Gay Marriage as an attack on Christianity

Cultural laws have nothing to do with this as I've said before on this thread. The point I've been trying to make is that marriage as outlined in Genesis 2 is the NORM in all times and places. I've mentioned variations but they are irrelevant to the point. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

dupEdited by Faith, : No reason given.

I don't know what you are saying. I USUALLY don't know what you are saying. You make no sense to me. You go on and on and on about this or that horrible thing I've supposedly said and I don't recognize any of it. I'm an Orthodox? Where on earth did you get such an idea? I'm as solidly Reformation Protestant as it's possible to get.; You seem to make it all up in your own head. So I just stopped responding to you. There's no point.; I don't know what your problem is now either so I don't know how to answer you.

It's true that I accept Nicaea as a legitimate council, and it's true that I believe the Jerusalem Council was an accommodation to the Jews in that time that isn't binding on us now, but none of that was on this thread and it goes back a very long way in the forum IRRC, so I really have no idea what it has to do with this topic -- I need some idea why you are bringing it up.I'm also not exactly inclined to answer you when you keep accusing me of ignoring this or that or other perfidies. It's more likely you just aren't making sense and I stopped responding. If you just say I said this or that I may not recognize it so it's always a good idea to give a direct quote.I have no idea where "confused Jews" comes from.I HAVE to ignore such strange and irrelevant comments, there is nothing else to do with them.ABE: ALSO, my eyes are bad and long posts that I can't make much sense of just don't get read.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

LNA, I suppose you think you are making sense, at least to yourself, but this is one of those posts that's just a bunch of mush to me. You've said similar things and I've had to ignore them because they are so confused and undecipherable I would just be following you down a very dark hole. You are NOT making any sense. Truly, I'm sure you think you are but that post is all gobbledygook to me. So what if I brought some verses up? It looks to me like you have no idea what I meant and are going on about some ruminations of your own that I just can't follow.But let me say right now that I also suspect that whatever you are trying to get said about these things is just plain bad theology and I don't really have an interest in getting into it anyway. You are making weird connections in your own head.That's the best I can do with that, sorry.But I think I'll post here what you wrote elsewhere about your proposed new topic, about your supposed problems with me (they are problems in your own head but anyway): What? I'm aware that Nero married some gay people. He was contemporaneous with Paul I think.But I also think you are confusing something else. I talk about the Creation Ordinance of Marriage that was written down by Moses in Genesis 2, and I think you are using a secular calendar that would place Moses late in history, whereas I read Genesis as the beginning of the Creation, nothing existing before it. Conservative Christians -- MY "ilk" --- believe God established marriage and defined it in Genesis 2, soon after creating Adam, when He made Eve as his helpmeet. NOTHING preexisted that first marriage. If gay marriage was ever practiced anywhere on the planet it was after that and all I've claimed is that marriage in general throughout history in all cultures has GENERALLY followed the pattern of one man and one woman and if gay marriage did occur it was extremely rare. That's a generalization and perhaps you have some facts I don't have but my guess would be that my generalization does hold up AS A GENERALIZATION.But I am not sure of what you are saying so I don't even know if that is anywhere near an answer to you. What? If you want to introduce some actual historical fact about gay marriage in other times and places that I don't know about, why can't you just do that? I've only given the generalization that there is no reason to think it was ever practiced much if at all anywhere and that except for some polygamy the man-woman formula is as good as universally practiced. It would of course reflect the fallen human nature wherever it did occur, just as polygamy does. This is just bizarre. Even if they hadn't "heard of such a thing as gay marriage" (but Nero did it at least in Paul's time) we would certainly expect them to condemn it for pete's sake. Where on earth are you getting any idea I said anything else than that? The Old Testament both defines marriage as a man and woman, which Jesus repeated, and defines homosexual acts as sin. They would need nothing more than those facts to condemn gay marriage, which is the same basis on which the wedding businesses we have been discussing refused service to gay weddings.Please stop attributing such utterly wacko ideas to me. Excuse me but this is one nutty piece of nonsense. I can't give any thought to something that makes absolutely no sense whatever. Paul "not challenging the legality of ...sinful activity??" Please, I cannot waste any more time on this utter mush-headed nonsense. If I continue to ignore you it's because you are making no sense whatever.

OK one more bit of craziness I'll try to answer: There is simply no doubt that it has never been legal in western civilization before. What "ignorance?" You've given no facts whatever in support of your claim.

