Christian Discussion Thread VIII: Augustine's Revenge.

[The Princes of the Universe]

To be a disciple implies accepting discipline.

Not really.

...It's right there in the root word.

[Eli Islands]

well I think if you tell people "if you are gay you deserve death" is gonna turn some people away.

Such a stance is also a heresy.

but is Leviticus heresy, If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)

[United Muscovite Nations]

The tradition holds that all non heterosexual and non(word I don't want to use) intercourse is sinful. It's firstly that there is not a homosexual marriage, and secondly that what we now know as sodomy is sinful.

when the tradition was made most homosexual acts were either rape or between a man and a boy. but the Bible never talks about loving consensual relationship.

Sodomy is sinful in all cases. John Chrysostom even talks about men committing the "vile sin" of anal intercourse with their wives.

[United Muscovite Nations]

Such a stance is also a heresy.

but is Leviticus heresy, If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)

Leviticus is the Old Law; things have changed, namely that redemption is possible

[The Princes of the Universe]

Such a stance is also a heresy.

but is Leviticus heresy, If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)

Leviticus was, from my understanding, a holiness code that only ever applied to a specific subset of Jews.

[Eli Islands]

when the tradition was made most homosexual acts were either rape or between a man and a boy. but the Bible never talks about loving consensual relationship.

Sodomy is sinful in all cases. John Chrysostom even talks about men committing the "vile sin" of anal intercourse with their wives.

but you can be married or have a relationship without have anal or oral intercourse

[Eli Islands]

but is Leviticus heresy, If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)

Leviticus was, from my understanding, a holiness code that only ever applied to a specific subset of Jews.

I agree its good someone finally understands that. lol

[United Muscovite Nations]

Sodomy is sinful in all cases. John Chrysostom even talks about men committing the "vile sin" of anal intercourse with their wives.

but you can be married or have a relationship without have anal or oral intercourse

A marriage pretty much requires sexual intimacy.

[The Princes of the Universe]

when the tradition was made most homosexual acts were either rape or between a man and a boy. but the Bible never talks about loving consensual relationship.

Sodomy is sinful in all cases. John Chrysostom even talks about men committing the "vile sin" of anal intercourse with their wives.

I don't understand why anyone would want to do that in any context let alone with enough frequency to warrant a specific condemnation so early in church history, but that's not particularly germane to this thread...

[Anywhere Else But Here]

Not really.

...It's right there in the root word.

No, it isn't. The words share an etymology, yes, but it simply means "to learn". Which is why you can follow a discipline (as in a field of study) without any expectation of receiving punishment or admonishment, etc. Thus being a disciple does not necessarily mean accepting "discipline" in the sense you are using it, only that you are receiving knowledge from someone.

[The Princes of the Universe]

Sodomy is sinful in all cases. John Chrysostom even talks about men committing the "vile sin" of anal intercourse with their wives.

but you can be married or have a relationship without have anal or oral intercourse

Josephite marriages, which, by the way, are still solely between one man and one woman, are by far the exception and not the rule.

[Eli Islands]

but you can be married or have a relationship without have anal or oral intercourse

A marriage pretty much requires sexual intimacy.

no the Merriam Webster dictionary defines marriage as: the state of being united as spouses in a consensual and contractual relationship.
so it is a contractual relationship and to my knowledge a relationship does not require sexual intimacy.

[The Princes of the Universe]

A marriage pretty much requires sexual intimacy.

no the Merriam Webster dictionary defines marriage as: the state of being united as spouses in a consensual and contractual relationship.
so it is a contractual relationship and to my knowledge a relationship does not require sexual intimacy.

The Christian concept of Holy Matrimony is rather more stringent than what can fit into a dictionary entry.

[United Muscovite Nations]

A marriage pretty much requires sexual intimacy.

no the Merriam Webster dictionary defines marriage as: the state of being united as spouses in a consensual and contractual relationship.
so it is a contractual relationship and to my knowledge a relationship does not require sexual intimacy.

But the Christian concept of marriage is a uniting in one flesh.

[Eli Islands]

no the Merriam Webster dictionary defines marriage as: the state of being united as spouses in a consensual and contractual relationship.
so it is a contractual relationship and to my knowledge a relationship does not require sexual intimacy.

But the Christian concept of marriage is a uniting in one flesh.

The term “one flesh” means that just as our bodies are one whole entity and cannot be divided into pieces and still be a whole, so God intended it to be with the marriage relationship. There are no longer two entities (two individuals), but now there is one entity (a married couple).

