anything bad about it (Go ahead and look I promise He didn't). Plus, the Bible says alot of things that should not be taken literally or are outright wrong. I think I remember the Bible saying something about burning witches and stoning tax collectors.

Also, I don't homosexuality is high on the list of sins God worries about. Especially when there are far worse peccadilloes to fight over.

Answer 3

Yes, I believe Leviticus 18:22 clearly states homosexuality to be an abomination.

However, if you expressly follow every edict in the Bible, there are many things that those of us in a "modern society" should go to hell for. Here are just a few questions...

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police or someone else to do it?

5. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I disagree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

6. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How would you chooses that they die?

7. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

8. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

9. Unfortunately, my parents though circumcision was barbaric when I was born. But I just read Genesis 17:10-14, and now I think I might need to provide an everlasting convenant in my flesh. Even though I'm almost 30 years old, should I circumcise myself?

Take a look at Matthew 15: 1-9 and Isaiah 29 :13. Jesus himself criticized the scribes and their traditions, especially the commands from the Old Testament. I think the best thing that Jesus said was "Thou shalt love thy neighbor".

Answer 4

You're not asking a question; you're preaching. The anti-homoseuxality in the bible is based on people projecting their own thoughts onto God. Leviticus has proscriptions against it because the Jewish tribe wanted to a) increase their numbers (to fend off enemies) by divinely mandating procreative sex and b) to distinguish themselves as special from other groups by defining certain practices as outside their identity. The NT has it in letters from Saul of Tarsus (Paul) b/c he was raised in that culture. If you were in a different culture and raised with different teachings, you would think completely differently. No one is saying, btw, to blindly act on one's urges. In fact, if we could all try and stop the urge to preach and condemn, we'd be better off.

Answer 5

It's a plain fact that people do not seem to get, men who lie with men and women leaving the natural use of themselves will NOT inherit Gods Kingdom. God says you will NOT inherit his kingdom and GOD cannot lie. dk, the law handed to the Israelites were while they were under theocratic rule, that is, ruled directly by God, and were not meant for the gentiles. Also the Mosaic Law was done away with when Christ was put to death, we are now under the law of the Christ or the law of love. Stop using Mosaic law to defend what's wrong in God's eyes as OK. Reynolds Jones, how sad for you and your parish, you have no faith.

Answer 6

I'm a christian and i don't believe in it. i know its wrong, it would still be wrong even if it wasn't in the bible. man and woman belong together. 2 men or 2 women don't even fit together physically. cause they weren't made for each other that's why. man and woman can make babies together. 2 of the same sex cant. cause its not natural, so therefore it is wrong. people who choose their sexual behavior always try to come up with excuses, they'll blame Christians or say they were born that way. we all know that's bull crap. their just trying to find a way to make others except their nasty behavior.

Answer 7

Some of you who are answering have NOT read the question. Or if you did, you do not understand what was asked.

As a Christan, what is you rationale for condoning or promoting homosexuality?

As a Christian, I have none. I cannot promote nor condone homosexuality.

Evidently, dk (below) never heard of the the principles of hermeneutics.

Answer 8

I am nothing like the weak kneed Christians of today, so cowardly that they can not make a stand for truth.

"All" queers are hell bound and their so called Christian friends are leading the way.

And for the record it is our place as real born again Christians to proclaim right and wrong. If we are silent then we are giving the queers our approval. God is going to kill all queers and their supporters. Remember he did it before and he will do it again.

Answer 9

In Leviticus, the Bible says that it is an abomination for men to lie in bed with men the way they would with women. However, Leviticus also says that it is an abomination to eat meat and dairy in the same meal.

Answer 10

There are two different faiths that you are discussing. I have reluctantly concluded that there is not going to be reconciliation among them. There is Christianity, much of which does not have a problem with homosexuality, and there is Biblio-idolatry (the worship of the Bible) which disguises itself as Christianity, but isn't. I would ask only that you hear me out.

The Bible did not exist until nearly 400 AD in anything resembling its present form. The canon of books as we know them was not created until the Council of Carthage. While one bishop in Asia minor used the same canon after roughly 150, that was still over a hundred years into the Christian period -- and that canon had no preference in other provinces of the early Church.