But I don't see any reason to consider it. Paul never addresses the state at all. If I remember any of the context here at all, and I'm no longer sure, but if I do it was to answer some idea that homosexual acts are not sinful? So all I was doing was showing that in the NT as well as the OT they definitely are treated as sinful. The state didn't enter into it and I don't see any reason it should. I already answered you as well as I can about this, there is really no reason to keep bringing it up. "All things are lawful" as you know very well is a repeat of what Paul said about eating meat sacrificed to idols -- THOSE things are lawful, sin is not, it just is not, the very definition of sin is unlawful.But this isn't about the state, about legality or illegality according to any state entity, it's entirely about what God's Moral Law defines as lawful or unlawful, legal or illegal. This has nothing to do with the state. Sin is the definition of violating the Moral Law of God. When Paul says all things are lawful for him he either means things that are not sinful in themselves, according to the Moral Law of God, such as eating meat sacrificed to idols, or he's saying something specific in response to some notion held by the Corinthians about fornication not being unlawful. I don't think it's clear which.It's also true that as a believer in Christ we are no longer condemned for our sins because He paid for them on the cross. But that's only true of a believer. The list of sins in that passage refers to unbelievers.; "But such were some of you" -- I didn't look it up, but isn't that part of that passage? Christians USED to be sinners of all those kinds but now we're "washed" as Paul goes on to say, those sins are no longer imputed to us. And MAYBE he is saying that with regard to the Corinthians committing such sins, but he never ever ever condones sin, ever. Is it in Romans where he says "What then, shall we go on sinning? God forbid." We've been saved from sin so how can we consinue sinning? Sin belongs to the fallen nature, the unsaved, we are saved FROM it, we should be mortifying it daily.So if you are trying to find a way in scripture to claim that Paul says it's OK to sin, in spite of that long list of sins that keep people out of the kingdom of God, that's a lost cause.And again Paul says absolutely nothing about "legality at the secular level" and I haven't used scripture for anything remotely related to that concept at all. I'm struggling even to figure out what you think you are saying and why.ABE: Here's a thought. Perhaps you ARE confusing "lawful" in relation to the Moral Law of God, with laws as made by nations? Maybe that would explain why there is so much confusion on this point and why I'm not getting what you are saying?If this is what the confusion is about, then I'd ask, can you think of any human government or state that explicitly legalizes any of the sins Paul lists as keeping a person out of the kingdom of God? Don't nations tend to have laws against such things-- or just don't have any laws about them at all?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The gay marriage law directly contradicts scripture. This is unprecedented, and it puts [conservative Bible-believing] Christians in opposition to the law, which shouldn't ever happen imho. The scripture doesn't address anything about secular laws or secular government, but what it does address about marriage and homosexual acts clearly condemns a law favoring gay marriage. How could it be otherwise with marriage defined as between a man and a woman and homosexual acts defined as sin?

You attribute this quote wrongly to me; it's Tangle's.

If you sincerely want it to be a "civil union" simply for the purpose of financial security, then don't ask for the appurtenances of a wedding -- that rather exposes the game doesn't it? Don't ask for a "wedding cake" or wedding photos etc. Stay as far away from any such implications as you possibly can. Then maybe you won't have a problem with Christian wedding businesses. But then you wouldn't have any reason even to go to any kind of wedding business at all. You could have a pizza party, you could order cream pies.

Well, now again you've gone off into wacko land and I have no idea what you are trying to say, so I can't even try right now. And please stop accusing me of "ignoring" something that has nothing to do with the point I'm making. It's YOUR preoccupation not mine, I can't ignore something that exists only in your head.

