(EDIT: Daxter posted while I was writing this so I restate a little of what he said.)
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In the meantime, it’s terribly frustrating, especially when you think of all the perfectly fine people being punished, chastised, even lawfully killed because of simply being normal and true to themselves.
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Yes indeedy.
Sin, rebellion against God's rule, is a part of human nature and has been since Adam and Eve.
As for Max's point and Hobo's question about born into or learnt or choice or whatever, I don't know particularly. But homosexuality is the same as the temptation to lie or be selfish or look at pornography or anything else; people will wrestle with them all of their lives, myself on at least two of the ones I listed above, and we won't win every day. Homosexuals are no more or less guilty than heterosexuals. God doesn't ask us to be perfect; he asks us to try but he doesn't turn us away when we mess up. Being a Christian doesn't mean that the temptation to sin goes away.
The Christian jargon word is 'grace', which basically means that God doesn't accept us because of what we do (if that were the case, no one would have any hope or being saved from death); he accepts us because he wants to.
And also people are not born religeous. Whether your born into an athiest family, an Islamic family, a Christian family or anything else, you're born a sinner; an enemy of God. You're only saved from sin if you believe in Jesus,
accept that you do wrong (that's a big bit in this debate) and ask forgiveness.
And yes, I know I'm opening a can of worms by doing this. It's not the first time. But at least I'm more able to hold a case now than a few years (or even months) ago.
And also, Christians accepting the theory of evolution (thanks Anonyman) is also a similar problem (split topic time, Max!).
'Micro-Evolution' means basically not species changing but characteristics changing, like the size of a species changing because all the little ones get killed, or new breeds of a creature like dog breeds mixing or bacteria or rats adapting to be immune to poisons or whatever. Denying Micro-Evolution would be like denying the existence of the Sun. It's there, it's in our faces, it keeps the world alive.
'Macro-Evolution' is the idea of a species changing into a totally seperate species.
This is in direct conflict with the Bible and you can't believe the Bible's account of the Fall of Man (when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, alienating themselves from God) and Macro-Evolution at the same time; they contradict. If you don't believe the Fall then Christianity has no basis at all. I'm not trying to say that you can't be a Christian and believe in Macro-Evolution, but those who try are believing two contradictory ideas.
While there is plenty of current, visible evidence for Micro-Evolution, there is no current evidence or fossil evidence for Macro-Evolution. There are fossils for now-extinct species but none for any in-between stages; none at all! If Macro-Evolution were real then there would be millions.
Also, there's the simple question of two distinct genders of the same species to evolve completely seperate from one another and yet able to breed together. Our reproductive process alone is simply insanely, incredibly complex and sad to say, school syllabuses and scientific debaters really tend to leave out the complexities of our bodies when arguing for evolution.
If Macro-Evolution were true, we'd not even have reached the level of slime. We'd still be dust.
Just so you know, if this sparks a big debate, I fear I will be flooded out, and I'm sorry if that happens.
I was gonna stop there but I think I need to give the details of the Fall and what God did about it. This is really what Christians believe, what I'm arguing for, and it explains my views. It's a somewhat un-summarised addition but I think the extra information may be required.
God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden; a place where they could live in a direct relationship with God. They could walk and talk to him, face to face. There was no pain, no suffering, no boredom and people never died. Adam and Eve were in a perfect relationship with a God who loved them as dearly as anyone
could love.
God had created Adam first and told him to watch over and tend the Garden and all the animals in it. He gave him a job but it would be an easy one because back then the world was easy to look after. He could eat fruit from any tree in the Garden
except the tree in the centre of the Garden, named the 'Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil', because if they ate that fruit, they would die. He was surrounded by fruit trees in all colours of the rainbow and had no reason to disagree.
Later he created Eve to be a companion to Adam. Adam passed on to Eve all the information God had given him.
Later on the Devil, Satan, took on the form of a snake and entered the Garden. Satan was once an angel but had tried to overthrow God, and so had been banished from Heaven.
Satan came to Eve and told her that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge would make her as powerful as God. He told her that God had been lying and that the fruit would not kill her. The fruit looked good and she decided to listen to the serpent, believing that God had lied. She ate some and also gave some to Adam, who was with her at the time and had witnessed the whole conversation between her and Satan. He ate it, to (perhaps seeing that his wife hadn't been struck down dead instantly).
They did not become as powerful as God, but they gained Knowledge of Good and Evil, because before they had never experienced Evil. Now they had commited it in disobeying God. They then began to feel ashamed of what they had done and attempted to relieve it by making pathetic clothes for themselves.
Later on God came walking through the garden and couldn't find them. He called out and they came and he saw what they had done; he saw their shame and their fear.
Because they had disobeyed God, they had to be seperated from God. He sent them out of Eden. And their actions didn't just affect themselves; it affected the whole universe. It created emnity between them and God, between mankind and Earth, mankind and animals, and between people. Animals would from then on attack people, the Earth would become violent and growing plants for food would become difficult and labourious.
Worst of all, all people from then on would naturally be sinful. People would be born as enemies of God, by nature doing things against his laws, such as looking at pornography or practicing homosexuality. They would fight between one another and against the Earth. This was the cause of pain, of suffering, of war, of disabilities and also of Death.
God loved humanity so much that there are not words to describe it, but humans turned from him, rejected him and so could never be with him. The Old Testament (the bit of the Bible set before Jesus) describes his relationship with them (I'm referring to humanity in past tense, things have changed as you will see) sometimes like a Father whose child has turned away, and sometimes like a husband with a wife who constantly commits adultery. And because humanity turned from God, they could never,
ever repay our sins enough to go back to him. They could be good but never good enough. God chose a small number of people, the Israelites (the Jews), and tried to work in them to save them. By sacrificing animals they could pay for their sins; the animals took the punishment that the Israelites deserved. But it didn't work that well; the Israelites were constantly rebelling against God.
Despite it all, God never stopped loving humanity. So eventually he sent his Son Jesus, into the world. Jesus spent two or three years at the end of his life teaching humanity a new way to live in preparation for what was coming. At last, he let himself be arrested and killed on the Cross. He died as a sacrifice, in the same way that the Jews had sacrificed animals to pay for their sins.
The difference between Jesus and the animals was that the animals were sinful; they were part of a sinful world. Jesus was born of God; he was a part of God and had never, ever sinned. He was the only thing since the Fall to be free of Sin. He was literally a perfect sacrifice, good enough to pay for the sins of every person in the world.
Not only that, but because Jesus was perfect, he didn't just die; he rose back to life! Death, as expained earlier, is the consequence of sin, of rebellion against God, but because Jesus had never sinned he was
immune to Death.
As if that wasn't enough, Jesus has said to us that anyone who believes that he is God, that he was sinless and that he died and rose again, and who accepts that they sin and admits their sinfulness will be given a share of his sacrifice. God will effectively view them as sinless, and because we're sinless, we too will be immune from Death. After dying we will rise again and have eternal life with God in a paradise greater even than Eden.
Homosexuality and the Church
