scripture and homosexuality

[feetxxxl]

paul never gave any specifics about one flesh with a prostitute. a person can see a prostitute for many things that do not involve vaginal sex. your concept of regulation definitely parallels the old relationship to the written code under the old covenant.

so i am to understand you can eat an ice cream cone, go to a ballgame, hear a symphony, see a movie, read a book just for the pleasure of it, but if you do sex for the same reason you are sinning. sorry, but you are expressing another regulation the same as above that assumes the old relationship to the written code.

and you have expressed nothing about spirit.

can you express any essence of spirit in anything about one flesh and your regulations about sin and intercourse?

 

[D_M]

(niv)40In my judgment, she is happier if she stays as she is—and I think that I too have the Spirit of God.

paul is not declaring a certainty but only what he thinks

you are being very unrevealing on your interactions with gays. surely you understand the concept of fellowship…fellowship with those who support homosexuality.

I agree Paul is not declaring a certainty, and neither can I, and neither can any of us.

You haven’t even asked to know what my interactions are, how could you then call me unrevealing?

I’m ordinarily a very shy person, but for the sake of this argument, as important as it is, I will try to answer this and expand as I may:

I live in Toronto, Ontario, (that’s Canada for the yanks on the board) and there is a very large and very open homosexual community here, and I have worked alongside openly homosexual people, and have had friendships with them. One of my best friends for some time before she moved from Toronto, was a lesbian, and who I believe is graduating from a degree in sexual diversity studies from Queen’s University in Kingston tomorrow. I’ve worked under a gay man who pounded me with the pro-gay humanist marxist line (my opinions were not unknown to him) of religion needing to change to serve sexuality. I’ve met all sorts of people who support homosexuality, gay marriage, gay adoption, and make arguments in favour of them. Some do it for the humanist reasons that I pay no heed to (Jesus is part of the problem apparently), and others like you do it from a religious perspective which I have a thousand times more respect for.

The number of people of religious faith I’ve come across, and even lay catholics, who openly support this practice, as well the gay marriage which is now law in this country, is somewhat higher than I think it is in other places. The Anglican church and the United Church of Canada, have often been the strongest proponents in favour of it, from what I’ve seen. Some number of reformed jewish congregations have also been strongly in favour, but I don’t think they carry as much influence as the ones I mention above.

 

[D_M]

I find it highly inappropriate that the church (made up of unmarried men) somehow think themselves qualified to give marriage guidance. That’s like a vegetarian giving a carnivore dietary advice.

It is a fact that humans and dolphins are the only two species on the planet that have sex for pleasure, and there is nothing wrong with that, it is perfectly natural. To reduce sex to purely procreation and not a means that a man and woman strengthen their bond is not something that I would expect an unmarried priest to understand. The fact that children can result is an added bonus.

It is only in mankind’s recent history that all those so-called taboos have come about. We managed as a species long before the church came onto the scene, and I don’t doubt that we’ll manage long after it’s gone

Jesus Christ is quite real, and I would not keep your hopes up about the church going away any time soon.

 

[LittleDeb]

so i am to understand you can eat an ice cream cone, go to a ballgame, hear a symphony, see a movie, read a book just for the pleasure of it, but if you do sex for the same reason you are sinning. sorry, but you are expressing another regulation the same as above that assumes the old relationship to the written code.

Do you purge that ice cream cone when you are done? Do you beat up the ballplayers or break the instruments during the symphony? Have you done something to thwart the purpose of these activities?

What you illustrate are activities that result in pleasure. But pleasure is not their purpose. That ice cream is just going sit there. It is neutral. Those ballplayers will play, as will that symphony, whether you are there or not.

If the purpose of watching a ballgame were pleasure then every single living person would find it pleasurable. But they don’t. Some people find a ballgame or the symphony exercises in boredom. (Although I am not one of them!) Just like the purpose of sex is not pleasure, some people find it a drudgery (Although I am not one of them either! )

It is no surprise that in our hedonistic society, you fail to see the difference. Pleasure sought for pleasure’s own sake is NOT a good thing. All of the 7 deadly sins illustrate that problem.

and you have expressed nothing about spirit.

can you express any essence of spirit in anything about one flesh and your regulations about sin and intercourse?

Sure I have!! Sex is primarily for procreation and secondly for bonding. The first is flesh and the second is spirit. Marriage is a bonding of flesh AND spirit. Not either/or. You must first prove a bonding of flesh IF you want to argue from scripture. That is what Jesus said, “one flesh.”

You throw that word ‘regulations’ around a lot. I am not the one who designed marital act. Take the ‘regulations’ up with God. He put the design on our very bodies. He made it one man, one woman. That is not arbitrary. Your line is arbitrary. Why 2 men? Why not 3?

