Re: Homosexuals

**sordavie** · 10-24-2008, 12:05 PM

Originally Posted by Kerostasis

It appears to you that I keep saying inconsistent things precisely because you don't get what belief on faith is. It's not something you would ever do, so it seems inconsistent that anyone else would ever do it either -- and yet we do.

I don't think so. What you said was that you can have faith that, say, the Bible is true. And then, once you see that it is true, you can then come to have good reasons to think it is true. But this is going to turn out circular if you then go on to maintain that your initial faith in it is now justified. This kind of bootstrapping to reasons from faith can't work.

The fact that people do stuff I would ever do doesn't show that what they do is consistent. People do inconsistent things all the time. For analogy, consider the fact that many people do stuff that I would consider really stupid and never do. But it would be a poor reply to say that what they do isn't stupid because, even though I would never do it, they nevertheless still do it.

**War.mongeR1** · 10-24-2008, 12:15 PM

Originally Posted by leejo

...the Bible isn't just a collection of short stories, it's an epic story of a people's evolving ethics and identity, culminating with a message and commandment to
1. Love the Lord your God with all your mind heart and soul and
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.

I think Leejo hit the nail on the head here. I think most of you non-Christians/Atheists/Agnostics here would agree that the Christians among us here are not the least bit extremist or out balance with our views, right? I'm not trying to speak for all Christians here, but I myself view homosexuality as immoral, BUT I also love all neighbors the same. I respect homosexuals the same as I do heterosexuals. I may not agree with their lifestyles, but I love them just the same as me or you.

I've been going to a new church for me as of late that I think preaches a great message. It's just as Leejo said, but in addition, their big theme of the Bible is that "God loves us all and is in a never-ending pursuit to get us back." If you want to learn more about some fantastic messages from the Bible check the church out at...
http://www.oakhillschurchsa.org/
View the recent sermons at...
http://www.thestorynow.net/
They have videos and even podcasts. I think many of you might get a lot out of it. They are going through the Bible like a novel, a seamless story, and showing us the big picture.

Trust me, I'm not trying to evangelize anyone here or anything. I'm not pushy in my beliefs at all. I'm just showing these links to prove that us Christians are not all gay fearing, hateful, or simpleton ignoramuses. Many non-Christians feel threatened by Christian messages for some reason. Maybe it's because of the wacky fundamentalist churches like the ones who preach hateful messages. That's not us at all.

**Kerostasis** · 10-24-2008, 12:23 PM

Perhaps I phrased that poorly. I do not mean to suggest that my actions are consistent by virtue of the fact that some people undertake them. Rather, I claim that they are consistent under their own virtue, and then note as a sidenote that there is a population of people who undertake them despite your exhortations to the contrary.

If something is true, then it is true whether or not we have sufficient evidence to prove that it is true. If evidence of this truth is later discovered, then those who held belief in that truth before the evidence was available may reasonably state that their beliefs have been justified. This does not change the fact that the beliefs predated the proofs, and existed independant of them.

**sordavie** · 10-24-2008, 12:26 PM

Nobody feels threatened by the message. But the message is wrong. The Bible is an epic story, and like many good epic stories, it rests on a largely correct moral theory. But there are details in it that are just wrong.

What does this kind of respect amount to, if you can respect people that do immoral things in your eye? Heck, you can have this kind of respect for murderers and rapists too. What this kind of respect amounts to is you willingness to bend to what's politically correct. If you really believe that homosexuality is immoral, then you should believe that people who engage in it are despicable, just like people who engage in any other immoral acts.

The problem of focus is that the Christian message is just wrong that homosexuality is immoral. It is only an ancillary problem that some Churches preach hateful messages. Answering the ancillary problem doesn't speak to answering the problem of focus.

**FrankManik** · 10-24-2008, 12:29 PM

Originally Posted by Rincewind

Unless you masturbate without ejaculating, your are committing a sin. There really is no reading around it. It's very explicit.

So, Onan's brother dies, and according to the law and custom of the time, Onan marries his brother's wife, so that she will have a home, and someone to look after her.

According to the law, Onan is expected to sire children on his brothers wife. In the eyes of the law, and tradition, these children will be the children of his dead brother, they will receive his inheritance, and they will continue his line.

Onan, however, is selfish. He doesn't want to kids unless they're his kids. But he sleeps with his new wife anyway. When he's about to get to the part that usually leads to babies, he pulls out and spills his seed on the ground.

