Gay Marriage

Well, I don't consider it baseless. Agree to disagree?

 

This is the debate section. If you cannot defend your considerations, then they have no place here. Firstly, read the thread before posting. It will save you and those who posted before you headaches down the line.

Can you provide reasoning to drop the laws in the post below, but to keep those against homosexuality?

If yes, then present it.

If not, then you must by nature of agreeing with the Bible agree with these laws as well. Goddess help you.

If you both cannot provide reasoning and do not support these laws, then you are contradicting yourself and stating 'Period' at the end. This is an opinion and not an argument, and it does not line up with the source you cited (that being the Bible). Keep in mind that this section is not for presenting baseless opinions. Having an opinion that a previous opinion is not baseless is the same as having the opinion itself and will not be accepted. Please get out of the thread.

Things larger than the rest and in my font style were added by me for clarity.

 

You're actually wrong about most of those- a lot of those occur in the Bible but are not approved by the Bible. The Bible is very clear about monogamy (Even though some important biblical figures had polygamist marriages- they were still not approved by the Bible). And a lot of those made sense in context. Like the woman and the rapist thing. It sounds horrible to us now, but back then if you were raped you basically had no chance of ever getting a husband, you were basically screwed for the rest of your life-marrying your rapist was pretty much the best you could do for yourself. It wasn't like it is now.

 

Alright, the first part may be true. However, you pointed out the fallacy of using the Bible as a reference; "Back then (...)"

The Bible is outdated, and you can't use all the ideas from it now. Sure, it's a (somewhat) good source of rules which could still apply today, such as "love thy neighbor", etc. but using only the ideas that work in your favor is easy. Just because it was right back then, doesn't make it so today, which you pointed out.

 

Are you saying that God's morality is dependent on what society deems acceptable at the time? How do you differentiate that morality from society's morality if it is context-specific? And what makes a god's morality worth following if it changes with the times, making it less likely to be a god's morality in the first place?

Furthermore, using this logic, you can disregard laws against homosexuality in the same way.

The same question applies to you. Why some laws and not others? Well?

 

That is not what he meant, though. There are rules on the Old testament which were made specifically for Israel when they were freed from Egypt or until they established themselves as a strong nation. In the New testament you see some of these rules being applied and failing. Just like how Jesus performed miracles on Sabbath, and the Pharisees frowned upon these actions, because they were stuck in fulfilling the laws Moses had established without realizing what they were supposed to do and at which time.

Most of these rules worked--for Israel. Part of the laws of Moses were established to work for a nation of nomads that would constantly war until reaching Canaan. IIRC, these rules are clearly not on the same stature as the ten commandments--which is why it is mentioned in the Bible itself that the laws of Moses weren't in the ark of covenant; because they weren't rules given directly by god.

As for the gay matter. I could be wrong, but the Bible doesn't mention anything about gays being together as lovers? It does however, condemn the act of sexual acts with another man; which I think is because it's something anti-natura. The rectum isn't to be used in the same way the woman's reproductive organ should be.

Just a bit of info on what HeartofFire and Xakota meant. I'm a little rusty on all this stuff, but I'm pretty sure that's how it goes.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Jonathan

Just dropping this in here for you guys to mull over as an example of sanctioned homosexuality in the bible.

 

No, God's morality doesn't change, what changes are the laws necessary to uphold it. God wants what's best for women...and at the time that did mean marrying your rapist.

If you want my honest opinion on it, I believe the only reason God forbade homosexual sex was the horribly increased risk of diseases associated with **** sex and fecal matter-penile contact. He was trying to protect us. Now that it's possible to protect yourself, I think God would be a little bit more lenient.

Again, context specific laws in some cases are unnecessary or don't work anymore, but moral laws (Honor your mother and father, don't kill) are unchanging.

 

Personaly if two guys or women want to get married that's completely up to them.

 

Assuming said God is the Christian all-powerful and all-loving god... Didn't he have complete control over society, unto, say, dictating the laws like we are discussing? At what point do these laws 'work within society' rather than 'warp society to fit their bill'? Isn't that what laws are designed to do, especially religious laws? Why should I believe that God could not have made rape a terrible offense for the rapist according to law and have it enforced?

If God 'must work within society' in the way that you imply, then how do you differentiate what a society that uses his name wants from what God wants? Aren't the lines very blurred there?

