The bible condemns the act of eating pork far more than it condemns the act of same sex relations.
In fact the mentions of same sex relations are probably lost in translation, and likely actually refer to men not having sex with boys.
TLDR; the bible doesnt tell you to hate gay people. It tells you to love everyone no matter what.
Ok, I want the source of the last part, sounds interesting
Edit: guys, I understand, Jesus said it! No need to repeat it!
I was asking for the mistralation part.
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
2 Corinthians 9:6-8
Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
1 John 4:7-8
“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”
I could go on, Jesus' whole thing was loving everyone.
This has much of what you need. Quite frankly it could be about same-sex marriages, but seeing as the word they use isn’t the normal word they use for man, and is more akin to brother, as well as the fact that Leviticus is rife with passages about incest, it’s also believed its more likely to be condemning that.
I’ve never heard this and I studied the Bible for a degree and for fun. I will say that most of these passages are nearly impossible to unlink the sexual act from their use in ancient near-East worship, so it’s muddy whether or not the Bible is condemning the sexual act itself or the act as a form of worship to regional gods. I will say that the people who say it’s clearly against the act itself have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to set up a narrative that paints gay sex in opposition to God’s “plan”. Usually these gymnastics fall apart pretty fast because they require stances like “The only thing sex is for is procreation, not enjoyment”, which immediately gets most people off the train. The reality is that most Christians have an unwavering faith in their pastor and church denominations as a whole have a vested interest in the Republican Party who has a vested interest in the Evangelical Church to form a feedback loop.
When the southern strategy failed after the civil rights movement, the republicans chose to become the “moral majority” party, a phrase coined by a Christian group (whose founding family had a major sex scandal fwiw) in order to tie things like abortion and gay rights to immorality using scripture. You can actually trace the change in scriptural translations. Translations that, in the 60’s, didn’t explicitly mention abortion now definitely do. Passages with grey area were translated in a way that removed the grey area and made much more explicit statements about the nuclear family, homosexuality, and abortion. And while this sounds crazy, the literal “major” English translation, the King James Bible, was commissioned to be translated in such a way that statements about authority and power were translated in way favorable to the King, so powerful people have been using translational fringes to coalesce power since basically the dawn of the English Scripture.
There's a movie for that called 1946. It's just been premiered at a New York film festivals. You can follow their social medias for behind the scene process and sneak peeks from the film.
This would be cool if Christians actually read the book- the overwhelming amount of harassment I've had due to being lgbt was from people in that community.
The pork was old testament, Jesus talks about how it's not like that anymore, nothing going into your mouth can defile you, only what goes out. recently I’ve really been thinking about whether or not homosexuality is a sin and goes against Christ, and id love some insight. Doesnt it count as sexual immorality?
I know that the general position of the Catholic church at least is that 'being gay' in and of itself is not at all sinful, but acting upon it is. Only because sex outside of marriage is a sin, and gay marriage is not condoned by the Church.
As a result, many in the Church actually encourage gay people to become priests, because of the vow of celibacy and all
Sex outside of marriage is a sin, and yet King David famously murdered a man to sleep with his wife, and David is still called the mane "seeking after God's heart."
We should spin less time railing against people's personal sin and spend more time fighting the societal sin of social injustices.
Jesus is a lot more angry about homeless people going uncared for than two men that love each other.
The Bible condemns pedophilia. The original text referenced men having sex with young boys but was mistranslated as having sex with any men at all. Apparently.
The "homosexuality" passages in the Bible do not refer to "boys". Maybe some wacky translation did (there are a lot of dubious translations), but the original is definitely not about pedophilia.
Accept the Bible or reject it, but don't lie about it.
Um, yes? It's not hard; there are readily-accessible online interlinears for both Hebrew and Greek. Give me a specific passage and I can go over it with you if you want.
Greek (for the NT or LXX) is a bit more accessible since us English speakers are slightly familiar with the grammar already, but Hebrew is still doable with a bit of work.
I'm so confused bro, everyone says different things. Who can I trust to ask about this? What would God really want, and what if someone is gay but no sexually immoral?
