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 What does the Bible really say about homosexuality? Readers responded to a professor's views on the issue.
May 17th, 2012
02:10 PM ET
Your Take: Rebuttals to rethinking the Bible on homosexualityThe Bible clearly condemns homosexuality - and, by extension, same-sex marriage - right? A guest "My Take" post we ran this week from a college psychology professor who has a background in religion (he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest, for instance) challenged that conventional wisdom. The professor, Daniel A. Helminiak, argues that foes of same-sex marriage have assigned modern, ethics-laden meanings to biblical passages on homosexuality to make it seem like the Bible unequivocally condemns it. In fact, Helminiak proposes, the original meanings of such passages about gays are at the very least ambiguous. The piece has generated an avalanche of response: 10,000 Facebook shares, 6,000 comments, 200 tweets and a couple of blog posts. Giving the other side its say, here's a rebuttal roundup of critical reactions from across the Internet: Kevin DeYoung, a conservative Christian blogger, calls Helminiak's piece "amazing for including so many bad arguments in so little space." DeYoung, who leads a Reformed Church in Michigan, challenges Helminiak's argument that the biblical tale of Sodom and Gomorrah doesn't condemn homosexuality per se. "Jude 7 states that Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities 'indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire,' " DeYoung writes. "Even the NRSV, translation of choice for the mainline (and the version Helminiak seems to be using), says 'pursued unnatural lust,' ” he continues, referring to the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. "Clearly, the sins of Sodom lived in infamy not simply because of violent aggression or the lack of hospitality, but because men pursued sex with other men." DeYoung also takes issue with our guest blogger's argument that the Greek term the New Testament writer Paul uses when describing homosexuality, para physin, has been misconstrued by modern translators to mean "unnatural." Helminiak says that the original term does not contain ethical judgment and should be translated instead as "atypical" or "unusual." Absurd, says DeYoung. "We know Paul considered same-sex intercourse an ethical violation, and not simply something uncommon. ... (N)otice what Paul goes on to say: 'Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error' (NRSV)." DeYoung writes, "When you read the whole verse, Helminiak’s 'nonethical' argument becomes implausible. Paul thought homosexuality not just unusual, but wrong, a sinful error deserving of a 'due penalty.' '" On Facebook, Helminiak’s piece, "My Take: What the Bible really says about homosexuality," provoked a mix of positive and negative response. Some of the latter was very, very negative. "The following article appeared on the front page of CNN. ... I was so grieved and troubled, I had to respond to the writer," Vince Smith wrote on his Facebook page Thursday. "This is what is most tragic and terrifying about beliefs on homosexuality in this nation. "When you take Scripture and twist it to 'reinterpet' what it means, and then teach others, you are literally playing with fire ... eternal fire," Smith continued. "I pray that The Lord has mercy on Mr. Helminiak." Readers' comments on the piece included much criticism, too (although there was plenty of support for Helminiak’s argument). "Daniel's argument misses the glaringly obvious condemnation of gay sex in the Bible," writes a commenter named Mike Blackadder. "Catholics believe it is a mortal sin when it is premarital, masturbatory, and when we deny the possibility of conceiving children (i.e., through the use of contraceptives). "Unfortunately, the faith suggests that gay sex falls under the same category as these others and if we interpret differently for gays, then we must accept a new interpretation of these other acts for the same reason," Blackadder writes. "The corollary is that if your faith accepts hetero impurities (such as contraceptives or [masturbation]) but condemns gays, then you may be rightfully accused of hypocrisy." Many commenters avoided quibbling with Helminiak’s logic, instead taking aim at the piece's very existence. "Why can't gays leave other people's sacred things alone?" asks a commenter named iqueue120. "Instead of redefining 'marriage,' just call your pervert juncture 'pirripipirripi.' We will grant you and your 'pirripipirripi-other' all the 'rights' that you want. "You can write your own sacred book, call it, for instance, 'Pirripipirripible,' and make it teach how awesome is 'pirripipirripi,'" this commenter continues. "... All we ask in exchange is that you leave 'marriage' and 'Holy Bible' as they are." On Twitter, most RTs, or retweets, endorsed the piece, but not all. "Another pastor," tweeted @BarbRoyal "trying to pretend the ugly parts out of the Xtian (Christian) bible. ..." soundoff (3,580 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Next »
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This is another perfect example of Bible Worship...the most insidious form of idol worship in all of Christendom. Bible Worshippers believe they're doing the will of God simply because they can recite chapter & verse as proof text. What they are ignorant of is the fact that the Bible was handed to us by Emperor Constantine and the Council at Nicea in the third century. It was heavily edited for political reasons. It simply froze in time God and God's relationship with humanity. The texts found at Nag Hamaddi in 1945 have as much validity as anything Constantine slapped together. In short, Bible Worship is ignorance looking for justification. It has to stop for Christianity to become relevant again.
Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God
We have to be very cognizant of outside penmanship.
Man cannot live on c@ck alone. That is why myself as a lesbian like beaver.
Amen.
Religiosity is a personal preference that should help people to find meaning and happiness in their own lives. Every person needs to be free to make their own choices, based on what they believe, not on what someone else believes for them. Marriage is between two people who love and respect each other, whether they need any bibles in their relationship or not is entirely up to them.
I don't believe that we should spread hate toward those that chose this lifestyle but we sure shouldn't encourage it and stand behind it in any way. I am gay by bad choices and I am working on forgiveness and seeking counseling. You might feel a litle different or be attracted to a person but you chose to act on the feeling.
You either aren't gay, or you are have been brainwashed into self loathing. I'm inclined to believe the former.
Definitely the latter...
Oh dear lord.. not another Bachman patient
" I am gay by bad choices.. "
Which choices would those be?
These are the exact King James Version words. Interpret as you want.
Romans 1:26-27:
26For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
King James might be about the worst of the texts to choose if you are trying to be close to the original.
Here we go, all the translations for you:
http://scripturetext.com/romans/1-27.htm
You left out 23 which shows they were worshiping a pagan god using sex. It has NOTHING to do with what we now know and understand about gays.
xyx25,
Romans (12:20) also says “If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.”
Do you believe and practice EVERYTHING that Romans says?
So what do the right wing Christians think about polygamy? What does the Bible say about that? Oh yes....seems a number of the men in the Bible had multiple wives. Perhaps they will support polygamy. Let's see....Romney's grandparents were polygamists, they moved to a mission in Mexico, his father was born in Mexico....Hmmmm...wonder what Mitt thinks about immigration.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw&w=640&h=360]
Athiest's didn't believe in dinosaurs until the 1850's either, however Christian's knew about them.
Behemoth – brachiosaurus
Leviathan – kronosaurus
tanniyn – dinosaur
Job 40:15-24
It “eats grass like an ox.”
It “moves his tail like a cedar.” (In Hebrew, this literally reads, “he lets hang his tail like a cedar.”)
Its “bones are like beams of bronze,
His ribs like bars of iron.”
“He is the first of the ways of God.”
“He lies under the lotus trees,
In a covert of reeds and marsh.”
Leviathan 104:25,26
“No one is so fierce that he would dare stir him up.”
“Who can open the doors of his face, with his terrible teeth all around?”
“His rows of scales are his pride, shut up tightly as with a seal; one is so near another that no air can come between them; they are joined one to another, they stick together and cannot be parted.”
“His sneezings flash forth light, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go burning lights; sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke goes out of his nostrils, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes. His breath kindles coals, and a flame goes out of his mouth.”
“Though the sword reaches him, it cannot avail; nor does spear, dart, or javelin. He regards iron as straw, and bronze as rotten wood. The arrow cannot make him flee; slingstones become like stubble to him. Darts are regarded as straw; he laughs at the threat of javelins.”
“On earth there is nothing like him, which is made without fear.”
Leviathan “played” in the “great and wide sea” (a paraphrase of Psalm 104 verses 25 and 26—get the exact sense by reading them yourself).
Leviathan is a “reptile [a] that is in the sea.” (Isaiah 27:1)
Not ONE WORD in there about dinosaurs. Elephants, rhinos, hippos, alligators, etc. were alive back then.
No proof of anything.
@Doug –
You really are a hoot Doug, really you are.
"Athiest's didn't believe in dinosaurs until the 1850's either, however Christian's knew about them."
The bible has been proven not to be an historical document. LOL!
Exodus never happened and the walls of Jericho did not come a-tumbling down.
The Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land of Canaan in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the twelve tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is the fact that the united kingdom of David and Solomon, described in the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom.
Jerusalem was essentially a cow town, not the glorious capital of an empire. These findings have been accepted by the majority of biblical scholars and archaeologists for years and even decades.
The tales of the patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac and Joseph among others – were the first to go when biblical scholars found those passages rife with anachronisms and other inconsistencies. The story of Exodus, one of the most powerful epics of enslavement, courage and liberation in human history, also slipped from history to legend when archaeologists could no longer ignore the lack of corroborating contemporary Egyptian accounts and the absence of evidence of large encampments in the Sinai Peninsula ("the wilderness" where Moses brought the Israelites after leading them through the parted Red Sea).
