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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Homosexuality and Christianity
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Audrey Ely
Shipmate
# 12665
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Posted
Am I right in thinking that the Eastern Orthodox churches are against homosexuality?
Posts: 1432 | From: Cambridgeshire, England | Registered: May 2007
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Dash it all chaps, this Martin fellah, can't seem to get the notion out of his head that the Bible is a faithful and true record of God.
Has the poo-er taste to believe Moses as much as he does the gospel writers and Paul, as faithful and true witnesses.
Didn't that chap Jesus believe He had been the God of Abraham? Isaac? Jacob? Moses? David?
He had some pretty ferocious things to say too. Like He should be feared more than any thing else fearful. For good reason.
Tough love and all that.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Dash it all chaps, this Martin fellah, can't seem to get the notion out of his head that the Bible is a faithful and true record of God.
Dash it all, Martin, we think the same thing. We just interpret it differently than you do. I could swear we have said this already but you keep not hearing it. Why should that be?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Dash it all chaps, this Martin fellah, can't seem to get the notion out of his head that the Bible is a faithful and true record of God.
Has the poo-er taste to believe Moses as much as he does the gospel writers and Paul, as faithful and true witnesses.
Didn't that chap Jesus believe He had been the God of Abraham? Isaac? Jacob? Moses? David?
He had some pretty ferocious things to say too. Like He should be feared more than any thing else fearful. For good reason.
Tough love and all that.
That chap Martin seems only to read or understand what was attibuted to God by some (not all) OT writers.
Not a lot of importance given to the prophets, for example -- no recognition of the picture (and all that's in the OT is only a picture) of God as a mother hen, cossetting her babies. A lot of importance given to the blood and gore and guts of the first books, but not a lot to the love and the hope and the promise in the same books. A lot of importance to "That fellow Moses" -- except that no one credibly believes the first five books of the OT were written by him, or by any one at all until several centuries after he died (reporting your own death and funeral would have been a great thing, I suppose).
And not a lot of time, it seems to me, for Jesus, or for love. Perfect love casts out fear, as I recall from the NT -- and yet that fellow Martin seems full of fear -- so full of fear he doesn't seem even to recognize that love exists and will conquer fear if he lets it.
Paul talked about never being able to comprehend the length and breath and height and depth of God's love for us. No one credibly portrays God's vengeance and -- dare I say hatred for his people -- that way. That fellow Martin leaves me only with the idea that he thinks God hates his people.
John
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
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sandushinka
Shipmate
# 13021
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Why does the pure, spotless, sanctified, body and bride of Christ, Zion, the Elect, those destined for the better resurrection, the Church of the living God need wilful, rebellious, utterly uncoverted, unrepentant, self-righteous sinners?
Hmm, I thought the wilful[sic], rebellious, utterly unconverted, unrepentant, self-righteous sinners were the pure, spotless, sanctified, body and bride of Christ, Zion, the Elect, those destined for the better resurrection, the Church of the living God.
I find this arrogance of church people what turns me away from churches. They don't sin anymore. Or at least not in a really bad way (well, of course we sin, but not like that, thank God for our righteousness and that we're not like those homos).
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It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.
Posts: 131 | From: Maryland (DC burbs), USA | Registered: Sep 2007
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duchess
Ship's Blue Blooded Lady
# 2764
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by John Holding:
That fellow Martin leaves me only with the idea that he thinks God hates his people.
John
I read Martin with the idea that he thinks God loves all His people, but thinks something is a sin that others may not.
[edited code.]
[ 27. July 2008, 02:39: Message edited by: duchess ]
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♬♭ We're setting sail to the place on the map from which nobody has ever returned ♫♪♮
Ship of Fools-World Party
Posts: 11197 | From: Do you know the way? | Registered: May 2002
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John Donne
Renaissance Man
# 220
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Posted
I do Martin-Speak, and I love Martin ![[Axe murder]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif)
(Tis JimmyB mate in case u don't recog the new name)
quote:
If I'm wrong and He's your Zaphod God, there's no harm done ... surely? Because He certainly puts up with near infinite harm, nastiness any way. This nice God. But without any way being responsible for it. So my nastiness, my blaspheming Him by believing Him can't possibly add to the hurt.
There's harm mate, 'cos, to quote my Irenaeus fave: "The Glory of God is a human being fully alive". Our personal sin (for simplification, say there is sin that affects only us) doesn't diminish our sovereign God - nothing can - but it grieves him 'cos we hurt ourselves and turn away from him.
God created us to be his companions, and he gave us the earth to delight in, and he gave Jesus the Name above all Names so we could praise him - I really believe that's why we're here. And that's part of being fully alive.
Yes, of course, if you're wrong, there's no harm done to God. But it would grieve God to have one of his children living in mental anguish - that's not what he created us for - and it is not living in the fullness of the love and liberation that comes with Christ.
There's more though... 'cos I don't believe any sin can be truly 'personal', because we are all connected to each other and to God. So while you create anguish for yourself, you are also burdening others. The difference between you and the pharisees on thread is that you recognise it and are distressed by it. ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
Don't worry, I know who you meant when you were talking about small 'o' orthodox, even if the rest of the thread dint ![[Biased]](wink.gif) The ones to whom he would say 'Depart from me I never knew you' as you mentioned and also, I suggest: '
quote:
You shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
The thing is, because I worship a Too Nice God, I think that when we see face to face and stand before God even those ppl - confronted with the hurt they've caused, will be cut to the heart and repent. And the only ppl he will send away are those who in full knowledge reject him - 'cos he can't give ppl what they don't want after all.
