What the Law and the Bible say about Homosexuality.

[Jacob]

YOU are the one calling them sinners, not me.

Because of original sin, our desires are all disordered. We all desire things out of order, like too much food, getting high, thrill seeking that endangers your life, etc. We are all stuck with out-of-order desires. That is why it is hard not to sin. BUT: As long as you don't give in to your sinful desire, then you are not sinning. The alcoholic needs to not drink; the glutton needs to eat only moderate amounts; the homosexual needs to practice chastity; the liar must be an honest man, and so on and so forth. If they do, then they do not sin.

You can say that you used to be a homosexual if you used to be a homosexual. Don't retain the label. See 1 Corinthians 6 and encourage people to become a Christian.

 

[Jacob]

That is exactly correct

No. It is not correct at all.

 

[Catholic Crusader]

You can say that you used to be a homosexual if you used to be a homosexual. Don't retain the label.........

Wrong, because "same sex attraction" is a mental issue. You have it whether you like it or not. But as long as you don't engage in the act then you are not sinning.

Good grief why is this so hard to understand.

 

[Nang]

People are universally called sinners because of their fallen human NATURE.

People are specifically called sinners when they commit disobedient and/or wrong ACTIONS.

Being sanctified by the indwelling Holy Spirit of God frees us from bondage to practicing our natural proclivities.

 

[Jacob]

Wrong, because "same sex attraction" is a mental issue. You have it whether you like it or not. But as long as you don't engage in the act then you are not sinning.

Good grief why is this so hard to understand.

Because you don't live without sin as Christians do.

 

[Clete]

Wrong, because "same sex attraction" is a mental issue. You have it whether you like it or not. But as long as you don't engage in the act then you are not sinning.

Good grief why is this so hard to understand.

I sort of get the point you're trying to drive at here but I don't think you've thought it through very thoroughly.

First of all, all actions originates in the mind - all of them. And so there is no such thing as a non-mental act and therefore no such thing as a non-mental sin.

Also, while it is true that being tempted is not a sin, it is also true that one can have sinful thoughts that have no physical acts associated with them. For example, one does not have to commit the crime of adultery to be guilty of the sin of adultery (Matthew 5:28).

Further, homosexuality absolutely can be repented of, both physically and mentally - no matter what the left wing polical activists want to tell you. (Not that doing so is easy by any means.)

Lastly, as I ulluded to above, your primary error here is one of conflating crime with sin. They aren't the same thing.


It would have been much more accurate to state that, " "Same sex attraction" is, at minimum, a mental issue. But as long as you don't engage in the act then you are not commiting a crime."

Clete

 

[Jacob]

I sort of get the point you're trying to drive at here but I don't think you've thought it through very thoroughly.

First of all, all actions originates in the mind - all of them. And so there is no such thing as a non-mental act and therefore no such thing as a non-mental sin.

Also, while it is true that being tempted is not a sin, it is also true that one can have sinful thoughts that have no physical acts associated with them. For example, one does not have to commit the crime of adultery to be guilty of the sin of adultery (Matthew 5:28).

Further, homosexuality absolutely can be repented of, both physically and mentally - no matter what the left wing polical activists want to tell you. (Not that doing so is easy by any means.)

Lastly, as I ulluded to above, your primary error here is one of conflating crime with sin. They aren't the same thing.


It would have been much more accurate to state that, " "Same sex attraction" is, at minimum, a mental issue. But as long as you don't engage in the act then you are not commiting a crime."

Clete

Thank you Clete.

All sin must be repented of. Which includes all crime.

 

[Sherman]

I see. So, the fact is that you're stupid.....

Okay, Jacob, that's the end of this. DO NOT respond to this post because I WILL NOT READ IT! Go be your stubbornly stupid self and waste someone else's time.

This type of posting has outlived its usefulness. Calling people names is a pot shot. If Jacob annoys you that much please just place him on ignore.


Clete please see this posted by Knight:

It's amazing to think that TheologyOnline has been going strong since 1997! What started out as a place to meet with classmates of a theology class has turned into one of the longest running internet communities on earth.

