Ban organized religion, says Elton John

[Kobasew fan]

Originally Posted by Cheese

But lets suppose for a second here shall we? Your sister was violently raped by an evil person. She decided to abort this fetus, and lo and behold scientists have figured a way to use those aborted genes to help your father who has Parkinsons disease.
What say you now? Does your God see the evil in your sister aborting a fetus from rape....or does he see the positive in the genius of his scientists?

I'll give you the second then. Doing something evil because someone else did something evil doesn't make it right. I never proclaimed to know how God sees things. I can see how my "sister" would want to abort the baby but I'm not going to say that it would be right, but again it is not my place to judge such a decision.

[Crazy Flamer]

Originally Posted by jonesy

Being a homosexual - NO
Acting it out - YES

It may seem unfair,
but I think there is talk of people with a gene that makes them love the drink. (I might have that one!)
So if I have that 'gene' if you will - not a sin
Going and drinking to oblivion - sin

Who know why people act like they do, we all have our weaknesses we must fight through in life, some overcome, some succomb.

Ok, so if someone has the genetic predisposition of a black person, its ok if they are black, they just can't act black?? I don't understand your reasoning.

If its in their genetic code, how are they supposed to ignore it? You can't ignore how tall you are, or what color your eyes are...

[Kobasew fan]

Originally Posted by Crazy Flamer

Ok, so if someone has the genetic predisposition of a black person, its ok if they are black, they just can't act black?? I don't understand your reasoning.

If its in their genetic code, how are they supposed to ignore it? You can't ignore how tall you are, or what color your eyes are...

Homosexual acts are behaviour. You can feel like you are homosexual without doing it. However, your color is not a behaviour. It is something you can not change.

[Crazy Flamer]

Originally Posted by Kobasew fan

Homosexual acts are behaviour. You can feel like you are homosexual without doing it. However, your color is not a behaviour. It is something you can not change.

Greeting someone by saying, "Yo Homey," is also an act.

In all seriousness though, I'm still not quite following you. If you have a gene that makes you a homosexual are you jsut supposed to ignnore your urges to have sex and love other men??? That is unnatural! If God is the creator of all things then he is also the creator of the homosexuality gene.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

It is an english word. Who are you to say I can't use it. Are you arguing that because a couple of translations I don't adhere to uses an english word that some scholar thinks is too broad for the passage that somehow my faith is in jeopardy? Read Romans Chapter one. What it describes is homosexuality. "Men giving up the natural use of a woman and being inflamed with lust for one another and the women likewise..." does God need to draw you a picture? How can that not be clear to you?

And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the
woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men
working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that
recompence of their error which was meet.

Where is "and the women likewise"???

What is clear to me is that the Hebrew text mentions nothing about Lesbians. How else does one verify the accuracy of what is written without going back to the original text.

You can't use the word and then disregard parts of the term.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Azure

I don't think it makes it unreliable...because the things which 'might' be missing would probably be minor.

You never know though...it seems pretty consistant to me.

Minor? Yes, I would agree.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Perhaps your underestimating the impact. Your paying medical insurance at an higher rate to help subsidies a marriage partner and any children they have. I would imagine you are paying about a third more than you would if those considerations didn't exist. Any retirement plan your company might have would also have those inflated premiums. Taxes probably cost you a couple extra thousand than it would if you didn't have the benefit. More if you figure the spousal benefits paid by our government to it's employees and vets.

I don't pay for medical insurance. I live in Canada.

I don't have any benefit that saves me a couple thousand a year. I'm not married.

I don't have the figures in front of me but I'm absolutely positive that marriage benefits don't increase my taxes in any serious way. I'm not "pro-marriage benefits", I'm "pro-equality".

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Your losing all this money and don't even see a reason that this special group gets these benefits. What makes your position even more ironic is that you are here defending another groups right to belly up to the same trough. Right?

You set that one up to knock down for yourself. Nice try. It would be ironic if I was griping about paying the bills for straight people to be married, but since I'm not this is just a hamfisted attempt to make me look like a hypocrite.

Just for interests sake, what exactly are the benefits? We've been gabbing about this all day but nobody has actually said what all the wonderful financial benefits of being married are.

I'd also love to hear what the financial benefits of having children are.

[Nicole]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

I'd also love to hear what the financial benefits of having children are.