That kinda sucks. Because I am vengeful person and would much rather they be slow roasted and pricked in unseemly places by pitchforks.
Posts: 13667 | From: Perth, W.A. | Registered: May 2001
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The Blessed Pangolin
Shipmate
# 13623
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Posted
Martin PC: Dash it all chaps, this Martin fellah, can't seem to get the notion out of his head that the Bible is a faithful and true record of God.
TBP: Well, because the claim that the Bible is a faithful and true record of God is not self-evident beyond the document's internal claim. Would you accept that of the Koran?
Martin: Has the poo-er taste to believe Moses as much as he does the gospel writers and Paul, as faithful and true witnesses.
TBP: Not certain why the diction of "poo-er". Expand.
Further (and some might find this questionable, some not), I treat the Bible sequentially as a revelation of God's, and Christ's, message - a conversation, if you will, that continues on through the Church fathers, and, indeed, to today. This is a conversation which, to my mind, is neither finished nor sufficient.
Martin: Didn't that chap Jesus believe He had been the God of Abraham? Isaac? Jacob? Moses? David?
He had some pretty ferocious things to say too. Like He should be feared more than any thing else fearful. For good reason.
Tough love and all that.
TBP: The vision of God which you repeatedly espouse is not "tough love" - it's the punkest version of God conjurable. Believe it or not, I actually do read your posts, seriously, but there is a strongly masochistic quality to them that springs not from a literal reading of the Bible, but from a literal reading of selected texts in the most self-punishing manner possible. Your reading is a triumph of the harshest aspects of the (pre-?)Mosaic God over the God of love, forgiveness and redemption. This is not a crypto-Hell call, but, I have to ask, "Why?" Why do you consistently insist on the darkest possible interpretation of selected texts to damn us all, when there is an equal volume and possible interpretation of texts that would argue oppositely? Hedging your bets to be safe rather than happy is not a compelling argument, in faith or in intellect - it's an act of blind fear which a loving God would not impose upon His creation.
Posts: 460 | From: 30 arpents de neige | Registered: Apr 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
TBP - thank you.
This is going to be impossibly difficult.
Today in church, evangelical Anglican, St. Giles, Northampton, I had a 'vision' (don't worry) of a nearly fully armoured, helmless, fully armed medieval night striding to the front of the church from the left and laying aside his sword, his armour, his garments and being crucified and glorified to the point of radiance from crimson. And only then mounting His horse and taking up his sword.
An answer to prayer nonetheless. I do have a powerful visual imagination as a lurid dream I awoke with will testify this morning. One that I ... found hard to let go.
A year and more ago I was going through the gospels when I was struck, as one isn't in church, no matter how corrective, humbling and exhortative a sermon is, how much money is needed ..., by the ferocity of Jesus. His utterly uncompromising, narrow, threatening expectation. It's 1% of the gospel. 0.1% But it's there.
Throughout this time I was being made redundant, my marriage was oscillating wildly as ever, my poor wife is also an extremist. In one sojourn away in 2005 for three months I renewed my infant baptismal vows, the hand of God has been on me for 40 years one way or another and I went deeper. I was also exposed to the things poor Patrick Sookhdeo of Barnabas is exposed to. I screamed out loud in the office. It was and is that bad. I've known that since I was 10 and discovered Auschwitz and Hiroshima.
Back to truly gentle Jesus our warrior King and sacrificed lamb and His words: Do you not see it? It isn't there for just being a nasty bastard, for stepping over the poor. It's there for denying Him in the face of evil. Mind reeling evil.
That's one thing. And the more you look, the more than 1% it is.
Now I'm weak, undisciplined, erratic, compromised in my marriage and my job with time for God. Pathetic. A joke of a servant, a disciple of Christ. Like most of us.
I'm afflicted, have extreme thinking, inner Tourette's, white bears, unwanted thoughts, an imp, high anxiety. I lust. Sublimely I'm sure. But there were a LOT of beautiful women and girls in church today, sisters, daughters I had to battle to lay at the foot of the cross to regard them with purity. But beautiful faces and bodies are a trial. I overreact and overeact to my overreaction. Classic extreme thinking. I fear finding a ten year old's face beautiful. That kind of thing. And occasionally ... like this morning, half awake ... not so sublimely at all. And not necessarily heterosexually.
So, I'm a pretty tormented, guilt ridden kind a guy, even though I DO bring it before the foot of the cross. But it can be a CONSTANT battle. Church can be HELL. If I haven't been for a week or three I have to go through the loop.
'Outside' Church I need good technical distraction - working. Walking.
Come this new year I started Cover to Cover Complete, 'Through the Bible as it happened'. Over half way through the year I've read 60 days' worth.
Job is an unbelievably uninspiring place to start isn't it! I'd love to do a really masterful study of it one year. A project for retirement.
God should be prosecuted under the Health and Safety Act. Failure of a duty of care. From Eden onwards.
Then we get to the Torah. For 40 years I have believed in the God of the Bible. All of Him. It started with reading James Michener's awesome 'The Source'. It's all his fault! ![[Smile]](smile.gif) He made the God of the Old Testament credible.