Now, what he's done here is several fold. Firstly, it's more or less the law that if you marry a woman, you have a duty to provide her with Children. This is important to the woman, because having children is an important part of her life, and it will determine how people think of her. And it's also sort of a sacred duty.

He also has a duty to his deceased brother, to help him carry on his bloodline. By refusing to father children with his wife, he is betraying his brother in a terrible, terrible way.

He's also betraying god, because all of these things are good in the eyes of god, and because Onan is part of the Covenant and he has certain obligations to God.

So, one way to look at this is that Onan was a rat bastard who betrayed his brother, his brother's wife, and his God, and was duly punished for all of these massive betrayals. This isn't about masturbation, this is about violating his duties as a Husband, a Brother, and a member of the Covenant.

Homosexuality is mentioned or alluded to twice in the bible.

First, I think its in Deuteronomy, It says something like "A man shall not lie with a man as he lies with a woman". This isn't really too specific. It may suggest homosexual sex, but then it may suggest cuddling. Or it may forbid guys to get married and have sex face to face.

The other part is Sodom and Gomorrah.

So, Sodom, Gomorrah, and a couple other towns are full of jerks. God is sick of these jerks, and decides to blow them up for being such awful places.

Abraham says "Woah, God, hold your brimstone, there could be some good people in there!".

God says "Abe, trust me, I know these places, there are no good people in there."

But Abe says "Look, I'm not going to be able to sleep at night unless I can be sure there are no good people in Sodom."

God say's "Fine, Abe. Go down into Sodom and find me 100 righteous men, and I'll spare the city from destruction."

But Abe can find 100 righteous men. He's still not cool with blowing up the city, so he says to go.

"Look God, I can't find a hundred, but I still don't like this."

And God says "Okay, Abe. Find me 50 and I'll spare the City."

It goes back and forth like this, and after a while Abe realizes that the only decent guy in the whole city is Lot, his nephew. So Abe agrees with God that it's a wicked city.

God sends two Angels, in disguise, to warn Lot about the destruction of the city, and bring him and his family out. When they get to the city, Lot welcomes them into his home. But the people of the city gather around the house and demand that he give them the strangers so they can rape them.

Lot tries to plea with them, even offering his two daughters in the place of these stranger he has welcomed into his home and broken bread with. The townspeople refuse, but God strikes them blind and Lot, his family, and the strangers escape in the confusion. God calls in an airstrike, Lots wife turns back to watch the fireworks and gets turned to salt, The End.

Now, let's try to make sense of this.

Back in the ancient world, inviting someone into your house was a big deal. Basically, once you invited a guest in, they were your responsibility, and it was one of the most important responsibilities you could have. As Lot shows, it was more important to him to protect these strangers under the laws of Hospitality than it was to protect his daughters from the mob. That seems pretty extreme, but in a society where most people are nomads or semi-nomads, a traveler would be in danger of having his throat slit if he stayed in the tent of someone he couldn't trust absolutely. this law of Hospitality is one of the most important laws there is, and Lot showed himself to be righteous by upholding it at all costs.

Let's look at the behavior of the crowd. What they're doing is not homosexual sex. This is a mob that has gathered to Rape, capital R, two strangers passing through their town. You can imagine that they also planned to rob and murder these people. This is not nice behavior, and importantly it's very different from consensual sex of any kind, regardless of whether it's homosexual or heterosexual.

So, we've got Lot, who is trying desperately to protect these two strangers because he thinks it's the most important duty he has right now. And we have the Mob, who are evil, wicked, and cruel, and want to Rape and likely murder two travelers for their own amusement. The sin here is rape and murder, wanton cruelty and senseless violence, made worse because it's directed against those who are under the semi-sacred protection of Hospitality.

It turns out alright in the end, with most of Lot's family escaping, save only his Wife, who was turned to a pillar of salt when she looked back on the destruction against Gods orders.

So, there you go. That's Homosexuality in the bible as I understand it. I strongly suggest that if you haven't done so, you should go read Genesis, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. You'll be surprised at some of the things in Deuteronomy and Leviticus that are condemned as abominations in the eyes of God. For instance, it is forbidden to each shellfish, or more specifically any aquatic animal that does not have fins or scales. It is abomination, and it's meant quite seriously.