You have now attempted to explain one flesh as a spiritual thing. So too, do the users of barrier methods of contraception. A procreative act is ONE FLESH. The act of one flesh makes babies. Pro-creative means: ordered towards creation.

 

[Bwsherman]

I must say that at first when starting to read and write on this thread I was hoping that because we were dealing with scripture we could have a very concise dialogue about homosexuality and scripture. That has not even come close to what has happened in thirty some odd pages of this ‘debate’. I do not believe feetxxxl had any intention of ever really debating the subject. He just wants for us to continue to think about it. The guise of evil comes in many forms. This case being a supposed dialogue about the legitimacy of the label “sin” in dealing with homosexuality. He has taken us on many turns dealing with slavery and over-population and many other Chicken Little types of propaganda. All the while he has stayed clear of ever giving any depth to his own position. Just relying on the same tired one or two phrases dealing with the “spirit” and “living in the spirit”. Most of this has been completely nonsensical. I am unsubscribing from this thread and I would suggest that my Catholic brethren do the same. We are only giving this position credibility at this point by continuing to argue with this person. I wish all of God’s blessings on you feetxxxl and that someday you might awaken from your slumber, but until then may God bless you and keep you.

 

[R_McGeddon]

By this illogic, the Holy Father can’t speak out against murder if he’s never killed someone, against theft if he’s never stolen anything and so on. For that matter you can’t tell me not to kill unless you’ve killed or not to steal unless you’ve stolen.

The examples you’ve given, are things that are controlled by law.

Look, I don’t need to go stick my hand in a pot of boiling water to be qualified to tell you it’s going to scald you, neither do I need to throw myself in front of a bus to be qualified to tell you it’s going to hurt.

These things are learned either from the past experiences of others, or you learned the hard way by personal experience.

It’s one of the advantages of having a rational brain that humans can learn from the experience and observations of others and we don’t NEED to experience absolutely everything as individuals.

Experience makes a better teacher, there’s no escaping that.

All I need do to be qualified to teach on a behaviour is observe the consequences for others who HAVE indulged in it.

So if somebody observed four married couples, and each couple had mutually acceptable behaviours that the other couples didn’t find acceptable. The church’s lack of personal experience disqualifies it from teaching on it.

I observe that lots of other people have done certain things and pain and injury are the inevitable result, so I can quite justifiably tell you not to do them.

That’s because you can empathise with pain and injury, the church can’t empathise with a married couple.

Same with adultery and homosexuality. I don’t need to do it to know that it’s bad, nor do I need to do it to tell YOU it’s bad. I just need to know that others have done it and been incredibly damaged by it.

What about those that have done it and NOT been damaged by it?

 

[revelations]

I must say that at first when starting to read and write on this thread I was hoping that because we were dealing with scripture we could have a very concise dialogue about homosexuality and scripture. That has not even come close to what has happened in thirty some odd pages of this ‘debate’. I do not believe feetxxxl had any intention of ever really debating the subject. He just wants for us to continue to think about it. The guise of evil comes in many forms. This case being a supposed dialogue about the legitimacy of the label “sin” in dealing with homosexuality. He has taken us on many turns dealing with slavery and over-population and many other Chicken Little types of propaganda. All the while he has stayed clear of ever giving any depth to his own position. Just relying on the same tired one or two phrases dealing with the “spirit” and “living in the spirit”. Most of this has been completely nonsensical. I am unsubscribing from this thread and I would suggest that my Catholic brethren do the same. We are only giving this position credibility at this point by continuing to argue with this person. I wish all of God’s blessings on you feetxxxl and that someday you might awaken from your slumber, but until then may God bless you and keep you.

i keep clicking unsubscribe but it just keeps coming back

 

[East_and_West]

what spirt is there in homosexuality that would make it come against loving ones neighbor as oneself…like in the spirit that is in murder or theft?

You really want to know? Ok, I have yet to meet a practicing homosexual, who does not participate in hook ups, threesomes, and pronography. Even when I was praticing, I was the only one I knew who didn’t partkare of these things. So, I ask you, are these things in accord with loving one’s neighbor?

 

[East_and_West]

so i am to understand you can eat an ice cream cone, go to a ballgame, hear a symphony, see a movie, read a book just for the pleasure of it, but if you do sex for the same reason you are sinning. sorry, but you are expressing another regulation the same as above that assumes the old relationship to the written code.

So you think that sex and ballgames are on the same level? Wow. Ballgames exist soley for pleasure. But sex does not only exist for pleasure. It is directed at another person and, for this reason, it is not about self but about the other. About sacrifice and giving. If sex was merely for pleasure, it would be nothing more than using another person.