I was brainwashed remotely in to a then cult, the Worldwide Church of God, whilst in hopeless conflict with adolescent lust until the cult let me in. Very clever! I was there for 20 years until the cult came in from the cold. The Holy Spirit hit it from the top down. Otherwise I'd still be in it.
They were BIG on the utter veracity of the OT. They DIDN'T get that wrong. What they did get wrong was catastrophic. The couldn't see that the Old Covenant was dead in Christ. Like many Christians especially liberals paradoxically. Along with other massive errors like Anglo-Israelism. The WCG that is.
The mess, the hypocrisy, the corruption, the DEATHS, the evil was unbelievable. And we were utterly blind to it. So I'm MOST sympathetic to devout Catholics with pervert priests.
This narrative is rambling and breaking up, but I'm telling you mate, on the authority of the Bible and therefore God himself, OR my delusion, that no matter how sick and weak and crazed and dysfunctional and perverted and wrong and evil I have been and I am yet - I'm being sanctified after all - the God of Moses surfaced in Jesus, the God-emperor warrior of Israel, the drowner of mankind, the burner of the Cities of the Plain, the direct slaughterer of Egypt, the commander of the genocide of Amalek lay all THAT down to die at our hands, not that He might never kill again, because He assuredly will by the billion shortly after Satan has done his best and worst, but that in the Resurrection of the Sodomites, the Egyptians, the Amalekites, they will know that their bloody slaughterer had Himself bloodily slaughtered to ATONE for every thing for all time.
I'll risk blasphemy here, because in Jesus' death I see His infinite APOLOGY that it has to be this way.
But it does.
And if all you can do is deny Christ to me, the fullness of Christ and point at my cursed, benighted soul and offer me a liberal less-than- half-God the Permissive Materialist based on your horror in the face of the dread, Holy, God Almighty, a horror I know well, well I must pray for you as you must pray for me.
Proclaim to me a God I recognise from His word. Facets of Him that you truly do see IN HIS WORD. But do not deny the God of Bible to me or any one else.
How DARE you? You bloody fools. Fear Him. He let a baby be roast in His name in Iraq three years ago. He let Turkish missionaries be emasculated and eviscerated alive a year later.
The world, evil, Satan the Devil (heard of him?) is a LOT darker than me.
You peddle pap for the kindergarten if you say God is nice and cool and it doesn't matter what we do with our genitals.
You don't know my God? No you don't. Why not?
What does yours say?
What does yours tell you to tell me?
Not what you THINK. Not what you don't like.
Tell me what God wants me to know from you that DOESN'T deny Him.
Can you do that?
Can you reach me where I live?
Can you give an account? A theodicy? You extrapolate from one facet of God in error.
I'm angry, aggressive, annoyed, fed up, pathetic, sick, inadequate, stupid and worse and believe it or not KNOW that I'm called to work through this. You are STRONGLY deluded. Hostile to God. Utter rebels. So far gone that God is Satan to you and his lies are light to you.
Yeah, this sick NUTTER is telling you that IN HIS NAME.
I'm sure some moderator will be along in a minute to shut me up.
Funny that.
Why did YOUR God, YOUR Jesus let that baby be roasted? That's the way Evolution works?
Does your God just wring His hands helplessly waiting for us all to evolve in to nice libertarian social democrats? Is He using reincarnation? What?
Is that why there is no sign of the Kingdom of God yet except in our holy huddles, a few hymns, the odd unbondaged life.
One from here wrote to me yesterday. Thank GOD.
Waste of breath I'm sure.
Tell me something TRUE I DON'T know at least, will you?
Till the day we are brothers forever.
Martin
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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dj_ordinaire
Host
# 4643
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Posted
Blimey.
If God is how you describe Him, Martin, then you're damn right I'm in rebellion against Him. And proud of the fact. And if this evil beast of a thing has the power and inclination to hurl me into damnation everlasting as a result, then I'll go happily and spit in his face en route.
Your mileage may vary.
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Flinging wide the gates...
Posts: 10335 | From: Hanging in the balance of the reality of man | Registered: Jun 2003
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TonyK
Host Emeritus
# 35
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Posted
Originally posted by Martin PC etc quote:
I'm sure some moderator will be along in a minute to shut me up.
Funny that.
[Host Mode ACTIVATE]
Well, you are partly right - a host has arrived but he isn't actually going to tell you to shut up. The post from which this extract was a very minor part is certainly a rant - but it fits (pretty much) with the track this thread has taken.
It is that track which concerns me - I have been reading, watching and waiting on this thread (as is my wont), expecting it to lurch into an unacceptable situation. It hasn't - quite - but I fear it is heading in that direction. It is certainly getting very personal, but still hasn't - yet, IMHO- descended to the depths of a Hell thread.
So this is a warning from your friendly, caring host.
If the thread doesn't head back towards the OP subject matter, I shall invoke the special DH convention and call for a 24 hour cease-fire (i.e. a stop on further postings for a day).
If it gets more personal I shall have to start naming names and inviting the offenders to take their arguments to the Nether Regions (where as today's Gospel Reading reminds us 'there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth'!)
So as last Sunday's gospel reminded us - 'Let anyone with ears listen'
[Host Mode DEACTIVATE]
Yours aye ... TonyK
Host, Dead Horses
Posts: 2717 | From: Gloucestershire | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The 'e' is mute DJO.