As you may or may not know my life has changed a bit and I no longer have the time to devote to TheologyOnline that I would like to. That means the moderators end up having to do the bulk of the work Work which often times is not that pleasant.

Back in the day we promoted the fact that TOL was a place to smack some truth! But that fun strategy seems to have been replaced with merely taking pot shots and following people around on the forum merely to make a quick insult on every post they make. This is ruining the community.

Therefore.... TOL is at a crossroad. What to do I ponder. Should I...

1. Shut it down and put it out of it's misery?
2. Sell it to someone else that would like to carry on the community?
3. Sell it to a company that buys established domains to re-develop it into something else?
4. Or... try and see if we can guide the community in a better direction.

I would like to start with option 4 guiding the community in a better direction. But frankly I will not be around much to help in that regard. Therefore the burden will fall on the TOL moderators namely Sherman and ebenz. All I can really do is empower them to make the hard decisions that need to be made.

We can no longer allow folks to follow others around the forum mocking them and disrupting their threads. If you don't like the topic of a thread or do not like the person who started the thread ignore it! Move on to something you are interested in. Please be careful if you are teasing or having fun with another member because if we mistake that for mean-spirited mocking you will get an infraction and possibly a TOL ban.

Please folks... TOL needs to be a place where people feel comfortable making a point or exploring ideas. That's the fun part of a community forum. If they feel like they cannot explore ideas without being mocked they will go elsewhere and TOL will end up being 6 or 8 members preaching to their own choir.

Therefore... infractions will fly fast and furious for those who do not add to the conversation but simply mocking and troll the forum. From here on out folks need to show other members a level of respect when responding to one another. That doesn't mean you can't vehemently disagree but you must do so in a way where you are actually engaging in the debate and not simply trolling.

Lets Make TOL Great Again. #MTGA

If we fail at this it will be indeed time to go a different direction with the website.

That's the thing... threads often go in and out of topic. This is my thread so should I be mad? Heck no! That's the nature of an online forum.

Lets not take this too seriously. Lets enjoy each other a bit more. Lets look for the good in each other. Arthur and TH are people too. They have families and loved ones. Their mother's tucked them in at night and wished the best for them just as yours did. Sure your opponent can drive you bonkers at times but if we are going to be here (on TOL) lets make the best of it. Let's learn from each and treat each other with some respect and dignity.

 

[Gary K]

I have not even mentioned sex. A romantic relationship doesn't need to include sex, but it is like being married except you are not married.

Jacob,

I don't know whether it is intentional on your part or not, but you are by far the most confusing individual I've ever run across. You say you don't equate sex with a relationship, but at the same time say it is more righteous to be outside of a relationship when single than to have a relationship when single. Then you equate marriage with being single and having a girl/boy friend. Being married is a very well-defined legal relationship. However, it's both legal and relational. Being single is not a legally defined relationship and neither is having a girl/boy friend.

Explain why, and show scriptural support for, having a girl/boy friend is being less righteous than not having one. It is obvious that God ordained that men and women should have committed, long term romantic relationships. He would not have said that it was not good for a man to be alone if that was not so, and He would not have said that a man and a woman should leave their parents and become one if He hadn't ordained love between men and women. And God ordained these things before sin entered the picture.

Genesis 2:18 ¶And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

Genesis 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

God's word is very plain. Marriage and relationships between men and women are ordained by God. He set up that need for each other between men and women. It has been a part of human relationships since before sin meaning that relationships and marriage themselves cannot be sinful, and yet you want to make a relationship between men and women somehow, in some very vague and indefinable way, sinful, for only some kind of sinful behavior can make a person less righteous than abstaining from that behavior. Your thinking is devoid of any logic that I can see.

