Why is homosexuality wrong?

[Greatest I Am]

Why is homosexuality wrong?

We all know what gays are and what they do. All of God’s laws are responses to a victim of some sort.

The one lied to is deceived.
The one who is killed is deprived of life.
The one stolen from looses his goods.

In the case of homosexuals there does not appear to be a victim or anyone hurt by the actions of the participant.

Why then does God discriminate against homosexuals?
It appears to go against His usual justice.

Regards
DL

[ScioVeritas]

Homosexuality is wrong because it goes against nature in a theistic framework. Nature being being in accordance to what God intended or by design.

How? Why would a god design people with attractions for the same sex and then say that it's somehow "not what she/he/it intended?"

In a theistic worldview (specifically Christian) - homosexuality isn't part of the original design but a consequence of the fall. Similar to how originally birth wasn't designed to hurt but after the fall one of the consequences was that now it does. The state of the world today does not reflect the perfect state in which it was originally designed. Additionally, the attraction isn't the part the Bible says is wrong - it's the action of following through with that attraction leading to same-gender intercourse that the Bible speaks against.

To the point of the OP, same-gender intercourse doesn't hurt anyone (assuming there's mutual consent) - but it does go against being fruitful and multiplying since, as others have pointed out, two people of the same gender cannot procreate. Furthermore originally marriage wasn't something predicated on feelings but it was a business transactions between two families. The idea of marrying someone you "love" is something that is a fairly recent (western) development.

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 1358 by ScioVeritas]

To the point of the OP, same-gender intercourse doesn't hurt anyone (assuming there's mutual consent) - but it does go against being fruitful and multiplying since, as others have pointed out, two people of the same gender cannot procreate. Furthermore originally marriage wasn't something predicated on feelings but it was a business transactions between two families. The idea of marrying someone you "love" is something that is a fairly recent (western) development.

This assumes the only reason for intercourse is to procreate. There is a whole laundry list of health , emotional, and social benefits.

[DefenderofTruth]

Let us ask a different question then. Let us assume that homosexuality is neither right nor wrong. Actually my opinion on homosexuality is based in scripture, I have tried to see what scripture says first about it. Its clearly marked in both the Old Testament and New Testament as taboo, or as sinful. But I am not a homosexual and it is not my goal to condemn people on the subject.

Before I was a Christian i was apathetic on the topic. As long as they didn't try to do anything with me, i didn't care about it. That changed when i became a Christian, because Christianity calls for what is “Holy� in all of us. it obviously goes against teaching in scripture. But when i see the conflict about it, it wasn't my goal to condemn these people. So i took to the scripture again and tried to justify it, using passages like "the law is wrote on our hearts" or "love is above all"..

And i tried, i really did... But the more i read the Bible the more it was blatantly clear.. Romans 1, for instance, says “the men gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men�.. This admits that it can be a passionate relationship.. But “received in themselves the due penalty for their error.�

Does it effect me?

“Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.�

no it doesn’t, it isn’t a sin against others, its a sin against “their own bodies.�

So i couldn't keep justifying it, even when i tried. It is an unnatural relationship, and the only way you can say it is not is by some special pleading on the subject, some special means of justification of why its "natural".. We see this a lot in this debate... But lets leave this out of the debate right now. Let say it is neither right or wrong.

__________________________________

Romans 14 talks about "food", what foods we should eat. OR what “days are the holiest�. Some people say one day of the week is holiest, the other says the entire week. Some people say some foods are not clean to eat, another says all foods are clean… This takes up the subject of actions and beliefs that are neither right nor wrong. Its not a matter of right nor wrong, it is a matter of faith.

It says to live by faith in whatever you do. Because God calls us to live by faith first. See, Christians believe that salvation is not rested on observing the law but rather on living with the spirit.

�Just as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.�"~Paul

so Romans 14 tells us “let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister.�

It says
14 I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. 15 If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love.

It warns us to not take up actions that case another to stumble, because you are not acting out of love if you do that.

“19 Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.�…�it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.21 It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.�

22 So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23 But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

________________________________

So the question is can you have faith as a homosexual? And thats an important question if you are a Christian. Anything that makes your faith fail is sinful. Can homosexuals have faith in God?

Actually if you read, back to, Romans 1. The message says that it was because they didn’t believe in God, in the first place, that they were given up to their flesh. It says because they didn’t give thanks to God that they were, only then, given up to sinful desires.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened….24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.


So thats a bit of a different question… If you can not have faith in God because of any of your actions, then that action is sinful…And I am not a homosexual, but ill tell you one thing. I don’t think it is possible for a Christian to not be convicted of sin… Either you believe the Bible and you are convicted of your sins, or you don’t believe the Bible.

So every Christian should acknowledge sin. If you don’t think you have sin, you are not a Christian. And anything that makes it impossible to have Faith in God is a sin. So its a question for people individually, but if a sexual identity (any sexual identity) is placed above God, or above thanking God for your life and for forgiveness. Then thats a problem if you are a Christian, because God comes first.