He's the one. The one faithfully revealed. Reported. Recorded. The God of the whole Bible. Alpha-Omega. Seamless. The one you are more Holy than. More righteous than. Kinder, not so genocidal, unprejudiced. Well nicer any way.
And for breaking commandments 1, 4, 6 & 7 at least I must apologize and repent. But only in the letter of course.
And DJO, when He returns, you'll bow the knee along with every one else. You'll get your one on one like Job. You'll get to tell Him where He went wrong, just mind out where you are in the queue. Those Amalekites.
So what's Yours like? I mean what power did He lay down? What's He actually done?
I've NEVER had an answer here for that. A theodicy of the liberal materialist God. Doris Lessing does a fine job.
How do I get to be further along the chain of perfection like you? Commit suicide and come back as a slug for starters? That's what she'd say.
[ 27. July 2008, 14:30: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
TonyK.
Rats. Crossposted there. Sir. I will struggle to comply. Your power is all the more evidenced by your mercy.
Who does that remind me of?
Martin - (no not him!)
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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The Blessed Pangolin
Shipmate
# 13623
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Posted
I'm not certain where to begin, Martin, so I'll just make a few observations. One thing is clear from your reply: you and I have followed radically different paths - some chosen, some not - which have been profoundly determining in our respective relationships with God. That bit on your personal history was actually quite illuminating, and helped me to understand better some of what you have said in previous posts.
I honestly don't think that there's anything that I can say either to convince you or even to comfort you. The fact that you frame the discussion in a Your God/My God opposition bears that out. Our exigetical approaches are very different; enough that they have produced two very different understandings of the Word. Certainly our subjective experiences are profoundly different. You have made me appreciate how much easier my path (not without it's own sanctification along the way) has been.
That you see God as the author, direct or indirect, of human suffering says a great deal, I think, but I haven't completely unpacked it yet. It would certainly seem to deny our free will, and pass the guilt of our actions ultimately along to Him. As to suffering, I would say that God hears even a sparrow fall, but that it's not His responsibility to save it. Surely, He does work in mysterious ways, but I don't think that it's overly bold of us to wonder to what possible end He would impose such suffering on His creation. There's a chasm of difference between causing and permitting in this context. He gave us free will, and we exercise it, with consequences in this life, and perhaps in the next. Without the consequences, we would not have responsibility for our actions.
Your introduction of evolution and reincarnation into the discussion is a novel straw man, at best. I know what you're doing with that, but a canard, surely.
It surely must be a terrible thing to be in the hand of the Lord God, especially if He's as pitiless in His muscular rage as you believe Him to be. All I can say is that you have my prayers, because whether you like it or not, you and I are brothers - now.
Posts: 460 | From: 30 arpents de neige | Registered: Apr 2008
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dj_ordinaire
Host
# 4643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
So what's Yours like? I mean what power did He lay down? What's He actually done?
Created me, saved me, taught me, loved me and placed me in a Universe of wonders! He has "multiplied His wondrous deeds and thoughts towards us; none can compare with Him. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted." What's He done? What hasn't He done! ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
I know how tough some of them must be for you to right, and sincerely thank you for your unflinching honesty about your beliefs. I have to say though, that the impression I'm getting from some of your posts is that you would think less of God if you found out He hadn't killed lots of people. That seems a bit odd.
Oh, and - mute 'e'? Sorry, you've lost me there!
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Flinging wide the gates...
Posts: 10335 | From: Hanging in the balance of the reality of man | Registered: Jun 2003
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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Has the poo-er taste to believe Moses as much as he does the gospel writers and Paul, as faithful and true witnesses.
Just out of interest, which books of the Bible do you think that Moses wrote?
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insert amusing sig. here
Posts: 8705 | Registered: Jan 2002
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by dj_ordinaire:
Created me, saved me, taught me, loved me and placed me in a Universe of wonders! He has "multiplied His wondrous deeds and thoughts towards us; none can compare with Him. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted." What's He done? What hasn't He done!
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
Posts: 11285 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
...and he's stopped the stoning of an adulterous woman, he has told me not to judge others lest I be judged in the same way, he has told the pharisaical that their approach may not be the right one.
And he has filled me with awe and wonder at his glory and at the glory of his creation.
Oh, and he has told me that I am beloved of him - as are we all; saint and sinner, Hindu and Muslim and Buddhist and Taoist and Jain and animist and Sikh and even Christian, married and single and widowed, young and old, gay and straight and bisexual [whatever those terms may mean in your social construct], regardless of gender difference - all known, all valued, all beloved.
For me, that is enough.
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
TBP, DJO - both.
Most gracious of you. MOST. Thank you. We've probably done this before ... I loop this loop.
DJO - milage don't need another 'e' in it: it's implicit - mute - with the second, single consonant.
And your praise is orthodox indeed. Thank you.
TBP - I certainly don't believe in free will in any meaningful sense, I don't see it as an attribute of God, I don't see any one, any where, ever demonstrating it. I don't know how anyone's behaviour would differ if they had it. So it's superfluous, unhelpful, unparsimonious to me. Perhaps Lucifer had it. Perhaps Adam and Eve. Perhaps we all get to have it in the Resurrection. I'd like to see a genuine experiment that could falisfy it.