[Jamzmania]

can you show me where in the Bible it says gay marriage is a sin?

A. Sola scriptura is a heresy.
B. Neither scripture nor wider tradition has any reference to a man leaving home and becoming one flesh with anyone but a wife (it is indeed physiologically impossible with any other combination).

Why do you seem to instinctively jump to condemn sola scriptura, when that is not even being discussed? Do you not believe that there is scriptural evidence to back up your argument? Because there is.

[Diopolis]

The tradition holds that all non heterosexual and non(word I don't want to use) intercourse is sinful. It's firstly that there is not a homosexual marriage, and secondly that what we now know as sodomy is sinful.

when the tradition was made most homosexual acts were either rape or between a man and a boy. but the Bible never talks about loving consensual relationship.

This is entirely wrong for a couple of reasons:
1) Actually, we don't know what specific context arsenokoitai was intended to cover. It's a neologism. We can infer that it doesn't refer to pedophilia because a: the etymology is pretty specific to men, not to a man and a boy and b: Greek at the time had a word referring to homosexual pedophilia, and so Paul probably wouldn't have invented a new one.
2) There's a fair amount of evidence that relatively consensual homosexual relationships were common or at least not stigmatized as a form of contraception among the Roman middle class. Granted, we know very little in general about how the Roman middle to low classes lived, but what we do know points to a fair amount of homosexuality that was more consensual than the standard heterosexual relationship of the day, which was between a thirteen year old girl and the thirty year old man she'd been sold to. Literary evidence indicates that these relationships tended to have an age gap but that most of the participants involved would have been old enough to give consent, albeit barely in some cases. Most early Christian converts probably came from the middle class.
3) If the problem was rape or pedophilia per se, why doesn't Paul condemn that, instead? Both behaviors were reasonably common, and in some cases not stigmatized, in Ancient Rome. Greek has the ability to refer to both without a neologism, whereas homosexuality as we think of it was not well enough defined to have a term for it.
4) Arsenokoitai appears, in the Greek, to be calling back Leviticus 18:22. No one argues that Leviticus 18:22 is really just specific to rape and pedophilia.

[United Muscovite Nations]

But the Christian concept of marriage is a uniting in one flesh.

The term “one flesh” means that just as our bodies are one whole entity and cannot be divided into pieces and still be a whole, so God intended it to be with the marriage relationship. There are no longer two entities (two individuals), but now there is one entity (a married couple).

Yes, and as the Church fathers discussed at length, that specifically includes sexual relations. The purpose of marriage is a union where lust and reproduction take place. If you are going to be celibate, you shouldn't seek a relationship.

[Diopolis]

but is Leviticus heresy, If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)

Leviticus is the Old Law; things have changed, namely that redemption is possible

Also note that the punishments specified in the old law are not, technically speaking, commands. They are recordings of the civil penalties in ancient Israel.
On a side note, the generally accepted opinion among theologians is that sodomy is a severe enough sin to merit the death penalty, but that the use of the death penalty is to be avoided whenever possible, and that furthermore simply struggling with homosexual attractions(which is all that is necessary to be a homosexual) is not a sin in itself.

[Diopolis]

Sodomy is sinful in all cases. John Chrysostom even talks about men committing the "vile sin" of anal intercourse with their wives.

I don't understand why anyone would want to do that in any context let alone with enough frequency to warrant a specific condemnation so early in church history, but that's not particularly germane to this thread...

He's condemning sexual practices aimed at avoiding conception.

[Hakons]

But the Christian concept of marriage is a uniting in one flesh.

The term “one flesh” means that just as our bodies are one whole entity and cannot be divided into pieces and still be a whole, so God intended it to be with the marriage relationship. There are no longer two entities (two individuals), but now there is one entity (a married couple).

And Christ Himself said unification of the flesh is achieved between a man and woman. Really, we just went over this a few pages back and we're already having to refute the same arguments. Also, the Church doesn't care about the Merriam Webster Dictionary definition. Of course, Noah Webster was a Congregationalist and would likely agree with the Church's definition of marriage as well.

Instead of talking about arguments we've already gone over, how about we talk about Easter?

[Eli Islands]

when the tradition was made most homosexual acts were either rape or between a man and a boy. but the Bible never talks about loving consensual relationship.