(sorry its really long)

[KCKID]

Let us ask a different question then. Let us assume that homosexuality is neither right nor wrong. Actually my opinion on homosexuality is based in scripture, I have tried to see what scripture says first about it. It’s clearly marked in both the Old Testament and New Testament as taboo, or as sinful.

The PURPOSE for which these homosexual acts were performed is probably the taboo you speak of and not necessarily the homosexual act itself. Heterosexual sexual acts for the same purpose were also taboo but this doesn’t make heterosexual sex taboo. So, what WAS the purpose behind these taboo sexual acts? Well, idolatry and temple prostitution and maybe pederasty, that’s what! The problem with most Christians is that they cherry pick specific pieces of the Bible but don’t bother to complete the jigsaw with the verses in between. Actually, I would bet that most Christians don’t even bother to cherry pick since their church leaders have already done the cherry picking for them. There is much ignorance at work within Christianity and, sadly, so many choose to remain in ignorance often because it suits their particular stance on an issue. I mean, if Christians were to learn tomorrow that it’s been officially determined by the Christian Church that nowhere in the Bible is homosexuality condemned a huge majority of them would STILL remain averse to homosexuality and continue to make it a religious issue. I think I would be pretty accurate in stating that what the Bible may or may not say about homosexuality is not REALLY the issue here and I think that, deep down, most of us know this. It’s personal.

But I am not a homosexual and it is not my goal to condemn people on the subject.

Before I was a Christian I was apathetic on the topic. As long as they didn't try to do anything with me, I didn't care about it. That changed when I became a Christian, because Christianity calls for what is “Holy� in all of us. It obviously goes against teaching in scripture.

No, it’s not nearly as obvious as you might have been led to believe. And, if you’re looking for ‘holy’ or 'perfection' in yourself or any other human being you won’t find it, sad to say.

But when I see the conflict about it, it wasn't my goal to condemn these people. So I took to the scripture again and tried to justify it, using passages like "the law is wrote on our hearts" or "love is above all"..

And I tried, I really did... But the more I read the Bible the more it was blatantly clear.. Romans 1, for instance, says “the men gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men�.. This admits that it can be a passionate relationship.. But “received in themselves the due penalty for their error.�

Verses 26-27 are typically the place in Romans 1 that the average Christian pastor preaches to his flock because this is the ‘condemning part’ of the chapter and is pretty much all he requires with which to slam homosexuality! Very few preachers, it would seem, begin at verse 20 and quote AND explain the verses in between. Even if they do begin at verse 20 they often skim over the descriptive parts as fast as they can in their zeal to reach verses 26-27. They’re not preaching scripture here. They’re condemning homosexuality!

When we start at the beginning of Paul’s heated tirade pertaining to God’s wrath against mankind (v.20) we see that he’s referring to ‘those’ who knew God that have now turned away from God and instead have taken to worshiping images made in the form of mortal man, birds, animals and reptiles. What is Paul referencing here? Pagan idol worship, of course! So, the key words here are ‘images’ and ‘worship’. How did the pagans worship their idols? Well, there are any number of references to idolatry in the Bible, the worship of which included sex rites, cultic male and female prostitution, drunken orgies, child sacrifice, etc. that were strictly prohibited under Jewish law.

The VERY FIRST commandment of the Ten Commandments tells us:

You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; --Exodus20:2-5.

Nothing irks the Bible God more so than the worship of false idols!

Anyway, back to Romans 1 …by the time we reach verses 26-27 we’ve become somewhat familiar with what appears to have been going on in Rome and even (possibly) within the early Christian Church of Rome itself. ‘They’ were performing worship practices (sacred to the pagans) and the ‘bowing down and serving’ the ‘graven images’ clearly condemned by God. Unfortunately, we are not privy as to who ‘those’ or ‘they’ are in the text and it would have been helpful if this had been defined more fully by Paul. Like much of the contents of these epistles we only read Paul’s side of a subject and so we have to ‘assume’ quite a bit for ourselves. But then, Paul would not have had an inkling that we in the Year 2015 would be reading his letters, letters that were not addressed to us OR INTENDED for us in the first place, would he?

Does it effect me?

“Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.�

no it doesn’t, it isn’t a sin against others, its a sin against “their own bodies.�

So I couldn't keep justifying it, even when I tried. It is an unnatural relationship, and the only way you can say it is not is by some special pleading on the subject, some special means of justification of why its "natural".. We see this a lot in this debate... But let’s leave this out of the debate right now. Let say it is neither right or wrong.

Culture and religion and even opinion play a big part in what we deem to be right or wrong. The same would have been true of Paul. It needs to be emphasized that Paul was no less human than the rest of us. He also belonged to a time and a culture that was far removed from that of our own. Attempting to apply prohibitions, taboos, superstitions of Paul’s day to us in the year 2015 is foolhardy. So, there is no great need to read any more into Paul’s writings than we choose to. I realize that a huge majority of Christians equate Paul to God or Paul to Jesus but there is absolutely no evidence that suggests his words were ‘inspired’ or that Paul had ANY form of connection to God at all. And, one can take what they will from Paul’s personal testimony about his ‘conversion’ on the road to Damascus. That this alleged vision is supposed to have given Paul some kind of authority to preach ‘divine words’ that would be carved into stone for all time for all future generations is somewhat a stretch. Jesus appears to have been totally oblivious to the ‘soon coming of Paul’ since He made no mention at all of Paul when talking to His disciples about future events. Paul’s letters made it into the New Testament Bible by the luck of the draw and the decision to do so had nothing to do with a divine being.