There are financial benefits for having children?? More like financial strain Seriously though, there is the Child Tax Benefit that you recieve every month but it isn't exactly a lot of money but the more kids you have, the more money you get. As well it is based on your income so the more money you make, the less child tax you get. Scary thing is, is that I know of people who have commented to me that they aren't concerend about the cost of having another child b/c it just means they will get more money .. yikes!! - Great reason for having a child

[jonesy]

Originally Posted by Crazy Flamer

Greeting someone by saying, "Yo Homey," is also an act.

In all seriousness though, I'm still not quite following you. If you have a gene that makes you a homosexual are you jsut supposed to ignnore your urges to have sex and love other men??? That is unnatural! If God is the creator of all things then he is also the creator of the homosexuality gene.

I guess it is a character builder? Like I said we all have predispositions. Human genes have billions of codes, I don't understand them, and I don't know how they get there. Like you say, some are for height and colour, but some, for example, seem to make people pre disposed to be serial killers or rapists, I think science has argued that those traits are also gene based, so I won't disagree with that, but I sure think it is still wrong.
Is it fair? Doesn't seem like it, but what can you do? We all fight our own battles.

Obviously, the genes that make you black vs yellow or to like peanut butter vs. tofu don't pose predispostions to what I call 'sin'. (unless you like tofu so much, you kill your mother, steal the money out of the purse grasped in her dying hand and run off to the tofu store)

[Kobasew fan]

Originally Posted by Crazy Flamer

Greeting someone by saying, "Yo Homey," is also an act.

In all seriousness though, I'm still not quite following you. If you have a gene that makes you a homosexual are you jsut supposed to ignnore your urges to have sex and love other men??? That is unnatural! If God is the creator of all things then he is also the creator of the homosexuality gene.

The gene is a corruption of the original gene (mutation). People have urges to have extramarital affairs but God still wants us to ignore them. Is that unnatural?

[photon]

Originally Posted by Crazy Flamer

Ok, so if someone has the genetic predisposition of a black person, its ok if they are black, they just can't act black?? I don't understand your reasoning.

If its in their genetic code, how are they supposed to ignore it? You can't ignore how tall you are, or what color your eyes are...

Ah but herein is where it goes beyond black and white (so to speak )...

What about things such as alcoholism, there's a genetic component to that is there not? Not a "you will be or you won't be" situation but a genetic component that makes one person more prone to alcoholism. Decisions and environment still play a role obviously. But alcoholism isn't justified by the genetics.

And what about things like being overly aggressive or violent?

Or what about men being drawn to multiple partners? That's genetic, behavior shaped over many years of evolution. Yet now society values monogamy. We over come our genetic predisposition there. Society rejects polygamy for the most part.

I'm not agreeing that homosexuality is a sin independent of genetics, I'm just saying that we can't point at genetics as the end of all behavior; otherwise no one is "responsible" for their actions, it's genetically predisposed. There are plenty of things in ourselves that we overcome in order to be productive members of society.

So I don't think the argument that "sexuality is genetic therefore justified" is valid. There are plenty of other reasons to use.

[Dion]

When one compares the original Hebrew and Greek writings with various English translations of the Bible, discrepancies emerge. There are many passages in English Bibles which clearly condemn same-sex activities. But when the original Hebrew or Greek text is studied, the passages are either ambiguous or are unrelated to consentual homosexuality within a committed relationship. Two words which are often mistranslated in many places in the Hebrew Scriptures are:

• qadesh means a male temple prostitute who engaged in ritual sex; it is often mistranslated as “sodomite” or “homosexual.”
• to’ebah means a condemned foreign Pagan religious cult practice, but often translated as “abomination.”

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by jonesy

I guess it is a character builder? Like I said we all have predispositions. Human genes have billions of codes, I don't understand them, and I don't know how they get there. Like you say, some are for height and colour, but some, for example, seem to make people pre disposed to be serial killers or rapists, I think science has argued that those traits are also gene based, so I won't disagree with that, but I sure think it is still wrong.
Is it fair? Doesn't seem like it, but what can you do? We all fight our own battles.

Obviously, the genes that make you black vs yellow or to like peanut butter vs. tofu don't pose predispostions to what I call 'sin'. (unless you like tofu so much, you kill your mother, steal the money out of the purse grasped in her dying hand and run off to the tofu store)

See the difference between being pre-disposed to being a Serial killer and a Homosexual is that one doesn't violate someone else's rights.