Also, there is, to the best of my knowledge, no part of the bible what so ever that states or even suggests that there is anything wrong with women having sex with other women. It is simply not mentioned, alluded to, or discussed.

Story Time! The story goes that back in the day in Sodom, the merchants would make special, distinctive gold coins and give them passing beggars. All the merchants in town knew what the coins looked like, and if anyone tried to buy food from them with one of the coins, they would refuse to give them anything at all, and they would tell all their friends to give them nothing. In this way, beggars would go from one part of the town to another desperately trying to get food, only to be turned away at every door while the people of Sodom laughed at their pain. Eventually, they would starve to death in the streets and the merchants of Sodom would retrieve the coin and begin the game again.

This kind of asshattery is why God destroyed the place with fire and brimstone.

**Kerostasis** · 10-24-2008, 12:35 PM

Originally Posted by sordavie

If you really believe that [insert crime of your choice] is immoral, then you should believe that people who engage in it are despicable, just like people who engage in any other immoral acts.

That's really not the message of Christianity at all. The message of Christianity is that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but that we can be washed clean by the blood of Christ and be forgiven for our sins. Choosing a class of people who engage in one particular immoral act to label as "despicable" doesn't really sync with that message.

**Mosely** · 10-24-2008, 12:46 PM

Originally Posted by Kerostasis

Choosing a class of people who engage in one particular immoral act to label as "despicable" doesn't really sync with that message.

Throughout human history there have been all sorts of things that don't sync with religious message. The job of theologans to reconcile new realities with holy text or scripture has become increasingly difficult over time, and in some cases has fractured religious sects. Take the example of Bishop Gene Robinson and the Episcopalian Church. His homosexuality and Bishop confirmation vote drove a tremendous wedge into the Episcopalian Church. Speaking for those who disaproved of the vote, Bishop Duncan of Pittsburgh said "This body has denied the plain teaching of Scripture and the moral consensus of the church throughout the ages. This body has divided itself from millions of Anglican Christians throughout the world."

If I were a member of the Church, events like this would make me seriously question the concept of faith as more of a product of human politic rather than guided by some kind of higher power. When human opinion has such bearing on the guidelines of faith, one must begin to question who is really steering the ship.

I personally believe that all religions are purely an invention of the human mind. As reality and scientific experience contradict holy text and belief, this becomes all the more apparent.

**sordavie** · 10-24-2008, 01:00 PM

Originally Posted by Kerostasis

Perhaps I phrased that poorly. I do not mean to suggest that my actions are consistent by virtue of the fact that some people undertake them. Rather, I claim that they are consistent under their own virtue, and then note as a sidenote that there is a population of people who undertake them despite your exhortations to the contrary.

If something is true, then it is true whether or not we have sufficient evidence to prove that it is true. If evidence of this truth is later discovered, then those who held belief in that truth before the evidence was available may reasonably state that their beliefs have been justified. This does not change the fact that the beliefs predated the proofs, and existed independant of them.

I never said that there weren't any people who act inconsistently. I readily grant that many people act inconsistently, perhaps the vast majority of people.

If something is true and you have no sufficient evidence to believe it and yet you do, then you luckily got it right. Perhaps at this point you say you have faith in it, since you have no sufficient evidence. I would say that even nominal evidence would give you some reason to believe or refrain from believing it, but okay we can stick with sufficient evidence. If you later come to have some good evidence that your belief is true, then you are justified in believing it--and no longer lucky. I agree with all of this. Where you have not made clear yet is the following:

Does your initial belief, based on faith or insufficient evidence, play a role in your later coming to have, and evaluation of, reasons to believe?

If so, then those reasons aren't objectively good, and thus cannot support your belief over and above your faith. Let me give you an example.

Consider someone who comes to believe in ghosts for no reason at all. They've now taken on a framework (a web of beliefs concerning the universe) through which their experiences are colored. Every time they hear a creak at night or something darting around in their peripheral vision in the dark, they believe that it was caused by a ghost--as this is what their framework predicts. Now, they take their experiences and state them as reasons to believe in ghosts: Creaks at night and darting objects around my peripheral vision is evidence that my belief in ghosts is justified.