 

[ok doser]

Jacob,

I don't know whether it is intentional on your part or not, but you are by far the most confusing individual I've ever run across.

he's mentioned elsewhere (or hinted at, maybe) that he's on disability for psychological disorders - schizophrenia may have been mentioned

 

[Idolater]

This is all sentiment of duality. I don't believe in duality. Sure, even Romans, attending the Colosseum had some morals. How dare I 'impose' my Christian values? I'm convinced in your efforts to save an atheists rights, you've forgotten that they are "endowed by their Creator."

No, I haven't "forgotten" that. You've forgotten that they have been endowed with the right to reject Him.

Again, I don't believe in duality. It doesn't mean forcing Christianity but it DOES mean pushing that high standard of morality. You are not alone, but it is incorrect. There is absolutely no morality apart from God and cannot be. Do this: Compare statistics from pre 1963 and post. It was the year they began removing the 10 commandments from the walls of school AS-IF such was advocating Judaism or Christianity. :nono: It was advocating morality.

Lon, the murder rate in the US today is much lower than it was in 1963, so what do you make of that?

Some have said "what about 'do not take the Lord's name...' etc. Answer: Makes no difference, you don't have to censor Christianity or Judaism FROM the values we share. That is where the law has gone absurdly off the deep end. There is NO offense to an atheist because of it.

Except where it violates the atheist's (and everybody else's) right to free speech, which includes the right to blaspheme. So it is an offense.

It is NOT shoving it down the atheist's throat and the Judicial system was wicked and immoral for removing morality from the classroom. It advocates atheism. Some have said,"no" but they are wrong. "A-" "-Theism!" :doh: Our nation is being run by doofs and dupes who buy such nonsense.

I've mulled over your contention here for a while, and think that you have a point, at the very least one to consider seriously.

It's your comment about advocating atheism. You argue that there is no morality outside of God's morality, but as I said earlier, I'm going to have to take their word for it that they are, in spite of rejecting God, moral, according anyway to their own idea of morality. And again, I think that Romans 2:14 KJV suggests that Paul might think similarly. But nothing about morality defies what else Paul says about morality /the law, "if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law" (Gal3:21KJV), which means to me anyway that regardless of how accurate or how wrong anybody's morality may or may not be, even if it's God's own morality, still morality and morals "life" and "righteousness" cannot come from it.

No, again I see 'duping' here. You've been duped. The highest court is God AND appealed to in our Constitution.

You're equivocating. The highest court in the Constitution /in the US is the Supreme Court. The S. Ct. doesn't decide what is and what is not in accord with God or with God's law, but what is and what is not in accord with the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the US.

I don't disagree with it, I disagree with those who are reinterpreting it wrongly.

But the same can be said by anybody, the difference is what you personally mean by "wrongly." You have your idea about what the Constitution means, and everybody else does too. The fact is that the S. Ct. is the entity empowered within the Constitution to interpret the Constitution, and to adjudicate between what laws are and are not in accord with their own authorized interpretation of the Constitution.

The Judicial is creating an a-theist state.

As I alluded to above, I have some sympathy for your contention here. It does very much seem like the way laws are made now is distinctly anti-Christian And pro-atheist. But I don't agree with you that laws should be informed by the Christian faith. I'm rather pondering now that laws should be made that do not support or establish any religion or theology (with atheism being the latter more than the former), but that are in some sense neutral wrt religion /theology. I'm aware that such a system of laws cannot form any sort of religion or theology itself, which is well enough, since nobody advocates for forming their religious /theological ideas on any set of civil laws anyway. Such a system of laws can only be religiously /theologically "empty." Any religion /theology based only upon such a system of laws can only sum to 'obey the law,' which is perfectly fine and I think what we all want in the end. We want law abiding people. We want to be law abiding people. We want our neighbors to be law abiding people.

Government cannot be secular if God is the one who institutes and tears down governments (and He is).

But that's a Christian claim, and it'd be Unconstitutional to make laws forcing atheists to abide by any distinctively Christian claim.

You say just two lines down that Government is purposefully eroding Christian freedom, so I believe we are both agreeing on this.