The famous battle of Jericho, with which the Israelites supposedly launched this campaign of conquest after wandering for decades in the desert, has been likewise debunked: The city of Jericho didn't exist at that time and had no walls to come tumbling down. These assertions are all pretty much accepted by mainstream archaeologists.
Eventually as archaeological methods improved and biblical scholars analyzed the text itself for inconsistencies and anachronisms, the amount of the Bible regarded as historically verifiable eroded.
and the ancient greeks, romans, egyptians, heck most ancient civilizations had monsters they created up after finding dinosaur bones as well, it was a common pasttime it seems.
There are so many things wrong with your comment, but I'll just say this- the Leviathon was almost certainly the whale. I take it you aren't familiar with Moby Dick?
Hmmm. I am glad i am not that guy, trying to change the Word of God.
Revelation 22:18-19 King James Version (KJV)
18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
I am a Christian. I am open to discussion. What I won't do is cross that line.
One can't half believe. I take Him at his word.
Amen.
so who is right? the catholics or the protestants?
Exactly.
Both Catholics & Protestants.
Do you take every single thing in the bible literally? Or do you follow your own interpretation as to the "spirit" of some passages? There's your answer.
Christians half-believe all the time. Most of the hypocrites believe in the verses that pick on gays. They don't believe in the Golden Rule or commands against judging others.
"Both Catholics & Protestants."
well seeing as they believe different things then thats kind of tough.
I'm sorry, ImpishLisa, but the Apostle Paul has commanded you to be silent. He said he would "suffer no woman" and that you are to "remain silent and have no authority over men". That is the word of YOUR God, so do his will and go cook something.... 🙂
OR do you believe our modern sensibilities have made those icky words of God so unpalatable that no woman in her right mind would allow herself to be reduced to the level of chattel? It's the Bible, not a buffet. You can't cherry-pick it to your particular comfort level. Either you are property and must be silent and gay marriage is against God, or not. Are you ready to be silent?
But if he is using the original translations to make his argument then aren't the translators the one changing the word of God?
ImpishLisa....question everything! Blind faith is very dangerous.
why are you looking to get approval from Bible or God? when you are not willing to listen to what Bible says. I love this comment in the article.
"Instead of redefining 'marriage,' just call your pervert juncture 'pirripipirripi.' We will grant you and your 'pirripipirripi-other' all the 'rights' that you want. You can write your own sacred book, call it, for instance, 'Pirripipirripible,' and make it teach how awesome is 'pirripipirripi,'" this commenter continues. "... All we ask in exchange is that you leave 'marriage' and 'Holy Bible' as they are."
That's funny, did you copy and paste that from another commenter? I saw this exact comment earlier...
Ignorance is bliss.. isn't it?
xyx25,
Yep. Leave the Bible alone. Support slavery. Support the inferiority of women. Support discrimination against the handicapped.
"All we ask in exchange is that you leave 'marriage' and 'Holy Bible' as they are.""
They probably used the same argument when they were trying to ban biracial marriages, they lost there too.
Can we please lay Pascal's Wager to rest? For those who do not know it is the totally irrational idea of believing in Christianity "just in case," because you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, and if you do not believe then you have nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Here is a sampling of the many responses these comments get back:
ME II: That's Pascal's Wager and do you really think God wants you to 'play the odds' on eternity?
n8263: What if it turns out Islam is true? You better hope you did not pick the wrong god!
scott: ...and I worry about YOU choosing a religion of convenience (Christianity) based on where you were born and raised. Clearly, the one true religion is Hinduism. Prove me wrong.
Cedar Rapids: yeah, as someone said...better hope that the god you worship is the right one else you will be just as much out of luck, maybe you should worship them all to cover your bases
sam stone: Gee, you must think that god is pretty stupid for not seeing that you are just playing the odds.
Kevin: It is an outrage for a fellow Christian to justify their faith by essentially saying it is a safety net ... either you believe or you don't ... you are only doing yourself and everyone else a disservice by saying that you believe just in case there is a heaven you want to make sure you get in.
n8263: What are the odds the one true religion is even around right now? Maybe it already died out, or is yet to be established. Today's major religions including Christianity have been around for less than 1% of human history. The world has seen thousands of gods come and go. You might have been born at the wrong time.
rAmen: um, what if you're wrong and Gandalf is the real god?
HawaiiGuest: If I am wrong, and specifically the christian bible is correct, then that god is not worthy of worship, or devotion. The god the bible paints is a vain, jealous, sadistic, and really a very inefficient god.
