Homosexuality and The Old Testament. How to defend the faith

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Nickos

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Im good at defending the scriptures on the science field. Its easy for me. But when it comes to scriptures and those hard ones as well im lacking experience. So most antitheists asks"How can a lovely God kill love?"(implying that homosexuals couples love eachother and you know etc). Another thing they ask is "Why did your God had to kil them?. I can point them out that the Leviticus book tells us that we are unholy in the image of God and we need to become holy again to seek out his presence but nonetheless the verse is difficult to take in. Any recommendations? Thanks and God bless
 
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Nickos said:
So most antitheists asks"How can a lovely God kill love?"(implying that homosexuals couples love eachother and you know etc)
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Modern people do not know the meaning of love!
Only the great souls can and know how to love. Love is infinite tenderness… Love is the life that beats in every atom as it beats in every sun…

Passion is mistaken easily for love. Love and desire are absolute opposites…

Love begins with a flash of delectable sympathy. It is substantiated with infinite tenderness and it is synthesized with supreme adoration. – Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony
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This is what love looks like!

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But everyone nowadays mistakes passion, desire, romance, etc. for love. We idolize these false mimicries of love in music, films, and poetry. But they are antithetical to love.

The degree to which desire exists in a person, that is the degree to which love does not.

But it is understandable that people make this mistake, because filled to the brim with desire and leaving no room for love, most people have never experienced love themselves. This frequently occurs in both homosexual and heterosexual relationships.

We permit heterosexual couples to marry based on desire and passion, so it seems fair to allow homosexual couples to do the same. But do not assume that God’s condemnation of unnatural unions is somehow a condemnation of love, because it is not love. It is the shadow of love, which society mistakes for the real thing!
Nickos said:
Another thing they ask is "Why did your God had to kil them?. I can point them out that the Leviticus book tells us that we are unholy in the image of God and we need to become holy again to seek out his presence but nonetheless the verse is difficult to take in. Any recommendations?
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Often these verses are symbolic. Many ancient scriptures involve the motif of killing the unfaithful or the sinners (e.g. Bhagavad Gita, Quran, many books of the Old Testament) or making human sacrifices. People have been using these verses to justify physical violence and murder for centuries, but that is not their meaning

Such stories should be understood as killing the sinful elements within us. Our mind is in conflict. We have many forces pulling us to sin, to be unfaithful. We need to eliminate those negative psychological tendencies within ourselves so we can love and serve God with all of our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength (Luke 10:27). As we are now, we cannot do that because our mind is filled with many different wills and desires.

So we must slaughter the unfaithful and the sinners (all of whom exist inside of us!) in order to truly love God with all of our heart.
 
White_Tree said:
Often these verses are symbolic.
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The language here is pretty literal so i dont know.
White_Tree said:
Often these verses are symbolic. Many ancient scriptures involve the motif of killing the unfaithful or the sinners (e.g. Bhagavad Gita, Quran, many books of the Old Testament)
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Id advise against putting the scriptures side by side with the Quran etc. We are speaking abou THE GOD not spinoffs
 
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I do agree on most of it. But still doesnt answer the main questions. You said on one of them that Hebrews viewed homosexuality as an abomination to the Lord which im ok with it. The thing here is im not arguing that homosexuality is a sin but rather asking for apologetics on why did God killed them ? Sure abomination its one thing but killing them isnt going too far?
 
Never in the history of God’s creation is love defined by sodomy. It is not an expression of love, in fact it is a destruction of someone. That isn’t love.
 
Mrchatsworth said:
Never in the history of God’s creation is love defined by sodomy. It is not an expression of love, in fact it is a destruction of someone. That isn’t love.
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Funny how so many people think of two men when they think of gay sex.
 
Mrchatsworth said:
True. But historically that has been the case.
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I think you might be missing the point being made. Which was that all you thought of was two men having anal sex and then expressing an aversion to it. That seems to be your view of gay people. It might not be, but if you have any love for those who are gay then feel free to express it.

And can we agree that sexual acts with which you might not agree are not limited to gay people. Or just men.
 
Nickos said:
Im good at defending the scriptures on the science field. Its easy for me. But when it comes to scriptures and those hard ones as well im lacking experience. So most antitheists asks"How can a lovely God kill love?"(implying that homosexuals couples love eachother and you know etc). Another thing they ask is "Why did your God had to kil them?. I can point them out that the Leviticus book tells us that we are unholy in the image of God and we need to become holy again to seek out his presence but nonetheless the verse is difficult to take in. Any recommendations? Thanks and God bless
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Nickos a very important lesson happens between Ch:1 v:1 of Leviticus and Ch:1 V:1 of Numbers.
In that first verse of Leviticus God is inside His tent and Moses is outside the tent God is in. They are having a conversation, speaking as friends with that separation.
In Ch:1 V:1 Both God and Moses are inside the tent having conversations , speaking as friends with no separation.
The Journey between those two books is all about how Moses came to be now able to be inside the tent with God. It is a journey for us too, although not all the laws apply now, and others apply so much more in modern culture, as what is right and wrong.

God taught as required in those days.
 
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They’re obviously human beings deserving of basic human dignity.

It’s just that from the heterosexual male mindset, female homosexual relationships are more aesthetically appealing, or at least less repulsive - particularly if one or both of the ladies involved are “lipstick” rather than “butch”.

Pardon the dated terms.

Homosexuality has been a concept towards which many Christians have been very good at expressing the hate they supposedly eschewed when they became disciples of Jesus Christ.
 