Clearly this person's experiences do not justify his belief in ghosts. His experiences are interpreted as reasons that would justify his belief in ghosts by him only because he already took on the belief that there are ghosts and that if there are he should expect certain experiences to be caused by ghosts. People who have no prior belief in ghosts, who don't consider the possibility of the existence of ghosts very likely don't take creaks at night and the appearance of darting objects with their peripheral vision in the dark to be evidence of ghosts. They understand that buildings settle. They understand that your eyes play tricks on you because your eyes don't "see" everything that you visually experience. Your brain fills in stuff that your eyes don't see--such as in your blind spots and in your peripheral vision.

First moral: once you already take on the framework, the beliefs of a certain worldview, you cannot then use experiences or ideas colored by that framework in providing or evaluating evidence to believe that the framework is correct. That's called circular reasoning or sometimes begging the question.

If what you're doing is something like this, coming to believe in the Christian worldview by faith and then using your experiences, colored by that worldview as evidence for why the worldview is correct in the first place, then you're doing what the ghost believer does.

I certainly grant that one can believe something without good reasons and only later come to have good reasons for believing it. But sometimes those reasons come only later because, while they are objectively not good reasons, they become subjectively good later due to the subject coming to have the belief that the reasons were supposed to be evidence for. This is what happens in the ghost believer case.

There are good reasons to think that this is what many Christians actually do. For instance, if it is only after you believe in the Christian worldview that you can see the evidence for it, then there is some reason to think that it's the worldview that colors your experience so that you see it as evidence for itself. If people who don't already have the Christian worldview cannot see the evidence, then there is some reason to think that it's those experience colored by the Christian worldview that Christians are using as evidence for the Christian worldview--but we know that that's circular reasoning. If every one could see that the reasons to believe in the Christian worldview are good prior to holding the Christian worldview, then that's some reason to believe that those reasons constitute objectively good evidence. But that does not happen.

Second moral: If it's necessary or common that a set of reasons only counts as good evidence for some beliefs following the holding of those beliefs, then it is very likely that those reasons are only subjectively good because of the coloring effect of frameworks and they are objectively bad since people don't consider them good prior to coming to the framework.

Creaks at night and the experience of darting objects in your peripheral vision at night are not good objective reasons to believe in ghosts. But for the true believer, they appear to be. Something is wrong. The true believer's beliefs have colored his experience so that she think those experiences verify her beliefs, and are thus good evidence for her beliefs. But that cannot be right. That's circular reasoning. Objectively good reasons cannot come in to existence by boostrapping of this sort.

This sets up a dilemma for you Kero. Either your Christian beliefs are not grounded on any reasons at all or they are. If they are not and it is just a matter of faith, then you should give up on the claim that you have good reasons to believe. If they are grounded on reasons, then in order to show that these are good objective reasons, you need to show how they are good reasons independent of the Christian worldview. You would need to explain why people who don't already have the Christian worldview don't think those are good reasons. If it turns out that the reason you think your evidence is good is because it can only be seen as good given you already believe in the beliefs that that evidence is supposed to support, then you're being circular. If you give up on that project and maintain that your reasons are only subjectively good and perhaps objectively bad, then you're back to the first horn--for merely subjectively good reasons are as good as nothing as far as the epistemic weight of evidence goes.

**sordavie** · 10-24-2008, 01:03 PM

Originally Posted by Kerostasis

That's really not the message of Christianity at all. The message of Christianity is that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but that we can be washed clean by the blood of Christ and be forgiven for our sins. Choosing a class of people who engage in one particular immoral act to label as "despicable" doesn't really sync with that message.

Heh. Which message? The message has changed over the years. It has been forced to change at many periods in our history by politics, by our better understandings of ethics, by our better understandings of science, and so on. So the current message is what you say it is. But it's only that message because it is now not-PC to despise the things that the message told us to despise a long time ago. The message is a moving target. Any time someone comes up with good reasons to believe that the message is false, the message changes. This historical fact should give you some reason to think that something wacky is going on.

**Kerostasis** · 10-24-2008, 01:23 PM

Your ghost analogy only works under the assumption that the ghost believer is wrong. If you begin looking at the scenario with that assumption, then your mind will easily fill in all the reasons why the ghost believer is an idiot and deluded himself into believing in ghosts. But suppose there really are ghosts causing creaking noises -- now the ghost non-believer is deluding himself by passing off the ghost-creaks as house settling noises.