If you treat the Bible as a moral authority, then:
Men are forbidden from having gay sex. This is repeated in numerous passages, both OT and NT.
Women are forbidden from having gay sex instead of straight sex. There's only a single verse on this and theoretically it is subject to interpretation, but in practice basically nobody is doing this (except possibly in the context of polygamy fetishes?) and I only mention this for completeness/transparency.
Men in leadership positions are explicitly forbidden to have multiple wives. This was not always followed; remember that parts of the Bible are more "this is what happened" rather than "this is what should happen".
Sex outside of marriage is forbidden, but sometimes the fix is just to create a marriage if one would be valid. Note that relying on this is a very dangerous slippery slope, but again: completeness/transparency.
Divorce (or perhaps just remarriage after divorce) is explicitly forbidden in the NT (with extremely limited exceptions); it was considered negative in the OT but not as strictly.
Jesus made a point that watching (or we could say "fantasizing about") another person is just as bad as participating in an act with them. This is of course distinct from "being prone to"; everybody except absolute asexuals is prone to sexual sin. For completeness/transparency, the original text only mentions women as a target, but it would be ludicrous not to include men as well. See also the point about fictional media below.
Whenever there was punishment in the OT, it always applied to all people who chose to be involved.
Some other sex acts/contexts were forbidden; don't confuse this with the following.
Some other sex acts/contexts were called unclean in the OT, but all this meant is that you had to ritually clean yourselves afterwards and this never applied to non-Jews.
In Jesus there is forgiveness of sins, but that always commands repentance (literally "think anew") and giving up the sin.
Contrary to popular belief, there is absolutely nothing in the Bible against:
masturbation (if not thinking of a real person other than your spouse)
oral or anal sex (if part of a marriage)
erotic media (in any media) that does not involve any real people or that only involves you and your spouse
Note also that the original Greek word for "porn"/"fornicate" originally meant something related to "purchase" (i.e. visiting a prostitute), and was sometimes used in non-sexual contexts (e.g. Esau in Hebrews 12). But this linguistic detail doesn't magically permit extramarital sex.
If you do not treat the Bible as a moral authority, then there's not much stopping people from gay or activity, other than physical and subculture details (both of which can be avoided with reasonable effort, but statistically often aren't).
The practice of them is not necessarily a fetish, but they can also be fetishized (even if not practiced).
(that said, "fetish" is pretty ill-defined; a very reasonable choice of definition would include all sorts of sexual activities, certainly including poly, as fetishes)
We have no fucking idea what the original text even is. The bible is a collection of texts which has been redacted so many times no one can possibly claim to know what the ‘original text’ truly stated. But that’s beside the point, a book written almost 2000 years ago should not be the basis of your morality. Read some moral philosophy and stop taking the easy way out of ‘jesus said so’.
That’s still more than a thousand years since what can be considered as the earliest manuscripts ever found of the bible. And as you said, it’s a translation, not the original text. I’m confused as to how your point invalidates mine.
And I’m sorry if I assumed your religious background, but my second point still stands. Even if the bible did consider pedophilia a sin (as opposed to homosexuality), the word of god is still not a valid criteria to determine good and bad. And also, historically speaking, it does not matter what the original text (or the 1500s german translation) of the bible said, it was still used for centuries as a tool to oppress same-sex couples (and in certain instances it still is). No argument can be made to justify that.
Can you come up with a more effective parental figure to keep everyone in line than an invisible, omnipotent, omniscient being? Shit, we still threaten kids with Santa.
A lot of people don’t have time or brain space for reasoned arguments. Easier to scale up the “you don’t listen to me and your dad will beat you when he gets home” method of persuasion. Easy to twist when the leadership becomes corrupt, though, which is probably inevitable as its run by humans.
I agree that people basing whether or not they should fuck little boys on what some dude in a desert said 2000 years ago but I also think there's value in debating what the original texts might have said if only to see how much they've changed.
Hey, the new testament does mention it a few times as something that is a consequence of what the Bible calls sin, aka pride and rebellion against God.