 

[feetxxxl]

I must say that at first when starting to read and write on this thread I was hoping that because we were dealing with scripture we could have a very concise dialogue about homosexuality and scripture. That has not even come close to what has happened in thirty some odd pages of this ‘debate’. I do not believe feetxxxl had any intention of ever really debating the subject. He just wants for us to continue to think about it. The guise of evil comes in many forms. This case being a supposed dialogue about the legitimacy of the label “sin” in dealing with homosexuality. He has taken us on many turns dealing with slavery and over-population and many other Chicken Little types of propaganda. All the while he has stayed clear of ever giving any depth to his own position. Just relying on the same tired one or two phrases dealing with the “spirit” and “living in the spirit”. Most of this has been completely nonsensical. I am unsubscribing from this thread and I would suggest that my Catholic brethren do the same. We are only giving this position credibility at this point by continuing to argue with this person. I wish all of God’s blessings on you feetxxxl and that someday you might awaken from your slumber, but until then may God bless you and keep you.

message #510…page 34

 

[feetxxxl]

You really want to know? Ok, I have yet to meet a practicing homosexual, who does not participate in hook ups, threesomes, and pronography. Even when I was praticing, I was the only one I knew who didn’t partkare of these things. So, I ask you, are these things in accord with loving one’s neighbor?

you are talking about learned negative behavior. i would be interested as how you came to know this knowledge about ALL the homosexuals you have ever known in your life. is thisw because you met them in an environment where people congregated to make hook ups etc?

consider meeting them in churches that support homosexuality. who worship christ and share your same inheritance.

 

[LilyM]

The examples you’ve given, are things that are controlled by law.

And sexual behaviour is also controlled by law - God’s law rather than the law of the land. And how do you think our legislators get the bright idea to make murder illegal in the first place? Do they all go out and kill someone first and then say ‘nup, not a good idea’.

These things are learned either from the past experiences of others, or you learned the hard way by personal experience.

Yes, and that’s how the Church learns about marital behaviour as well. There ARE married people in the Catholic Church, you know, and they DO very frequently discuss about their marital lives with the clergy, both in the confessional and outside of it. Priests and Popes don’t live in a vacuum apart from the lives and experiences of the ordinary married Catholic.

So if somebody observed four married couples, and each couple had mutually acceptable behaviours that the other couples didn’t find acceptable. The church’s lack of personal experience disqualifies it from teaching on it.

I don’t quite understand what you’re getting at here. Remember you’re the one claiming the Church isn’t qualified to teach on sexuality because it allegedly has no experience, not me.

That’s because you can empathise with pain and injury, the church can’t empathise with a married couple.

Rubbish. I’m not married but I can well and truly empathise with my siblings, relatives or friends who go through marital troubles. Popes and prelates are all sons, brothers, nephews and friends of married couples, and empathetic in the same way. Moreover people come to them with their marital woes much more often than to me, so they combine my empathy with a greater level of factual knowledge.

Again, why do you think the Church exists in some sort of vacuum? It’s composed of human beings who are all as capable of empathy as anyone.

What about those that have done it and NOT been damaged by it?

What about them? What about those people who jump off cliffs without parachutes and survive (it’s happened) or those who’ve taken poison and by some freak not suffered any ill effects (has also happened)? Are you suggesting that these rare exceptions justify not making a rule against jmping off cliffs, poisoning people or any other generally harmful behaviour?

 

[revelations]

consider meeting them in churches that support homosexuality. who worship christ and share your same inheritance.

Man you just aren’t getting it. The CC DOES support all people, all are accepted so long as they are repentant of their sins. I have met a number of homosexuals in the church atmosphere who battle with their temptations, as well as a number of my friends who participate in the “hook up” scene.

Stop promoting this sin against God, as enumerated in scripture, in holy tradition, and up until about 100 years ago, universally accepted by the whole of christendom.

This is what happens when you are cut off from the branch, what is wrong suddenly appears to be right.

Repent before it is too late.

 

[huckleberry]

We all know the bible is full of contradictions, has been interpreted and reinterpreted, and its’ inclusions have been the subject of voting processes. So it is not unreasonable to look as far back as one can to the Greek and Hebrew words. We then find no mention against sexual activity within a loving, committed, monogamous homosexual relationship. The bible only mentions admonitions against homosexuals prostitution, rape, and ritual sex in Pagan temples.

 

[feetxxxl]

We all know the bible is full of contradictions, has been interpreted and reinterpreted, and its’ inclusions have been the subject of voting processes. So it is not unreasonable to look as far back as one can to the Greek and Hebrew words. We then find no mention against sexual activity within a loving, committed, monogamous homosexual relationship. The bible only mentions admonitions against homosexuals prostitution, rape, and ritual sex in Pagan temples.

there may be contradictions, according to human understanding…but there are no contradictions about spirit.

