No, homosexuality is not a sin. The bible never actually condemns homosexuality. The translations were just a little off. If someone cares to point out the passages where it says that, I'll point out what they actually meant.
Sure, show me what this passage
actually meant: "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable" (Leviticus 18:22 NIV).
I think it's pretty clear about what it is to lie with a woman, here. And 0rion, this is a good example of Christendom: people trying to explain away parts of the Bible and omit things that were clear commands.
This is also in a section of unlawful sexual relations, the one that comes after this says it is unlawful to have sexual relations with an animal. For this to have 'another meaning' is VERY unlikely, and realistically impossible.
Oh, and just in case you were thinking "Well Paul said that we're free from the law, meaning that this is no longer unlawful thanks to the New Testament." Wrong, Paul still made it absolutely clear that there was still sin, and the author of Hebrews (which was probably Paul) said "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God" (Hebrews 10:26 & 27 NIV).
Still don't believe me? Well it even references homosexuality as wrong in the New Testament. "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion" (Romans 1:26 & 27 NIV).
You'd be pretty hard-pressed to tell me that these passages have an alternate meaning. If you're a real Christian you need to start letting the Bible form your view of God and not try to make the Bible fit your view of God. The thing is, if we accept the Bible to be God's Word, then we have to start there and figure out what it means, not try to change every part of it to fit today's frame of mind.
My hypothesis on homosexuality is that it used to be a psychological condition caused by various factors as a man grew up and learned that caused him to not be sexually attracted to women. However, recent evidence points to it being actually a genetic trait, so it may have "evolved" (i know that's not the right word) into a genetic mental trait.
It's kind of hard to explain.
Recent evidence? What evidence? Anyway, I honestly doubt it's genetic. I've seen a straight guy turn gay and I've heard of gay guys who later married women and couldn't be happier. And how does this explain bisexuality? The American Psychological Association had homosexuality listed as a mental disorder for a while and that was changed I think somewhat recently (not the past year, but I mean in the past decade or so), if that helps at all. I, personally, don't have a real opinion when it comes to how homosexuality develops. I'm not really sure and don't pretend to know.
But so you guys don't think I'm just being a jerk here: Before I became a Christian I had a time when I was unsure if I was gay or not. Compared to many men I can tend to be feminine and for a while most of my friends were girls and they understood me better. Most people thought I was gay and I was still unsure. Some of my friends were gay too and I had no problem with that.
As you can see, homosexuality being wrong was hard for me to accept. I didn't agree to it because it didn't apply to me. As to 'why' it's wrong the short answer is that it's unnatural. Unnatural relations are the ones that are condemned in the Bible. The long answer is only my speculation and is this:
A man and a woman fit well with one another. Not just physically (as we know that homosexual partners don't quite 'fit' with one another physically), but I mean psychologically, emotionally, and in regards to personality. The qualities that a man has a woman tends to lack, and the qualities that a woman has a man tends to lack. One author describes them as a 'human unit', that they were created to work with one another. In all honesty, I see a great beauty in the way God designed this; taking time to outline things exactly so things would work so perfectly as they do. Now, the reason why homosexuality is wrong in all of this is because it's basically spitting in God's face. He created the relationship between a man and a woman to be sacred and beautiful and you show a complete disregard for what He made. That is why I see it as wrong.
Well guys, I'm back and I'd like to elaborate on this.
Let's look at the nature of a mechanism. Many differentiated parts that interlock to form a construct that achieves a purpose that the individual pieces do not. Such constructs include computers, cars, and so on and on.
Now let's consider bodily mechanisms, organs one could say. Look at my eye. It consists of multiple parts that work together in incredibly complex ways in order to allow me to see. Let's establish two things.
1. Eyes are very complex systems.
2. A part of an eye without the rest of the parts is useless. If I just had a cornea and nothing else, I couldn't see.
The eye is far too complex to have "evolved" all in one go, right? right. This means that multiple mutations must have led into the evolution of the eye. But wait..... If an eye must be evolved piece by piece, each piece would have to be constructed by individual mutations. But a piece of an eye is useless. A useless piece of an eye would not help an organism in any way, and so it won't be likely to survive the test of Natural Selection. Thus, the only way for an eye to have evolved is that a member of a certain species mutated a part of an eye, then his offspring miraculously mutated the rest of the parts, and all survived the test of natural selection by sheer luck.
This is ridiculously improbable. I'm sorry but I don't have enough faith to believe that evolution could have possibly occurred without the supervision of a powerful designer. Natural selection cannot explain the formation of an organ that is built from parts that would be useless by themselves, because they do not make an organism more likely to survive and pass on mutated traits.
This means that the only still-standing creation theories are those that include a Designer.
On a less-important note, have you heard of Theistic Evolution? It works the same with the way we build things.
Henry Ford could not have made any of the marvelous SUVs with built-in computers back in the day, but through a great deal of trails (done by designers might I add) they were able to make progress because the advantageous additions appealed to the market (which plays the role of natural selection in this allegory). Eventually they ended up with our modern ford cars. That is the real evolution. Trials done by a designer that succeeded. Ofc with God the trials would have been made simply for biodiversity's sake.