[Crazy Flamer]

Originally Posted by photon

Ah but herein is where it goes beyond black and white (so to speak )...

What about things such as alcoholism, there's a genetic component to that is there not? Not a "you will be or you won't be" situation but a genetic component that makes one person more prone to alcoholism. Decisions and environment still play a role obviously. But alcoholism isn't justified by the genetics.

And what about things like being overly aggressive or violent?

Or what about men being drawn to multiple partners? That's genetic, behavior shaped over many years of evolution. Yet now society values monogamy. We over come our genetic predisposition there. Society rejects polygamy for the most part.

I'm not agreeing that homosexuality is a sin independent of genetics, I'm just saying that we can't point at genetics as the end of all behavior; otherwise no one is "responsible" for their actions, it's genetically predisposed. There are plenty of things in ourselves that we overcome in order to be productive members of society.

So I don't think the argument that "sexuality is genetic therefore justified" is valid. There are plenty of other reasons to use.

First of all, from what I have read, the gene that determines a person's sexual orientation is a "You are or you aren't gene." It does not make you predisposed to being homosexual or straight, it actually makes you one or the other. That is a huge difference from an alcoholism gene where your likelyhood of being an acoholic increases but as you said, its far from set in stone.

Second of all, I think we as human beings can make the discinction between good and bad behaviors. Alcoholism is a destructive behavior, so is being too violent. Homosexuality is not in the same category as these things, not even close. Yes, some people are genetically predisposed to being a certain way. But the humanity in us all tells us whether its good to act upon it or not.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

All I can say is the New Testament makes it clear what God's opinion is regarding homosexuals. He terms it "vile affections". It is a sin just like adultery and unlawful fornication and many other things.

Well first of all the NT wasn't written Hebrew, it was written in Greek.

That's exactly what the article linked to addresses, you say it's clear but I don't think it is. Paul is talking about idol worship and pagan rituals common to Rome in this chunk of scripture, you have to see that scripture in its context. There are some words used that aren't ever used elsewhere by Paul, and others that are used in unfamiliar ways. Even the Bible itself says Paul is difficult to interpret.

From here:
http://www.otkenyer.hu/truluck/six_b...#Romans1:26-27

Romans 1:26-27 contains some words used only here by Paul. Familiar words are used here in unusual ways. The passage is very difficult to translate. The argument is directed against some form of idolatry that would have been known to Paul's readers. To us, 2,000 years later and in a totally different culture, the argument is vague and indirect.

Verse 25 is clearly a denunciation of idol worship, "For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature and not the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen."." Paul at no point in his writing dealt with same-sex orientation or the expression of love and affection between two people of the same sex who love each other.

Paul wrote Romans from Corinth, the second largest city in the empire and the crossroads of world trade and culture. Pausanius observed at about the same time as Paul that there were over 1,000 religions in Corinth. The most prominent were the fertility cult of Aphrodite, worship of Apollo, and the Delphi Oracle, which was across the bay from Corinth. Paul's readers would have been aware of the religious climate from which he wrote Romans and would have understood Paul a lot better than we do.

The word "passions" in 1:26 is the same word used to speak of the suffering and death of Jesus in Acts 1:3 and does not mean what we mean by "passion" today. Eros is the Greek word for romantic love, but eros is never used even once in the New Testament. "Passions" in 1:26 probably refers to the frenzied state of mind that many ancient mystery cults induced in worshipers by means of wine, drugs and music.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Crazy Flamer

First of all, from what I have read, the gene that determines a person's sexual orientation is a "You are or you aren't gene." It does not make you predisposed to being homosexual or straight, it actually makes you one or the other. That is a huge difference from an alcoholism gene where your likelyhood of being an acoholic increases but as you said, its far from set in stone.

Second of all, I think we as human beings can make the discinction between good and bad behaviors. Alcoholism is a destructive behavior, so is being too violent. Homosexuality is not in the same category as these things, not even close. Yes, some people are genetically predisposed to being a certain way. But the humanity in us all tells us whether its good to act upon it or not.

Very true though I haven't read that there's a conclusive indication as far as sexuality is concerned (and as you say it doesn't matter at all).

