The Tonic said:
That's great for you, but you must realise what a huge and impossible step it is for some of us to believe that God handed down the contents of the Bible to us. Not to open a whole can of worms or anything, but virtually everything in the Bible was plucked from a pre-existing religious text. Like a language evolving from century to century and continent to continent, religion doesn't spring fully formed from the prophet's lips. Just one example - water into wine. Dionysus supposedly did it centuries before Jesus took his first step.
First of all, Dionysus is a god of mythology and Christ is a historical figure. Secondly, It's important to know when the references of Christ and Dionysus turning water in to wine were both originally written. The Gospel of John, whcih includes the reference to Christ's miracle, was written more than 1900 years ago, during the first century A.D. The earliest known source for the Dionysus story is from Achilles Tatius, in the romance novel, Leucippe and Cleitophon," which is commonly said to have been written during the second century A.D.
And what about the numerous prophecies made in the Old Testament of the Christ that Jesus fulfilled in the New Testament. And no, they're not just ones he could simply do by reading the OT texts. One was that his bones wouldn't be broken after he was crucified. That was a common practice to speed up death, especially before the Sabbath. Yet, this happened to him. Certainly, if the powers that be at the time didn't want him to be the Christ, they might've broken his bones anyway, but it didn't happen. Another prophecy is that his hands would be pierced. This was made centuries before crucifixion even existed as a form of capital punishment. It also wasn't anything close to what the Jewish people of the day were looking for in a savior. Stuff like this, and there's many, many such prophecies, also serve, to me and many others at least, as proof that something influenced the texts. God might be a good place to start.
You know the official explanation for that? Satan retroactively rewrote the texts, duplicating Jesus's future miracles. Think how that looks to people not raised Christian. Pretty irrational. I'm sorry but that's just not going to cut it, especially when we're talking about beliefs that shape the culture we all share, and the laws that govern it.
It appears as if Satan was at work after the fact.
My argument doesn't prove that homophobia is inherent in all religion, no. Just the religions that try to control people's behavior, generally, and their sexuality, specifically, which is about 90% of them. Or another way of looking at it - any religion with rules probably has rules about sex, and gay sex. If you want to hold up Unitarianism or Satanism or Raelianism as proof that not all religion cares about this stuff, fine. Stretching that far to make your point only proves mine.
Unitarianism, Satanism and Raelianism are all cults, therefore they should not be held up or taken seriously by anyone. They have no foundation for their beliefs.
As far as rules, I have no problems with them, sexual or whatever. Rules and laws exist for everyone's benefit. There's actually freedom found in rules because everything works as it should. The good thing is, when they're broken, we have forgiveness through Christ. The slate is wiped clean. The same can happen for anyone who accepts his sacrificial death for this to happen.
An aside - homophobia has more to do with straight people than it does with gay people. Suppressing gay people is really an attempt to control women. Women and their wandering uteri are a huge problem for men, and keeping their sexuality under control is in men's interests. Men who don't support the status quo (that is, who don't want a subservient wife) are betraying their fellow men. The whole idea of rigid gender places a divide between male and female that justifies and enables misogyny. People who blur the divide of gender and male dominance of women threaten the whole system, and have to be eliminated.
What pro-homosexual Web site did you get this from? It's completely off base and irrational. If anything, you'd be surprised to find out that a real "man" according to biblical standards is far less "macho" than the image of that that our society may hold up.
DON'T tell me you don't think your wife has to be subservient to you. I don't care about your opinion - I'm describing the pattern of thought that homophobia sprang from, at the same time as describing where marriage came from. You know as well as I do that women were for millennia considered property, marriage was conceived as a financial transaction, and women were only granted personhood in your grandmother's lifetime. The effects still linger to this day (count the women in Congress, look at the stats on the richest people in the country, or how much women earn on the dollar compared to men). The residue of these centuries of misogyny still taints our culture, no matter how much you love your wife.
You're right! The only thing is the poor treatment of women is in no way Biblical, so you can't blame that. Also, I don't think homophobia sprang from this. Seems like a stretch to me.
As far as my wife being subservient to me, well sort of. The Bible does say this is how it should be. However, when people cite this they often overlook the commandment for men in marriage — which is just as strong. It calls for us to give ourselves up for her, as Christ did for the church.
"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." Ephesians 5:22-33
The idea of marriage is one of true humility toward each other and God. If only I could be this type of husband to my wife.
Finally, don't confuse homophobia with the fear of homosexuals. Homophobia isn't like arachnophobia. It's most often a subconscious depersonification of gay people, a double standard, and nothing more. Parsing words with the "love the sinner, hate the sin" rhetoric means nothing when your actions (and your vote) remove or withhold rights from your fellow humans.
I know what homophobia is, although I think it's somewhat a relative term. By disagreeing with homosexuality, that doesn't make me a homophobe. Using that term to describe people who simply disagree with it is nothing more than a form of bullying.
I do love the sinner, hate the sin. (I hope others would do the same with me.)That's why myself and many others disagree with homosexuality. We don't see it like you and others do. To us, it's a lifestyle that's unnatural and not according to God's plan for our lives. So, from our perspective, by taking a stand against it, we are looking to the best interest of homosexuals. I understand how homosexuals and others don't see it as that though. Instead of calling us people of hate (I know some, in fact, are people of hate), it might be more helpful to see where we're coming from. Even if we are wrong — and hey, if we are, that's fine. I'd love to be wrong, I just have no proof of that yet — you can't say it's always done in hate. That's absurd.