Furthermore, how do you explain laws enforcing stoning women who commit adultery? This includes raped women who are forced to marry. Is that what was best for women?

I actually thought it had more to do with the massive fertility cults and rape that was associated with homosexuality at the time, but okay. Like with Lot and the men who wished to rape the angels, to which Lot offered up his daughters to be gang raped instead. Once again, society played a much larger role. No?

Okay, but the question is, do you believe or do you not believe that homosexuality is morally wrong? Why or why not? You were not clear enough before. Will homosexuality still be considered a sin in God's book?

 

Because, there's this thing called free will. God created man, man created society. Dictating the laws of the land is something God can't do, he can only tell us how we should behave, and it's up to the lawmakers to interpret how that should incorporate into the law (If the lawmakers choose to incorporate God's will into the law). God didn't make it a terrible offense for the rapist, but he didn't make it a law to marry your rapist either, the lawmakers did that. All God did was say that you shouldn't rape women. How to deal with people who did was up to the lawmakers.

Yes, the lines are very blurred, I can't deny that. Many of the laws you see in the Bible (i.e. the ones that aren't said directly from God to man like the Law and the Commandments) are man's interpretation of God's will.

It could be argued that it was an attempt to protect men from marrying women who would commit adultery against them. But again, I think what we're seeing there is the societal result of attempting to incorporate God's will into law.

That argument could be made, sure. If a practice is resulting in things like that it would make sense to condemn such activity.

Honestly, I'm pretty compromised about it. There are references to homosexuality still being a sin in the New Testament, in which Jesus makes a point of dismissing the obsolete laws that missed the point of God's morality (Such as stoning adulterers), so the fact that Jesus chooses to leave the topic of homosexuality alone makes me lean more towards him still condemning the practice. However, it's worth noting that all the references to it in the New Testament are more or less directed towards Rome, who were pretty disgusting with their homosexual practices (Systematic raping of kids, etc.), so it may also have been a societal issue. If the issue didn't affect me as much as it did I would probably be fine with just writing it off as a sin or writing it off as okay, but I'm a little more compromised about it. So I don't really have an answer for you.

By the way, at this point we're straying really far from the issue of gay marriage, though I'd be glad to continue this conversation with you through VM.

 

Free will cannot exist for beings and obviously does not exist for humans. Whether a being is created or generates randomly, that being has a hold on neither the experiences that shape it nor the impulses that bring about its reactions to those experiences. Because a being has no control over the origins of neither its nature nor its nurture, it has no free will. Every choice is determined by either impulses and emotions that they did not consciously create, or experiences that they did not choose to go through.

Furthermore, humans are very limited in will on the most basic of terms. Consider, if you will, a man's will to stay underwater for a great length of time and survive. God made it impossible for a man to stay under water for a great length of time and survive, and yet a man may wish to do so. Clearly his will is not free. Another example is the senses. A man may will to perceive dimensions higher than the third or experience the world with more senses but God limited his will so that he cannot. Given these limitations, said god could have just as easily made it physically impossible to rape instead of to breath underwater. That would increase the positive value of the world, would it not? I see no argument for 'free will' here, only a sadistic game if such a 'choice' was set forth at all.

Last post before we move to VMs. You know that I love to deviate, correct...?

 

I personally don't support gay marriage only because I am I guess what you called "Bible Huggers" (I find that term kind of offensive honestly since we're supposed to have a healthy debate). I am a devoted Christian and I know God's word told me that it's wrong. However, I do not bash anyone who is homosexual or degrade them. I think just because they're gay, doesn't give anyone the reason to think that they are any less human. For those who support gay marriage, I respect that as long as you guys respect what I believe in and my views

 

*sigh* I'm a 'Bible-hugger'. And here I thought I could get away from religious discrimination : / Okay I'm just gonna say what I said on some other thread a while ago:

I'm a Catholic and I just want to say...I'm absolutely %100 for gay people. I say that we have enough hate in the world already, (against religions too, KHV) we don't need to hate on people just because of who they love. Of course, the Bible does say it is a sin, but I think that this was just the views of the people at the time who wrote the books of the Bible. Relaying Gods message or not, they were still human and would allow their prejudices that were around at the time to seep in to what they wrote. That's exactly why we had Jesus come along to set us on the right path. When He said 'Love your neighbour as you love yourself' I don't remember Him adding 'except them gay people'.
I hope someday more people will come to realise this :)
Besides, it's just part of who you are. You can no more 'cure' or force a gay person to fall in love with someone of the opposite gender than you could make a heterosexual fall in love with the same.