Sorry, you are just imposing your culturebound notions on the Bible. Marriage isn't defined by ceremonies in the Bible, it's defined by cleaving together in a permanent union, and yes sexual union is what brings it together as a marriage, creating "one flesh." Sexual union would get them stoned to death if marriage wasn't created by it. Today it isn't considered permanent, multiple sex partners don't even get you stoned to death. We require a ceremony to make it permanent, they didn't, at least not way back in ancient times -- a woman being in the man's tent, which was publicly witnessed, was how a marriage was contracted. In SOME times and places, mind you, I'm sure there were plenty of variations. The ancient marriages based on Genesis 2 weren't a "Christian thing" either. Marriage itself isn't a "Christian thing," just because the Bible gives God's ordinance for it. The ordinance applied in all times and places because it's GOD's, it's not "Christian." In ancient times they had no such concept as "common law marriage" -- if they were together in his tent they were married. That's again you imposing your cultural context on them.And no they didn't have wedding cakes as far as we're told. That's a symbol of marriage in OUR culture. If someone wants a wedding cake in OUR culture it's for a wedding. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What on earth does Acts 15 have to do with any of this? You are living in some kind of alternate universe, I have NO idea what is going on in your head. The idea that I'm "allergic" to Acts 15 has to do with something YOU have in mind that makes absolutely no sense to me. I'm not avoiding it I just don't get it.Here's your other post on this subject, Message 809: The Moral Law of God is basically the Ten Commandments and all their variations as discussed in the Books of the Law of Moses, such as Leviticus and Deuteronomy. I was saying maybe you are confusing this Law of God with the laws enacted by nations? God's Moral Law rules everything, rules the universe, rules us all, and sin is violations of this law, and violations of this law is what takes us to Hell.Nations of course have some laws based on the Moral Law, such as laws against murder and stealing, that are judged and punished according to the government or legal system of that nation. This is something else. They can have laws that have nothing to do with the Moral Law of God, or they can have punishments for some laws such as stoning for adultery or no punishment at all, etc. You keep using that term "ceremonial." It's one of the things that is confusing. There is no concept of ceremonial law in the New Testament; there is in the Old Testament though. But you are using it in relation to the New Testament Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 and I do not get what your point is. I'm not aware of using any "ceremonial" argument at all, I don't know what you are talking about. Huh? Huh? "Temple sacrifice?????" Huh? What ARE you talking about? Have you ever read a Christian commentary or do you just invent all this gobbledygook in your own head?Acts 15 is about the believing Jews being upset because the Gentiles were getting saved without having to obey any of the laws the Jews had been taught to obey. Paul was trying to teach the Jews that God doesn't requir4e obedience to those laws any more, -- the ceremonial ones anyway -- but the Jews had grown up under strict obedience to them and their conscience was bound by them and they couldn't just change course that easily. (As in the case of meat sacrificed to idols, no well-brought-up Jew could touch the stuff for fear of being contaminated, so Paul doesn't require it of them, but asks others to respect their strict conscience about it.)Paul teaches that when a brother's conscience is bound the rest of the believers who are free of that bondage are to yield to those whose conscience is bound.So they had this council to determine which laws were most important to the Jews in this respect, in order to ask the Gentiles to obey those laws for the sake of the conscience of the Jews. Paul had already taught at great length against the need for circumcision so that one wasn't included. Instead they made a short list of laws for the Gentiles to obey in order to avoid offending the Jews. These included fornication and meats with the blood in them. When the Jews were no longer the leaders of the churches and Christianity had become more Gentile than Jewish, there was no longer a need for these laws because there weren't enough Jews brought up in the Law to be offended any more.Having said all that I guess you are saying something about the difference between the law of blood and the law of fornication? I guess the law of blood being a dietary law was a "ceremonial" law so I guess you are saying something about that, but I really am not sure what. Fornication of course is against God's Moral Law so we are to obey that in any case, council or no council. But the law of blood no longer applies to us.Now, if I've managed to sort all that out at least to some extent, can you explain what you keep trying to say about it all?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I asked fror an example of a nation that LEGALIZES any of the moral sins listed in the Bible. Againj as usual I don't know what you are trying to say."Kingdom of heaven" is a Biblical concept. Even if Hinduism has some similar idea it's the Biblical version that matters in this discussion. Nothing in Hinduism has anything to do with Jesus' teaching.But if there is any connection at all between what you are saying and what I asked, what you are offering is an example of something that AGREES with God's moral law, forbidding what it forbids, not legalizing what it forbids.As far as I can tell.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Hey, cut it out! I'm doing my best to be as patient as possible with your confusing stuff and all your weird accusations of me when I don't even know what you are talking about. Cut it out already.What you are saying is GARBLED BEYOND COMPREHENSION. At least try to make it make sense!I already answered all that stuff about meat and fornication WAY WAY back there somewhere. I still don't get what you are trying to say. All I said was that Paul's phrase "All things are lawful to me" HAPPENS TO REFER TO HIS STATEMENT ABOUT MEAT SACRIFICED TO IDOLS." That's what it HAPPENS to refer to. Ahd that suggests that he's NOW talking about something SIMILAR -- NO NOT ABOUT MEAT for oete's sake. Since NORMALLY HE COULDN"T POSSIBLY BE SAYING THAT FORNICATION IS LAWFUL TO HIM, because that is the moral law and not a ceremonial law, some of the commentators speculate that somebody in the Corinthian church was arguing that it CAN be lawful and Paul is going along with it in order to make the bigger point that we must give up some practices because they aren't good for us or for the church community.That's the best I can do with it and I still don't know what on earth you are trying to get at but STOP ACCUSING ME OF THINGS THAT EXIST ONLY IN YOUR OWN MIND. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.