This is entirely wrong for a couple of reasons:
1) Actually, we don't know what specific context arsenokoitai was intended to cover. It's a neologism. We can infer that it doesn't refer to pedophilia because a: the etymology is pretty specific to men, not to a man and a boy and b: Greek at the time had a word referring to homosexual pedophilia, and so Paul probably wouldn't have invented a new one.
2) There's a fair amount of evidence that relatively consensual homosexual relationships were common or at least not stigmatized as a form of contraception among the Roman middle class. Granted, we know very little in general about how the Roman middle to low classes lived, but what we do know points to a fair amount of homosexuality that was more consensual than the standard heterosexual relationship of the day, which was between a thirteen year old girl and the thirty year old man she'd been sold to. Literary evidence indicates that these relationships tended to have an age gap but that most of the participants involved would have been old enough to give consent, albeit barely in some cases. Most early Christian converts probably came from the middle class.
3) If the problem was rape or pedophilia per se, why doesn't Paul condemn that, instead? Both behaviors were reasonably common, and in some cases not stigmatized, in Ancient Rome. Greek has the ability to refer to both without a neologism, whereas homosexuality as we think of it was not well enough defined to have a term for it.
4) Arsenokoitai appears, in the Greek, to be calling back Leviticus 18:22. No one argues that Leviticus 18:22 is really just specific to rape and pedophilia.

but Paul had a lot of strange beliefs that we no longer follow (1 Timothy 2:9-15) and also Paul isn't Jesus so tbh why would we follow anything he said.

[Eli Islands]

Leviticus is the Old Law; things have changed, namely that redemption is possible

Also note that the punishments specified in the old law are not, technically speaking, commands. They are recordings of the civil penalties in ancient Israel.
On a side note, the generally accepted opinion among theologians is that sodomy is a severe enough sin to merit the death penalty, but that the use of the death penalty is to be avoided whenever possible, and that furthermore simply struggling with homosexual attractions(which is all that is necessary to be a homosexual) is not a sin in itself.

but god doesn't hold any sin higher than others, why would sodomy be more severe than say gluttony?

[Hakons]

This is entirely wrong for a couple of reasons:
1) Actually, we don't know what specific context arsenokoitai was intended to cover. It's a neologism. We can infer that it doesn't refer to pedophilia because a: the etymology is pretty specific to men, not to a man and a boy and b: Greek at the time had a word referring to homosexual pedophilia, and so Paul probably wouldn't have invented a new one.
2) There's a fair amount of evidence that relatively consensual homosexual relationships were common or at least not stigmatized as a form of contraception among the Roman middle class. Granted, we know very little in general about how the Roman middle to low classes lived, but what we do know points to a fair amount of homosexuality that was more consensual than the standard heterosexual relationship of the day, which was between a thirteen year old girl and the thirty year old man she'd been sold to. Literary evidence indicates that these relationships tended to have an age gap but that most of the participants involved would have been old enough to give consent, albeit barely in some cases. Most early Christian converts probably came from the middle class.
3) If the problem was rape or pedophilia per se, why doesn't Paul condemn that, instead? Both behaviors were reasonably common, and in some cases not stigmatized, in Ancient Rome. Greek has the ability to refer to both without a neologism, whereas homosexuality as we think of it was not well enough defined to have a term for it.
4) Arsenokoitai appears, in the Greek, to be calling back Leviticus 18:22. No one argues that Leviticus 18:22 is really just specific to rape and pedophilia.

but Paul had a lot of strange beliefs that we no longer follow (1 Timothy 2:9-15) and also Paul isn't Jesus so tbh why would we follow anything he said.

Because Paul is an Apostle and wrote with the help of the Holy Spirit, so his writings were concluded to be Canonical.

[Diopolis]

Also note that the punishments specified in the old law are not, technically speaking, commands. They are recordings of the civil penalties in ancient Israel.
On a side note, the generally accepted opinion among theologians is that sodomy is a severe enough sin to merit the death penalty, but that the use of the death penalty is to be avoided whenever possible, and that furthermore simply struggling with homosexual attractions(which is all that is necessary to be a homosexual) is not a sin in itself.

but god doesn't hold any sin higher than others, why would sodomy be more severe than say gluttony?

Actually, God does hold certain sins to be more severe than others, and sodomy is, in the tradition of the church, the severest of sexual sins excepting only rape(bear in mind that the church's definition of sodomy is fairly broad and not specific to homosexuality), on par with the worst of sins such as murder and defrauding workers of their wages.