darth_ender said:
I wish to make something clear, since this was obviously mirroring my thread a bit and I recently posted something on the topic: I hold no malice towards anyone who is homosexual.
In an ideal world malice would be like wrath or a seizure, if you feel it coming on sit in a dark or quiet room for a few moments and there's an end to it.
So really there is no excuse for holding a torch of malice for anyone but I must confess that there are times when I've had thoughts of malice towards people and some of those people have been gays but never because they are.
it's nonsense really. It's like fuming and plotting bloody murder about the excess of shine on somebody else's shoe.
I make a clear distinction between the morals I expect of people who believe as I do and the morals of those who don't.
I understand the concept but it does sound suspiciously like a smoke screen.
The Torah was written for Jews so the Levitical laws were only meant to apply to Jews. This didn't stop Jews from seeing Gentiles as ritually unclean because they didn't stick to the rules.
The laws evoked to label homosexuality a sin don't cover homosexuality per se they are more of a prohibition against ritual sexual transvestitism.
All sex outside marriage is a sin in the Torah, and the sanctions are extreme however as a lesser sin it can be seen as preferable to a worse sin as a course correction.
The catastrophic sin of the Sodomites was not buggery but being inhospitable to strangers.
Lot offers his unmarried daughters to them in preference to having his guests interfered with.
Sin is to miss the mark, to not stay on target, so in that case Lot was sinning quite a lot to prevent a hell of a lot more sinning.
Christians and Muslims who adopted these rules (though not many adopt the sanctions anymore) have already adapted them (or had them adapted by an exterior force) for their personal use so why not adapt them further?
While I personally oppose homosexuality and believe it to be a sin, I also don't judge you or anyone at all and do not presume to know how God will account for such things.
If you have come to conclusion that homosexuality is a sin to be opposed you have already judged every homosexual as sinful. You may not have sentenced anyone but if you have come to that conclusion by reflecting on scripture you already know what God will do because it's underlined quite clearly.
It strikes me as a bit queer that many religious people think homosexual feelings are a personal test from God but don't question if the rules in all these sometimes conflicting, sometimes astonishingly similar holy books aren't instead a test to see if people of faith can think outside the book.
I've had gay roommates, a gay relative, and I'm currently in a clinical rotation with a gay nursing student (we're the only two males in this rotation, and I have to change into scrubs in front of him). While I admit to some awkwardness at the thought that he might find me attractive (though I can't blame him, 'cause I find me so attractive ;)
If he is attracted to you and you are the work of God he is simply admiring His handiwork, you can look at the beauty of a tree without feeling the need to drag it home and go to bed with it, heavens, consider the mess!
I don't judge him or consider him on the Hellbound Express. I don't mean to derail anything, but rather to assure you that I think you're pretty swell, even if you are mocking my thread (I'm not sure).
I'm not mocking, (well less than is usual with a Bingothread) I prefer your earlier term mirroring.
I think there is a place for dialogue of this kind but I must admit to have been prompted to post this thread after doing a bit of reading in readiness to ask a question on your thread and was fatigued to read on a Mormon site the same silly nonsense one has to put up with from most of the other faiths
and bigots which seems such a sad set of bedfellows.
I don't think anyone on here is a bigot but it does seem sad to have some of the language of that sort of loathing of minority groups being used in the same arena as addressing the glory and majesty of the universe within and without.