God has to allow, permit evil as aversion therapy. We cannot learn without suffering. Even He can't. But not as a sinner. That's our prerogative! This is probably ultimately analogous to our exercising free will in your terms. Merely exercising our wills in mine. We do because we can. Then we learn. Or not.
There was a panel of the great and the good discussing footbal hooliganism, 'Firms', on BBC Radio 4 a couple or five years ago. All very worthy. Over severe or inadequate potty training or breast-feeding or the other way round. And BRILLIANTLY produced. The presenter then introduced some piece of vicious filth who said 'I do it because I CAN.'.
VERY well done (shows how dumb I am in me saying that, how ignorantly patronizing) on evolution. But unfortunately I mean it. The alternative to the minimally interpreted, minimally rationalized God of the Bible, to blood, smoke and fire YHWH=Jesus, is surely a most mystical, Cheshire-God, one who is there despite ALL evidence to the contrary. Despite all the obscene, insane suffering.
And I forget that I've imputed that before to liberals, in an attempt to understand them.
Dawkins' Hamadryad god. The one who makes streams flow by hydrodynamics. Or better yet, even though there is no material need for Him whatsoever, He's there any way.
And then there's the evil in your eyes that my God does and demands. Including full penal substitutionary atonement. What did you do when confronted by Him?
You are a very clever, refined, educated, decent, liberal, wise, tolerant, admirable, gracious person.
I am not.
All that you FAITHFULLY represent of God, can that be integrated with the God of the Torah? The righteously executed God? The God of the Apocalypse?
Not by US, but regradless? In truth?
DJO
One of my more repeated prayers is that He does not deal with us as He says he's going to. That the unspeakable horrors of the times of the end, prior to His return in His Son, do not have to happen.
I would rather they didn't.
I really would really rather they didn't.
Arm-chair warrior though I am. I'm watching a little boy toddle in his back yard from my apartment. His ears stick out from over a hundred yards away as he follows his daddy.
I'd rather it all went all alright for him, I really would, with tears in my eyes right now.
Well, it will in the final analysis.
In the Resurrection.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Moses: The ones he heavily features in. As a contributor, editor. The obvious stuff. As you know DODdy, I'm a very simple man. No matter how complex, unknown, bizarre, lost the process, he was involved. As were Seth, Enoch, Noah, Job, Abraham. If they're in, they wrote. All under the perfect, minimal, sufficient aegis of the inexorable, omnipotent Holy Spirit.
I know the Jews are endowed with more than their fair share of genius, but for it to be the product of a 2500 year Hebrew conspiracy is something even David Ike wouldn't suggest.
Evolution ain't that smart,
[ 27. July 2008, 16:09: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
WiffWaff. I'm glad. That you are not as other men. Like me. I can't abide a Pharisee either.
[ 27. July 2008, 16:12: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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TonyK
Host Emeritus
# 35
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Posted
[Host Mode ACTIVATE]
OK - trying to be kind clearly doesn't work!
Let me spell it out for you guys in simple words...
The title of this thread is 'Homosexuality and Christianity'!
If you want to continue to discuss the 'Nature of God', please do it elsewhere.
In another thread.
On another Board.
But not here!
If you want to continue taking pot-shots at each other, take it to Hell.
But not here!
Clearer now?
[Host Mode DEACTIVATE]
Yours aye ... TonyK
Host, Dead Horses
Posts: 2717 | From: Gloucestershire | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Strewth. I missed half of you.
John - just listen to Oh Well by Fleetwood Mac. And RIGHT as you are, you are WRONG. It is a FEARFUL thing to fall in to the hands of the living God. Work out YOUR salvation with FEAR and trembling.
Fear not! Fear him who is able to destroy body and soul in hell. AND cast ALL your cares upon him.
The FEAR of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And don't rationalize that to 'respect'. The men of God didn't.
You tell half and therefore much less than half of the story John.
Why?
Is more than half the story wrong?
Am I imbalanced John? Well apart from the obvious. On this thread? On this site? In Christendom? You liberals have won hands down, what's the problem? You don't have to engage your obviously superior intellects even. You are RIGHTER than God.
God CANNOT be as He has revealed Himself.
No intellect there.
Just cognitive dissonance.
That makes you angry John.
Why?
Love me.
sandushinka - couldn't agree more. I've never been to a church that wasn't full of feeble, confused, lost, hypocritical, losers barely getting by myself, that must be awful to find one like you did.
JIMMY! - you know, I reckon you're right. I'll at least be castigated for being a miserable, joyless, fearful sunnavabitch spreading darkness wherever he goes. And if you're 100% right I WON'T be cast in to outer darkness for that! If I'm right, I'll STILL be castigated for my fear and joylessnes, so John's RIGHT after all.
Blast.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Sorry Tony, cross post.
No excuse.
I'm sure you don't care and rightfully so, but the deviation is an inevitable consequence of the thread it seems.
If we loop of to Purgatory we'll get referrred to back here surely?
Should I ask that on the Styx?
Martin
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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TonyK
Host Emeritus
# 35
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Sorry Tony, cross post.
No excuse.
I'm sure you don't care and rightfully so, but the deviation is an inevitable consequence of the thread it seems.
If we loop of to Purgatory we'll get referrred to back here surely?
Should I ask that on the Styx?
OK Martin - I realised it was probably a X-post.