Did you guys know that Darwin didn't know anything about cells?
EDIT:
Oh, and with regards to homosexuality. God would not allow his Word to be mistranslated to the extent of making something moral look immoral. I would guess that it is immoral because it doesn't produce offspring, it's merely sensual pleasure for the sake of itself (which also is why condoms and birth-control are frowned upon). It's not really the way it was meant to be naturally.
That's my assumption though. The reason I think it's immoral is because God said it was, and God knows a lot more than I do so I'll let him do the dictating. He has a reason, however. The above is just what I think the reason is.
Thanks. That's basically what I've heard perpetuate among my other friends but since I put little effort into science (except physics), I wasn't prepared to fully explain the idea.
Your problem is that you're taking the eye as it is NOW and trying to break it down. You're also making a gross oversimplification of the sensory reception of countless living beings.
Doesn't that make sense, though? He's taking a look at what the eye is now to see what it would have needed to bring it to that level. According to evolution the first organisms didn't even have eyes, so mutations would have had to happen one by one to advance the organisms.
Yay ad hominem! He also didn't know about cell phones, either.
Yes but cell phones didn't exist, cells did. Also, cells actually have to do with biology, and cell phones don't. You just sort of threw that in there to devalue his point with a humorous comment. You didn't explain why it wasn't important that he didn't know about cells at all.
Oh, come on. Even the most hardcore of Christians can't actually believe this. People commit atrocities in the name of God all the time. It's unbelievably easy to skew The Bible to make it say what you want it to say.
What people do and what the Word of God says are two different things. The only examples you can use would be God approving of something that you would think He would condemn. Likewise, it may be easy to skew wording, but only to the people who don't know their Bible at all. The way I see it is that the person doesn't have to argue if something is really all that bad, but they have to prove to me that God would not just be neutral about, but would approve of what they're doing. That is where skewing God's Word is not so easy.
And anyway, have you even read the Bible? From what you've said it's pretty clear you either just went to Sunday school and hated it or else never read from the Bible at all.
That was a bad question on my part. I forgot people believed in the literal truth of the creation story. I use that question for religious debates with my friends that don't, but I just never really thought that much about using it here.
Even if I don't take the creation story literally (which I do--if God can make someone walk on water, the sun stand still, the shadows move backward, and fire fall down from heaven on multiple occasions, I'm sure He can create a man and a woman at a specific point in time), the flood is still a very literal story in the Bible--whether or not you believe it. The thing is, if you're going to argue with Christians about what God does you need to argue about it from the Christian point of view. Meaning, you have to take the history that they say happened into account and create a flaw within it's own structure. If it supports itself on its own, then people who hold that mindset aren't easily dissuaded.
America doesn't equal the world. The entire eastern half of the world had no contact with Christianity for (in your biblical timeline, which I disagree with but I'm going to mention that later in the post, and I'll play along) about 4,600 years. Even if we accept that the first generation to move there that had "forsaken" God, all their children are innocent, yet still ****ed to Hell for not believing in Christ (as the bible states). The Bible never mentions the far east. I know there is a believe that one of the disciples went and preached as far as China, but there is no way his word could of been heard by everyone, and the fact that there is no indigenous Chinese church shows that even if the man ever did get there, it failed.
Firstly, when does America come into this? Israel is in the Middle-East. And there are times when they say that the disciples preached in Asia. You seem misinformed. I won't quote the passages here directly, not because I don't want to, but because there are too many. But I'll list the references to Asia in the Bible: Acts 2:9, Acts 6:9, Acts 16:6, Acts 19:10, Acts 19:22, Acts 19:26-27, Acts 20:4, Acts 20:16, Acts 20:18, Acts 21:27, Acts 24:19, Acts 27:2, Romans 16:5, 1 Corinthians 16:19, 2 Corinthians 1:8, 2 Timothy 1:15, 1 Peter 1:1, and Revelation 1:4. Note that most of these are in Acts, which is the book describing the evangelistic missions that the disciples went on. And most of the references that I saw were them preaching in Asia. Whether or not they rejected the Word is irrelevant. They regarded it as worthless and that was their choice. As for their children, I did reference Romans 2 when it says that they have the requirements of the law written on their hearts, so that they are without excuse. Likewise, in Romans 9:18 it says that "God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden" (NIV). So even if they did sin even though they have the law written on their hearts (which they would have for the Paul says that no one has not sinned except for Jesus) that they still have a chance. You might be curious about the hardening part of that Scripture and to that I'd just have to say that it is an integral part of Christian belief that we are people and that God is God and that He knows best and that we have no right to argue with Him. He is the author of Good, and anything apart from that is evil, therefore He cannot do evil as it would conflict with His own desires.
I know there were other people's posts I didn't respond to. I just didn't have time. That's why if you're interested in the Christian opinion at all (as given by me or by whoever else helps out that knows Christianity at all, and hopefully is a Christian), the questions should be given one at a time. Otherwise you're just using this as a place to air your own thoughts and it leads to no one's education.