Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike555
The main difference is that in some of those other countries, Christians are being tortured, and murdered, whereas in this country Christianity is being ridiculed and there are attempts being made to pass laws which would penalize Christians who would stand on the truth of the word of God.
The word of God recognizes homosexuality as a sin. Christians had better also recognize it as a sin. (Rom. 1:26-29; Lev. 18:22; 20:13; Jude 1:7; Isa. 3:9; Gen. 19:5; 1 kings 14:24,15:11-12; 22:46; Matt 19:4-6; I Tim. 1:8-10)
The Bible condemns anti-Semititism and there is a curse on those who are involved in it. (Gen. 12:1-3)
There is no place for racism. (Gal. 3:28)
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Interesting that you use the verses from
Kings where the Hebrew word
"qadesh" was incorrectly translated by the KJV translators as "sodomites".
Go look it up. The word actually meant "sacred male" and was referring to male temple prostitutes who worshipped Canaanite fertility gods. You'll find most modern translations now use "male temple prostitute" or "male shrine prostitute". Don't believe me? Look it up in any multi-version online bible site like
bible.cc.com
Romans 1:26 is most likely also referring to people who were idolators and used ritual sex to worship fertility gods. Paul supposedly wrote this letter from Corinth where an ancient Greek historian
Strabo wrote that there were a 1000 temple prostitutes (male and female) in the service of the goddess Aphrodite. Rome also had it's temples to
pagan fertility gods and goddesses.
Given the context,
Lev 18:22 comes right after
18:21 which refers to giving their children over to service in the temples to worship the god Molech, these verses may also be referring to this same practice of male shrine prostitution to worship Canaanite fertility gods as is repeated in
Deut 23:17 (you forgot that one) and the verses in Kings.
The focus of
Gen 19:5 is about the
Jewish law of hospitality and the terrible treatment of strangers in
Sodom. Lot offers up his 2 virgin daughters to the crowd to be raped so that the 2 strangers he has given his protection to would remain unharmed. Raping another male (treating them like women-who had a very low status) was a way of humilating and dominating another male. Why would Lot offer up his daughters if all the men of Sodom were homosexual? It desn't make sense. Heterosexual men have done this throughout history and still do it in war and in prisons. These men were not homosexuals- they were rapists. See the story of the Levite in
Judges 19 for a similar story where a concubine ended up be raped by a gang of men and cut up into 12 pieces instead of the Levite male. see
Ezekial 16:49 for the sins of Sodom.
Jude 1:7 used the word "heterasarkos" which means strange or different flesh and refers to the fact the angels who visited Lot were strangers or "different". Reading this as "homsexuals" is just plain poor and biased scholarship.
As for
Matt 19:4-6 - it's in response to a question about divorce. Read the part about "men born as eunuchs".
1 Tim 1 - see my last post about
1 Cor 6:9. The same Koine Greek word is used (ἀρσενοκοίτης). It has never been used or translated as meaning homosexuals in any secular Greek texts before or after the first century until it was first used in a 1946 RSV English version. As I already mentioned, 1 Cor 6:9 was used for centuries to condemn masturbators -not homosexuals.
Condemning (or persecuting) all modern homosexuals because of a few ancient references to specific same-gender sex acts (there is nothing that says these people were homosexual) in the context of idolatry or abusive sex acts, is as illogical as saying all heterosexual women are condemned because there a few verses in the Bible which condemn female temple prostitutes. Or that all heterosexual men are condemned because there are a fews verses about heterosexual men raping virgins in the Bible (not all acts of rape are condemned by the way- a man can pay 50 shekels of silver to the father of a virgin girl he raped, then the girl has to marry her rapist for life. How....moral.)
And this is what
certain Christians (certainly not all) base their persecution of all homosexuals on....