On the gay marriage front, I think that gay marriage should be allowed, not only as a sign of love and unity for the two people involved, but also for legal security, health insurance etc. And I think there's no real reason for the Church to not want that allowed. I don't know how it is in America, but to have a Catholic church wedding you need to be a Christian, and go to lots of meetings with the priest, go to mass etc. That's because a church wedding is a bond between the two people getting married and God. I personally don't think the church should have a say in marriage that is not religious, as in the lawful binding of two people in a registry office or anywhere outside the church.

If the Church wants to say 'a bond between a man, a woman and God' well that's...not fine exactly, I mean I wish gay Christians could get married in a church if they wanted to. But still, it's not the churches place to dictate what the law should be outside of the church.

AND right KHV I want no more religion bashing, or gay bashing. This is supposed to be a friendly community right? If you think your comment might cause unnecessary bad feeling, try rewording it with RESPECT in mind. Surely we can have a good debate without resorting to upsetting people.

 

Ok, with the debate, I have to just say that just because a person is very religious, it doesn't mean they automatically hate gay people. People need to stop coming up with that.

I also want to point out that the bible is a really really really old book. It is most likely there are millions of different versions of it. It will be the publisher's (who wrote the version of that bible) interpretation of the bible, not God's EXACT words. Yes, follow and love your bible, but don't take it literally. Interpret it for yourself.


By the way, in any debate I've been in about gay marriage, I have yet to see an exact quote from ANY bible saying that gays should not marry.

 

Considering religion is pretty much in this now. I would just like to say its the person's interpretation of the bible that is how people "should" follow it if they so choose. Without blowing up part of the universe allow me to just say it is more or less finding the best way to follow it. To me that is more or less one of the many points of the bible. If there wasn't a need for interpretation, there would be no branches of religion inside of Christianity, nor would there be any priests/pastors/etc.

On that note as a very strong Christian, I do not hate people who are gay, in fact there are very few people I "hate" because that is wrong as well. If people would wake up and realize that saying you hate gays because you are Christian, well you are breaking another "rule" too. Love thy neighbor as yourself. Nowhere is hate in that at all.

People need to learn to make their own choices, it is why we have free will. If you want to be gay, then sure be gay. Nobody should stop you or bash you for it because there is no person on earth who actually has the right to judge someone.

 

I always assumed that the bible with most other subjects has more than one thing to say on the subject, no offence to religious Christians but I find that due to bad translations and many years of different editors of the original the bible tends to condridict itself on many of its 'set in stone' points so maybe it does say that gays are bad but I'm sure in my experience of that book it probably says they are good to at some point

 

Completely regardless of what the Bible says, I think people are forgetting that marriage is a religious ceremony at its core and that if the religion does not sanctify your marriage then you should not respect the ceremony. I feel that the Christians here should instead take the stance that marriage should have absolutely no legal effects, that people should not be married by anyone but pastors and priests, and that priests and pastors may discriminate against marriages as they personally see fit. That is how a religious ceremony ought to be. I see no reason to bring law into some kind of deity-based ritual.

To the Christians in this thread, most of the talk has been about hating gays or not hating gays. I have seen very little from Christians about gay marriage itself. Most of them claim to be against it then spend the rest of the thread defending themselves by saying that they do not hate gays. However, this thread is not about what you think of gay people. It is about what you think about gay marriage. I feel that we should not distract so much from that point as we have.

 

TROLLLL!!!!!!



TROLL ON THE FORUM!

Thought you ought to know *faints*

So your telling us what we should believe in now just so you can disagree with us about it? Besides, marriage isn't just a Christian thing. Marrige in one form or another has been seen in nearly every culture throughout history.

If you'll look at my post you'll see my whole second paragraph is defending the rights of gay marriage.

 

Yes, marriage is a ceremony, a religious ceremony at that, but the problem is that the law that are incorporated with marriage. If you are married there are legal privileges obtained at the same time..... tax, medical, estate, etc. We can't just say that marriage is just a ceremony. It's more of a legal binding to being with someone.....