Having taken a Biblical Students class about this particular topic: I do not think the issue with Sodom and Gomorrah was the fact that homosexual acts were taking place. Presumably if people were homosexual and not acting on it, there would have been no issue. Perhaps even those acting on it might not have been the full issue and the reason for God’s destruction.

The principle issue was the fact that the population of these cities (which were individuals acting on their same-sex attraction) threatened to rape Lot and the two angels with him. The violence and hatred they threatened on them, the cruelty of raping them, these cities were devoid of mercy and love and were destroyed (much like the Great Flood). Those who were innocent from these violent feelings were saved (Lot’s family).

As such, the issue in these two cities was the rape culture and the violence inflicted and any outsider (not just Lot but anyone who visited them). The cities being devoid of mercy and love. To just summarize this as “God destroyed the homosexuals” completely misses the point. God destroyed a city completely devoid of mercy and love. Period.

There are other areas in the Bible we can see that homosexual acts are sinful but people with same-sex attraction themselves are not demons or horrible humans because of the attraction they experience.
 
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I have an Aunt who is a Lesbian and for 10 or so years was in a same-sex relationship with a woman she lived with. She grew up Catholic but left the faith and entered into this lifestyle. She eventually realized the sin she was committing (the sin of acting on her same-sex attraction) and ended the relationship, went to confession, started attending Catholic mass regularly again, and eventually became a 3rd Order Dominican sister.

If God simply destroyed her when she was acting on her same-sex attraction, then there was no chance for redemption of her coming back to Christ. If people viewed her as a walking abomination, she would not be the Catholic and Dominican she is today (which is quite the blessing to our family and the Catholic Church). The thing is, she was not devoid of mercy or love, she was misguided. The story in the Old Testament reflects only hatred, rape, violence, and xenophobia (as they raped and attacked outsiders, not just Lot). This is a much bigger situation than one Bible story that is taken way out of context.

Those who act on same-sex attraction is a sin, just like lying is a sin or adultery or stealing is a sin. Sin cannot be quantified. As such, how do we fight against sin? We love others even in their darkest moments and show them the mercy of Christ so that one day, they may realize the error of their ways and come back to the fullness of Christ who is the Eternal God.
 
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I’m well acquainted with many gay people. I also know that sodomy is heterosexual as well. And sodomy is not just what you state.
 
Someone who has same-sex attraction deserves just as much love as an unborn baby and just as much love as your neighborhood priest. All of us are human beings. All of us are made in the image and likeness of God.

Love however is not a free pass and to love someone is to want the best for them (which is for them to enter Heaven) and as such, love sometimes is showing others what it is they are doing and offering a way to return. My mom never stopped loving her sister (my aunt) when she was in a homosexual relationship for 10 years, while at the same time, my mom also pointed out to her sister the severity of her actions and helped her realize she was made for much much more. But my mom never condemned her sister or felt she was above her (which sadly, many Christians act like this).
 
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Mrchatsworth said:
I’m well acquainted with many gay people. I also know that sodomy is heterosexual as well. And sodomy is not just what you state.
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Indeed it isn’t. Except in common useage. Which is the way I think you might have been using it. The point stands nevertheless.

And I’m sure you know a lot of heterosexual people as well as gays who engage in sodomy (the literal meaning as opposed to the common useage). But you wouldn’t know about what they do. It’s a private matter.
 
Dolphin said:
Having taken a Biblical Students class about this particular topic: I do not think the issue with Sodom and Gomorrah was the fact that homosexual acts were taking place. Presumably if people were homosexual and not acting on it, there would have been no issue. Perhaps even those acting on it might not have been the full issue and the reason for God’s destruction.
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Well I guess it depends on who is giving the bible study but Scripture itself seems to tell us it was, indeed, about sexual immorality and making a point to tell us the men of Sodom preferred homosexual sex over heterosexual.

Although inhospitality is a sin, it is clearly the homosexual behavior of the Sodomites that is singled out for special criticism in the account of their city’s destruction. We must look to Scripture’s own interpretation of the sin of Sodom.
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StudentMI said:
Do you have a source for that claim?
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Yes, but you’re not going to like it. 😉 The source is the text itself, though it doesn’t give up its wisdom easily.

The difficulty in penetrating the Old Testament is partially why the Jews needed someone like Jesus to help them out. Jesus was clear that He wasn’t teaching anything that should be foreign or new to someone who truly understood the teachings of Moses:
Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? – John 3:10
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The Old Testament does not spoonfeed its wisdom to you. You have to learn to “catch your own meat” so to speak. Jesus could do that, and He taught a little more plainly. But that leads to confusion by people who think Jesus’s message is somehow different or new, when in reality, they simply did not understand the Torah.

So when we’re studying the Torah, we need to remember the guidance of the One who understood it better than anyone, such as:
Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. – Matthew 26:52
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Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye. – Matthew 7:1-5
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So if we have an understanding of a passage in the Torah that appears to contradict something Jesus taught, our understanding is wrong.

Obviously, even among Christians, who have Jesus to steer them away from wrong interpretations (including those involving violence), there is still a strong tendency to believe in a literal meaning for many of those stories.

@Nickos’s sentiment, which he expressed here, is quite common:
Nickos said:
The language here is pretty literal so i dont know.
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That’s because it’s hard to penetrate the meaning of the stories. We need to pay very close attention to details.

(Part 1 of 2)
 
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