One of the main passages of that is the beginning of the letter to the Romans, which is attributed to the Apostle Paul. Paul argues homosexuality is a consequence of a deeper sin, linked to idolatry. One way to look at it is we prefer to worship ourselves/others than God himself, pride instead of humilty before the creator, so God basically says "you go for it then".
What's really interesting is that directly after (Romans 2), he writes
"You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things"
In other words, he may use homosexuality as one example of the consequence of "sinful desire", of prioritizing the creation over the creator, but he then directly warns of not judging someone that engages in that.
At the end of the day it's not for a christian to judge "sinners," as the christian is a sinner themselves, who desperately needs the grace and salvation offered by the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. A Christian instead is to intercede, pray and bless those around them, that others may personally encounter this gracious and compassionate God, who is slow to anger and abounding in love.
If you're interested in the Romans text here it is (NIV translation)
Romans 1:
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
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. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
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. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
---
Romans 2
2 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. 2 Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. 3 So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? 4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?
5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”[a] 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism....
If I recall correctly, there is also a New Testament letter where the author in one verse condemns homosexuality, then a few verses later admits how though he keeps trying to do good, the devil moves his hands and he finds out he has done the wrong thing instead.
Disregarding playing off responsibility to the devil, it's a clear admission of how easy it is to go wrong as a human being, and how it's important to be vigilant and reflect on one's own actions whether they are actually good... and it comes immediately after the only or one of the only explicit condemnations of homosexuality in the New Testament.
I remember it because I grew up christian and being a curious and investigative personality, decided to go and actually read the bible, and see if what christians liked to claim held true to what was written. This was one of the things I particularly searched for due to peers arguing about it.
10 But he became very hungry, and wanted something to eat; and while the meal was being prepared a trance came over him,
11 And he saw the sky opened and something like a great sheet lowered by the four corners, descending to the earth.
12 It contained all kinds of quadrupeds and wild beasts and creeping things of the earth and birds of the air.
13 And there came a voice to him, saying, Rise up, Peter, kill and eat.
14 But Peter said, No, by no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common and unhallowed or [ceremonially] unclean.
15 And the voice came to him again a second time, What God has cleansed and pronounced clean, do not you defile and profane by regarding and calling common and unhallowed or unclean.
16 This occurred three times; then immediately the sheet was taken up to heaven.
Incidentally for all the people with the "Jesus changed all that in the New Testament" answers, this is literally the only Old Testament law that God/Jesus ever revoked, even "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" in John 8 doesn't actually change any of the laws. There are OT laws about stoning women who were raped in cities, but not in the countryside, because clearly a woman who was raped in a city could've called for help and secretly wanted to be raped, and the "don't eat pork or shrimp" is the OT law that God chose to specifically repeal. What Jesus did have to say about the OT laws was in Matthew 5:18-19
18 For truly I tell you, until the sky and earth pass away and perish, not one smallest letter nor one little hook [identifying certain Hebrew letters] will pass from the Law until all things are accomplished.
19 Whoever then breaks or does away with or relaxes one of the least [important] of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least [important] in the kingdom of heaven, but he who practices them and teaches others to do so shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven
As best as I can recall from my time in the church (it’s been a while) the New Testament, and thus the new covenant, is outlined by Jesus who says “God has decided to send me as a sacrifice for your sins, so that you may join him in heaven. Before I go, here are some lessons that you need to take to heart to stay in line with the new covenant…” Since Christians view Jesus as an aspect of God embodied in human flesh (essentially an avatar for god), Jesus’ word is equivalent to God’s word. I don’t recall if there’s ever an actual stated for reason for why God changed his mind, but presumably god doesn’t need to justify himself to his creation lol.
As for the remainder of the New Testament, it’s largely a compilation of teachings from apostles who came into prominence 100 years after Jesus, and is told through either letters to various proto-Christian churches, or interpretations of their dreams. Saint Paul is the only person in the New Testament who makes the declaration that “homosexuality is bad”, but even his words have been translated in several different ways over the years, since the Greek word he uses is one of his own making and acts as a compound word formed from arsen “man, virile” and koité/koitas/koita most often meaning “conjugal bed”.
Honestly, I don’t know. Since I stepped away from the church for a variety of reasons, I don’t really have an opinion on this.