Me: Let's say you're right... and your god/ afterlife exists....I would not change my life one bit...if there is not a god/ afterlife....i would not change my life one bit. What you are referring to is called "Pascal's Wager" but a HUGE possibility is missed in that...what if the God/ afterlife you are worshipping/ awaiting is the wrong one? Pascal's Wager is putting all the "Eggs" in one "Basket", aka the christian god, so you are taking just as big a gamble, if not a bigger one, in believing in one of the many possibilities, instead of all or none of them.
YOU'RE GOING TO HELL IF YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT THAT PASCAL'S BAKER STUFF!!!!!!
Sorry, but it had to be done.
I dont think you realized that if I am wrong everything will be ok but if I am right I will go to heaven.
@J.W. I really hope that was a joke. If not you might want to read some of the replies again.
I love when the morons learn neat phrases and concepts like Pascal's Wager". Which does NOT deal with if there is a God or not, but deals with why you would believe, and those are two different topics.
And as for asking for proof of things and not believing without evidence, I guess you'll argue that the Atom didn't exist 400 years before Christ when Democritus (spelling?) dreamed up the idea. Right? It couldn't be proven so it would be insane to think it might exist..... In fact nothing you can't prove exists, until you can prove it. Rather Solipsist, no?
So you are going to cry foul, and say, "not believing because of lack of evidence is rational, to believe is irrational, I don't make a claim that it does or doesn't exist". This is called a preemptive comment on my part.
I would answer, every discovery in science over the last couple of infinities has came from someone believing something that they could not prove. It's called a hypothetical, the good ole IF...> THEN.... You don't do actual research unless you have reason to believe it may be. You can't prove what isn't, afterall, right?
So for you to claim I'm ignorant and such because I believe, just tells me that rationally you have no argument to make that claim, so you are a hate mongering bigot.
Thank you for your time.
The word for that is Pathostheist. You can break the compound word down to get a meaning.
@Brad,
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.
Marcus Aurelius
As this pertains to the Legalize Gay Marriage argument:
Let me make this perfectly clear. KEEP YOUR RELIGION OFF MY GOVERNMENT.
nuff said
It would be easy to keep my religion off your government, if your government were, in fact, not founded on my religion! The founding fathers all had a similar respect for religion that has since gone lacking. Even the least "Christian" of them (most point to Ben Franklin to describe that extreme) had a reverence for God and other things beyond their explanantion.
Keep governement out of religion. Marriage should be done by a chruch. Government should recognize civil unions between two unrelated adults for beinifts. It wasn't until the 1800's that your Goverment got in my church.
Ugh. One more time people: NO ONE knows what happens when we die, and ANYONE claiming such knowledge is a liar who probably wants your money. It's really that simple.
We just stop. It's exactly what it looks like. Everything else is pure fantasy, the imaginings of humans who don't want to accept that what they see is really what it is.
Why is that so hard for people to accept?
the knowledge i have attained from God is this..
For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten. 6 Also, their love and their hate and their jealousy have already perished, and they have no portion anymore to time indefinite in anything that has to be done under the sun.
ecc 9:5
All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in She′ol, the place to which you are going.
ecc 9:10
And to Adam he said: “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and took to eating from the tree concerning which I gave you this command, ‘You must not eat from it,’ ... For dust you are and to dust you will return.”
gen 3:17-19
His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground;
In that day his thoughts do perish.
ps 146:4
aside from the ppl chosen to go to heaven (144k – rev 7:4-8) when ppl die, they simply cease to exist. their soul becomes a "dead soul". soul simply means "life" in the bible. and the spirit returns to God. (Then the dust returns to the earth just as it happened to be and the spirit itself returns to the [true] God who gave it.-ecc 12:7)
Jesus Christ spoke about the condition of the dead. He did so with regard to Lazarus, a man whom he knew well and who had died. Jesus told his disciples: “Lazarus our friend has gone to rest.” The disciples thought that Jesus meant that Lazarus was resting in sleep, recovering from an illness. They were wrong. Jesus explained: “Lazarus has died.” (John 11:11-14) Notice that Jesus compared death to rest and sleep. Lazarus was neither in heaven nor in a burning ****. He was not meeting angels or ancestors. Lazarus was not being reborn as another human. He was at rest in death, as though in a deep sleep without dreams. Other scriptures also compare death to sleep. For example, when the disciple Stephen was stoned to death, the Bible says that he “fell asleep.” (Acts 7:60) Similarly, the apostle Paul wrote about some in his day who had “fallen asleep” in death.—1 Corinthians 15:6.
Faith is required to believe in what is possible. Any interpretation can therefore be true. However, the interpretation that obtains the most supporters is deemed to be more likely to be on target.
The funny thing is prior the 15th century Atheists were the only people who thought the world was flat.
