Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

No prob from me, Bob.

And for the record, I'm still working out my opinion on this matter.
I just don't want to be uninformed and stuff like that.

You're making a circular argument here. I ask you what exactly the passage is condemning, and you essentially say "that which it condemns". You are completely failing to demonstrate the clarity of the passage. I ask: does the passage condemn all homosexual behavior, or does it condemn specific behavior that we would today call homosexual? If you choose the former, why? And in forming your response, remember that the meaning of the words "vile affections", "unnatural", etc. are under debate.

Can you not see that there is a possibility you are wrong here? I'm not saying you are wrong, or you are right, but that you might be wrong. It is almost a certainty by this point that you are not necessarily right. I fail to see how you have made any argument other than "It is obvious!" when I have repeatedly demonstrated it is not. It is fuzzy on several levels, and you have not so much as acknowledged this. You must either prove it is obvious or admit it is not. Don't even think about changing the subject here, I want this resolved now. Go on, prove its obviousness.



Yeah, whatever. First you have to prove homosexuality itself is condemned. I'm not going to allow you the luxury of taking this tangent. Stick to the point. Prove the obviousness of the passage.

An atheist who considers himself to be god is a logically fallacy. By the very definition, there can be no such person.

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Prove that it's not. I won't continue with this. I am not being a wimp. I have better things to do than talk for hours and not be listened to. I have work to do. I have carefully read your arguments, yet I cannot see them as anything other than unfounded. This is also true the other way round, I guess. It won't help anyone if we just keep arguing.

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He already has. Speaking as a third party, I see that kef has proven that the passage has several possible interpretations, i.e. it's not clear. All that you've done is said "but it's OBVIOUS!", which is not so much an argument as a tantrum.

This cracks me up.

I'm just going to repost the crux of kef's argument, since you're obviously avoiding addressing it altogether.

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Excuse me? I think the burden of proof is on me no longer!

suit yourself

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ROFL. I'm sorry, that's all I got. R-O-F-L.

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That is all you've got, you've simply sat back and mocked when you know little or nothing about what is being talked about.

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Why does it matter to you whether the Bible condemns homosexuality? First, if you don't believe in God or the Bible anyways, what influence would it have on your opinions? Second, whether or not the Bible condemns it (which I believe it does,) has no influence on whether the government should regulate or prohibit it. Just because the bible says its a sin, or just because many (not all) Christian sects teach it is a sin (I suppose you could accept that,) doesn't mean that the government can make laws concerning it.

And whether or not fatpie has done a good job of explaining that the bible condemns homosexuality, I don't think the argument that it doesn't is very good either. All that has been done is raise the idea that perhaps Paul meant something else. However, in no way has this argument shown that Paul didn't actually mean what fatpie argues. Basically, here's what I'm seeing. Forgive me if I oversimplify. Fatpie: The way I'm reading it, the bible says homosexuality is a sin. Furrykef: I don't think it is very clear on that. There are a lot of parts of the Bible that aren't 100% clear. For example, it's not terribly clear with repect to drug abuse, but I believe that it is a sin, too. Some might not. This lack of clarity has a lot to do with the thousands of christian sects out there, and it also has a lot to do with the preacher in footloose banning dancing and rock and roll.

I agree that the Bible is not clear on a lot of things. And specific interpretations from the Bible has been causing disagreements and separations since the book was compiled (and probably before.) At the same time, if we were just to discard every point in every book of scripture that someone considered unclear, there wouldn't be much of any religions left. But just because somebody has made a decision on what they believe an unclear point might mean, doesn't mean it is wrong.

Me? Right, 'cause you're just brimming with accurate information about homosexuality. You won't even attempt to address Kef's argument. Pretending it doesn't exist does not equate to refuting it. So maybe you'll demonstrate your superior knowledge by actually responding to kef's post, which I'll quote again for your convenience:

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Seriously, guys, this is silly.

Fatpie, get on google/wikipedia/whatever and attempt to answer his question!

I hate being devil's advocate, but you can't say "because it says so" because that isn't gonna accomplish anything, and it's a cop-out answer.

OK, but this is my last post. I'll take advice from you because you haven't mocked me (yet).

It does condemn Homosexuality.

I think 29-32 is a good list of the rest, although other things are mentioned. That is the basic jist (did I spell that correctly). Anyway, it's obious neither me nor Furrykef are going to change our minds. So, we have two options:

(WARNING: SARCASM WITH A HIDDEN MESSAGE!)

a. Fight to the death
b. Quit now before we start depositting blood on the keyboard after our foreheads hit it so much.

(HIDDEN MESSAGE!)

Keeping arguing isn't going to help anyone.


P.S. As a sidenote. Although I did not respond to Furrykef's final post, I did respond to the others. I did read the material, not in great depth, due to the fact I didn't have a huge amount of time, but I did read it. I did read Furrykef's posts properly though and I think that I responded appropriately every time. I am by no means infallible, but I do try to understand people's arguments

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Yeah, you already said that already. What you continually fail to explain, what what kef's actual question was, is how the passage in question clearly does condemn homosexuality without any other possible interpretation. Saying over and over and over again that it does does not make it true.

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You asked me to say what it condemns, so I did. Criticising me for not answering old arguments when they aren't being discussed is pointless

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He doesn't need to. He can see for himself from this discussion that the passage in question is not clear.

No, I asked you to say how you can certifiably say that it clearly condems what you claim it condemns, and you did not. You didn't even attempt it.