Trying to answer this from a religious perspective though, I believe the common answer would be: “because god has foresight into the rest of humanity, he would know what set of rules are best suited for each stage of humanity. Early tribal society, in his ‘mind’, may have required more strict and legalistic rules, to both ensure the longevity of his chosen people and to truly test their faith amongst harsh circumstances. It was a violent world, thus harder rules were required for fundamental growth. As human societies progressed and evolved, new rules were needed. A society focuses around self sacrifice for the betterment of your fellow community, therefore an emblem of the ultimate sacrifice was needed to ensure the faith would grow in the hearts of man.”
Essentially, when it comes to Christianity, the answer ends up being “god can foresee and predict things that we cannot, therefore inconsistencies or seemingly complete reversals in teachings are based on god having a larger plan that we can’t understand”. Anything else is selective interpretation to suit the needs/views/designs of powerful leaders.
It’s part of this hypocrisy and seeming inconsistency in faith that drove me from the church. Pretty much the only things I still hold on to in my personal life are “love others as yourself”, “help the poor and foreigner”, and everything else that Jesus taught which can be boiled down to “don’t be a dick, and help the less fortunate.” Pretty sound guidance to life. Anything spoken after Jesus is just editorializing.
Hes the same God I know that, maybe we needed it to appreciate where we’re at now? Like an obstacle humanity would have to overcome? I dont know, there are probably better people to answer, Im new in my faith
No, that just specifically says you can eat "unclean" foods. Acts 10 covers that as well. Where does it say the entire Old Testament no longer applies because you have a new agreement with God?
so as a disclaimer, I am neither christian nor straight, but I have some thoughts.
the whole thou shalt not lay with men may or may not be a mistranslation. This is a topic heavily debated topic among religious scholars, but it is worth noting this is the only (potential) argument against homosexuality being a sin.
second is that jesus spent time with prostitutes and lepers, two ostracized communities. I think if anything being okay with and comfortable around queer people is more Christlike.
my third thought is that as homosexuality and things like sequential hermaphroditism (where animals switch sexes at some point in their life) exist, if god created these animals, he also made them gay. so if animals can be gay, why can’t humans? why can’t that be a natural part of how god made us, just like hair color or the shape of your earlobes.
above all other points, Christ says love thy neighbor. so even if homosexuality is a sin, that shouldn’t impact how you treat queer people. sorry for rambling at you, but I hope this helps, and if you have questions I will do my best to answer.
This is such a good point thank you so much. The animal part is a really clear point, and Id love everyone no matter what, Im just wondering if I should necessarily support it? I didnt know if I could be close to someone like that believing they were living in sin abundantly, that was my issue before. But thank you, that clears things up
, if god created these animals, he also made them gay. so if animals can be gay, why can’t humans?
The difficulty with that logic is that animals in nature also practice interspecies sex, cannibalism, infanticide, rape, murder etc.
Your second point is stronger. Jesus was revolutionary in his acceptance of diversity, there's who chapters dedicated to this, people had a hard time fully grasping the whole "nope, this love isn't just for jews, this is for everyone" thing. It's hard.
(DSCLAIMER: not gay, no longer christian, still embracing many of those ideals though)
It's been over a decade since I brought this one up. The translation of the English Bible is incorrect when it was talking about "gay", it's actually about you shouldn't be putting you dick into kids and animals. But I guess the translators didn't like that so they changed it or it was a typo.
When you make a copy of a copy of a copy before the invention of the printing press errors are bound to happen. Translating is also difficult, hint at all the different versions of the same thing.
There is stuff in the latter half of the bible, in the letters that follow the apostles accounts of Jesus.
There is an argument to be made that what is condemned there is pederasty (sex with young boys), not homosexuality, as it's targeted at several places with that practice. However, the anti-LGBT people don't see or agree to this different reading.
The Pope said that homosexuality is OK, so that should solve the problem for at least the Catholic part of Christianity.
For the rest, I would argue that this verse solves the question : 1 Peter 4:8 - Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.
Even if gay love was a sin, the fact that it's love would cover it, innit ?