The fragments we have of early manuscripts of the canonical books differ from one other. There are, by the lowest estimates, about 200,000 differences between the available early fragments. There are no autographs of the Bible -- and the earliest versions written are not something we have. Instead we have thousands of copies of copies of translations of copies. Reasonable scholarly study will show anyone willing to pursue it that the Bible we have is not only NOT anything resembling the original versions of the books that comprise it -- but that we have no idea of what those books might have said. Over a hundred years of Textual Criticism (a theological field where a scholar attempts to recreate what the originals probably said) has failed to yield any better understanding than we had -- and many textual critics are now saying that the search itself is meaningless, that we cannot ever know what the originals said. (See Dr. Bart Erhman; Misquoting Jesus; Harper SanFrancisco; 2006 -- for detailed explanation)

So does the "Bible" condemn homosexuality? In some forms. Is the Bible an authentic copy of anything that MIGHT EVEN POSSIBLY be divine? No.

If looking at the inconsistencies between texts used to create our polyglot Bible is not enough to convince you -- then I suggest looking at the errors in the received text. Sola Scriptura cannot possibly withstand even a casual but serious and honest examination of the texts.

The Bible says that the world has corners (Isaiah 11:12) and that it sets on pillars (I Samuel 2:8). It says that God accepted a human sacrifice -- he may have prevented Isaac's, but he allowed a general to sacrifice his own daughter without even a murmur, the text giving tacit support to the idea that having given his word, the man had to kill his child. (Judges 11:30-39). It clearly maintains that genocide is often commanded by God (Joshua 10:40-42 and I Samuel 15: 2, 3 and 8) and that, after killing all the adults in a race, taking the female children as sex slaves is permissible (Numbers 31: 17-18).

The God revealed by the Bible is not only both a liar who doesn't know the natural laws of his own world, and a monster, as shown above -- but he has no real regard, even for his own people, whom he forces into cannibalism (Leviticus 26: 27-29) when he is mad at them; or his priests, whose faces he wipes with dung (Malachi 2:1-3).

It is not only gays and lesbians that are hated by bible-god. This monstrosity also suggests killing kids who eat or drink too much (Deuteronomy 21: 18-21), and says that if he is angry with parents he will kill their children (Leviticus 26:22) and he blames things upon children whose great-great-great grandfathers committed the things being blamed on the kids (Exodus 20: 5). Would we -- would YOU accept that a decision condemning your children because of something your grandfather did was just? Regardless of who made the decision, would it honestly be just? No matter how powerful they were?

Putting it in a word, bible-god is a monstrosity, a horrific demiurge of evil. Something that even he admits ( Isaiah 45:7 ) [Furthermore, the word used in Hebrew for evil, the word ra' is widely conceded to mean a number of different things: It can mean "wickedness," "mischief," "bad," "trouble," "hurt," "sore," "affliction," "ill," "adversity," "harm," "grievous," and "sad." So no matter what particular interpretation is given of this word -- it has profoundly negative implications. The idea that god is sovereign over the affairs of man makes this even worse, because no matter what interpretation it has, it indicates that bible-god deliberately does harm.]; evil about which he sometimes changes his mind (Exodus 32:14). What a font of unchanging morality -- that almighty God can decide to kill an entire people, and then be talked out of it by a human servant... Furthermore, it is obvious, if God can change his mind, then even if the Bible were not full of errors and horrors, you could not trust that God had not changed his mind on any other issue in it.

So, yes, I suppose if one wants to take as truth a book that says that beetles have four legs instead of six (Leviticus 11: 21-23) and that rabbits chew their cud [which they do NOT] (Deuteronomy 14:7) and if you are willing to, having accepted it as truth, overlook the fact that bible-god routinely changed his mind (I can show you other instances if you wish) then yeah, I suppose its words would matter and gays are therefore evil, unacceptable, and going to hell.

I on the other hand, while a Christian (as in Christ follower) am NOT a literalist, and do not think that a book of bronze age myths owing heavily to the Sumerian and Egyptian myths in the Old Testament and to a collection of pagan faiths, particularly Mithraism in the New Testament matters at all.

Christianity is centered around love, faith in Christ, and Eucharist. At best the Bible is sacred because of its place in the life of the early church and should be regarded as holy myth -- stress on the myth.

I don't expect anyone I know who is gay will be going to the mythic hell it talks about, nor do I think that there is any reason for anyone who is Christian, rather than being a Biblio-idolator to think so either. Happily, no one in my parish of about 1000 families does.


Regards,

Reynolds Jones
Schenectady, NY
http://www.rebuff.org
[e-mail]