While I agree the tangent grew naturally out of the original thread, a new thread on the 'Nature of God' would fit nicely into Purgatory, provided it didn't start to link back to homosexuality. As far as I can see, there is no reason why it should. I wouldn't, however, start the OP with a direct reference to homosexuality or even to this thread by name. It would probably start the Purgatory hosts' antennae twitching!
It certainly wouldn't be of itself a DH thread - these are defined in the guidelines (see above) as 'biblical inerrancy, homosexuality, the role of women, evolution, abortion, closed communion and bitching about church music'.
By all means ask on the Styx Board if you wish - after all, you have that right even without my permission ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) . But I suspect the answer will be the same.
Yours aye ... TonyK
Host, Dead Horses
Posts: 2717 | From: Gloucestershire | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Good enough for me Tony. The umpire's decision is final. Thank you.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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duchess
Ship's Blue Blooded Lady
# 2764
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Posted
I am very glad of the decision Tony made today. This subject matter is one I struggle with on pretty much a daily basis. I have a friend who just got married (legally) to her wife. They have been together 8 years. I have known D since college and found her a recently on myspace.
I saw the hurt on her face when I was not able to affirm her choice. I pretty much keep my mouth shut around her but I do come in here to read and absorb all written. Doesn't mean I change my view, however it means I try to stay sensitive. I want my heart to break as it has. I don't want to turn cold as it would be easier to tune out and turn off.
I was pretty much deciding on taking a very long break from the ship as I saw what seemed to be an attack on Martin...and because I identify with Martin in a lot of ways (for one his way of speaking is something I relate a lot to) and his struggle to work out his faith as he falters ... yet clings to it, is something I myself identify with.
This is the ONLY place I can read/talk about homosexuality openly, un-censored...on the internet that I feel comfortable with. I was losing that comfort as I felt honestly this was a place people were lining up to drag somebody to hell (ship board type hell) because that somebody feels homosexuality is wrong and must go to hell (on ship) to pay for that belief. I may be wrong (and prolly am), but that is what I saw and for reasons I unable to articulate...I was too upset by that for somebody just reading something on the internet.
Pls bear in mind that those of us who don't agree with homosexuality may have great sins of our own (I am chief of this myself which is why you don't see me much here honestly). We don't see you point of view just because you call us to hell.
I was raised to think homosexuality was not a sin. My family is upset with me for changing my mind. My dad has given me books to read that say it is not a sin. I was raised in a church that embraces it as affirming choice.
I walked away from all that and I don't always feel good about it inside. But my faith is something I believe in. Not something I "do" to make myself feel accepted.
I am going on and on and probably sound lame-o and don't make sense.
But may I say something that is true for me and may upset some of you? I LOVE my homosexual friends. They are EASY to love. They are awesome.
I love them more than I honestly love some righteous Christians, whom I struggle to love (they are not as easy to love).
Because I love them, I wish I could change what I believe God has said in His Book. But to be authentic and take the bible literally as inerrant, I must believe as I do.
[edited...sorry for all the typos.]
[ 28. July 2008, 01:27: Message edited by: duchess ]
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♬♭ We're setting sail to the place on the map from which nobody has ever returned ♫♪♮
Ship of Fools-World Party
Posts: 11197 | From: Do you know the way? | Registered: May 2002
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sandushinka
Shipmate
# 13021
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Posted
I love my heterosexual friends. Really, I do. But I can't approve of their choice. You see, Paul says in the Bible that it's better not to marry. He basically goes on to say that marriage is a concession to lust. I dearly want to affirm their choice to concede to lust (which is pretty clearly a sin) but I just can't. Paul was pretty clear that it's better not to marry. But I love my heterosexual friends. Really, I do.
I find it very hard to come here and discuss this issue in the face of so many who see us as an "issue" or a "sin" and not real people. I try not to come here but every now and then I get sucked in and inevitably regret it. Time to go.
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It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.
Posts: 131 | From: Maryland (DC burbs), USA | Registered: Sep 2007
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by duchess:
I am very glad of the decision Tony made today. This subject matter is one I struggle with on pretty much a daily basis. I have a friend who just got married (legally) to her wife. They have been together 8 years. I have known D since college and found her a recently on myspace.
I saw the hurt on her face when I was not able to affirm her choice. I pretty much keep my mouth shut around her but I do come in here to read and absorb all written. Doesn't mean I change my view, however it means I try to stay sensitive. I want my heart to break as it has. I don't want to turn cold as it would be easier to tune out and turn off.
I was pretty much deciding on taking a very long break from the ship as I saw what seemed to be an attack on Martin...and because I identify with Martin in a lot of ways (for one his way of speaking is something I relate a lot to) and his struggle to work out his faith as he falters ... yet clings to it, is something I myself identify with.
This is the ONLY place I can read/talk about homosexuality openly, un-censored...on the internet that I feel comfortable with. I was losing that comfort as I felt honestly this was a place people were lining up to drag somebody to hell (ship board type hell) because that somebody feels homosexuality is wrong and must go to hell (on ship) to pay for that belief. I may be wrong (and prolly am), but that is what I saw and for reasons I unable to articulate...I was too upset by that for somebody just reading something on the internet.
Pls bear in mind that those of us who don't agree with homosexuality may have great sins of our own (I am chief of this myself which is why you don't see me much here honestly). We don't see you point of view just because you call us to hell.