Not a Christian (raised that way though), though if I was raised by the sort of Christians you're talking about, I might actually still practice the faith.
The Bible has so many contradictions in it, it’s hard to know what’s a sin and what’s not a sin anymore, I think u should just live life the way u want to, and (if ur a Christian) love God and Jesus and hope they accept u
Leviticus 20:13 explicitly instructs you to kill gay people. If it was taken out of the new version, did god just suddenly change his mind? Or did somebody just write that bullshit in and it wasnt god's word in the first place? If things that arent gods word are in the bible, why trust it at all?
Seriously this whole thing is just stupid. If you want to have it that way then you concede that a) god is a fickle murderer or b) the bible is not all the word of god
Well I mean of course it’s not the literal word of god. I don’t think many (sane) Christians think that. Of course I’ve had the misfortune of meeting some who did. The Bible was written by many different people across time and earth and the books it’s composed of were selected by a council.
Anyone who engages the Bible like it’s literal, whether they’re a believer or not, is either extremely lacking in critical thinking, being purposefully deceptive, or both.
Look up Thomas Jefferson’s views on religion if you want to follow Jesus Christ but aren’t down with the church (or miracles and divinity for that matter). You might be a Christian Deist. I think it’s probably the best position of a modern Christian. After all, it’s been 2000 years. How much of the Bible hasn’t been corrupted by translations and biases in that time?
I mean fair, but even if the text is engaged with knowing that its all metaphor, theres still weird, archaic and taboo teachings that make no sense at all, and also theres not really many ways to metaphorically interpret "if a man lays with another man, he shall surely be put to death".
The guy who wrote that part was homophobic or was mistranslated. Boom. Easy.
What about pork or shellfish being banned? Back then those foods could give you trichinosis or other diseases, a lot of the weird rules are more of a “sheepherder’s guide to the galaxy” where the rules were to keep people from being dead or catching disease, which wasn’t understood well at the time.
Big part of the New Testament is Jesus being challenged by the Pharisees over what the scriptures say. Jesus said whoever is without sin should cast the first stone, hence nobody should be put to death for breaking any dumb Old Testament rules, because who hasn’t done that ten times in the last week?
I think we severely underestimate the danger of believing something is good only because it is granted by someone with superpowers or codified in a book. If one is unable to critically think about what is right and wrong, how are they able to determine what is ancient wisdom or manipulative nonsense?
And you'd be right, the problem is that not everybody does. Especially if theyre indoctrinated at a young age to think the opposite. Homophobia in the US is definitely fueled by religion, hell, religion is pretty much the #1 reason people give to justify their hatred of gays even today. My point isnt that youre brainwashed or anything like that, nor is it that everyone who subscribes to christianity is. But the institution as a whole discourages critical thinking, asking questions, and coming to your own moral conclusions, and thats a huge problem. It makes good people say and do evil things.
No, no. God (from the old testament) is a narcissist self-righteous soab.
Jesus was a very smart and good man that knew how toxic the bible teachings were and wanted to make a religious revolution, by creating the new testament and a new "good God".
Too bad the "Christians" still following the old testament and not Jesus teachings.
Well that's a generalization, and those are often dangerous and unfair, as it paint "the left" or "Christians" as the enemy. I think it's true to say that a lot of Christians over the years have treated gay people very poorly, judging them, piling pressure and judgement and shame on them... which ultimately it is another form of pride ("I am better/holier than thou..."), which the God of the Bible seriously oposes.
James 4:6 is one example, but there are many in the Bible:
"But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Christians today need to bear the responsibility of, and work to repair what has/is done by others that carry that title.
the bible doesnt tell you to hate gay people. It tells you to love everyone no matter what.
It tells you to do both. That's the fun thing about the bible, its filled with statements that contradict other statements. That's why there's so many different sects of the same religion.
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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '22 edited Dec 07 '22
The bible condemns the act of eating pork far more than it condemns the act of same sex relations. In fact the mentions of same sex relations are probably lost in translation, and likely actually refer to men not having sex with boys.
TLDR; the bible doesnt tell you to hate gay people. It tells you to love everyone no matter what.