this thing told me it was too long (horrible!) so i had to break it into two parts.
hey hey hey, don't put all the blame on me now! i don't know if that's true or not. unless i read it at spacey.com which he supports. it's been so long i can't remember.
sades hon we are not professionals! it's rambling nerdy people arguing is all, which is why it gets all point for point and crap. but fun!
sorry it took a while, i read this but couldn't reply, had work projects needing doing.
now, where were we ... ahh ...
PART I
My apologies Miriam -- ...that was not my intent...
no prob man, just some miscommunication. not offended.
...so the least we can do is try to be objective and fair when we do make those judgements.
yep!
Well, The Bible makes it pretty clear that homosexuality is a sin...
well see. when we disagree on the base points we really can't go further. i explained how i feel about SAYING that the bible SAYS anything. So ... I can't necessarily agree that it's a sin. I dunno. I lean toward the fact that it is but then again ... I really have the sensation - sorry devout christians - that God, omnipotent and all that, saw that man would want to fornicate with the same sex but did not necessarily realize/understand the depth of feeling that would develop between them. that it would/could be the same as between those of the opposite sex which was his intended form of procreation. there are all sorts of judgements about what is wrong to DO - to fornicate outside of marriage, to fornicate with the opposite sex, to lust for another's wife, to have multiple wives, etc etc ... but the act of LOVE - to FEEL it ... is that wrong? lust is not love so if love is celebrated between god and christ, mother/father, father/son, husband/wife, disciples, etc, then ... is it wrong to FEEL love? I don't think so. and when feeling is demonstrated by physical action ... sometimes I fret at the line drawn where it is SIN.
Like you said about wanting a married man's wife. How that alone is a sin ... well, I disagree. I just do. Man has urges. You must change WHAT you are and your nature - which, in some way, is impossible. Like sades said- Free will. If you created us as zombies who followed these rules inherently, we would not know their meaning. I think we understand their meaning by EXPERIENCING. We cannot know it's a sin until - a man covets another man's wife. Man will not learn unless through that sort of lesson. ANd there's no point to the rules without learning. Now, I'm not saying go commit the sins, but truthfully, that's mainly the only way you learn. and THEN you repent.
You will want you want by how you were raised, where you've been, by experience. I say the test is ACTING on it. When a man covets and TAKES another man's wife is an issue for me. But hey, I'm not God and well, it's his world. I'd say if a man covets and DOESN'T take another man's wife - no he didn't sin, but he THOUGHT of sinning. and made the right choice.
...diseases. whew. umm ... yes let's look at statistics. realize that they are a product of science. god is not a realm of science. rather, it exists (and I may be wrong) but I highly doubt that statistics or probabilities regarding who does what is of any relevance to him. he is a being that created a burning bush and visions etc etc. immaculate conception, all that. so. science is not necessarily anything that matters to him. he weighs each individual and each persons sins. therefore, how many homosexuals have diseases matters just the same, i'd imagine, as how man heterosexuals do - they do or they don't and since both sides get them from the SAME act (sex) in a sinful relation (NOT just by sexuality but excess, sin, not practicing wisdom about their partners), etc ... that is not a way to determine which is more normal.
as for subhuman or not ... no I don't think you think they're subhuman. i think, though, that you judge what they do/their existence as those who simply love as well as engage in sex with the opposite sex as a moral crime (that's what sin is anyway). a moral crime tends to color how you perceive a person's overall moral worth. like a liar or a thief or a wifebeater. it's not, like a said, a small matter of disliking what someone does. this is more than that.
When I say "nature" -- I mean what is best and optimal for us.
well i mean ... man is not at his ideal. he won't be until evolution has LOTS of time to complete. judging by ideal states is relative because, well ... the bible doesn't describe every single way to be. what to do about x in y case. which is why I say the point is living, learning, and doing your best and hoping you got it right.
we are not in a utopia, that's obvious. we won't be for thousands of years. and what YOU think is ideal is not necessarily what GOD thinks is ideal, ya know? cuz even with that bible and all ... I still say we can't know 100%.
Maybe "ideal" is a better word...but it doesn't completely encompass the thought I'm trying to put into words. Lying is a sub-action of talking. Talking is natural...but lying is not what we are meant to do, ideally.
well ... people lie all the time. lying is not RIGHT. but I do believe it is a natural habit of man to do. because man naturally likes to evade and color the truth when responsible for something bad.
Homosexuality, IMO, isn't really a sub-action of sex. It is a replacement for sex...an un-natural one.
well see now ... now if we talk about sex I don't want to push, seeing as how your sympathies lie but i am very sure you would say most things Madonna has done in a bedroom are sinful. But much of the world populace would not and would in fact call such actions entirely natural and commit them. Whether they're morally wrong or not is one thing. Whether they're natural is another. They may be entirely natural but entirely sinful. Or entirely natural and entirely unsinful. Who's to say?
would say that someone have sex out of wedlock with a partner of the opposite sex is sinning in basically the same way (again, I can't accurately say if one is worse than theo ther)...
it's weird, you keep saying this. it's like you dont' want to say so because you don't have proof but if you did (which you wish you did) you would. is that the case? do you FEEL it's worse but don't have the evidence to support it?
but the act of sex with that person is a natural act that our body was designed for. Subtle difference...and probably not an important one, really. I guess I'm just picky.
well i say sex period is natural. we are animals on the physical level. therefore all physical acts are "natural." Killing is natural. Crying and snoring and moving in groups and pairing up with someone you like is natural. Eating is natural. Murdering a child is NOT natural but killing IS. It's the rules in which an act are applied that make it morally/ethically wrong or not and those ethical rules are created by MAN - the intellectual side that is beyond the animal within us. and whatever guide books we choose to take with us (ie, the bible).
Oh, I dunno. I don't think there's a problem with disliking a person's action or addiction, etc, and still loving them.
well like i said, there's a difference between disliking and the moral judgement of a person.
If I had a son who was drunk and killed someone in a car crash as a result, I seriously doubt I would stop loving him, but I would obviously be furious with his irresponsibility and his actions, which amount to, basically, murder.
there is a moral judgement in this example. he drove a car drunk knowing he could kill someone and did NOT care. that lack of care for himself or others would be something you judged, as would others. and you would therefore treat him differently from then on until he repented. and even then you would still remember for a loooong looooong time. which would affect your actions. ie, not trusting him with car keys, etc.
I think the reason I would not define our sin as part of us is that it is only part of us for now.
which is why i said we can't judge on utopian terms when we are not in utopia. we must act in utopian WAYS as much as we can and judge knowing we are NOT in a utopia and are in trying times. which is why when a crime is committed we realize it's consequences as well as HOW IT STARTED. and we try to fix that. this world is full of mistakes and it's like a boat with holes in it sinking ... we're trying to patch it. i'm not saying forgive sins or disregard it. i'm saying take things with a grain of salt for you cannot EXPECT or hold to an impossible standard one who is BOUND to fail. mankind if entirely fallible, like i said. but, he does need to STRIVE for utopia. i don't disagree with that. so, I say - hold to a HIGHER standard than what we're at but not an IMPOSSIBLE one. because WE are not god, perfect, infallible.
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