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Some of us have what is called a closed mind. The benefits to having such are that it keeps the filth from entering the brain.
As far as Jesus saying anything about homosexuality chances are he didn't have to. One thing for sure is that Jesus taught his followers to live chaste, pure, and clean lives.
On a side note aren't we told that Strait and narrow is the path to heaven. It didn't say gay and wide was the way. LOL.
You've made this point several times, I've noticed. Would you mind explaining the logic?
If we allow gays to marry, then we should also allow consenting adults to have multiple wives if they choose. One isn't greater than the other. It's my opinion.
[quote=paullySC;3099752]If we allow gays to marry, then we should also allow consenting adults to have multiple wives if they choose. One isn't greater than the other. It's my opinion.[/QUOTE
This is something I have thought about also. I don't believe we should have laws that prevent people from doing something that causes no harm to others, other than that it offends their sense of religion. Gay marriage fits that description and it seems polygamy would also, as long as it was between consenting adults. I'd be interested in other opinions on this.
Some of us have what is called a closed mind. The benefits to having such are that it keeps the filth from entering the brain.
As far as Jesus saying anything about homosexuality chances are he didn't have to. One thing for sure is that Jesus taught his followers to live chaste, pure, and clean lives.
On a side note aren't we told that Strait and narrow is the path to heaven. It didn't say gay and wide was the way. LOL.
What the majority of those of you with, as you put it, a closed mind, don't seem to realize is that there are millions of us in the United States of America--the country which made "Freedom of Religion (or from it for that matter) famous, who do not share your intolerant belief system.
Personally, I don't care what Jesus taught, his existence is purely apocryphal. There are no authenticated contemporary references to Jesus or his ministry. Every iota of information about him was written after his death by those who were supposedly closest to him.
Now, as an American, I fully support your right to worship a Hebrew thunder god, but that doesn't mean that I have to goose-step right along behind you.
So when you and others who share your belief system back your arguments with "evidence" gleaned from the Bible, I just have to move along. As any good rhetorician knows, once dogma is brought into the dialogue, all rational discussion ends.
If we allow gays to marry, then we should also allow consenting adults to have multiple wives if they choose. One isn't greater than the other. It's my opinion.
Yeah, well--show me the scientific studies which show that polygamy is hardwired into the brain before birth as homosexuality is and you might have a point.
And why only give multiple wives to men? Where are the mulitiple husbands for women? Men are the only consenting adults which should be allowed to have state sanctioned multiple sex partners?
I think you'll need to come up with a better analogy than that one.
BTW, if polygamy is what a person chooses for themselves, whether they choose to have multiple partners, or choose to be one of several multiple partners, as long as no one is hurt, I don't have a problem with it. However, I believe that the laws are written in order to protect those spouses who don't wish to be one of five, which is why society requires a divorce before marrying again.
Jesus never once said that eunuchs were homosexual...
You weren't there. You don't know what he said. Like everyone else, all you have to go by is ancient writings of what he said against the context of all other preserved writings of the period. You look at a modern Bible and see the word "eunuch", to which you apply a modern definition as if it were unambiguous. That falls well short of being a reasonable analysis. "Eunuch" is a translation of the Greek word "eunouchos", which literally means "one who guards the bed". But Jesus didn't speak Greek. The Aramaic word that he would have used is "saris" which means "at the head". In addition to "eunouchos", the word was translated to the same word in Hebrew and to "mu'omin" in Syriac which means "person of faith or trust". (Syriac, btw, was the literary language of the region in the early centuries of the Christian era.)
In Matthew 19, Jesus speaks with a group of Pharisees on the nature of a man's obligations with respect to marriage, excluding eunuchs from being affected by what he says. He notes that there are three classes of eunuchs, those that are born so from the womb, those who are made so by men, and those that are made so by themselves for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. As there are no males that come castrated from the womb, it is clear that Jesus is speaking of a wider class of people than just those who have been castrated, and if one were to examine the broader ranges of both religious and non-religious commentary on the social customs and mores of the time, the inclusiveness of this passage and others becomes only more certain. In the end, it is quite possible to conclude that in many of its uses by Jesus, the term sarisim/eunouchos/eunuchs was meant to include homosexuals, while it is quite difficult to conclude that it was not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Howest2008
Homosexual "Domestic Partnerships" and "Civil Unions" does not have any effect on my "Hetersexual Marriage" , but "Homosexual Marriage" does because the term "Marriage is a seal of approval from GOD and Society that
the "Sexual Relationship" that you are in is "Approval Of And Sactioned" by
GOD and Society.
No, this is backwards. Marriage is an entirely civil institution. Religious officials may not perform valid marriages except with the explicit official license of the state, a license which binds them to the same set of civil requirements as are attached to ship's captains or justices of the peace. That religious groups choose to add a ritual significance of their own to the ceremony or institution has everything to do with dogma, and nothing at all to do with marriage itself. Neither is either sex or procreation a necessary component of any marriage. Each of these is at the discretion of the couple involved.
On a side note aren't we told that Strait and narrow is the path to heaven. It didn't say gay and wide was the way. LOL.
This is an example of the Pharisaic logic that Jesus strove to overturn. His movement was in signficant part a lower-class rejection of and protest against the narrow, vain, and exclusive views of the upper-crust of the temple. In his ministry, Jesus went out of his way not just to include but to exemplify those who were outside the norms and on the margins of what was then approved society. Sinners, lepers, women, children, protitutes, adulterers, heretics, paupers, foreigners (even Samaritans, mind you) tax collectors, slaves...these were his people, and it is these for whom his kingdom awaited. Interpretations such as the one above are a practical distortion of Jesus' actual ministry.
This is something I have thought about also. I don't believe we should have laws that prevent people from doing something that causes no harm to others, other than that it offends their sense of religion. Gay marriage fits that description and it seems polygamy would also, as long as it was between consenting adults. I'd be interested in other opinions on this.
Laws against polygamy (in some sense like laws against abortion) grew up not as a means to limit an intolerable practice, but as a means to limit what were seen as the intolerable effects that were resulting from that practice. But conditions change over time. In a now different age, a de novo review might very well lead to different conclusions.
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Jesus never once said that eunuchs were homosexual...