And of course alcoholism is a clear cut case of negative.. but there are other things that are not so clear, things that might be negative now in our society but in different societies might actually be positive. What determines what's destructive or bad?

Interesting that you say "the humanity" in us tells us.. Wouldn't that be the same as a conscious, an external force indicating what's right and wrong? Society as a whole tells us what's write and wrong, and that evolves over time as well, adjusting to find better and better ways to think and act that to advance society as a whole. Ways to act that overcome our genetics (until they can catch up I guess).

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by Dion

And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the
woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men
working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that
recompence of their error which was meet.

Where is "and the women likewise"???

This is verses 26 and 27 of Romans Chapter one.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which

You missed verse 26. Perhaps I failed to post it.

What is clear to me is that the Hebrew text mentions nothing about Lesbians. How else does one verify the accuracy of what is written without going back to the original text.

You can't use the word and then disregard parts of the term.

The New Testament isn't A translation of the Old Testament. It is a further communication. It in fact declares a new covenant that is given to all men. That is what the gospel is. It means: Good News.

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by photon

Well first of all the NT wasn't written Hebrew, it was written in Greek.

That's exactly what the article linked to addresses, you say it's clear but I don't think it is. Paul is talking about idol worship and pagan rituals common to Rome in this chunk of scripture, you have to see that scripture in its context. There are some words used that aren't ever used elsewhere by Paul, and others that are used in unfamiliar ways. Even the Bible itself says Paul is difficult to interpret.

From here:
http://www.otkenyer.hu/truluck/six_b...#Romans1:26-27

The New Testament passage is clear. The reason you can find a link that questions its translation is because of political correctness invading weak churches. It would be convenient for some if it didn't say what it does. Homosexuality wasn't an issue when the first English translations came to be. They translated it without bias and all the same way. The notion that Paul was speaking of some pagan religious practice rather then the act is false. He mentions Idolatry before he mentions homosexuality but then goes on to mention many other sins. Read verses 28 through 32. He lists a whole range of sins including being disobedient to ones parents. Are all these sins tied into the same pagan religion? Can one conclude that disobedience to ones parents isn't a sin if it isn't done as part of a pagan ritual?

What you've stumbled upon is how great a lengths people will go to bend scriptures to their personal point of view.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

This is verses 26 and 27 of Romans Chapter one.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which

You missed verse 26. Perhaps I failed to post

Again I refer you to the Hebrew text as I mentioned earlier. Plus Photon already addressed that.

Look, It is clear we are never going to see eye to eye on this issue. I'm going to agree to disagree with you on this and leave it at that.

Thanks for the debate

[Kidder]

Originally Posted by Cheese

This is a ministry called "The Right Remedy".

Curtains part stage left....

Thanks for the link Cheese. I believe the part I enjoy the most is how in their list of reasons as to why "homosexuals are hellbound" they paint the homosexual as 'abnormal'; 'unnatural'; 'sexually perverse'; essentially a blasphemous abomination. Then Reason two -- 'homosexuality is a violent lifestyle' because "...gays and lesbians attempt suicide 2 to 7 times more often than heterosexual comparison groups."

Obviously there is no correlation between the two. I guess we can't just can't wait to get to hell.

I grew up with active participation in the church, but also with the secret of my homosexuality. My faith has certainly suffered due to this apparent confliction, but in no way would i advocate the banning of organized religion as Elton John is doing. As someone said earlier in this thread, you don't fight intolerance with intolerance.

Now to add to the discussion, and not to poke holes in anyone's theories, I would recommend to those debating over the issues to analyze some of the work by Rowan Williams. Here's a prominent figure inside the Catholic Church who suggests a perception of sexuality that incorporates the entire doctrine of Christianity rather than just on an "abstract fundamentalist deployment of a number of very ambiguous texts" as Williams discusses in "The Body's Grace".

http://www.igreens.org.uk/bodys_grace.htm

It just supplys a voice that some biblical fanatics might be more inclined to contemplate.

I don't intend to get into a religous debate and everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion, and I can respect those with differing viewpoints, especially those that breed tolerance, whether it be unconditional or reserved.

But believe me, when the only choice you are given is to essentially live a lie: a life without knowing that single emotion that makes us fully human, or to live with the understanding you are despised by some, viewed as sinful, a deviant... well it's a hard pill to take.

And that's just the conservative view. The far right believes we made the choice to make this choice. Yikes!