Kaiouss Khalizad, thanks for all your input. I do have some thoughts on your post, and I've expressed them below.
your claim that God needs no justification for His morals is no more ethically sensible than saying each person's morals need no justifications.
I said that God's morals are right, by definition, because He gave us the ability to think and reason and understand morality in the first place. As C.S. Lewis puts it, we cannot be right and God wrong any more than a stream can rise higher than its own source.
In a sense, God needs no justification for his morals because our existence is dependent on Him, He created us and the universe we live in. So He is the one who is rightfully in charge. But also realize that God's nature is inherently good, and He has the best judgment, so He wouldn't give any command that could rightly be called "unfair" or "wrong."
I don't quite understand what you're saying here. Could you clarify?
You might be able to construct a reasonable system of morality in an atheistic world, but it would only be an
illusion. In an atheistic world, humans are simply insignificant products of matter and evolution, and there is no higher standard that makes anything right or wrong. For instance, if one rapes and kills a human in an atheistic world, all he is doing is raping and killing a piece of matter in a universe with no objective rules. So what's really wrong with that? There's no
real morality in a universe without a Higher Being, it is just a man-made illusion for the purposes of societal advantage.
But if there is a God, then humans have a
real obligation to do what is morally right, which includes loving other people.
Conscience, common sense, and revelation (God directly revealing knowledge to us through His word). Of course, it is important that you find which revelation is the actual revelation of God, rather than a fraud.
Now that's a different issue altogether - there are self-evident tests in determining which religious books or authorities are from God and which are not. Once you determine that a given message is from the true God, you rely on that to show you what is right vs. wrong.
That's hogwash, because that would be arguing in circles. First you have to determine if the Bible is from the true God, and if you find that it is,
then you put your trust in it. You don't just listen to the Bible because the Bible says to listen to it!
All I'm saying is that if the God of the Bible exists, then homosexuality is wrong. And since I believe in the God of the Bible, I hold to the belief that homosexuality is wrong. There are other clues in nature that point to this as well, as I explained earlier.
The Greek word
arsenokoites literally means "sex between two men," and it is used in the New Testament two other times outside of the Romans passage:
"The law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for
sodomites [
arsenokoites in the Greek]..." (I Timothy 1:9-10).
"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor
sodomites [
arsenokoites]...shall inherit the kingdom of God" (I Cor. 6:9-10).
So here the Bible seems to be condemning the specific act of homosexuality in two other places.
The Greek word that means
homosexuality was always in the text, it was only translated differently in older english translations (King James translates it as "abusers of themselves with mankind"). But that doesn't change the meaning of the word that was always there!
The text seems to indicate that it is the
act itself which is wrong:
"For this reason God gave them up to
vile passions. For even their women exchanged
the natural use for what is
against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the
natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men
committing what is shameful" (Romans 1:26-27).
It seems that homosexuality itself is being condemned here, as opposed to heterosexuality ("men, leaving the natural use
of the woman"). This is echoed by (though it is not dependent on) the Old Testament which specifically states that the mere act of sex between two men is detestable (Lev. 18:22; 20:13).
But if homosexuality is
inherently a sexual perversion that is morally wrong, then there's no way it can be used for the purpose of "helping one another to spiritual fulfillment under God." It's almost like saying that it is okay for a man to cheat on his wife with another woman, as long as it's for the purpose of growing together in God!
Actually, it was Paul (I Cor. 7:8-9, 25-28) who said that. But how is that relevant to whether or not homosexuality is wrong?
Sources for that figure would be good, but even if it's correct, it doesn't prove anything because murder and rape are also more common than they were in the past, and clearly those things are not "natural" or morally right.
How so?! The kinds of things that take place in homosexual activity are extremely unhealthy, not to mention disgusting. You yourself also admitted in your post that "a homosexual is more likely to contract an STD" (third-to-last paragraph of your post). How is that beneficial to society?
I was trying to use intuition alone to show why homosexuality was wrong, rather than appealing to a
specific religion. Intuition could point to the Designer's intentions without touching on any specific religion.
Of course. The only reason it should be considered wrong is if the
Creator says that it's wrong.
It's not banning people from marriage and reproduction, it's banning people from a
distortion of marriage and reproduction. Everyone would still be allowed to get married and have kids, so how would it be
banning them from reproduction?
Also, you have to keep in mind that just because some people may have homosexual tendencies, that does not necessarily mean that the person has no desire whatsoever for heterosexual intercourse. (Perhaps it does in some cases, I'm not sure.) Sometimes it might be a matter of where a person
directs his/her sexual desire. For instance, one day a married man may cross paths with someone who is not his wife and have an automatic sexual desire for her, but that doesn't mean he can
only enjoy sex with her instead of with his wife. It is up to him to recognize that desiring adultery is wrong, and to
redirect his sexual desire towards his wife. In the same way, many homosexuals have left the lifestyle and then got married to someone of the opposite sex. They recognized that homosexuality was wrong, and redirected their sexual desire to something that was acceptable to God.
What do you mean?
But if the
Bible doesn't condone his action, then it's a moot point. Just because someone does something in the "name of God" does not necessarily mean that the God of the Bible actually approves of it. (If I protest the Iraqi war "in the name of President Bush," that doesn't prove that President Bush is against the Iraqi war!) In fact, the "Bible-thumping slave owner" was going
against the Bible by what he did, so the fact that STDs started with him (if that's true)
confirms that the Bible is right in its sexual prohibitions.
Could that be
God's doing? He has programmed nature in such a way that if a person abuses sex in this way, it will backfire on him.
How is that the case? I thought population is "getting out of control" (where the supposed "benefit" of homosexuality is controlling population), not diminishing! Our society is largely a monogamous society, yet our population is doing fine. If any society consists of many families, each having a father, a mother, and a few children, what would prevent that society from growing and perpetuating?
No, although polygamy was not God's original intent, I'm not sure it is a direct sin
per se. King David had more than one wife and there is no record of God rebuking him for it. Apparently God allowed it to take place, although that wasn't what He would have preferred.
All that is simply a commentary on the sinfulness of humanity, as Solomon points out: "God has made man upright, but
they have sought out many schemes" (Ecc. 7:29). The Bible elsewhere explains:
"Although they [the human race] knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man--and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore
God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves... And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to
do those things which are not fitting" (Romans 1:21-28).
One last thing. It's important to stress the fact that us Christians are not trying to be
restrictive when it comes to sex, but are trying to protect its value and honor so that it is practiced in a proper and God-honoring way. In other words, Christians are
for sex, but against the distortion or abuse of sex (Douglas Wilson calls sexual immorality "vandalism" of sex).