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Goodbye Jesus

Christ Never Condemned Gays


Georgia Lass

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Hello,

 

I was recently told by a Christian friend of mine that Christ himself never condemned gays.

 

"Go back to the New Testament to see if you can find Christ's words supporting any form of prejudice."

 

So I did just that and she was right! I can't find even one direct quote from Jesus Christ that is prejudicial in any way.

 

:Doh:

 

 

Any thoughts?

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Hello,

 

I was recently told by a Christian friend of mine that Christ himself never condemned gays.

 

"Go back to the New Testament to see if you can find Christ's words supporting any form of prejudice."

 

So I did just that and she was right! I can't find even one direct quote from Jesus Christ that is prejudicial in any way.

 

:Doh:

 

 

Any thoughts?

 

Yes, I agree there is no direct quotation of Jesus about gays. Some even like to say that the "disciple that Jesus loved" shows he had homoerotic feelings. Others say, that's the way guys in their culture behaved, look at middle eastern countries where they hold hands, etc. There are verses in Paul that pretty clearly attack people who have same-sex sex. The end of Romans I is classic. Then Paul says the "malakoi" and "arsenokoitai" will not inherit the kingdom of God, and he in another place states the behaviors as nouns: malakia and arsenokoitia. In modern Greek malakia means masturbation, but some people think in ancient Greek it meant being the passive partner in anal intercourse. Arsenokoites in ancient Greek means literally "male sex guy" and some people say it's a kind of gigolo or male prostitute, others say it's a man who has sex with a man. I did a word study of all its instances in ancient Greek some years ago and didn't turn up an actual definition, just a number of places where it was used, either in poetry or mostly in Church Fathers commenting on Paul or listing sins.

 

Since male-male sex is condemned in Leviticus (man who lies with a man as with a woman), I think the default assumption is that Paul continued that tradition, and that his word use should be interpreted in light of Jewish law.

 

When I was a Christian (I'm gay and happily in love - we've moved into a new apartment!), I never could buy the arguments of liberal christians that the Bible doesn't really condemn gays. I thought it looked as though it did fairly clearly, and it was backed up by tradition.

 

One point: what we think of as "gay" is a different social construct from what the ancients thought of. I don't think there's any evidence that people conceived of an interior "orientation" clearly before, say, the nineteenth century. maybe only in Plato's Symposium and a few other places. usually the emphasis was on the act. Sodomy between man and wife was punishable in Italian cities in the Renaissance, for example, let alone between man and man.

 

A second point: Mediterranean and ancient cultures were much freer in allowing emotional displays between males than modern Anglo culture. Even in the USA before around 1920, more emotion and physical tenderness was accepted between males than was true in most of the 20th century.

 

Women tended to be less noticed (a sign of society's valuation of men higher than women, I think). Still, Paul condemns women who desert the natural use at the end of Romans. Amanda on this site used to interpret this very differently, but most people think it's an attack on what we'd call lesbians today. Paul may refer to women who play the active part in using dildos or something similar; there was a type of woman called "tribad" in ancient Greece who either used a dildo on another woman or had an enlarged clitoris (opinions differ on this).

 

Anyway it's nice to hear your Christian friend said Jesus didn't condemn gays. I hope she is in favor of equal rights for all people.

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Hello,

 

I was recently told by a Christian friend of mine that Christ himself never condemned gays.

 

"Go back to the New Testament to see if you can find Christ's words supporting any form of prejudice."

 

So I did just that and she was right! I can't find even one direct quote from Jesus Christ that is prejudicial in any way.

 

:Doh:

 

 

Any thoughts?

 

I don't think Christ mentioned anything about gays at all, and to be honest I think it is difficult to make any definite conclusions as to what his stance was on gays. Obviously the old testament said some pretty harsh stuff about homosexuality, and Paul referred to them as 'homosexual OFFENDERS'. My personal hunch however is that Jesus would probably have thought that homosexuality was wrong judging by other things his religion says. But at the same time he said that lust was wrong, and i'm sure that he would have viewed pornography as wrong, and like loads of christians 'struggle' with these things. So homosexuals aren't worse off than most Christians. Hmmm christianity has such high standards to live up to.

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Most likely, the issue wasn't a huge issue at the time anyways so he wouldn't have commented on it. He did condemn fornication and lusting, and he did define marriage as the union between a man and a woman. So I guess the only thing you guys are guilty of is fornicating.