I don't recall using those words anyway. I don't believe that the freedom to violate someone's inalienable rights is a good freedom anyway. It should be revoked, if it exists, and wherever it exists. Freedom to violate people's inalienable rights, is not an inalienable right, iow. It is, a 'wrong.'

Not when both the US and Canadian government reports are the ones issuing these concerns.

The concerns about cigarettes, or about LGBTQI+ conjugal behaviors?

Political correctness is emoting policy rather than basing policy on .gov and .ca reports.

Why do you trust "government reports?"

"IF" we are ever dwindling down to the lowest common denominator, by legislation, then we are not lifting people up to moral standards, but lowering all of ourselves to the lowest common denominator.

Why do you think that laws should lift people up to moral standards? Why not just think that laws are at minimum to recognize, defend, affirm, protect people's inalienable rights (endowed by our Creator)?

No Constitution can protect against that. We will go the path of the dodo and Roman empire easily enough. It didn't even take us a thousand years

But then Galatians 3:21 KJV says that we can't rely upon any law---not even God's law---to achieve righteousness, which is roughly how I think of your "lifting people up to moral standards" from above.

Good, you see it too.

Oh. I said that "favoritism" is being eroded. I suppose it's close enough to call that "freedom," to violate people's inalienable rights, but "favoritism" does connote invalid /illicit freedom. That's what I was getting at.

A few disagreements, but quite a bit of shared concerns. As a conservative, I advocate for what the Constitution originally supports: Our rights based on Theism (Endowed by our Creator).

I believe that we possess the rights apart from whether we believe in God. As a Christian, I appreciate that it was through Christian faith that people finally discovered our rights, that have been there all along, but one of those rights is the freedom of religion /the right to the pursuit of happiness, so even though the discovery of our rights is through the Christian faith, it is just as Christian to furthermore defend the right of atheists to reject God.

 

[JudgeRightly]

I'm gonna address this part real quick then I'll read the rest of your post to see if there's anything else to respond to...

Lon, the murder rate in the US today is much lower than it was in 1963, so what do you make of that?

The murder rate today is much higher today than it was in 1900.

So what do YOU make of THAT?

 

[Idolater]

I'm gonna address this part real quick then I'll read the rest of your post to see if there's anything else to respond to...



The murder rate today is much higher today than it was in 1900.

So what do YOU make of THAT?

More murderers per capita. :idunno:

Also, can you cite your source, because I don't remember seeing that. :liberals:

 

[JudgeRightly]

But then Galatians 3:21 KJV says that we can't rely upon any law---not even God's law---to achieve righteousness, which is roughly how I think of your "lifting people up to moral standards" from above.

Sorry, but Paul isn't speaking of civil law there.

He's talking about law, period. Any and all law.

AND

The goal of CIVIL law is not to make men righteous. That's a typical straw man used against Christians who want to implement laws taken from the Bible into civil law.

The goal is to slow the decay of society, and to punish those who would harm others.

 

[JudgeRightly]

More murderers per capita. :idunno:

Also, can you cite your source, because I don't remember seeing that. :liberals:

I believe it's a pdf, but I'll try to get you the link...

one sec...

 

[JudgeRightly]

More murderers per capita. :idunno:

Also, can you cite your source, because I don't remember seeing that. :liberals:

Here you go. Sorry for the long link.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAKegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw3j8oqTW_Xs5W7PMpfAswmb

 

[Lon]

No, I haven't "forgotten" that. You've forgotten that they have been endowed with the right to reject Him.

:nono: NOT by dismantling our government and values. This has been going on since 1963.

Lon, the murder rate in the US today is much lower than it was in 1963, so what do you make of that?

:nono: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm1963: One per 22k
2017: One per 19k (more murders than 1963 and more crime per person as well. ▲Look it up▲

Except where it violates the atheist's (and everybody else's) right to free speech, which includes the right to blaspheme. So it is an offense.
I've mulled over your contention here for a while, and think that you have a point, at the very least one to consider seriously.