[enviousintheeverafter]

Homosexuality is wrong because it goes against nature in a theistic framework. Nature being being in accordance to what God intended or by design.

Given that homosexuality is widely found in nature, either

A. homosexuality is in accordance with nature

or

B. God did not intend to create homosexuality in nature, nature simply did not come out as intended

Secular-wise It is inherently less than the ideal. You can not reproduce without a third-party.

So its less than ideal, from a practical point of view. But the question is RE why homosexuality might be wrong (i.e. morally), not impractical, so this is an irrelevant consideration.

[ttruscott]

The sexual union was the physical symbol for the union / communion between GOD and HIS creation in heaven, in fact, it defines the meaning of heaven and bliss as union...the two become one flesh. Sexual sins of all kinds may be the "eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" which opens people's eyes to the sin they are addicted to but have been rationalizing (its natural, everyone does it) which allows them to repent.

In heaven there is only one possible way to achieve this union and to seek it or find it outside of YHWH is to be an adulterer and this reality is seen on earth in the the sexual sins, the seeking or fulfilment of a union outside of GOD.

Such sins do not create the person to be a sinner but are some of the acts that prove someone is already or still a sinner. All sin is of equal disvalue, that is, all are of ultimate disvalue and none are worse than another...a little sin does not make you less a sinner but equal under pronouncement of condemnation as the worst demon.

Peace, Ted

[DefenderofTruth]

[Replying to post 1361 by KCKID]

The unanswered question still remains... Do you put a sexual identity above faith in God? Do you put your choice in a partner above God?

thats a very important question if you are a Christian.

[DefenderofTruth]

Homosexuality is wrong because it goes against nature in a theistic framework. Nature being being in accordance to what God intended or by design.

Given that homosexuality is widely found in nature, either

A. homosexuality is in accordance with nature

or

B. God did not intend to create homosexuality in nature, nature simply did not come out as intended

Actually those are not the questions to consider when asking if homosexuality is a "sin".

Animals in the animal kingdom kill, even for fun. Our morality is not based upon the primeval, or what happens in nature. That is not the debate. Sin happens in nature. Humans are put on grounds of morality that out rank anything that happens in nature. (but why? because a "Holy God" exists and we are in His image) Thats the FIRST problem with justifying homosexuality on ground of "natural morality"... Which i might argue doesn't even exist...

The second problem is that Christianity tells us that we are all born into sin. So on those grounds, saying that "homosexuality" is natural, is the same as "sin" itself (if you want to argue on a Christian backdrop). Sin itself is "naturally" applicable to humans. And thats a SECOND problem with debating if homosexuality is justified on grounds of it being "natural".

I would also like to point out that these problems, 1 and 2, are also perfectly in accordance with one another. Our morality is not based upon the primeval, or "natural morality" (which doesn't even exist) and Christianity not only believes this but also explains why.

[enviousintheeverafter]

Actually those are not the questions to consider when asking if homosexuality is a "sin".

Animals in the animal kingdom kill, even for fun. Our morality is not based upon the primeval, or what happens in nature.

Then you disagree with OpenYourEyes' claim, to which I was responding; i.e. that "being against nature" is the reason why homosexuality is wrong.

That is not the debate. Sin happens in nature. Humans are put on grounds of morality that out rank anything that happens in nature. (but why? because a "Holy God" exists and we are in His image) Thats the FIRST problem with justifying homosexuality on ground of "natural morality"... Which i might argue doesn't even exist...

You've misconstrued my argument, which was not that homosexuality is moral because it is natural, rather, my argument is that the claim "homosexuality is wrong because its against nature" fails because it is not "against nature", in the sense of being contrary to the natural order. Its part of the natural order. For my part, I don't think homosexuality is either moral or immoral but value-neutral; though I think that condemnations of homosexuality (particularly on the basis of religious myths) is immoral, and acting on such prejudice/ignorance even more so.

[KCKID]

The unanswered question still remains... Do you put a sexual identity above faith in God? Do you put your choice in a partner above God? Does this seem right to you?

Well, the question you ask is a rather abstract one for me. Any God that you speak of doesn't come from a physical source but from a book ...right? Have you ever seen God? Has God ever spoken to you audibly? No? So, it's faith in this unseen and unheard from God from the pages of a book that you would put above a human relationship with someone you love ...right again?

You know, if God actually exists in the manner that Christians believe Him to then He would surely understand that his 'existence in book form' is all that any of us can go by to indicate that He exists at all. Wouldn't it have been a better idea - especially since 'salvation' is dependent on a belief in God/Jesus - for God to put in an occasional physical appearance every now and again so that no one can dispute his existence? 'Faith' is subjective and cannot either be substantiated or measured.

Thats a very important question if you are a Christian.

Well, perhaps so. But surely this should not be to the exclusion of actual facts (objective) and common sense reasoning ...?