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Good quote on the subject:

 

"The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and three hundred sixty two admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision."

-Lynne Lavner

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I was recently told by a Christian friend of mine that Christ himself never condemned gays.
There is no evidence this jesus ever existed so how can they claim what he did or did not say? None of the authors of the NT ever met the guy so they have no idea what he said.
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I was recently told by a Christian friend of mine that Christ himself never condemned gays.
There is no evidence this jesus ever existed so how can they claim what he did or did not say? None of the authors of the NT ever met the guy so they have no idea what he said.

 

yes we know that but that isn't the point here is it? I don't wish to be offensive in any way but some of your posts do seem a bit needless??

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I don't think he condemned panty-sniffing either, which is an obsession of one of our "new" members, who can't even spell his own name.

 

Jesus never mentioned toe-sucking, watersports or scat. He never once mentioned Republicans or casinos, and I'm pretty sure he didn't bathe very often.

 

What I'm really interested in, though, is what Jesus would think about my award-winning sandwich in the Lenders Bagel contest. It consists of tuna, mayo, Adobo, lemon-pepper, pineapple, and bacon. On a Lenders Bagel, of course (although you can use plain bread if you're not trying to win their contest).

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I was recently told by a Christian friend of mine that Christ himself never condemned gays.
There is no evidence this jesus ever existed so how can they claim what he did or did not say? None of the authors of the NT ever met the guy so they have no idea what he said.
yes we know that but that isn't the point here is it?
Maybe it should be the point!
I don't wish to be offensive in any way but some of your posts do seem a bit needless??
Only to those that want to waste their time over analyzing old myths. And wasn't your posting needless since it was only to attack a person and not actually add anything to the topic?
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Y'know what else he didn't condemn? Slavery.
The NT mentions slavery 96 times. Not one of them negative.
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The NT mentions slavery 96 times. Not one of them negative.
what do you mean by that?
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Jesus's basic message (or more succinctly Pauls message) is that sex in general distracts you from coming closer to Gawd. If it doesn't have a purpose (procreation), then it's a pointless waste of time that you could be spending doing works of the Lard. Homosexuality is even more pointless than heterosexuality because you cannot even procreate with it, therefore it's unnatural. It becomes nothing more than a base act of carnality that drives you away from Gawd and can lead to baser things. Your love of the Lard has to be much stronger than that for any human.

 

I don't think it really matters a whole lot in today's day and age, because Christians cherrypick what laws they want to follow and don't want to follow and use it to make up their own belief systems. This is why we have 34,000 denominations of Christianity.

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Jesus's basic message (or more succinctly Pauls message) is that sex in general distracts you from coming closer to Gawd. If it doesn't have a purpose (procreation), then it's a pointless waste of time that you could be spending doing works of the Lard.

 

Well-put :)

 

Yes, the NT mentiones slavery muchly - and never in a negative way. We must therefore conclude that slavery is ok with Jebus.

 

Besides, Jebus taught that he is one with "the Father" - meaning that they are the same being. Therefore, we can conclude that everything in the OT is Jebus' doing, from the Creation to the mass-murder of humanity in the Flood to every atrocity in-between.

 

The OT is very critical of homosexuality, and Gawd condemns it as a capital offense. Since he and Jebus are one, according to Xian myth, Jebus therefore condemned homosexuality in the OT - and made it punishable by death.

 

:jesus: = :fdevil:

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There is no evidence this jesus ever existed so how can they claim what he did or did not say? None of the authors of the NT ever met the guy so they have no idea what he said.

You're missing the point. No-one goes to lecture on Shakespeare and pipes up, "hey, Hamlet never existed, so how can you claim that he said 'to be or not to be'?" Just like talking about whether or not Hamlet actually existed has little or nothing to do with interpreting Shakespeare's plays, the historicity of Jesus is completely tangential to this discussion.

 

 

The NT mentions slavery 96 times. Not one of them negative.

 

We're talking about the words of Jesus, not those of Paul (or someone writing under his name), or anyone else.

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Jesus's basic message (or more succinctly Pauls message)

 

fyi, I believe you mean "accurately", not "succinctly," am I right?