I was raised to think homosexuality was not a sin. My family is upset with me for changing my mind. My dad has given me books to read that say it is not a sin. I was raised in a church that embraces it as affirming choice.
I walked away from all that and I don't always feel good about it inside. But my faith is something I believe in. Not something I "do" to make myself feel accepted.
I am going on and on and probably sound lame-o and don't make sense.
But may I say something that is true for me and may upset some of you? I LOVE my homosexual friends. They are EASY to love. They are awesome.
I love them more than I honestly love some righteous Christians, whom I struggle to love (they are not as easy to love).
Because I love them, I wish I could change what I believe God has said in His Book. But to be authentic and take the bible literally as inerrant, I must believe as I do.
[edited...sorry for all the typos.]
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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The Blessed Pangolin
Shipmate
# 13623
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Posted
Just to be clear, duchess, when I threatened a Hell call, it wasn't because some people on this thread thought that practising homosexuality is a sin. I'd have to be pretty naive and/or stupid to think that no one here was going to maintain that it is. And that's fine that they do, because I came to this thread for the debate. My threat was because of the terms being employed, specifically the condescending reference to homosexuality as "enslavement". So far as that goes, my threat stands. Be warned.
Posts: 460 | From: 30 arpents de neige | Registered: Apr 2008
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
hosting
Ok, we've now got to the point where nobody is staying on the particular topics of the other threads (ex-gay ministeries and whether lesbianism is mentioned in the Bible), but instead posters are arguing general points on both threads - derailing both of them.
So it makes sense to have one thread. This is the thread for general arguments about homosexuality and Christianity. Please put all arguments about the rights or wrongs of homosexuality here until further notice.
If you want to re-post any gem from a previous thread to this one, then be my guest. But can I politely suggest asking yourself if your post is really helping matters or not, before you hit reply.
thank you,
Louise
Dead Horses Host
hosting off
[ 04. January 2010, 13:41: Message edited by: Louise ]
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
TCS says in the Lesbians and the Bible thread [now closed] and completely off the thread topic:
quote:
Also is it God's plan for a man to put his willie up another man's botty for pleasure?
Well, if you think about human physiology you will notice that in the human male the prostate gland is located right against the colon thus enabling the said gland to be stimulated [and how!!] during anal sex. This is what I would call an inspiring, innovative and intelligent piece of design.
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
Apology to H&A's:
Sorry, I thought of this post whilst away and posted it before I found out that TCS is suspended at the moment.
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
I've returned from my hols to find the thread I was posting on closed and several shipmates on enforced shore-leave.
So I guess this is the best place to continue the discussion...
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
To try to answer your question, however, I do not agree with you on the chasm you seem to see between humans and other animals. If animals, whom we agree cannot make moral choices, behave in ways that we regard as "homosexual", then it must be "natural". So, why is similar behaviour not "natural" in homo sapiens as well? Just as left-handedness is.
It comes down to the different ways we use the word 'natural'. It is natural for male animals to want to reproduce their genes as much as possible and likewise it is natural for me to want to have sex with as many women as I find attractive.
The fact that (according to my argument) only heterosexual monogamy is natural comes about because I believe God made men and women with that intent.
The Apostle Paul himself uses exactly this kind of contast when he talks about the 'flesh' versus the 'Spirit'. Most of his ethical imperatives come from a call to stop doing what is natural to the 'flesh' and start doing what is natural to the 'Spirit'.
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
For a long time, until the quite recent collation and wide spread public communication of the scientific observation of homosexual behaviour, homosexuality was argued to be a uniquely human perversion. It was one of the arguments used to demonstrate it is not of God, not part of the created order. Now it is perfectly possible to make this argument without reference to the animal kingdom - but for a long time it was part of the argument. Folk have back pedalled on it quite fast as the evidence has been brought to light.
There are other meanings of the word 'natural' - but often people take it to mean something that wouldn't occur without human intervention. Homosexuality is a naturally occuring behaviour in most animal species that have two genders.
I've only encountered the 'homosexuality is a uniquely human perversion' at the popular level. I've never seen it as a serious theological comment.
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
...Really need some explaination as to why God organizes a world that includes homosexuality in animals - when he needn't - if non-procreative sex is somehow offensive to God.
I don't see how that follows. All sexual beings have natural sexual desires. (ISTM) It only becomes morally wrong when God says 'thou shalt not'.
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
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Taliesin
Shipmate
# 14017
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Posted
sigh...
a) as far as I'm aware God never did say 'thou shalt not', specifically.
b) It is 'natural' and by your logic, moral, for people to have a dozen children for each couple. It is natural and moral for half or more of these to then die, or, we keep the science that allows us to save them all, and the earth stops supporting us even quicker than currently predicted.
well, I expect smarter minds than mine will be along shortly to argue more succinctly - or they won't cos they're bored now, either way I wasn't leaving your post as the last word.
Posts: 2138 | From: South, UK | Registered: Aug 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
It comes down to the different ways we use the word 'natural'. It is natural for male animals to want to reproduce their genes as much as possible and likewise it is natural for me to want to have sex with as many women as I find attractive.
Really? Male animals have a conscious genetic strategy? They spend their off-hours working out Punnett squares of prospective mates or something? And only male animals want to reproduce their genes, whereas females are generally unconcerned with their offspring?