I'm glad. It does not offend an atheist or "I" offend the atheist by my very existence. Politically Correct has me literally apologizing for even existing. The atheist does not have the right to tell a nation to remove values just because they happen to coincide with one religion or another.
One teacher was asked to remove "In God We Trust" from his classroom wall. Under it was a dollar bill We are cutting our own morals from society. I don't care who says 'do not murder' even if it is a satanist. Don't pull that from the wall. It is telling EVEN Satanists, to not murder. That's a good thing. It isn't the religion we are concerned with when posting such things. For a long time, these commandments were on the wall and no atheist need be offended. No Muslim is offended. No Hindu or Buddhist should rightly be offended.

It's your comment about advocating atheism. You argue that there is no morality outside of God's morality, but as I said earlier, I'm going to have to take their word for it that they are, in spite of rejecting God, moral, according anyway to their own idea of morality. And again, I think that Romans 2:14 KJV suggests that Paul might think similarly. But nothing about morality defies what else Paul says about morality /the law, "if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law" (Gal3:21KJV), which means to me anyway that regardless of how accurate or how wrong anybody's morality may or may not be, even if it's God's own morality, still morality and morals "life" and "righteousness" cannot come from it.

Yes, by and large, the U.S. laws are advocating atheism from any 'public' life. They will deny that, but a 'godless' program is atheism ("no" "god"). Literally. Scripture says: The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. Psalm 1:1-7

You're equivocating. The highest court in the Constitution /in the US is the Supreme Court. The S. Ct. doesn't decide what is and what is not in accord with God or with God's law, but what is and what is not in accord with the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the US.

:nono: "There is no government but exists by God." The Apostle Paul was clear.

But the same can be said by anybody, the difference is what you personally mean by "wrongly." You have your idea about what the Constitution means, and everybody else does too. The fact is that the S. Ct. is the entity empowered within the Constitution to interpret the Constitution, and to adjudicate between what laws are and are not in accord with their own authorized interpretation of the Constitution.

Inadvertently, you have the power of the U.S. belonging to whomever is in the office of government rather than a government by and for the people. The majority shall not serve the fewer. That's an oligarchy.

As I alluded to above, I have some sympathy for your contention here. It does very much seem like the way laws are made now is distinctly anti-Christian And pro-atheist.

Yes, yes it is. It is in fact, anti-God. It is SET on removing Him from everything in the public eye. If you ever go to Washington D.C. there are tons of scriptures all over the walls, on statues, and in museum keepsakes. In every letter on display, etc. etc. There is currently a full-on attack on everything United States. We are no longer an entity of the same kind of people these states once were.

But I don't agree with you that laws should be informed by the Christian faith.

There is literally no better morals held than in Christ. Christianity aims for the 'highest' moral and good of people. There are a lot of things done wrongly in the name of Christianity, but, the whole of "love" is the satisfaction of the law" is a great law rule of thumb for anybody.

I'm rather pondering now that laws should be made that do not support or establish any religion or theology (with atheism being the latter more than the former), but that are in some sense neutral wrt religion /theology. I'm aware that such a system of laws cannot form any sort of religion or theology itself, which is well enough, since nobody advocates for forming their religious /theological ideas on any set of civil laws anyway. Such a system of laws can only be religiously /theologically "empty." Any religion /theology based only upon such a system of laws can only sum to 'obey the law,' which is perfectly fine and I think what we all want in the end. We want law abiding people. We want to be law abiding people. We want our neighbors to be law abiding people.

...and good citizens who truly want what is best for their neighbors, regardless of disagreements. It is the rule of a "Christian" to live at peace with all men. Such doesn't mean I'm 'forcing' one to be a Christian. That's not it. It means we are desiring a whole nation to embrace the values that are best, which happen to be Christian. If that means a scripture or two on the walls of school? Yes, it is not advocating 'be a Christian' to post the 10 commandments. It is RATHER advocating, "do not kill, steal, destroy, or otherwise harm you fellow man in this nation." "But 'Christianity is attached!' they cry." So and what? It isn't posted to convert but to convey a 'shared' core value. Again, I don't care if it has -Said the high satanic priest' afterward. It isn't proselytizing for satan, it is displaying, rather, a shared value and this incredibly better than absence of any value whatsoever.