The funny thing is that you apparently are serious.
Yea... except people have known the world was round since the ancient greeks if not further back.
People believing the earth was flat for so long is a historical fallacy perpetuated by the ignorant.
@Doug-
Got a reference for that?
The Bible says the earth is a circle. A circle is a flat 2-dimensional object.
If Christians didn't believe the Bible, that's their problem to deal with.
sorry doug but unless you can actually back up that claim then what you are doing is bearing false witness and thats a big no-no
All you believers commenting on this just ask yourselves how you feel about Zeus. Do you believe he really exists and resides on Mt. Olympus? If not please understand that the Greeks believed in what we now refer to as their "mythology" (religion) as strongly as you believe in Christ, or Mohammad, or Yahweh. If you believe the Greeks had a limited understanding of the natural world and because of that, came up with allegories to explain natural phenomenon, then you understand how we non-believers feel about Yahweh or Jesus or the like.
The human writers of the bible didn't know how to make simple everyday things that we use today and take for granted in today's time, yet I'm supposed to believe they unlocked the secrets of the universe? Ha! the hilarity!
A) Jesus isn't white and that's not even his name
B) What about the lost/ left out books?
C) Who is King James and why is he so important to Christian faith
D) Religious freedom means not imposing your on someone else
top 4 reasons I think zealots are not aligned with reality
The Bible is full of things that no one believes anymore...putting a farmer to death for planting the wrong crops next to each other, slavery and uses the same 'abomination' language to describe eating shellfish. I don't see any pasters giving sermons to condemn people who eat at Red Lobster. The only conclusion I can reach by all the inconsistency is that some use the bible to selectively judge a group of people they don't understand or agree with. That's a bigot in my mind, whether it is in the Bible or not.
Even the strongest faith in something is selective...
I'd rather be raised by happy gay parents than miserable "straight" parents.
ONLY FOR THE NEWCOMERS–-–>>>>
Does the following "thu-mptation" pass rigorous, historic scrutiny?? (Matt 19: 4-6)
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’[b]? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
According to many contemporary NT scholars, said passage was not uttered by Jesus. It does show however how the locals, i.e. Matthew and his readers, felt about marriage and se-xuality in the first century AD/CE.
Ho-mose-xuality in the 21st century:
"Abrahamics" believe that their god created all of us and of course that includes the g-ay members of the human race. Also, those who have studied ho-mo-se-xuality have determined that there is no choice involved therefore ga-ys are ga-y because god made them that way.
To wit:
o The Royal College of Psy-chiatrists stated in 2007:
“ Despite almost a century of psy-choanalytic and psy-chological speculation, there is no substantive evidence to support the suggestion that the nature of parenting or early childhood experiences play any role in the formation of a person’s fundamental heteros-exual or hom-ose-xual orientation. It would appear that s-exual orientation is biological in nature, determined by a complex interplay of ge-netic factors and the early ut-erine environment. Se-xual orientation is therefore not a choice.[60] "
"Garcia-Falgueras and Swaab state in the abstract of their 2010 study, "The fe-tal brain develops during the intraut-erine period in the male direction through a direct action of tes-tosterone on the developing nerve cells, or in the female direction through the absence of this hor-mone surge. In this way, our gender identi-ty (the conviction of belonging to the male or female gender) and s-exual orientation are programmed or organized into our brain structures when we are still in the womb. There is no indication that social environment after birth has an effect on gender ident–ity or s-exual orientation."[8
See also the Philadelphia Inquirer review “Gay Gene, Deconstructed”, 12/12/2011. Said review addresses the following “How do genes associated with ho-mose-xuality avoid being weeded out by Darwinian evolution?”
Of course, those gays who belong to Abrahamic religions supposedly abide by the rules of no adu-ltery or for-nication allowed.
And because of basic biology differences said monogamous ventures should always be called same-se-x unions not same-se-x marriages.
From below, on top, backwards, forwards, from this side of the Moon and from the other side too, ga-y s-exual activity is still mutual mas-turbation caused by one or more complex s-exual differences. Some differences are visually obvious in for example the complex maleness of DeGeneres, Billy Jean King and Rosie O'Donnell.
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May 17, 2012 at 8:07 am | Report abuse | Reply
The only logical response to that: warrgarbl.
of course Matt 19: 4-6 was talking about divorce and how god forbids it, but shush, dont point that out to the christians that are divorced.
And since Jesus apparently did not utter those words defining a marriage between a male and female, said Christians are not held by said passage.
If two people want to get married it's none of my business or anybody else s.
If you feel your marriage is threatened by two gay people down the block or across town marrying then your marriage is not very stable to begin with.