I could pick a random Bible passage and say "This condemns feeding pidgeons in the park." That doesn't make it true, and if somebody ask "How does this passage clearly mean that?", answering by saying "Because it condemns feeding in pidgeons in the park" does not constitute an actual answer.

But I thought you said that was your last post.

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Woah. Snarkiness all around. Snarky sharks!

And you again failed to prove it, and in doing so, failed to show the unambiguity of of the passage.

I don't beleve that the Bible says that Homosexuality is wrong, and even if it clearly said it, I would'nt want it to be a law. I don't think that the U.S. should be guided by a single religion, was'int one of the reasons people came to the "New Land" religious freedom? Not to be dictated by a single religion?[/i]

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Spaceballs: The Sig

Jengajam:

The Quakers came to America for religious freedom. The Puritans came to America to start their own religious tyranny (remember the witch-burnings and the kicking Lutherans and Catholics out of their states?). Unfortunately, the Puritan way of thinking won the day in American religious philosophy.

You have a point in saying that religious law shouldn't necessarily be national law. I just like tearing to shreds the American Myth of the humble Pilgrims seeking to establish religious freedom.

P.S. For those interested in what the Bible says about homosexuality,

Hey, I'm not trying to get involved in the argument. I'm just reporting the facts.

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I already pointed out that most Christians completely ignore the code of Leviticus (except where what it says conveniently aligns with the person's views...). I remember discussing 1 Corinthians with fahooglewitz, too, but I don't really remember the details... I remember that it came down to being ambiguous as well.

I also neglected racerx's post way up there:


(I'll leave out the rest of the post, even though I'll refer to some of its points.)

It doesn't have any bearing on my opinions, no. What bothers me is that people assert as fact what is not even entirely clear, e.g., "homosexuality is a sin," or to paraphrase fatpie, "if you care about the Bible at all you would be against this". By the way, you commit this same error in your own post, by saying things such as "Just because homosexuality is a sin". Prove that it is, and I think I've demonstrated already that you can't (at least not by Romans 1; however almost every other passage "about" homosexuality has similar issues), which was the entire point.

What I'm saying is, what Paul actually meant is impossible to figure out for sure. Why does the argument even need to show that he meant such-and-such? This isn't a black and white issue, and you're trying to make it one.

I'd also like to point out that homosexuality as we know it today hardly even existed back then, due to the entirely different social context. For instance, in ancient Greece, homosexuality was common (though I don't think it was by the time of the New Testament, but I haven't researched this a great deal), but it was in an entirely different social context: women were seen as inferior to men.

- Kef

I've changed my mind about the issue. I don't reaaly care if people do it o not. This Cartoon changed my mind.

Only if you assume that language is Not an adequate means of conveying ideas, in which case, why pay any attention to anything anybody says? Your point sounds to me like the old "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" approach. Keep in mind, I am a Master of Divinity, and I do feel this qualifies me to comment on this topic.

But since I don't want to contribute to that whole "God hates fags" thing, I will not pursue this any further.

I thought that cartoon was pretty funny and insightful.

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Language is an adequate means for conveying ideas, but when language is ambiguous, then it is no longer adequate. The statement may have been unambiguous in its time, but I don't think it is anymore.

And hey, I don't think anybody here would mind you adding to the discussion. It's not fatpie's beliefs I really take issue with, its the reasoning behind them. Specifically, I can't find any.

- Kef

What's ambiguous about it? Is it that you are unsure of the actual Greek behind the passage? I can help with that. Or is it that you believe that the cultural differences between the first century and today necessitates a whole different approach to language in general? I don't understand why you claim that these passages are ambiguous.

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If some people think that love is something more than a chemical reaction in the brain then this can prove them wrong.

Les Miserables said:


If love is something devine then why would God let to men or two women fall in love? So this is my logic.... if love is a brain reaction then it's perfectly normal like depression, a chemical imbalance is causing your son or daughter to come on to someone of the same gender. If love is something somewhat devine as much as I hate to say it the bible might be wrong, ahhhh I can deal with myself now....I don't want to say that ever again.

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RIP Nathan "Buz" Buzdor

i checked, and although i couldn't see that it said it was wrong, it said don't "be homosexual, gods hates those" or something to that effect.

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if you could choose your ancestors, and grow just like a weed
pick a stud to congeal your blood and get your earlobes free

I'll point you to the same page I pointed fatpie to: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibc.htm

I'd be happy if you can provide additional evidence or justification in either direction, rather than, as fatpie seems to be doing, ignoring that which is there.

- Kef

May I inform you that having looked through that website, in no place does it say thatthe author has studied Greek. He refers to Greek words once or twice, but the words he refers to are general knowledge. I don't think somebody like that is equiped to criticise translations made by thousands of Greek scholars.

The passage in question again:



Immediately in front of the section about homosexuality is the highlighted list, it is written in such a way that it has to be refering to that section, seeing as that section flows straight from that. Before 'vile affections' it says 'for this cause'. Obviously referring back to the words before that. This means that there are many words denouncing homosexuality. I don't think your interpretation would fit for the reason that Paul is talking about something bigger here. Paul is starting Romans by talking about the state of man in general, one religious grouping (apart from Christianity, obviously) is not so important that he should refer to them above others, especially an obscure pagan one. Pagan worship is clearly condemned here, but that kind of lifestyle is proclaimed as the reason God punished them by giving them vile passions, such passions do not come exclusively during Pagan worship.

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