But that's a Christian claim, and it'd be Unconstitutional to make laws forcing atheists to abide by any distinctively Christian claim.
I don't recall using those words anyway. I don't believe that the freedom to violate someone's inalienable rights is a good freedom anyway. It should be revoked, if it exists, and wherever it exists. Freedom to violate people's inalienable rights, is not an inalienable right, iow. It is, a 'wrong.'

:nono: It is in our Declaration. It says plainly no rights exist except what is 'God-given' and inalienable.

The concerns about cigarettes, or about LGBTQI+ conjugal behaviors?

They have statistics about both being harmful behaviors. I've no idea if the problems of the one are enough to drive one to smoke...

Why do you think that laws should lift people up to moral standards? Why not just think that laws are at minimum to recognize, defend, affirm, protect people's inalienable rights (endowed by our Creator)?

I'm not following, aren't these moral behaviors? Don't we observe them because they are the right thing to do? I'm not quite catching what you are meaning here. These should be the same across board without demoralizing down to the lowest common behavior and values (that are egocentric rather than what is truly good for the whole of society).

But then Galatians 3:21 KJV says that we can't rely upon any law---not even God's law---to achieve righteousness, which is roughly how I think of your "lifting people up to moral standards" from above.

So repeal all laws and let them kill one another? We aren't enforcing laws to harm anyone, but rather to protect the inalienable rights of a people, all of them collectively. One of the marked differences between 1963 and now, is that they began then, making concessions for minority desires/needs. Good yes, in the sense that we needed to be inclusive BUT not when the majority has to lose identity and values to accommodate the individual or minority (minority meaning not the whole of society but a small portion of it, I'm not talking about racial tension).

Oh. I said that "favoritism" is being eroded. I suppose it's close enough to call that "freedom," to violate people's inalienable rights, but "favoritism" does connote invalid /illicit freedom. That's what I was getting at.
I believe that we possess the rights apart from whether we believe in God. As a Christian, I appreciate that it was through Christian faith that people finally discovered our rights, that have been there all along, but one of those rights is the freedom of religion /the right to the pursuit of happiness, so even though the discovery of our rights is through the Christian faith, it is just as Christian to furthermore defend the right of atheists to reject God.

Agreed. I've not talked much about what 'embracing Christian values' as a nation means, but it does mean that our desire to want another's good is inherent. You are correct that it also means allowing people to perish, who want to perish and so it is never a 'Christianizing' of a nation that I'm advocating. I'm simply saying we need to not advocate an atheist society wherein, all our values, that are ALL connected to faith, are removed from public discussion and public education. It is a complete removal of all the good we share as a society (again, I'm convinced there is no good (absolute) apart from God. We are creating a Communistic/atheistic state otherwise. These states are supposed to reflect our values. If a judge (any government official) has no love for God, they do not reflect us and therefore in whatever sense they have been harming us, they are no longer serving a nation of government 'by and FOR the people.' There is a rift in government, it no longer reflects the values of the majority of its people.

 

[ok doser]

90% of murders in the US are young male negroes killing other young male negroes

which is why liberals want to sweep it under the rug

 

[Catholic Crusader]

90% of murders in the US are young male negroes killing other young male negroes

which is why liberals want to sweep it under the rug

Young male negroes? LOL

 

[Idolater]

90% of murders in the US are young male negroes killing other young male negroes

which is why liberals want to sweep it under the rug

It's closer to 50%. What's remarkable is what you're getting at; only 13% of Americans are black, and yet blacks commit about 50% of our murders.

I ran through the numbers once, what would the murder rate in the US be, if instead of disproportional tendency to murder, black people only murdered at the same rate as non-black Americans? Still, the murder rate would be about 3.5 instead of the actual 5.0 that it is. It's still far higher than the 0.5 - 1.0 benchmarks from the safest places on earth, like in New Hampshire.