How about this for an alternative hypothesis: sex feels really good, so most animals (both male and female) that reproduce in this manner want to do it. The idea that there is some sort of conscious strategy beyond immediate gratification seems to warrant a greater level of proof beyond your bare assertion.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
I've only encountered the 'homosexuality is a uniquely human perversion' at the popular level. I've never seen it as a serious theological comment.
I'd agree that it isn't a serious theological comment.
Except that it was the justification advanced by Archbishop Akinola for his position that homosexuality and Christianity are incompatible, and justifying his less-than-Lambeth 1:10-compliant policies towards gay people.
Not an issue for you, I realize, since this is an internal Anglican discussion.
It is, I have to say, also the basis on which many of those I know who oppose gay rights in the church (which also seems to mean in the state) take their stand. Along with the idea that being gay is always a conscious choice.
John
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
How about this for an alternative hypothesis: sex feels really good, so most animals (both male and female) that reproduce in this manner want to do it. The idea that there is some sort of conscious strategy beyond immediate gratification seems to warrant a greater level of proof beyond your bare assertion.
![[Confused]](confused.gif) That's not an alternative to what I was saying, that is what I was saying!
I only talked about male animals as an attempt to show what it might look like if I applied the behaviour of an animal to myself (a male).
I'm not claiming anything more for animal behaviour than you are.
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by John Holding:
Except that it was the justification advanced by Archbishop Akinola for his position that homosexuality and Christianity are incompatible, and justifying his less-than-Lambeth 1:10-compliant policies towards gay people.
Fair enough. If this argument appears at all in the public arena then it needs to be countered.
I now see why others were keen to address it.
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
It comes down to the different ways we use the word 'natural'. It is natural for male animals to want to reproduce their genes as much as possible and likewise it is natural for me to want to have sex with as many women as I find attractive.
The fact that (according to my argument) only heterosexual monogamy is natural comes about because I believe God made men and women with that intent.
At this point, the word 'natural' has lost just about all useful meaning.
(It's never had very much useful meaning, since just about every contrast word (artificial, supernatural, not ecologically friendly, etc.) can be included under some other meaning of natural.)
The problem is that if you try to deduce the rightness or wrongness of any sexual practice from the ways things are, then as Welease Woderick points out, our bodies seem to be set up so that all sorts of things give us pleasure.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The problem is that if you try to deduce the rightness or wrongness of any sexual practice from the ways things are, then as Welease Woderick points out, our bodies seem to be set up so that all sorts of things give us pleasure.
I agree.
My original point was simply that 'the way things are' tells us nothing about morality. Christian morality has always been about 'the way things should be'.
Indeed there is a strong apocalyptic / eschatological aspect to NT ethics... a blueprint of how one day we will be.
(Of course the argument here is over what that looks like exactly ...)
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
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aggg
Shipmate
# 13727
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Posted
Perhaps the pleasure and the pursuit of happiness are poor measures of ethics.
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Myrrh: please, in future refrain from replying to anything I might write
Posts: 567 | Registered: May 2008
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ToujoursDan
Ship's prole
# 10578
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The problem is that if you try to deduce the rightness or wrongness of any sexual practice from the ways things are, then as Welease Woderick points out, our bodies seem to be set up so that all sorts of things give us pleasure.
I agree.
My original point was simply that 'the way things are' tells us nothing about morality. Christian morality has always been about 'the way things should be'.
Indeed there is a strong apocalyptic / eschatological aspect to NT ethics... a blueprint of how one day we will be.
(Of course the argument here is over what that looks like exactly ...)
Actually, Christian morality have always been a mix of pragmatism AND idealism. It has never been either/or.
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"Many people say I embarrass them with my humility" - Archbishop Peter Akinola
Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/toujoursdan
Posts: 3734 | From: NYC | Registered: Oct 2005
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
It only becomes morally wrong when God says 'thou shalt not'.
Apologies for being naive and probably repetitive, but isn't the "Thou shalt not" in this respect Thou shalt not stray from thy natural orientation for the purposes of titillation?
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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Matariki
Shipmate
# 14380
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Posted
In my periodic trawling round the ship I have seen this thread but I have treated it rather like Pandora's Box and never opened it - until now. Partly I was depressed at the prospect of what I would find; now I have embraced my inner masochist.
Here I am hoping for more light than heat!!!
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"Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accompanied alone; therefore we are saved by love." Reinhold Niebuhr.
Posts: 298 | From: Just across the Shire from Hobbiton | Registered: Dec 2008
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Mr Clingford
Shipmate
# 7961
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matariki:
In my periodic trawling round the ship I have seen this thread but I have treated it rather like Pandora's Box and never opened it - until now. Partly I was depressed at the prospect of what I would find; now I have embraced my inner masochist.
Here I am hoping for more light than heat!!!
You do know that you are only allowed to post after having read and inwardly digested every single one of the thread's posts?
I think the main thing I have learned is that, courtesy of Spiffy, the problem is that lesbians have girl cooties.
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Ne'er cast a clout till May be out.
If only.
Posts: 1660 | From: A Fleeting moment | Registered: Jul 2004
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
Apologies for being naive and probably repetitive, but isn't the "Thou shalt not" in this respect Thou shalt not stray from thy natural orientation for the purposes of titillation?
IMHO that is the question. What exactly does scripture prohibit?
As you can see we've been arguing over that for years on the ship. ISTM the bit about animals is a red herring ... although herring are fish.
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
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