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The NT mentions slavery 96 times. Not one of them negative.
what do you mean by that?
I don't understand the question?
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There is no evidence this jesus ever existed so how can they claim what he did or did not say? None of the authors of the NT ever met the guy so they have no idea what he said.
You're missing the point. No-one goes to lecture on Shakespeare and pipes up, "hey, Hamlet never existed,.....
No one is claiming that Hamlet existed. No one is basing their life on what Hamlet is reported to have said. No one is trying to force the belief of a real Hamlet on me. No one is trying to force the belief of a real Hamlet into our school system. No one is trying to run my government on what Hamlet is claimed to have said or wanted.
The NT mentions slavery 96 times. Not one of them negative.
We're talking about the words of Jesus, not those of Paul (or someone writing under his name), or anyone else.
You do not have any words of jesus. All you have is what people, that never met the dude, claimed he said.
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I don't understand the question?
So I says Jesus never condemns slavery, to which you respond by stating that the word slavery is used 96 times etc., etc., which statement I can't quite correlate to my original statement. I suppose a better question might have been 'what's your point?'.
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I don't understand the question?
So I says Jesus never condemns slavery, to which you respond by stating that the word slavery is used 96 times etc., etc., which statement I can't quite correlate to my original statement. I suppose a better question might have been 'what's your point?'.
Then I'm sorry for supporting your argument. I'll try no to do it again if you feel it has no point.
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There is no evidence this jesus ever existed so how can they claim what he did or did not say? None of the authors of the NT ever met the guy so they have no idea what he said.
You're missing the point. No-one goes to lecture on Shakespeare and pipes up, "hey, Hamlet never existed,.....
No one is claiming that Hamlet existed. No one is basing their life on what Hamlet is reported to have said. No one is trying to force the belief of a real Hamlet on me. No one is trying to force the belief of a real Hamlet into our school system. No one is trying to run my government on what Hamlet is claimed to have said or wanted.

I would agree that the historicity of Jesus is tangential only if people agreed that Christianity was a fiction like Hamlet. However, when talking to someone who believes that Hamlet really existed (as the original poster did with Jesus), then the historicity of that fiction is important to the discussion with that person because their assumption of historical accuracy is used to argue the importance of what was said and used for other things. If this topic came up as an argument between two or more non-Christians for intellectual research, then I would agree that the historicity of Jesus is off topic. I do not think that this is the case with this topic considering the original post.

 

As Varokhar pointed out, Jesus and the father are one, therefor, Jesus all of a sudden inherits everything that "God" said in the Old Testament. Discussing Jesus' silence on the matter suddenly became pointless unless if Jesus somehow contradicted the Old Testament. Since he does not seem to contradict the Old Testament on this subject, then we are left with a Jesus that that would condemn gays as the "Father" did.

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Then I'm sorry for supporting your argument. I'll try no to do it again if you feel it has no point.
Or perhaps maybe you explain exacly what you meant. I was unsure where you were coming from.
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I don't understand the question?
So I says Jesus never condemns slavery, to which you respond by stating that the word slavery is used 96 times etc., etc., which statement I can't quite correlate to my original statement. I suppose a better question might have been 'what's your point?'.
Then I'm sorry for supporting your argument. I'll try no to do it again if you feel it has no point.

I think Dhampir wondered if "negative" modified the act/support of slavery or the opposition of slavery. Varokhar clarified this with the statement "We must therefore conclude that slavery is ok with Jebus."

 

EDIT: Sorry Dhampir, I did not see your reply until after I posted my reply.

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I would agree that the historicity of Jesus is tangential only if people agreed that Christianity was a fiction like Hamlet. However, when talking to someone who believes that Hamlet really existed (as the original poster did with Jesus), then the historicity of that fiction is important to the discussion with that person because their assumption of historical accuracy is used to argue the importance of what was said and used for other things. If this topic came up as an argument between two or more non-Christians for intellectual research, then I would agree that the historicity of Jesus is off topic. I do not think that this is the case with this topic considering the original post.
Arguing over the nuances of the claims of what a mythological character said just lends credence to the believers. To me discussing this is no different than discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It skips one very important point - angels don't exist.
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Then I'm sorry for supporting your argument. I'll try no to do it again if you feel it has no point.
Or perhaps maybe you explain exacly what you meant. I was unsure where you were coming from.
If the people writing for jesus mentioned slavery almost 100 times and not one of those mentions was in the negative it is safe to assume they supported slavery.

 

I just wanted to add that it is also safe to assume they weren't slaves themselves.

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