In both cases the same evidence is seen differently by people with different starting assumptions. But the determination of which viewer is using circular reasoning is made only after the determination of which viewer is correct. In the case of reasons for belief which are only accepted by those who believe, it is just as logical to suppose those who do not believe are using circular reasoning to reject those reasons as to suppose that those who do believe are using circular reasoning to accept them.

----------

Separate from that suggestion, you still miss the idea of Faith. Faith neither requires nor precludes Reasons, it exists independantly. There are indeed Reasons who are given to those who have Faith, but there are also Reasons freely available to all regardless of Faith. In the absence of conclusive Reasons, inconclusive Reasons can reaffirm Faith, but do not cause it.

**FrankManik** · 10-24-2008, 01:26 PM

Originally Posted by sordavie

Heh. Which message? The message has changed over the years. It has been forced to change at many periods in our history by politics, by our better understandings of ethics, by our better understandings of science, and so on. So the current message is what you say it is. But it's only that message because it is now not-PC to despise the things that the message told us to despise a long time ago. The message is a moving target. Any time someone comes up with good reasons to believe that the message is false, the message changes. This historical fact should give you some reason to think that something wacky is going on.

Man's got a point. Back in the day it was perfectly acceptable to torture people into confessing their sins, because causing someone pain in this world was irrelevant as long as they confessed their sins, were absolved, and went to heaven. And if a few people had to burn along the way, that was the price of salvation. And believe me, I'm not judging that viewpoint. That's what they believed, they had their reasons, and they put a lot of long, hard thought into it when they made their decisions. But the reasons, the decisions, the methods, and the goals have changed drastically over the years.

**sordavie** · 10-24-2008, 01:33 PM

Originally Posted by Kerostasis

Your ghost analogy only works under the assumption that the ghost believer is wrong. If you begin looking at the scenario with that assumption, then your mind will easily fill in all the reasons why the ghost believer is an idiot and deluded himself into believing in ghosts. But suppose there really are ghosts causing creaking noises -- now the ghost non-believer is deluding himself by passing off the ghost-creaks as house settling noises.

In both cases the same evidence is seen differently by people with different starting assumptions. But the determination of which viewer is using circular reasoning is made only after the determination of which viewer is correct. In the case of reasons for belief which are only accepted by those who believe, it is just as logical to suppose those who do not believe are using circular reasoning to reject those reasons as to suppose that those who do believe are using circular reasoning to accept them.

No, I am not making any such assumption. Even if the ghost believer happens to be luckily correct, his later experiences, after she has come to believe in ghosts, does not count as good evidence unless it counted as good evidence prior to her believing in ghosts. In other words, even if her belief is correct, if the reason which she thinks creaks and such constitute good evidence is due to the coloring effect of the beliefs in question, then her evidence is no good. If that's what's going on then it is a circular reason, even if it turns out she's correct. You can have a circular argument for a true conclusion. The conclusion may be true, but the cannot constitute a good reason to believe it. The mere correctness or truthiness of a belief cannot be evidence for itself. That's circular!

Okay, what is faith then? What does it have to do with the epistemology of belief? If I've got it wrong, then you still haven't told me in any clear terms.

**Kerostasis** · 10-24-2008, 01:37 PM

But by what reasoning does the non-believer dismiss the creaks? Why, because everyone knows Ghosts dont make creaks, houses do! And that thing at the periphery of my vision can't be a ghost because ghosts don't exist. I'm not sure what it IS, but there must be some sort of logical explanation that doesn't involve ghosts because, after all, it would be totally illogical for it to be a ghost.

Unless, of course, it IS a Ghost, in which case all of that was circular reasoning that required the non-existence of ghosts as a prerequisite.

**sordavie** · 10-24-2008, 01:49 PM

Do creaks by themselves give you reasons to believe in ghosts? How about little invisible gnomes? Or house settlings? Or Martians playing tricks on you? Or whatever? The creaks by themselves don't give you any independent evidence to believe in ghosts. There doesn't have to be also independent evidence that there creakings are caused by something else. So the ghost believer who thinks that creakings verify their beliefs is being circular if they believe creakings are caused by ghosts only because that is their prior belief.

**Kerostasis** · 10-24-2008, 02:22 PM

So the ghost believer who thinks that creakings verify their beliefs is being circular if they believe creakings are caused by ghosts only because that is their prior belief.

But does not the ghost non-believer who thinks creakings verify their beliefs also act circular by believing creakings are caused only by houses, only because THAT is their prior belief?