 

[Eden]

there may be contradictions, according to human understanding…but there are no contradictions about spirit.

It’s not just your spirits being joined that you’re talking about.

 

[LittleDeb]

We all know the bible is full of contradictions, has been interpreted and reinterpreted, and its’ inclusions have been the subject of voting processes. So it is not unreasonable to look as far back as one can to the Greek and Hebrew words. We then find no mention against sexual activity within a loving, committed, monogamous homosexual relationship. The bible only mentions admonitions against homosexuals prostitution, rape, and ritual sex in Pagan temples.

So tell me then. What does the word arsenokoitai mean? St. Paul condemns that behavior.

Eden pointed out in post 295
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=3712680&postcount=295
that it literally translates “men sexual relations”

To be able to back up your claims above, you must be able to prove that translation wrong.

 

[huckleberry]

Married couples (a man and a woman) should always have priority for adoption of any child, as the family construct composed of a married mother and father is superior to all other family arrangements for children.

“[C]hildren need both a mother and a father in order to grow into emotionally mature adults… Children navigate the developmental stages more easily, are more solid in their gender identity, perform better in academic tasks at school, have fewer emotional disorders and become better functioning adults when they are reared by dual-gender parents… On the contrary, however, studies of children reared in lesbian homes indicate that girls become more masculinized and boys become more feminized in their behaviors. (Stacy and Biblarz, 2001) Both boys and girls in homosexual households were more likely to experiment with homosexuality than those reared in heterosexual homes… Regarding gender complementarity and child-rearing, tradition and science agree: mothers and fathers provide optimal development for children.”

christianlegalcentre.com/view.php?id=26

Just to set you straight: First of all, you state that a married man and woman should always have the priority when adopting a child. Obviously, this is not your prerogative. If I owned an adoption agency, then it should be my choice. If I decided that a gay couple was the better choice, who are you to tell me different? The communistic mindset wants to engineer society based upon “studies”. Adoption is too important to rely on your one-size-fits-all pronouncements. No human, for instance, would ever claim that a gay couple cannot necessarily rear children better than all hetero couples. Are you going to cite studies at me. Fine, but I don’t have to believe or “abide by” the studies. Are you going to use the force of government to persuade me? ------------------
secondly, I’m not surprised you didn’t cite the studies that refute your claim. The fact is that the vast consensus of all the studies shows that children of same-sex parents do as well as children whose parents are heterosexual in every way. This is not surprising to anyone who has ever known more that a few gay families. I personally think that ALL the studies are unreliable because homosexuality in this country is still in a taboo status which skews the polling results.​

That being said, are you going to tell a family that they are sub-optimal if one of the partners is eccentric, or strange, or gay, bisexual, etc. Do only optimal families get your seal of approval?​

Doesn’t it make sense that someone reared by homos would be less likely to grow up being a bigot?​

gayrightswatch.com/2005/10/study-children-raised-by-gay-parents.html

 

[huckleberry]

there may be contradictions, according to human understanding…but there are no contradictions about spirit.

Your post does NOTHING to address the issue. The only way to figure out what the “spirit” of the bible is is to asses the words that make up the sentences, that make up the paragraphs, that in turn establish the “spirit”. And of course we have only one way to asses these things, through “human understanding”. So your defense that "there may be contradictions, according to human understanding is a non-starter. Or perhaps you are not human, and therefore can claim to know how the contradictions are not contradictions.

 

[feetxxxl]

"And sexual behaviour is also controlled by law - God’s law rather than the law of the land.

“Now it is possible (and certanly occurs) for married couple’s to pursue sex for personal pleasure and this remains wrong; and if you think I am making up this part of catholic teaching I will quote Pope and doctor of the church St Gregory on exactly this issue:”

i have no understanding about the first statement…god controls friendship, murder,fellowship, being kind…?

i would think that if anyone took the second one seriously, they would be forced to live a double life, just for the sake of living at peace within themselves.

in this kind of thinking, i find it hard to comprehend how someone deals with their own sexuality under this burden of judgement.

my yoke is easy and my burden is light", where is the rest under the above burden ?

in my expereince the only time anyone has been beset by a heavy burden of guilt…the heavy burden was of themselves not christ.

2cor7:8Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while— 9yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. 10Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and LEAVES NO REGRET, but worldly sorrow brings death.

consider repentance that is ridden with regret, if paul’s words are true how can it be from the leading of the holy spirit?

i keep thinking of all the ways of a married couple initiating sexual intimacy, a feel, a smell, a song, a touch, a word… an initiation that expresses the spirit of their devotion to each other, but is done out of pleasure, out of sexual excitement, out of a desire to be close.

to cover this with a burden of law( a relationship to the written code that was of the old covenant), then its no wonder there might be difficulty in dealing with the sexuality of homosexuals.